I am almost trembling thinking about writing about this beautiful, powerful novel. I loved it, loved it, loved it!  I don’t know where to start, but Lisa helped me when she said, “Tell me why I would want to read this novel, Nan? Convince me.”

Of course, as most readers will attest, a book this mammoth (almost 600 pages) must appeal on a larger level since it is about the years before and during WWII, but also it must appeal on a humanitarian level with attention to personal relationships– for after all, isn’t that how we relate and reach our moments of clarity and experience beauty in this world?

Picture a young male Jewish architectural student who has recently immigrated from Hungary after winning a prized scholarship rarely awarded to someone who has no previous portfolio. By a mere chance occurrence, he literally bumps into a woman who asks him to deliver a letter to an unknown recipient as he is leaving to go to architectural school in Paris. If the letter had not been in his possession, then the rest of the novel would not have happened.

Now picture a thirty-two year old strikingly beautiful ballet instructor who has been teaching little Parisian girls how to dance since she immigrated, also from Hungary, for a totally different reason, a decade or more earlier. Then, the young architect and the young ballet instructor meet.  I could stop right here with what at this point seems a fairy tale set in Paris pre-WWII when life was good, love was young, and romance abounded! However, reality encroaches, both in the form of a remembered violent past of the ballet teacher, and in the form of menacing approaching Nazi power.

While the language and gorgeous settings that author Julie Orringer chooses for the Paris love affair seem nearly perfect and remarkably flowing, the language she selects for the next part of the book, which incidentally is divided into five historical sections, is equally descriptive and fitting for a war ravaged people and their surroundings in Europe. So, back to what Lisa asked me, “Why do I want to read this?” Though I am certainly not a WWII or Holocaust reader, I have ended up in the last few months now, reading Beatrice and Virgil, The Glass Room, and The Invisible Bridge (And I would recommend these three books in this order.) If you had told me that I would read this many war novels ever, much less in one six month period, I would have probably laughed at you!

So, if you can see where I am going with this line of thought or not, please bear with me. In spite of the horrific and deplorable physical situations experienced by the protagonist architect and his Jewish brothers, who were also enlisted in the Hungarian army as work laborers, and despite of the lack of food, shelter, and basis life essentials denied the family left behind, what kept me reading were the relationships between the men who fought and the women and children who remained behind. Essentially what kept me reading was watching from afar their love and their undying devotion to each other in spite of the indescribable and deplorable hardships being experienced by both groups. In other words, this book placed war on a human, understandable level for me. The fear that these Jewish families experienced on a daily basis was written about with compassion and angst. And yes, I came to detest Hitler in a way I never have! Though it was not easy for me to read about the tyrant and his despicable generals, nor was it easy for me to read about the personal loss that so many families suffered, encompassing so many gut wrenching proportions, it was worth it. I ended up with a renewed sense of knowing that in spite of evil in this world, both past, present, and future, and no matter what form it takes, whether national, international, or political, human devotion and love get people through it all.  Julie Orringer sent this message to me, loud and clear.

Before this begins to sound like a never ending diatribe, I want to thank our friends at Random House, Valerie Walley, whom many will remember worked at Lemuria in the 80s and who is now working in New York for Random House, as well as a Random House rep, Liz Sullivan who comes to Lemuria periodically telling us which books to read and dropping off ARCs (advanced reader copies). If it had not been for Liz telling me how much she and Valerie both loved this novel, I might not have tackled such a long read. So, thanks to both of them!

Lisa showed me a video done by Green Apple Bookstore in San Francisco which features a young woman who cannot seem to put The Invisible Bridge down. I can really identify with this reader! Obviously, this well written, absolutely beautiful novel grabbed me, and in a way, still has me in its clutches, even two weeks after I read the closing epilogue, which was a remarkable way for the author to tie the pieces together for future generations of characters. READ THIS NOVEL!  -Nan

by Kelly Pickerill

I recently read The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman, and when I was finished, because I read books from cover to cover (reading the acknowledgments, the “note about the font,” and even glancing at the Library of Congress info) (I know, I’m a nerd), I saw at the end that it’s the latest book in The Myths series.

“Myths are universal and timeless stories that reflect and shape our lives,” the last page of the book reads, “they explore our desires, our fears, our longings and provide narratives that remind us what it means to be human. The Myths series brings together some of the world’s finest writers, each of whom has retold a myth in a contemporary and memorable way.”

