I thought I had tapped out the public library's stock of Mary Stewart books, but I found a newer edition of the first one I ever read, Nine Coaches Waiting, on the shelf the other day. When I was in the 7th or 8th grade, I discovered a copy of this book in the school library. I don't think it caught fire for me initially, but when I re-read it a few years later, I thought it was great. And then there were all of her other romance novels, 10 or so at that time, waiting to be explored. It was a booklover's feast.
I would call Ms. Stewart a writer of the old school. Considering her suitability for the shelves of a Catholic school library, you might think she'd be too tame for modern tastes, but you'd be wrong. She usually starts with a young, intelligent heroine, a romantic (sometimes exotic) locale, and a plot whose complications include at least one attractive, mysterious man. There's usually a sinister game afoot that entangles the young woman, and she's sometimes faced with choosing between two romantic rivals. Sometimes she makes the wrong choice, but she's always united in the end with the one she should have chosen, and everything turns out happily.
It sounds like pretty standard romance, but several things set Ms. Stewart apart: her vivid descriptions of locations as varied as a cliffside castle in Corfu, a chateau in the forests of Haute-Savoie, or a remote hotel on a Scottish island; her intelligent plotting; and her elegant prose. Her heroines inhabit a world similar to that of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, but theirs is less brooding. There may be bloodshed, villains, intrigue, wild hillside scrambles, and narrow escapes, but the heroine manages to overcome them all, occasionally losing a shoe or having to swim for her life. Some combination of common sense, humor, luck, and timely intervention (the rescue by dolphin in This Rough Magic, for example) sees her through.
I well remember the summer in my teens when I read one Mary Stewart book after another. Initially, I think it was the long-separated lovers in the The Ivy Tree that lured me in. There was something about their sad, moonlit reunion and Adam's scars that made an indelible impression on romantic 15-year-old me. The public library had nearly all of her books, and I finished them all in succession, eventually reading the well-known Merlin series as well. But it was the romances that created a glamorous, entertaining, and almost plausible world perfect for a lazy summer day in a small town without much else going on. Mary Stewart was as good as a passport.
Back then, I counted The Ivy Tree, Wildfire at Midnight, and Nine Coaches Waiting as my favorites. Over the last few years, I've sought out and re-read all of the Stewart books I can find from that summer. The author's special magic remains intact, but (unsurprisingly, I guess) my reactions to individual books have changed. This time around, I found The Ivy Tree too unbelievable, though I was perfectly able to swallow the deception the first time (once you know the secret to this book, I don't think you can read it the same way again). Sadder but wiser, I had to say goodbye to my former fascination with Annabel and Adam.
On the other hand, I was intrigued by My Brother Michael, a truly suspenseful tale set in Greece with one of Stewart's best male leads, the steady, reliable Simon Lester--a hero worth the name. Wildfire at Midnight was still enjoyable (if a bit more predictable on the second go), but This Rough Magic's delicious blend of lushly scenic Corfu, seaside villas, refugees from the London stage, literary allusions to The Tempest, counterfeiters, and a semi-magical dolphin was irresistible. I found Lucy's wild motorcycle ride on the hairpin turns to the Castello great fun and wondered how I could have forgotten such a wonderful episode.
Stewart often brings in bits of folklore and mythology that make her books more atmospheric; allusions to the Greek gods pop up in both My Brother Michael and This Rough Magic. Eventually, I'll track down The Moon-Spinners, which I recall liking but have little memory of. Since it's set on Crete, it will be fun to see if Stewart has any references to the labyrinth in the story; I look forward to finding out.
As for Nine Coaches Waiting, I'm still enjoying it on this, my third time around. I like the setting in the French countryside, the sophisticated dialogue, and the heroine's composure. I can also report that, just as these novels were perfect summertime reading all those years ago, they also translate into a cozy escape on winter afternoons at the coffeehouse.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
In Praise of Winter
Winter has arrived, in all its gray dampness and icy chill. Not only is it winter, but it's Kentucky winter, which gives it that je nais se quoi I-only-went-to-the-store-how-did-I-end-up-in-Lapland flavor. It's been pretty mild, with just a little snow and no extreme temperatures. In fact, I went out for a walk last week on a day of unexpected sun and met several joggers in T-shirts and shorts.
