Former Lemurians – Page 22

Author: Former Lemurians (Page 22 of 137)

Get to Know Hannah

On October 5, 2015

How long have you worked at Lemuria? 3 years? 3 and a half years? I’ll have to consult my palm pilot.

What do you do at Lemuria? I manage the fiction room, run all of our social media and the blog, and I’m currently running the operational side of our First Editions club along with my coworker Austen. I also keep people on their toes about what color my hair will be from one day to the next (currently working with a plum-apricot thing).

What’s currently on your bedside table (book purgatory)? Watchmen by Alan Moore, Room by Emma Donoghue, William Gay’s posthumous novel Little Sister Death, Naked at Lunch by Mark Haskell Smith, Sophia by Michael Bible, The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain, and about 15 more. There’s hardly any room for anything else on my bedside table at this point.

How many books do you usually read at a time? Just one. If I try to juggle, I end up reading nothing at all. Not very efficient, but it gets the job done.

I know it’s difficult, but give us your current top five books.

The Orenda by Joseph Boyden

Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms by Katherine Rundell

Plainsong by Kent Haruf

Free Men by Katy Simpson Smith (out in February- I cannot WAIT to talk to you guys about this one)

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (this one never leaves the rotation)

What did you do before you worked at Lemuria? I worked at Burberry as a men’s clothing specialist, and before that I (very, very briefly) sold Buicks. It was a hilarious disaster. I’ve also spent way too much time as a barista, been a summer camp program director, and slung chicken wings- making me perpetually smell like fry grease. My life is dripping with glamour.

If you could share lasagna with any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you ask them?

Dear Oscar Wilde,

Thank you for coming to my lasagna dinner party. While I appreciate your very obvious distaste for the other guests in attendance, I have to ask that you please stop telling them you have to leave due to your “hereditary severe chill”. I assure you, there is no such thing; please have a seat. Would you mind terribly if I asked you several personal, pressing questions about your personal life and the prejudice you faced due to your sexual orientation while living in England? You do mind? I’m so sorry. Enjoy your lasagna.

Why do you like working at Lemuria? I’m surrounded every day by creative, funny people who love books as much as I do, and I get to sit down and consider these books in every task that is on my to-do list. It’s really a wonderful job. Also, no dress code, so I get to wear my Buffy the Vampire Slayer cosplay every day. Just kidding. I wear wizard robes, I just wanted to make you think I was cool.

If we could have any living author visit the store and do a reading, who would you want to come? Someone like Johnathan Tropper. I like to imagine that he’d do a damn good reading, then we’d all go out for drinks after and end up becoming best friends for life and getting a time share in Florida together.

If you had the ability to teleport, where would you go first? I’d go straight to a flat in London with huge windows overlooking the city. It would be raining and twilight and Miles Davis would be playing in the background. I would drink wine and eat lots of pasta. Yes, I thought about this for a long time before I answered.

Get to Know Salvo

By Former Lemurians

On October 2, 2015

In Get to Know...

How long have you worked at Lemuria? I have been a Lemurian for a bit over three months.

What do you do at Lemuria? I am a certified book therapist. I’ve got all the recommendations you may be needing. My ambition is to be able to put a book in your hands that could turn sadness into serendipity; to give you a book that will turn serendipity into stark consciousness; or to give you that book to turn too much consciousness into surreal fantasy.

What are you reading now? Presently, I am reading a couple of books, but the I’m the most excited about my signed copy of Salman Rushdie’s Two Years Eight Months and Twenty Eight Nights. I pulled it straight off the UPS truck the other day, and since then, the novel has been attempting to pull my jaw straight from my face with Rushdie’s legendary myth-making ability.

What’s currently on your bedside table (book purgatory)? I don’t have a bedside table for my books, rather my to-read list is scattered in intimidating stacks about my bed. Often, my “bedside table books” become the very pillow I sleep on. Here’s my short list: The Gun by Fumi Nori Naka Muri, Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson, The Orenda by Joseph Boyden, and City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg.

Favorite authors? I like to keep an open mind about authors and books, so I keep an eye out for new authors, stories, and styles. But if I’m forced: Haruki Murakami, David Mitchell, Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Tom Robbins.

