New Books are waiting for you in the library! Five Adult Fiction and one for kids aged 3-7
reviewed by Gary Samuels
1. Three books by New
Hampshire born (Westmoreland) author Robert Olmstead: "Coal Black
Horse," "Far Bright Star," and "The Coldest Night."
These three 'war' books are set, respectively, in the Civil
War, in 1916 Mexico and the search for Pancho Villa, and the Korean War. The
galvanizing character of each is a greater than life horse, and each book drags
the reader into slaughter of war. No glory. No heros. No winners. I believe
somebody said that war is hell? Welcome to Robert Olmstead's world.
In "Coal Black
Horse" (2007) it is 1863 and a West Virginia mother, Hettie Childs, dreams
that Stonewall Jackson has been killed and her husband, who had joined the
Union army, must return home before July. She sends her 13 year old son Robey to
find his dad and bring him home. Young Robey secures the coal black horse in the nearby village. It's a long way from
there to what turns out to be the immediate aftermath of the Gettysburg
slaughter. He experiences adventures that are brief and violent and graphic.
His horse is stolen and recovered. He witnesses the rape of a young woman who,
in the end, becomes his wife, and ultimately kills the rapist. He dodges bloody
skirmishes. Ultimately he does find his mortally wounded, dying but still
articulate father on the Gettysburg battlefield. Spending some days with him
gives Olmstead the opportunity to describe the depravity of some of those who
came to 'view' the battlefield in those days immediately after: the looters,
the dying. Robey kills one looter but his accomplice turns up later in the
book. Robey's father dies. Robey does get back home, and is able to deal out
justice to the rapist and the looter. His young wife, driven mad, throws
herself into the river but is saved by Robey. Some reviewers have found the
prose to be 'purple.' I thought his use of the English language was superb. This
is not a big book, only 200 pages, but it is powerful. Reviewers have compared
it to Charles Frazier's 'Cold Mountain,' and I would not be surprised to see a
movie come of it.
In "Far Bright Star" (2009) it
is 1916 and the US Army has been set across the border to find Pancho Villa.
Apart from the leader, Sgt. Napoleon, and one other ('Extra Billy') the rest of
the members of the troop are pretty much useless and one, Preston, fancies
himself a hunter who has yet to stalk the human animal: here is his chance. The
troop is ambushed and pretty much slaughtered, save for Napoleon and Preston,
who are in a very bad way. These are not Pancho Villa's men, rather they are
villagers who are out to get revenge on Preston for what he did for one of
their young women in a brothel the night before the troop went out into the
desert. Preston dies in a not nice way, and Napoleon survives, barely. This
then is a story of how men die in a most harsh, or at least to them, totally
alien environment. In between the violent episodes the reader rides alongside
Napoleon across the desert with the star-filled sky above and thoughts of
being. When Napoleon is recovering, or trying to recover, the reader travels
with him into is past, toward his father in another place. The writing is spare, like the landscape.
You can feel the sand in your mouth. It's a powerful tale.
"The Coldest
Night" (2012) refers to a few nights in 1950, during the Korean War,
when the American Marines fought the Chinese in thirty-below temperatures at
the Battle of Chosin Reservoir. Henry
Childs, who helps out a sympathetic grandfather figure at his horse farm,
enters into requited love with the daughter of a town judge. The judge does not
see this to be a good match, and his son makes the point with the bottom of an
iron to Henry's head. At the age of 17 he lies about his age, joins the Marines
and ships out for Korea. Feel the tension of being on point, moving ahead into
…. what? Sudden violent battles, exhaustion, boredom of repositioning, and
finally overrun, cut off and alone. Henry and his seasoned mentor try to make
it back to a pick up point. He is not anxious about dying, but he dreads coming
up short as he is plagued by insecurities. This is not M-A-S-H without the
laugh track. The book is divided into three parts: pre Korea and love affair
with Mercy, Korea, and back home again. I am afraid I was confused by the third
part and do not know what really happened then. He does reconnect with Mercy
but it is a reconnection at the edge of the light rather than 'welcome home
soldier, all is forgiven' reconnection.
Why would you want to read these Olmstead books? Certainly
not if you are looking for glorious war stories. I was taken by the prose, the
style of writing. The Washington Post Reviewer said that Olmstead is an
immensely gifted stylist, and other reviewers say the same thing with different
words. "He has a knack for imagery that is as memorable as it is
unexpected, such as what might have been a moment of calm between enemy attacks
(in The Coldest Night): "A marine with a flamethrower walked the ridge
methodically dispatching the enemy wounded. He lashed out with roaring flames
thirty feet long, burning to death anyone of them that still moved and each
time was the splattering noise of napalm liquid from the nozzle fire and a
cloud of black smoke. He did not stop until his tanks were empty.”
2. Elizabeth Gilbert, "The Signature of all things." published 2013
Here's the story. Alma Whittaker is born in 1800 to Henry and the Dutch
Beatrix Whittaker. Much of the first part of the book is about Henry
Whittaker, a self taught botanist who traveled the world collecting plants, first
for a famous botanist at the Kew Botanical Garden, in England, and then by
himself. Henry made a fortune dealing in exotic plants and the pharmaceuticals
derived from them. Whittaker falls out with the Kew 'dons' and moves to the USA. The Whittakers live on a fabulous estate near Philadelphia
and Alma is their only natural daughter, although they adopt a second daughter.