Books in the series include Karen Armstrong’s A Short History of Myth, Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, Alexander McCall Smith’s Dream Angus, and Jeanette Winterson’s Weight.  There are 14 books in all, and I’d like to collect all of them, so I started the other day by picking up Atwood’s and Winterson’s books at Lemuria.

Atwood’s novel, The Penelopiad, is essentially The Odyssey from Penelope’s point of view. In the book you witness first-hand the raucous events that went on at Odysseus’s house while he was away, and if you think the end of the Odyssey, with Odysseus saving the day disguised as a beggar and doling out a gruesome end for those smarmy suitors, is exciting, you may be interested in getting into Penelope’s head as she’s waiting, weaving, and plotting, and finding out what she really thinks of Odysseus’s triumphant return.

I am almost done with Winterson’s book, Weight, about Atlas and Heracles. Atlas has to hold up the world as punishment, Heracles has to do the god’s bidding as punishment, and when they decide to swap punishments, they find out some interesting things about themselves.

As I was reading The Good Man Jesus, I thought about what Pullman was trying to say about Jesus’s message. He is an atheist, and in the introduction he says that above all, his novel is a story about how stories become stories. The Jesus in his novel says a lot of the same things that are recorded in the Bible, but some of his words are twisted by his brother, Christ, to be prophetic of a kingdom of God on earth. In the chapter where Jesus prays in the garden of Gethsemane, he asks God where he is, admitting that he’s never heard his voice or seen his hand in anything he’s done, though evidence of God’s existence is all around him in the beauty of the world. He wonders aloud whether his brother, Christ, was right, that it would be good to start a church to usher in the kingdom, then ruminates on all the things that can go wrong when a body of men who believe they are doing the will of God have the power of God behind them. He finishes his prayer by asking God one thing above all: “That any church set up in your name should remain poor, and powerless, and modest. That it should wield no authority except that of love. That it should never cast anyone out. That it should own no property and make no laws. That it should not condemn, but only forgive.”

One of the great things about The Myths series is that, at the outset, each author is asked simply to rewrite a myth. They are able to choose the myth and the approach, whether to modernize the themes, and whether to inject their own philosophies into the story. Check them out. When I get ahold of some of the others, I’ll let you know.

it’s the day before your ninth birthday and you mother is baking a practice birthday cake in preparation for tomorrow.  you take your first bite and instead of tasting your all time favorite, lemon cake, you taste your mother’s sadness.  thus begins a lifetime of being able to taste peoples emotions in the food that they prepare.  imagine being able to taste your mother’s affair in the dinners she cooks, your brothers disappearance in the toast he fixes for you.

aimee bender has recently grabbed my attention and my heart.  this was the first book of hers that i read and i am now on a huge bender kick.

read more in John P’s blog

by Zita

It was Friday, February 26th and the call came from Morgan Entrekin of Grove/Atlantic informing John that the press was almost sold out of first editions of Matterhorn prior to the March 23rd release date. At that point, the novel was already in its 6th printing. The initial print run at Grove/Atlantic was between 80,ooo and 100,000 after being bought from the small nonprofit press El Leon in 2007.

We needed to make our decision quickly to ensure first editions for the May First Editions Club selection. Joe’s reading of Matterhorn settled any ambiguity and Lemuria geared up for an event in May with debut novelist Karl Marlantes, the Yale graduate and Rhodes Scholar who also earned the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation medals for valor, two Purple Hearts, and ten air medals for his service as a marine in the Vietnam War.

Despite the buzz in the book world about Matterhorn, Joe had already gotten a unique impression of Karl Marlantes from an article in the January 25th edition of Publisher’s Weekly and he decided to post the article in February on Lemuria’s blog. What struck Joe about the article was how neatly Karl explained why he writes, and in doing so he referenced his experience of reading Eudora Welty’s Delta Wedding:

“Ultimately, the only way we’re ever going to bridge the chasms that divide us is by transcending our limited viewpoints. My realization of this came many years ago reading Eudora Welty’s great novel Delta Wedding. I experienced what it would be like to be a married woman on a Mississippi Delta plantation who was responsible for orchestrating one of the great symbols of community and love. I entered her world and expanded beyond my own skin and became a bigger person.”

Lisa and Karl at the Eudora Welty House, May 12, 2010

At the time, there was no way for Karl to realize what a unique impression his mention of Eudora Welty would make on readers in Jackson, Mississippi. Knowing his admiration for Eudora, we set up a tour of the Welty House with Eudora’s niece, Mary Alice Welty White.