Any particular genre that you’re especially in love with? Just like my taste in music, it is important for me to diversify in my reading. I’m drawn towards the fantasy and sci-fi end of fiction, and I spent most of my teenage years in continuous daydream of Marquez’s magical realism. I studied Political Science and Philosophy at Millsaps, so I’m also an idealistic news junky and enjoy reading theory just as much as the New York Times.

What did you do before you worked at Lemuria? You mean besides laying the groundwork for my imminent world domination scheme? Well, I worked for “The Man” for several years. The Man being large Oil and Gas developers. I was a contract worker that went around the state and did archival and legal research concerning the development of Mississippi’s growing use of horizontal drilling operations.

If you could share lasagna with any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you ask them? Well, I’d say Tom Robbins, but I’m afraid lasagna might give him gas. Maybe J. K. Rowling, so I could tell my friends that I went on a date with her? Hrmm… maybe I’d invite Plato, Cornel West, and William Faulkner over for lasagna and pontificate the correlations between cheese, slavery, poetry and democracy.

Why do you like working at Lemuria? The books, of course. Just being in close proximity to the shelves, intelligent coworkers and the coolest customers in the tri-state area, makes Lemuria an unabashedly inspirational place to be and to work.

If you had the ability to teleport, where would you go first? Teleportation gives me awful nausea. So, I’d prefer to keep my feet solidly on the ground, and allow Lemuria’s shelves to transport me toward infinite surrealities.

Sit down. It’s time to talk about consciousness.

By Former Lemurians

On October 1, 2015

In Adventure, Gift Books, Nature, Psychology, Staff Blog

My husband is falling asleep across the table from me, in full view of the bar.

In his defense, we have just left a giant party that we attended in order to raise money for The Jackson Free Clinic, an incredible organization for which he regularly busts his ass. He is tired. He took a test today to end a rotation, and “only made a B” [insert my eye rolling here]. Tomorrow he starts a new rotation at the hospital and he is already dreading the all-night shifts, and here I am, at this loud bar, making him drink whiskey and eat fish tacos because I just had to find out why there were so many movie trailers outside, and the only way to be cool about it is to pretend we were already planning on coming here anyway, and “oh, what are these trailers doing here? Filming a movie? How inconvenient!” (It’s a horror movie, by the way, and I am very disappointed that I am not now fast friends with at least one of the Affleck brothers.)

To top all of this off, I will not shut up about octopuses. You heard me right, I cannot shut my pie hole about the spineless cephalopods crawling around on the ocean floor, and my poor, exhausted husband is trying so hard to pay attention. In his defense, he really does care because he is, after all, a man of science. Circumstances are simply preventing him from giving me his full attention. Why do I have such a wealth of knowledge about the ageless octopus, you ask? It is because I am still coming down from the book high that came from finishing Sy Montgomery’s new masterpiece The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness (which was just longlisted for the National Book Award in the nonfiction category).

Montgomery, author of several acclaimed books like The Good Good Pig, brings such a personal element to this book about ancient cephalopods that it is impossible to not be swept away on the journey with her. Early on in the book, Montgomery explains the history in the scientific community of ascribing consciousness to animals. Until recently, scientists have been wary to put too much stock behind attributing specific and complex personalities to animals due to the fear that we would simply project our own human ideas of what consciousness is, and completely misunderstand the science behind why animals do what they do. If an animal like the octopus shows extreme intelligence, it is so tempting to assume that they have the same complex feelings that humans do, and that is a big no no.

11847079564_70fb8dbbf7_o_slide-9e225b0592d3c186dc6120d1fa2f17d8c0018115-s900-c85

[Source]

So how is it possible to go on an incredibly personal journey when your writing is prefaced with this giant warning about not getting too emotional? Surprisingly (or maybe not surprisingly at all), setting aside our ideas of human consciousness and making room to understand a completely new and alien kind of intelligence is transformative. Montgomery was able to learn to love the octopuses that she came into contact with in a fresh way, a way that made room for an unfathomable, yet nevertheless emotional, bond.