It's common around here to see people in summer attire at the first hint of warmth. Right after a really cold spell, I've seen college students dressed for Key West when the thermometer was still in the 30s. In general, I don't think Kentuckians are a winter-loving crowd, but they do tend toward optimism in their forecasting and will celebrate their faith in summer's return at the barest sign of a singing bird or a patch of blue between clouds. It probably has a playful whiff of sympathetic magic about it: If I put on my shorts, the sun is bound to come out.
I just finished reading a book about an Appalachian winter with very unusual weather, Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behavior. At the heart of the novel lies a natural phenomenon that, while breathtakingly beautiful, turns out to be a harbinger of environmental crisis. The scientists in the book are well aware of this and unable to see what's happening in a positive light, but the inhabitants of the area respond more to the beauty and poetry of what seems to them a miracle. The main character encompasses both views, and I liked her for holding on to an appreciation of the radiance in nature in the midst of a very discouraging crisis.
That inspires me to think of all the things that are beautiful about winter, which, though not as easy to like as summer, has its moments. For one thing, a bright color stands out at this time of year with unearthly clarity -- take those red winterberries against a bare branch, for example. When you visit the Arboretum in winter, that red pop in the middle of so much drabness is enough to make your jaw drop. The leafless trees have their own kind of beauty, especially standing up against a blue sky. You see their structure and shape and really understand that they only reveal their whole selves without their leaves.
Snow is beautiful, especially when it falls slowly in huge feathery flakes, covers everything to the depth of several inches, and transforms the old world into a new country. Sadly, it's really hard to enjoy this if you have to worry about getting to work, as cars and snow do not mix well. But if you have the luxury of watching from a cozy room, or of walking through a snowfall, with no urgent errand, it can be wonderful. Best of all are the days when the sun comes out over a snowy landscape, finding the diamond dust and making it sparkle.
An ice storm can be stunning, transforming trees, bushes, fences, and wire into sculptures of glass. Even in the middle of the worst ice storm, with power out and branches falling dangerously all around, it's hard not to see how a simple coating of ice changes an ordinary street into something fabulously unfamiliar, as if you've stepped through the looking glass into an alien world. There's also such a thing as a frozen fog, which once seen is never forgotten. Imagine a cloud in stop-motion, hanging in the air as if painted there, the very ice crystals glued into place all around you. Sleeping Beauty's castle could not be more still.
And, of course, there are the winter stars, which seem to shine fiercely on clear winter nights. I have a memory of being outdoors in my hometown one night when I was probably 12 years old, not an especially happy time, but one that stands out for the beauty of a particular night sky. It was January or February, and my siblings and I were out in the neighborhood for some errand. I remember looking up at the sky over the rooftops and trees of our town, seeing how full of stars it was and how brilliantly they were shining, somehow wondrous and intimate at the same time, like an illustration for a fairy tale.
That night, I couldn't have picked out Orion, my favorite constellation, but now I often look for it on clear nights. It caught me by surprise years ago when I was taking an early morning flight; once airborne, I happened to look out the window and see it striding boldly across the December sky. It instantly became an emblem of courage for me (I'm afraid Orion doesn't always come across well in myth, but it's the image I'm talking about, not the stories). It still inspires me.
So, yes, winter does have its advantages. When you factor in a fireside, hot chocolate, Christmas lights, and the smell of woodsmoke, you find that the beauties of winter may be subtle but are not non-existent. Like the quietly melodic Winter Solstice CD I sometimes listen to, winter's beauties are conducive to introspection, reflection, and meditation on small things.
It's common around here to see people in summer attire at the first hint of warmth. Right after a really cold spell, I've seen college students dressed for Key West when the thermometer was still in the 30s. In general, I don't think Kentuckians are a winter-loving crowd, but they do tend toward optimism in their forecasting and will celebrate their faith in summer's return at the barest sign of a singing bird or a patch of blue between clouds. It probably has a playful whiff of sympathetic magic about it: If I put on my shorts, the sun is bound to come out.