Alma is plain and smart, Prudence is
beautiful but icy and difficult to get to know. Alma longs for love but the object of her
affection, a botanical publisher who visits the estate and collaborates in the
publication of Henry's writing, marries Prudence. Alma develops a passion for
mosses and becomes a recognized expert through her publications. She finds the
perfect mate in Ambrose Pike, a highly gifted botanical illustrator. They wed
and Alma, anticipating the bliss of their marital night -- and many subsequent
nights -- finds out that Ambrose is not willing to fulfill Alma's desire for
physical intimacy. It does not take her long to send Ambrose to Tahiti where he
is to manage one of her father's estates. Ambrose dies in Tahiti. Once Alma's father dies, Alma gives the estate and the fortune to
Prudence, who has become very poor as she cares for poor people. Alma ships out
for Tahiti to find out what happened to Ambrose.
In this period, the first half of the 19th Century
'scientists' were known as 'natural philosophers' and most worked at home, or
were something else (such as ministers in the Church of England). It was a robust period of empire building
that was accompanied by exploration. England was at the center of that universe
with people in all of her distant colonies sending specimens of bugs, animals,
plants and whatnot back to experts in the UK. These scientists were mainly men
but there were a few women, of whom Elizabeth Gilbert's Alma Whittaker was one. This was pre Darwin, or rather proto
Darwin because the logic of Evolution, so well elucidated in the 1850's by
Charles Darwin, was percolating through biologists (for example Alfred Russel
Wallace, who traveled to the Amazon) or the geologist Charles Lyle in England.
Alma was seeing the force of evolution in her study of mosses and had written a
piece that contained the elements of the theory. Pretty remarkable! Well, Alma
did meet Wallace after the publication of Darwin's classic. Wallace and Alma,
both scooped by Darwin but both took it in good spirit.
This book describes 19th Century botanical research, and
estate life very well. That was a hot time in the development of Science, and
England -- with the famous British Museum of Natural History and Kew Gardens -- was no exception. Alma's scientific and personal
longings are described in great detail (she spends a lot of time in the closet "to
slake herself once more with her own hands"). I was hoping this would be
more a description of a 19th Century woman botanizing in exotic places, and the
general scientific excitement of the time, but in this regard the story of
Alma's father was far more interesting to me than Alma's story. The book
describes well the science of bryology and the beauty of mosses. Actually, Alma Whittaker's character is drawn from the real-life bryologist Elizabeth Britten, who was active late in the 19th Century. I am told that there are collections of mosses in the New York Botanical Garden from Mackinac Island, made by Elizabeth and her later-to-be husband Nathaniel Lord Britten. One can only wonder what passions they slaked on that long-ago weekend. Some reviewers
thought that the study of mosses was a metaphor for Alma's life: slow,
unexciting. These reviewers obviously know nothing about mosses or what drives
people to invest any subject with passion. Still, this is an well told story of the life
of very strong woman who lacks the physical charms of her pretty sister, but who could intimidate many men with her intellectual capacity. It depicts accurately a scientifically and personally exciting time. Reviewers loved
it.
3. Edward Rutherford, "Paris: The Novel" Published 2013
The title is a wee mite pretentious (THE Novel? Really?) but
I never thought to not read this big book. This book covers the geography known
as Paris from Roman time to May 1968. One reviewer said it was a scaffold built
around flash cards. I suppose. The book follows five interlinked families
through the ages. It is interesting that the bad families are bad no matter
whether they are wearing bear skins or are bums in Montmartre. The families include a family of aristocrats
who served king and country through the ages, a Jewish family, a pair of Gascon
brothers who build the Eiffel Tower. There is the Middle Ages, the Revolution,
Napoleon, Dreyfus, the Nazis. Somebody befriends Hemingway. It is kind of like
a Classics Illustrated but with a whole lot more pages and no pictures. A great
way to learn history of a most wonderful city. I loved it. Rutherford writes
big multi generational, epoch-spanning books. The Deering Library has now three of
them, including "Russka" and "New York."
4. Palmer Brown, "Hickory" Published 1978
"Hickory" is appropriate for ages 3‑7. It is a
beautiful little book. I love it because of the wonderful illustrations of
wildflowers and critters. Here is what New York Review of Books said about it:
"A grandfather clock makes a lovely home for a family
of mice—if you don’t mind the occasional clang. And here Hickory lives with his
parents, his brother, Dickory, and his sister, Dock. But Hickory is a restless,
fearless mouse, and he longs to be on the move, to breathe the sweet air and
nibble on the wild strawberries of the fields. So one day in early spring, with
the smells of honeysuckle and clover guiding him, he strikes out on his own.
Soon he discovers that a meadow can be a lonely place, even with all its
beetles and caterpillars. It’s not until Hop the grasshopper comes around that
Hickory finds a true companion. Hop warns him, though, that when the days get
shorter and the goldenrod begins to fade, the “song she sings will soon be
done.” How Hickory and Hop confront and eventually accept the end of summer
forms the core of Palmer Brown’s poignant story.
Hickory is a story of friendship and love on par with
Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree or E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web.
It is also a field guide to the common plants and flowers of spring, summer,
and autumn, all beautifully rendered in Palmer Brown’s most colorful and joyous
drawings. "
Quotes
Exquisitely adorable creatures fit to rival Peter Rabbit.
—The New York Times
—The New York Times
Brilliant…it may prove the special treasure of many.
—New York Herald Tribune
—New York Herald Tribune