Although it is impossible to completely detach and not project at least some human feelings onto the octopus, several things were made clear to me throughout reading this book. Octopuses are each unique; shy, adventures, solitary, grumpy, or playful. They get itchy. They get bored. Octopuses remember. They seem to take comfort in the presence of an old friend, relaxing and asking to be petted when visited by someone that they like. They forget things in their old age. Their arms contain roughly two thirds of their neurons, meaning that each of the eight arms kind of does have a mind of its own. They taste with their skin, which is how they recognize the humans that they fear/enjoy, and how they hunt the waters around them.

Sy Montgomery fell in love, specifically with two or three of the giant Pacific octopuses housed at the New England Aquarium in Boston. The aquarium is a sprawling, magical complex with exhibits ranging from feisty penguins to grumpy eels, and a webcam fixed in their Giant Ocean Tank, which you can watch here (I have had trouble doing anything else today, especially when Myrtle, the ancient sea turtle who lives in the tank, swims up the camera and rolls around flirtatiously in the water). Montgomery also forged friendships with the volunteers, regular members, and staff that surrounded her, and tenderly peeked into each of their lives, making the book both rich and sad at times. These people bonded over their love of the mysterious octopuses that brought them together, and they left each day mystified and changed.

This nonfiction book about octopuses and the cosmic questions that surround consciousness made me cry. CRY. And I laughed, too, totally in love with how little I know, and at the intoxicating thirst for knowledge that this book gave to me.

It’s hard to explain this strange combination of new facts and the overwhelming feeling of smallness that this book gave to me over drinks while my husband is falling asleep. But don’t worry, I’ve already bookmarked about 100 articles and videos on the miracle that is the octopus, and we’ll be exploring them very soon. To my husband: hope you weren’t planning on reading the Sunday Times this weekend, because I’ve got other plans for us. Time to talk cephalopods.

Hard Decisions

By Former Lemurians

On September 29, 2015

In Fiction, Staff Blog

Don’t expect a heart-warming teenage romance story within Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson. You will not read these stories, sip champagne and the relax into the absolution of serendipity. Fortune Smiles will do everything except absolve you of moral responsibility. In the way of plot, these stories have been written in a way to appeal to a wide audience. The collection has a bit of everything from futuristic drones, to draconic North Korean oppression, to abandoned babies in the fallout of Hurricane Katrina. The diversity of these stories reinforces Johnson’s purpose in portraying true morality as a malleable—often ambiguous—specter.

Moral obligation is the central tenant of Fortune Smile’s composite of six short stories. Time and time again, the protagonists face decisions that still make me wince weeks after reading them. Many of them, at first, seek their answer in the society surrounding them. They crave an outward force to tell them what is right and what is wrong. And, after being left without conclusion, these protagonists are forced to look within themselves and evaluate what they hold sacred as individuals. I believe this evaluation will happen to all of us at some point, and in retrospect we will constantly ask ourselves, ‘Was that the right thing to do?’

I almost pity Adam Johnson because his prose is so human, so evocative that I know that in some way, Johnson lived these stories and made each of these decisions himself. Fortune Smiles seeks to be the uncertain darkness that allows the light of morality to find definition and take shape. You will realize how fortunate your purchase was if you find a copy of Fortune Smiles on your bookshelf.

This collection is Adam Johnson’s fourth release, his third being the Pulitzer Winning Orphan Master’s Son.

– salvo.blair91@gmail.com

Get to Know Austen

By Former Lemurians

On September 26, 2015

In Get to Know...

How long have you worked at Lemuria? 3 yrs

What do you do at Lemuria? I’m the shipping and accounts manager.

Talk to us about what you’re reading right now. Fiction: The Scribe by Matthew Guinn, Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff. NonFic: Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (I’m halfway through this. I will probably finish it mid 2016), Animal Liberation and Critical Theory edited by John Sanbonmatsu (This is a great collection of essays concerning the animal and the other), Fortunes of Feminism by Nancy Fraser

What’s currently on your bedside table (book purgatory)? Fifty Shades of Grey by E L James. It’s a good bedside table book.

I know it’s difficult, but give us your current top five books.

1. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

2. Moby-Dick; or, The Whale by Herman Melville

3. Molloy by Samuel Beckett

4. Dhalgren by Samuel R Delany

5. Dark Lies The Island by Kevin Barry

Favorite authors? Slavoj Zizek, Camille Paglia, Peter Heller, David Foster Wallace, Samuel Beckett, Kevin Barry

Any particular genre that you’re especially in love with? I’m in love with Science Fiction. It speaks to me.