I just finished reading a book about an Appalachian winter with very unusual weather, Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behavior. At the heart of the novel lies a natural phenomenon that, while breathtakingly beautiful, turns out to be a harbinger of environmental crisis. The scientists in the book are well aware of this and unable to see what's happening in a positive light, but the inhabitants of the area respond more to the beauty and poetry of what seems to them a miracle. The main character encompasses both views, and I liked her for holding on to an appreciation of the radiance in nature in the midst of a very discouraging crisis.
That inspires me to think of all the things that are beautiful about winter, which, though not as easy to like as summer, has its moments. For one thing, a bright color stands out at this time of year with unearthly clarity -- take those red winterberries against a bare branch, for example. When you visit the Arboretum in winter, that red pop in the middle of so much drabness is enough to make your jaw drop. The leafless trees have their own kind of beauty, especially standing up against a blue sky. You see their structure and shape and really understand that they only reveal their whole selves without their leaves.
Snow is beautiful, especially when it falls slowly in huge feathery flakes, covers everything to the depth of several inches, and transforms the old world into a new country. Sadly, it's really hard to enjoy this if you have to worry about getting to work, as cars and snow do not mix well. But if you have the luxury of watching from a cozy room, or of walking through a snowfall, with no urgent errand, it can be wonderful. Best of all are the days when the sun comes out over a snowy landscape, finding the diamond dust and making it sparkle.
An ice storm can be stunning, transforming trees, bushes, fences, and wire into sculptures of glass. Even in the middle of the worst ice storm, with power out and branches falling dangerously all around, it's hard not to see how a simple coating of ice changes an ordinary street into something fabulously unfamiliar, as if you've stepped through the looking glass into an alien world. There's also such a thing as a frozen fog, which once seen is never forgotten. Imagine a cloud in stop-motion, hanging in the air as if painted there, the very ice crystals glued into place all around you. Sleeping Beauty's castle could not be more still.
And, of course, there are the winter stars, which seem to shine fiercely on clear winter nights. I have a memory of being outdoors in my hometown one night when I was probably 12 years old, not an especially happy time, but one that stands out for the beauty of a particular night sky. It was January or February, and my siblings and I were out in the neighborhood for some errand. I remember looking up at the sky over the rooftops and trees of our town, seeing how full of stars it was and how brilliantly they were shining, somehow wondrous and intimate at the same time, like an illustration for a fairy tale.
That night, I couldn't have picked out Orion, my favorite constellation, but now I often look for it on clear nights. It caught me by surprise years ago when I was taking an early morning flight; once airborne, I happened to look out the window and see it striding boldly across the December sky. It instantly became an emblem of courage for me (I'm afraid Orion doesn't always come across well in myth, but it's the image I'm talking about, not the stories). It still inspires me.
So, yes, winter does have its advantages. When you factor in a fireside, hot chocolate, Christmas lights, and the smell of woodsmoke, you find that the beauties of winter may be subtle but are not non-existent. Like the quietly melodic Winter Solstice CD I sometimes listen to, winter's beauties are conducive to introspection, reflection, and meditation on small things.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
What Are You Doing After the Apocalypse?
I first became aware of the energy surrounding the apocalypse when people started talking about it my first year at Pacifica. I remember hearing about images of giant waves that were coming up in people's dreams and artwork. Not long after that, I heard about the Mayan calendar and the hype surrounding December 21, 2012. Over the last few years, I've seen so many references to not only the Mayan myth (misinterpreted though it may have been) but to other variations--involving everything from zombies to asteroids--that it seemed to amount to a collective obsession.
That first quarter at school, I had a dream that I did not connect at the time to any collective concerns because it seemed so personal. Still dazzled by the novel experience of commuting to lush, sea-swept Santa Barbara County, I dreamed that I was sleeping on the balcony of a house on a cliff, under a full moon. It was just before dawn, and there was a magic moment when the moon gave way to a newly risen sun. It was wonderful to wake up in the open air, but the feeling of incredible joy was soon interrupted by a realization that the sea was rising.