Over the next three months, Joe’s blog posting became a way for Karl’s readers, long lost friends and acquaintances to connect and express their thoughts about Matterhorn and the Vietnam war. Many readers and book critics have expressed this notion: Matterhorn is the classic novel of the Vietnam war.

Billy Watkins of Jackson’s Clarion Ledger interviewed Karl about his novel but also turned toward his personal experience during the war and finally to the reception he received afterward. Karl said that during the ride from the airport after 400 days of service, his brother remarked: “‘I have to warn you, it’s not going to be real fun when we leave this area. A lot of people don’t like the war.’” Karl concluded the interview: “When this country goes to war, it uses 19-year-olds as weapons. They’re the best weapons we have. So if we’re going to use them, we’d better be damn sure that there is no other way to resolve the issue.”

After being subjected to more than thirty years of writing and revision, Karl’s novel has been compared to such classics as The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer and A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. The New York Times Book Review called Matterhorn “a raw, brilliant account of war that may well serve as a final exorcism for one of the most painful passages in American history”.

One of the featured recorded readings by Eudora Welty at the museum was about memory:

“Of course the greatest confluences of all is that which makes up the human memory–the individual human memory. My own is the treasure most dearly regarded me, in my life and in my work as a writer. Here time, also, is subject to confluence. The memory is a living thing–it too is in transit. But during its moment, all that is remembered joins, and lives–the old and the young, the past and the present, the living and the dead” (One Writer’s Beginnings, 104).

A veteran of any war never forgets his or her experience. Karl Marlantes courageously served his country on foot in Vietnam, but he also serves his country to this day by keeping his memories alive and creating fictional characters, allowing readers the opportunity to get under a soldier’s skin and deepen their understanding of humanity.

More Links for Matterhorn and Karl Marlantes

Video: On Writing Matterhorn for 30 Years

Video: Understanding Other Lives through Fiction

Lisa’s blog on reading Matterhorn

Joe’s blog on Karl’s article: Why I Write

I have been out for a week, and therefore have had more time for reading, which I have loved. The following titles show what I have read or am still reading:

1. Eye of the Whale by Douglas Carlton Abrams…..have finished this remarkable novel based on a fiction writer’s look into a marine scientist’s study of what we  human beings are doing to ruin our oceans with pollutants. The fast-moving thrilling pace of this novel caused me to read it in 24 hours! Being a gardener and a creature lover, I am so very aware of pesticides and their harmful effects on our planet. To learn how our genetic codes are changing for both men and women, as seen in the bodies of the beautiful humpback whales, caused me great concern and alarm for my children and their children. WE ALL have got to wake up and take a stand! This novel is off the beaten track and could be missed, and would have been missed by me if I had not heard the author and the scientist reviewed on public radio.  John agreed to order some for the store, and now I can readily recommend it to readers! Character development and  thrilling action move this fiction right along while the reader simultaneously learns of alarming scientific facts. You will fall in love with “Apollo”, the serene humpback whale who unfortunately swims under the Golden Gate bridge singing his alarming song, “w-OP w_OP, EEh-EEh-EEh” which deciphered means “Danger for our young”!

2. The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer….. am loving it, absolutely loving it. Reading it on the heels of  The Glass Room makes it even more of a joy due to the  shared European setting prior to WWII. Valerie, Liz, and Toni at Random House are right: this is a treasure! I’m only half way through and will be sad when it is over, I’m sure. It grabbed me by the second chapter and has had me reading way into the wee hours of the night.

3. The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano ( an unusually refreshingly different novel…..I liked what Kelly said about it in her blog a couple of weeks ago….I am glad I finished it!)

4. Tinkers by Paul Harding – a deliberately slow, beautiful 2010 Pulitzer Prize winner….reminds me of Marilyn Robinson’s Gilead. I had to put it down for a while, but now am back into it.  Though very mesmerizingly slow on action, it is rich on language. Check out this one sentence for purity of prose: Howard thought of angels, but the image he had of the seraphim, with their long blond curls and flowing white robes and golden halos, did not fit with the more frightening, dark, powerful species he conjured, which would gorge on and delight in what, when ingested by him, instead of sating, instantly burst the seams of his thin body. Now you see why the Pulitzer is well deserved!

5. A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick ….am about half way through this one and am liking the fast paced language. I have been trying to get to it since it was published last year, but once it came in the store in paperback, I had to check it out for a possible book club selection. I think it will be the August pick– at least the first half makes me think so. The setting reminds me of Gil Adamson’s Outlander. I had perused The End of the World as We Know It, a non-fiction bestseller, last year, by the same author as The Reliable Wife and am always amazed when an author can turn from non-fiction to fiction successfully.