What did you do before you worked at Lemuria? I cleaned Methamphetamine labs.

Why do you like working at Lemuria? Most things people sell are bullshit. When I sell a book I have the potential to change someone’s life in a big way. How many commodities pack in that potential for $30? You can get mentally gutted and reconfigured with a great book. How much does therapy cost per hour? It’s a lot. Here’s a book that can change your life for the price of a pizza. I love books.

If we could have any living author visit the store and do a reading, who would you want to come? Kevin Barry. He’s my favorite living author right now.

If Lemuria could have ANY pet (mythical or real), what do you think it should be? Goat.

If you had the ability to teleport, where would you go first? The Sun.

Austen sent both of these pictures of himself to me (Hannah), and I just couldn’t choose between the two of them.

It’s impossible to pick a favorite.

The Water and the Wild

By Former Lemurians

On September 23, 2015

In OZ: Young Adult Fiction, Staff Blog

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

for the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

Above is the epigraph for K.E. Ormsbee’s middle grade novel, The Water and the Wild. It is an excerpt from a poem by William Butler Yeats entitled “The Stolen Child”, and it is the poem from which the novel borrows its name. It’s fitting, seeing as how the story carries such a magical, curiously literary tone. That’s the thing about good middle-grade: if it’s written well and written right, it’s not just a story to entertain young readers. It’s a story to be savored by all ages, a story that charms with its characters and magic and innocent inclinations. But I guess that’s any good children’s book really. I’ve been on a huge middle grade kick lately and am currently trying to bring anyone and everyone into the fold, mostly by putting this book into their hands.

The story follows Lottie Fisk, an imaginative orphan living with a less than pleasant guardian. She stores her treasures in a copper keepsake box underneath a green apple tree in her front yard, and curiously, whenever she writes a letter and places it in her box under the apple tree, she receives a reply. The novel takes off when Lottie’s only friend Eliot is diagnosed as “otherwise incurable” and slowly gets sicker. Lottie writes a pleading note to the letter-writer, asking for a cure. Several months letter, a mysterious girl appears at her window in the night, claiming that her father is not only the best healer on the island where she lives, but also Lottie’s letter-writer. And so Lottie is whisked away by apple tree to a mysterious land of magic and mysteries and fairies and kings, desperate to find a cure for her dear friend Eliot.

One of the strongest points of this novel is the unique world and magic system. The way Mr. Wilfer mixes his cures, the use of birds as messengers known as genga, the unique gifts each sprite in the magical world of New Albion is born with are all new explorations into the idea of magic. The history of New Albion is interesting as well. It is a country split into two courts, Southerly and Northerly, with very different traditions and a deal of animosity between the two. In sum, this isn’t a fantasy world where you can assume anything. All of the magic systems and fantasy history are new and unfamiliar, making it that much harder to guess what will happen.

The novel also charms with its use of poetry. There is Lottie’s circling back to Yeat’s “The Stolen Child”, but there is also the character of Oliver Wilfer, who has memorized poetry and often spouts stanzas when he believes they will be relevant or helpful.

The added bits of poetry and the dream-like narrative quality give The Water and the Wild an enchanting, literary quality. It’s a lovely romp of a middle-grade novel, with all the essential quirks and characters to please ten and twenty year-olds alike with a taste for the fantastical. So come away o human child, won’t you please?

Get to Know Brock

By Former Lemurians

On September 19, 2015

In Get to Know...

How long have you worked at Lemuria? Four weeks.

What do you do at Lemuria? I’m very much still getting to know the store and my place in it. I just took on the science/sports/nature section, and I am really excited about it. I studied environmental and nature writing in college, and I’m a huge tennis fan!

Talk to us what you’re reading right now. I just started Garth Risk Hallberg’s debut novel City on Fire, and I can tell I have my hands full with this one. Chapters are from the points of view of a substantial list of main characters living in New York City in the 70s. At 900+ pages, this one will take some time, but long books are my favorite!

What’s currently on your bedside table (book purgatory)? Tolstoy’s The Gospel in Brief. It’s literally a rewriting of the four gospels as Tolstoy sees fit (with some not-so-minor changes). Like the Bible, it’s best digested in small pieces over a long period of time.