I went into the house--where a male relative and some others were hanging around--to get help moving the furniture inside, but no one was moving very fast, and in any case, the water was already at our feet. The perch on the cliff was now at sea level, and I was upset over the way the water was ruining everything. Then the dream ended.
Just the other day, I saw a picture of a young woman standing in a room with the end wall missing, looking down at the sea just below her feet. The caption was a quote from Rumi that said, "Listen to the sound of waves within you." The ethereal quality of the illustration, with the moody sky and the missing wall, was remarkably reminiscent of my dream.
At school, I was fascinated by the sea as a metaphor for the unconscious and explored it in several papers. Rumi advises listening for something the waves can tell us. In my dream, I was focused on the destructive quality of the water, which not only interrupted my idyll but ruined the furniture. It rose silently, for no apparent reason. When I thought about it later, I decided that the dream was a clue indicating that the new freedom and exhilaration I was experiencing had another side. It meant being closer to the place where all the myths and dreams well up and therefore in a good position to see whatever came into view, good or bad. The people in the house, by contrast, all seemed unmotivated, unable to act.
I think now that my dream was probably more like the dreams and artistic creations I heard other people talking about than I realized. Tsunami or rapidly rising sea; apocalypse or meteor strike; the specific forms no doubt have their own individual meanings, but there is a common theme of an overwhelmingly destructive force. Why were so many people captivated by these images? Why was everybody talking about them, either in jest or in earnest? Where did they come from to begin with?
These questions can probably be answered in more than one way. I tend to think anxiety over climate change might be playing into it, but there are other issues, economic, social, and environmental, that could also be playing a part. What interests me now is how people see the world beyond the wave. After it passes, what then?
Destruction and creation are two sides of a coin. Was all the attention focused on the idea of destruction somehow cathartic? Did the ending of 2012 sweep out the old and make room for a different kind of energy, something focused on creative change and new beginnings? All of that water and blood--were we having unconscious labor pains?
I want to think so. You might think that, as a responsible myth person, I spent December waving around the Penguin Dictionary of Symbols and advising calm, but I didn't. I have to admit that, other than observing the fray, I tried to stay out of it (I'd already lost one set of furniture in the dream). I spent the day of destruction baking cookies and trying to remember how to create an href tag. Modest attainments, but hopeful ones. Like Scarlett O'Hara, I guess I always believed that "tomorrow is another day." I'm glad we were right.
That first quarter at school, I had a dream that I did not connect at the time to any collective concerns because it seemed so personal. Still dazzled by the novel experience of commuting to lush, sea-swept Santa Barbara County, I dreamed that I was sleeping on the balcony of a house on a cliff, under a full moon. It was just before dawn, and there was a magic moment when the moon gave way to a newly risen sun. It was wonderful to wake up in the open air, but the feeling of incredible joy was soon interrupted by a realization that the sea was rising.
I went into the house--where a male relative and some others were hanging around--to get help moving the furniture inside, but no one was moving very fast, and in any case, the water was already at our feet. The perch on the cliff was now at sea level, and I was upset over the way the water was ruining everything. Then the dream ended.
Just the other day, I saw a picture of a young woman standing in a room with the end wall missing, looking down at the sea just below her feet. The caption was a quote from Rumi that said, "Listen to the sound of waves within you." The ethereal quality of the illustration, with the moody sky and the missing wall, was remarkably reminiscent of my dream.
At school, I was fascinated by the sea as a metaphor for the unconscious and explored it in several papers. Rumi advises listening for something the waves can tell us. In my dream, I was focused on the destructive quality of the water, which not only interrupted my idyll but ruined the furniture. It rose silently, for no apparent reason. When I thought about it later, I decided that the dream was a clue indicating that the new freedom and exhilaration I was experiencing had another side. It meant being closer to the place where all the myths and dreams well up and therefore in a good position to see whatever came into view, good or bad. The people in the house, by contrast, all seemed unmotivated, unable to act.