6.  Anthill by E. O. Wilson … am only a little ways into this novel about ants and a Huck Finn type character, but I think it is a good Southern fiction read so far.  It’s written by a Harvard biologist originally from Alabama, a prolific non-fiction author who won the Pulitizer  for a scientific book on ants.

7. The Hole We’re In by Gabrielle Zevin …. am only a chapter or two into it, but this contemporary fiction moves with agility  and excellent character development, exploring the collective rat-race we are all in! I’m liking the comfortable easy narrative language.

I’ll check back in when I finish some of these, especially The Invisible Bridge!

…….Happy Summer Reading.  -Nan

by Kelly Pickerill

When I read the front page review of the NYT Book Review on The Imperfectionists, I must admit I started a bit; Christopher Buckley’s cloyingly sweet words about Tom Rachman’s first novel were almost as shocking to read as the front page Ian McEwan review which denounced his book, Solar, to be so well-written as to be positively boring.

Just like I had to read Solar for myself (and I admit I got stuck about 100 pages in, though I haven’t given up), I had to read The Imperfectionists to see how a respected writer could justify such effulgence, one, and then how a usually staunch weekly, two, could justify front-paging what reads like a blossoming schoolgirl’s heartthrob-devotion.

The opening of the review sounds like a dust-jacket blurb and, at that, one written by a writer who may want a favor later:

This first novel by Tom Rachman, a London-born journalist who has lived and worked all over the world, is so good I had to read it twice simply to figure out how he pulled it off. I still haven’t answered that question, nor do I know how someone so young — Rachman turns out to be 35, though he looks even younger in his author photo — could have acquired such a precocious grasp of human foibles. The novel is alternately hilarious and heart-wrenching, and it’s assembled like a Rubik’s Cube. I almost feel sorry for Rachman, because a debut of this order sets the bar so high.

Well, parts of this quote did in fact make it to the jacket cover, and it reminds me of another gushing jacket blurb, which didn’t ever appear in a review, but whose sentiment I find to be similarly fanatical:

Adverbs describes adolescence, friendship, and love with such freshness and power that you feel drunk and beaten up, but still want to leave your own world and enter the one Handler’s created. Anyone who lives to read gorgeous writing will want to lick this book and sleep with it between their legs.

That’s Dave Eggers on Daniel Handler’s Adverbs (Handler is also known as Lemony Snicket to the younger set), a book I thoroughly enjoyed, though I read this quote as another precocious part of a light-hearted book, and wouldn’t have expected to see it in a serious publication.

All this to say, while he may have gone a bit gushy, after reading The Imperfectionists, I don’t believe Buckley was wrong. A bit enchanted, though, maybe, for which I don’t entirely fault him.  The Imperfectionists is an enchanting book. It’s written as a series of connected vignettes, each focusing on one person who works for (and, in one case, reads) an international newspaper.

Buckley is right; the characters’ stories do intertwine in surprising ways, and though sometimes Rachman’s devices can become a bit transparent, I forgive him that, because the characters, despite some of the faux-naïf situations Rachman puts them in, are so realistically portrayed it feels as if they’re in the room with you (bathroom reading may not be advised). Buckley didn’t see fit to quibble with this problem, opting instead to compare the devices to some of the greats: Roald Dahl, O. Henry, Evelyn Waugh, Hunter S. Thompson. In the review, he writes a little about a few of the characters in the novel, holding back at the end of each of his paragraphs with different variations of, “You’ll just have to see for yourself!”

But more than the characters’ stories, it’s their imperfections that link them. The (arguably) most tragic character we don’t meet till the end of the novel — the paper’s current (in 2007, when the novel’s set) publisher, Oliver Ott. The grandson of the paper’s founder, Oliver doesn’t read the paper, doesn’t have any more contact than is necessary with its employees, and doesn’t attend the board meetings that decide its fate. While the other characters’ isolation is briefly reprieved by their attempts (even failed ones) to connect with the people in their lives, Oliver only has eyes for his dog, a basset hound named Schopenhauer. Staring at a Turner in his grandfather’s mansion, he tells Schop, “Beauty is all I care about.”  Yet when he gazes at the faces depicted in the painting, he’s repulsed. “How can people be attracted to each other?” he asks. Oliver’s tragedy lies in his inability to answer this question, which the other characters, in our brief entries into their lives, at least attempt to find.