How many books do you usually read at a time? Occasionally as many as three, but I have a pretty obsessive personality, so if I’m really liking a particular book, I won’t pick up anything else until I finish it.

I know it’s difficult, but give us your current top five books. I’m all about ranking favorites. 1) Blindness by Jose Saramago, 2) Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, 3) Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, 4) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling, and 5) A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin

Any particular genre that you’re especially in love with? I love classics. These books have stood the test of time and continue to appeal to future generations for a reason. I like to imagine myself in these past settings, even if I am just a casual passerby entering the narrator’s line of vision for a moment.

What did you do before you worked at Lemuria? Everything from making lattes in an Oxford coffee shop to working on a sustainable pig farm in Como, Mississippi. Most recently I painted houses in Nashville over the summer.

Why do you like working at Lemuria? It’s such a stimulating environment intellectually. Every day I am flipping through new books that we get in and listening to coworkers and customers talk about books that they’re reading. The only downside is that my reading list is starting to become overwhelmingly long.

If we could have any living author visit the store and do a reading, who would you want to come? Toni Morrison. I’ve watched her read and deliver speeches on YouTube. Her voice and her presence are absolutely enthralling, and her representation of what it means to be black in America could not be more important right now.

If Lemuria could have ANY pet (mythical or real), what do you think it should be? I’ve been saying that we need a cat since I first started. Cats seem to embody the lazy elegance of a bookstore like Lemuria, and if you’ve never read a book with a cat sleeping next to you, you don’t know what you’re missing.

If you had the ability to teleport, where would you go first? Teleportation: easily the most functional superpower. I’d go to Paris. I’ve only been once, and it was as alluring as I ever imagined. It’s no surprise why so many authors have called such a beautiful and historically rich city home.

Get to Know Clara

By Former Lemurians

On September 18, 2015

In Get to Know...

Pssst. Drew Daywalt (author of The Day the Crayons Came Home) will be at Lemuria on September 15 at 3:30!

How long have you worked at Lemuria? In my current position, I’ve been at Lemuria for 1 year, although I worked here in the summers in high school. It is definitely the best job I’ve had and I’m glad to be back.

What do you do at Lemuria? Most days I’m Dorothy who has been spit out of the tornado. On good days I’m Glinda the Good Witch, and on AWESOME days I’m the Wizard of Oz. Oz, for those of you not familiar with Lemuria, is our children’s book section! I order all the books for newborns all the way up to teens. I also arrange for authors who write books for kids to visit Jackson. You can catch what children’s books I review each Sunday in The Clarion Ledger!

Talk to us about what you’re reading right now.

I just finished Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff. For every 10-20 children’s books I read, I try to read one adult book, and this one was a winner.

Anna and the Swallow Man by Gavriel Savit. A WW2 story told from Anna’s perspective, who at the beginning of the story has just turned 7. Her father, an intellectual linguistics professor in Poland, leaves for work one day and never returns. The Swallow Man finds her and an incredible journey ensues.

Drowning is Inevitable by Shalanda Stanley. Four teens find themselves in a heap of trouble in Louisiana and set off to New Orleans. A little Kate Chopin, a lot of Southern Gothic, and I love it.

After Alice by Gregory Maguire. We all know the story of ALICE, but what happened to the other girl listening to Carroll’s story, Ada? This is her story, and the book will be out just in time for the 150th anniversary of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

The Blackthorn Key by Kevin Sands. Kevin Sands will be at Lemuria September 18! This is a fast-paced adventure and mystery story set in London, and Christopher Rowe is an apprentice to Master Benedict Blackthorn, an apothecary. When Master Blackthorn is murdered, Christopher is left behind to unlock the key, or code. Really fun, and I can’t wait for the event.

I know it’s difficult, but give us your current top five books. THIS IS SO HARD. This fall in particular there are so many debut authors whose books I am obsessed with, so come talk to me about them because the list is too long.

1. Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (out in October!)

2. Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell

3. Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie is always in my top five and

has been ever since I read it in 5th grade. It’s his only children’s book.

4. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

5. The Nonsense Show by Eric Carle

What did you do before you worked at Lemuria? I was a student at Vanderbilt University in Nashville (anchor down!), a student in Florence, Italy, a substitute teacher, a Spanish tutor, a painter at Old Tyme Commissary, a hostess, a research intern at the Mississippi Museum of Art, a magazine editor for Mississippi Magazine and a receptionist in a doctor’s office.

Why do you like working at Lemuria? When you take an author to a school and see the effect they can have on a child, it’s wonderful. Also, finding that perfect book for the perfect person is all the more rewarding when it’s a child who has just discovered reading.

If we could have any living author visit the store and do a reading, who would you want to come? J.K. ROWLING!!! I think I would die.

If Lemuria could have ANY pet (mythical or real), what do you think it should be? Hedwig!! I would love receiving mail by owl post.

If you had the ability to teleport, where would you go first? You mean apparate? Hogwarts, duh. Except not in Hogwarts (nobody’s able to apparate into Hogwarts grounds) but I’d apparate to Hogsmeade.

Tragedy is comedy is drama: Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies

By Former Lemurians

On September 14, 2015

In Events, Fiction, First Editions, First Editions Club, Staff Blog

It is not often that I find myself losing sleep over characters in a book. Weeks after reading Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies, Lotto and Mathilde’s story is prominent in my mind, and with Lauren’s upcoming visit to Lemuria, I’d like to share why this book was so powerful. When I talk about literally losing sleep, I mean that I was reading this book at 3 in the morning and was reading with my hand over my mouth because I couldn’t believe what was happening. Or maybe I could believe it. I’ll let you decide.

The title, Fates and Furies, reveals a lot about the book. In Crowell’s Handbook of Classical Mythology, the Fates are “Divine beings who determined the course of events in human lives.” They have been personified in many ways, but “as often as the Fates were associated with the end of life, they were active at its beginning.” The Fates are three women Clotho (the spinner), Lachesis (allotter) and Atropos (unturnable), who, from the very moment of birth determine the thread of one’s life, and when to cut it.

The first section of Fates and Furies, labeled, simply, “Fates,” is told from Lotto’s perspective. We see that he is destined for “greatness” from his birth. While the story is told in omniscient third person, there are interjections in brackets, as if an unknown party is relaying information the audience, or reader, should know, but that could not otherwise be revealed through the characters.

For example:

Lotto loved the story. He’d been born, he’d always say, in the calm eye of the hurricane. [From the first, a wicked sense of timing.]

So…who is the narrator who decides to interject himself or herself into the story? Much like a Greek chorus, this narrator frequently divulges what the character truly thinks or feels contrary to their actions, or extemporaneous information—i.e., that it was a wicked sense of timing. Perhaps, it would not be remiss to say that these speakers are the Fates, and later, the Furies. The Fates could also be interpreted as the women in Lotto’s life—his mother, his wife, and perhaps his sister. Who destined him for greatness by naming him Lancelot? His mother. Who furthered his play-writing career by being the muse and behind the scenes editor of his plays? Mathilde. Perhaps, even, there is a Fate that cuts his life short, but you’ll have to read it to see if that’s the case.

Fates and Furies is the story of a marriage. “Most operas, it is true, are about marriage. Few marriages could be called operatic.” Lotto and Mathilde, two opposites, whose marriage, as it unfolds, is a Greek drama. It is both tragedy and comedy. Lotto’s English teacher asks the students the difference between tragedy and comedy. One student replies that it is the difference of solemnity vs humor.

“False,” Denton Thrasher said. “A trick. There’s no difference. It’s a question of perspective. Storytelling is landscape, and tragedy is comedy is drama. It simply depends on how you frame what you’re seeing.”

This statement encapsulates the entirety of Fates and Furies. In a book that concerns itself with a failed Shakespearean actor who turns to play-writing, the book can also be read as a play.

Comedies, in the Shakespearean sense, often concern themselves with the ability of the characters to triumph over the chaos of life, ultimately ending in a marriage, representing the renewal of life and of second chances. From the Greek, komas (meaning “the party”) and oide (meaning “the song”) comes, kōmōidía, or the song of the party, of the reveling. At the beginning of Fates and Furies, there is much reveling, and one party begins where the other ends, often without much distinction, so the reader must be observant to know that a new party has started, and learn the characters that orbit Lotto and Mathilde in constant rotation. As the story continues, however, these revolving characters are whittled down to a main five: Chollie, Mathilde, Lotto, Antoinette, and another later character. So begins the switch to tragedy.