I think now that my dream was probably more like the dreams and artistic creations I heard other people talking about than I realized. Tsunami or rapidly rising sea; apocalypse or meteor strike; the specific forms no doubt have their own individual meanings, but there is a common theme of an overwhelmingly destructive force. Why were so many people captivated by these images? Why was everybody talking about them, either in jest or in earnest? Where did they come from to begin with?
These questions can probably be answered in more than one way. I tend to think anxiety over climate change might be playing into it, but there are other issues, economic, social, and environmental, that could also be playing a part. What interests me now is how people see the world beyond the wave. After it passes, what then?
Destruction and creation are two sides of a coin. Was all the attention focused on the idea of destruction somehow cathartic? Did the ending of 2012 sweep out the old and make room for a different kind of energy, something focused on creative change and new beginnings? All of that water and blood--were we having unconscious labor pains?
I want to think so. You might think that, as a responsible myth person, I spent December waving around the Penguin Dictionary of Symbols and advising calm, but I didn't. I have to admit that, other than observing the fray, I tried to stay out of it (I'd already lost one set of furniture in the dream). I spent the day of destruction baking cookies and trying to remember how to create an href tag. Modest attainments, but hopeful ones. Like Scarlett O'Hara, I guess I always believed that "tomorrow is another day." I'm glad we were right.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Janus Has Two Faces
Today is the third anniversary of this blog. I'm not sure where I thought I'd be in three years the day I started it, but let's accentuate the positive: I'm still around. I did think that I would have moved by now and am mildly surprised that that hasn't happened, but the amount of traveling I've done has probably made up for it.
January is named for Janus, a two-faced Roman god with one face looking forward and the other looking back. I admit I haven't made any resolutions for 2013 or written down any goals. There are things I'm working to accomplish, but I also like to leave a lot of room for events to just unfold. Not only is that my character, but I've learned to expect not just the unexpected but the totally improbable.
Actually, I'm more inclined to do a year in review. This is not your mother's year in review, but mine, so I'm almost positive many of these events won't be in the history books. I'll leave it to someone else to chronicle those Great Historical Moments none of us will ever forget. This is a personal reminiscence (Mnemosyne, here we go!) of highlights for each month of 2012. Are we ready?
January: Seeing Elijah Wood (or his doppelganger) in a restaurant in West L.A. Giving a present to a friend with bows made out of paper napkins from the same restaurant. (There's no real connection between those events.)
February: Being told that my dissertation was done and I needed to write an abstract.
March: Surviving a John le Carré-style journey to Carpinteria, CA, that started with a plane and ended with a can of Red Bull, a rental car, and a very stimulating drive to KY from Atlanta, GA. Somewhere in there was my oral defense.
April: Having to think fast when the situation called for de-training (that is, getting off a train) but the compartment door was locked.
May: Reading the words "Your manuscript is on its way to the printer" and "We are all so proud of you" from the dissertation office.
June: Publishing my first book. Wow, was that exhausting. But it's bound to make me rich.
July: Eating an ice cream cone and watching dogs play in a wading pool on the courthouse lawn on a sweltering July 4th.
August: Walking into the City Winery in Chicago, suddenly awash in a sea of romantic blue light and glowing candles.
September: Realizing how American Graffiti is like Egyptian mythology.
October: Wow, where do I start? How about Springfield, Missouri?
November: All Saint's Day and those wide open spaces. I started to say "standing in line to vote," but that was actually a bit anticlimactic.
December: An otherworldly dulcimer. Avant-garde jazz in a belly-dance studio. Faces from the past. Children opening presents. (December was active.)
I'd like to thank everyone who played a part in 2012 and to say that I sure hope the cameras were rolling. And if 2013 isn't the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, may it at least be a year of blessings, pleasant and intriguing surprises, wrongs righted, old friends meeting, vacations in exotic places, three-hour meals on the Italian model, peace, love, mint meltaways, and an Eileen Fisher silk comforter for everybody who wants one (it can't be just me).
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