In tragedy, a character is doomed to an unhappy end, usually by fate, and the hero suffers from hubris or excessive pride, ultimately leading to his downfall. Tragedy is comedy is drama. In Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, (a comedy where lovers are mixed up), there is a play within a play, the love story of Pyramus and Thisbe, which, incidentally is a tragedy. Pyramus and Thisbe cannot be together because of a family rivalry (an early Greek incarnation of Romeo and Juliet). They agree to meet under a mulberry tree. When Thisbe arrives first, she sees a lion whose mouth is bloodied from a recent kill, and in her hurry to runaway, she drops her veil. Pyramus enters the scene, thinks his beloved has been killed, and, rather than be without her, chooses to impale himself upon his sword. In A Midsummer’s Night Dream (5.1.261-270) the actor playing Pyramus cries:

What dreadful dole is here!

Eyes, do you see?

How can it be?

O dainty duck! O dear!

Thy mantle good,

What, stained with blood?

Approach, ye Furies fell!

O Fates, come, come,

Cut thread and thrum.

Quail, crush, conclude, and quell!

And while in the Greek play the lion has merely killed Thisbe, Shakespeare’s Pyramus goes on angrily to say that the lion hath “deflowered” his love.

And finally we enter the last section of the book, “Furies.” Also found in Crowell’s Handbook of Classical Mythology, the Erinyes, or Furies, as they were known to the Romans, were “female spirits who punished offenders against blood kin.” Crowell continues, “Whatever their precise origin, they reflect a very ancient Greek belief in a divine mechanism of retributive justice.” What we see in the last quarter of the book is Mathilde enacting revenge for past injustices—she is not just furious, she is fury.

I think that Lotto and Mathilde have entered the cannon of love stories all on their own, but it is also my opinion that they are Shakespeare’s Pyramus and Thisbe re-imagined. Tragedy is comedy is drama. From which lens are we seeing the drama unfold, and which one presents tragedy versus comedy? Lotto’s? Mathilde’s? The Greek chorus? Or the reader’s? Don’t miss this amazing, multi-layered story, and a chance to hear Lauren speak at Lemuria this Tuesday night at 5:00 in our main store!

Changes in FEC

By Former Lemurians

On September 12, 2015

In Fiction, First Editions, First Editions Club, Staff Blog

Hello!

For over two years I have enjoyed handling Lemuria’s FEC and OZ FEC. There is a ritual to it–reading the books months in advance; discussing with all of our booksellers which books we should pick and why; anxiously awaiting the books’ release date so I can finally talk with other readers about another great story; meeting the authors and hearing how the story came to be what it is; and mylaring, wrapping, and shipping over 250 books each month. Some of the books we’ve selected are now some of my favorite novels–Paper Lantern: Love Stories, The Son, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, to name a few. But all good things must come to an end.

This month, I am handing over the FEC reins to Hannah and Austen. Hannah has worked at Lemuria for the past 3 years and is the fiction room manager. Austen is a jack-of-all-trades; from coordinating our ship-outs to receiving all of our book shipments, he keeps the gears of Lemuria well oiled. Your book orders and reading habits will be in good hands. You can continue to email them at fec@lemuriabooks.com. If you call the store, just let whoever you talk to that you are a member of the FEC; they will make sure your message gets to the right person.

I will still be at Lemuria for a little while longer, but I have cut my hours back so that I can teach English this semester at a local University. I’ll be moving to Tacoma, Washington in the new year and will join your ranks as a member of the FEC. I’ll have to get my Lemuria fix via the USPS.

Thank you so much for being a member of the club and giving me, and Lemuria, a community of book-lovers.

Happy Reading,

Adie

If you are not a member of our First Editions Club, but would like to sign up, please click here or call the store at 601.366.7619. We would love to have you.

Author: Former Lemurians (Page 22 of 137)

Get to Know Hannah

Get to Know Salvo

Sit down. It’s time to talk about consciousness.

Hard Decisions

Get to Know Austen

The Water and the Wild

Get to Know Brock

Get to Know Clara

Tragedy is comedy is drama: Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies

Changes in FEC

Authors

Categories

Tags