I wouldn’t be so portentous in my predictions for the rest of Rachman’s career as a novelist as Buckley; The Imperfectionists indicates that he has a grasp of human weakness and triumph that surpasses many already, and can only improve, in my opinion.

We’re excited that Barry Gifford will be here on Wednesday along with Karl Marlantes. I have long wondered about the two shelves of space which Barry Gifford’s books occupy. I knew that John thought Barry to be somebody special, but I didn’t know why. Now I’m starting to learn why.

I have been doing a little of my own research and talking to John about Barry as we prepare another First Edition Flashback, a new series on our website which tells the story of why, since 1993, we have selected certain books for our First Editions Club.

For my own knowledge, I read an interview done by Richard Birnbaum in 2003. Since Richard and Barry are friends, I found the interview to be very frank. Here are some brief highlights, but it is worth reading the entire interview.

The more you get to know about Barry the more you realize that he modestly “plays his own game”. This started at a very young age, setting the tone for his fiction. I thought this story from the interview illustrated his independence very well:

“I was at Clinton Public School and I was talking in line before recess one day. It was second grade or something.  So the teacher said to me, ‘Barry, you stay here’ as a reprimand . . . So all the other kids went out to play, and I was humiliated, standing alone in the classroom as everyone else went out. As soon as they went out and down the stairs one way I went out of the room and down the stairs and walked home. It was ten o’clock in the morning . . . [My mom] gets a call. It’s the school saying, ‘Gee, we don’t know what happened to Barry. He disappeared.’ She said, ‘Oh, he’s right here.’ And then she got the picture.”

Richard Birnbaum remarks, “And so begins your career in fiction.”

Barry’s mom and teacher seemed to understand Barry a little better:

“I had my own personality and my own agenda I felt–I guess kids now would say–disrespected. And I wasn’t going to take that from somebody.”

Lemuria is honored to have Barry at Lemuria again to mark the publication of Sailor and Lula: The Complete Novels.  I began reading Sailor and Lula this weekend, but my appetite has already been whetted with several of the stories from American Falls: The Collected Short Stories. “Wrap It Up” manages to convey, in an impressive two pages, the horror associated with the fallout of the Vietnam War and a sliver of dark humor as the characters discuss how they deal with bad memories and compartmentalizing. One character talks about keeping the boxes tightly closed on bad memories. The final lines from another character: “My mind is one big open box. The only thing I can’t remember is where I put the lid.”

Don’t miss Barry on Wednesday. Fortunately, Jackson is one of four cities on his book tour. Read on for a synopsis of my conversation with John.

*     *     *

One of the most unique aspects of an independent bookstore are the relationships built up over time with authors.

The year was 1990 and John’s pal Carl was throwing a party for the Vintage Contemporary series gang in Las Vegas. He placed Barry Gifford the writer and John Evans of Lemuria Books side by side at the lunch table. The good conversation the two enjoyed served as the basis for a long relationship between bookseller and author, a friendship made through reading and writing, and conversations about music and books and baseball–baseball, because John and Barry both had sons who played baseball.

Barry’s first visit to Lemuria was for the publication of Sailor’s Holiday (second in the Sailor and Lula series) in 1991. By the time Barry came back, his popularity had escalated with the production of the David Lynch movie, Wild at Heart, the first book in the Sailor and Lula series.

In 1995, the publication of Barry’s very strange Baby Cat-Face marked the first time we had the opportunity to select one of Barry’s books for the First Editions Club, and we welcomed him again to Lemuria. Baby Cat-Face was so wonderfully strange and cutting-edge that we used the cover to make t-shirts.

Barry kept coming back because he loved the bookstore and felt a part of it. He also spent evenings with Willie Morris talking sports. The Mayflower was a favorite as well, a place he remembered from his childhood while staying at the Heidelberg Hotel in Jackson. And many times he came to Lemuria with his own supporting cast: Vinnie the plumber and karate extraordinaire, Swindle the poet and veteran mullethead tosser, Grissom the Hemingway expert, and various ladies.

John’s final comments: Barry Gifford is a writer who makes the characters real despite extreme eccentricities. Barry’s books are hot, weird books filled with believable evil.

Photo Credit for Barry Gifford: William P. Davis

Official Website: http://www.barrygifford.com/home.html

yes, this is another book about school shootings but at least this time it’s fiction.  although i’m only about 100 pages into it so far i think i’m gonna love it.  it’s told in the perspective of several different people who were present at the shooting and the detective assigned to the case.  it’s told in the form of witnesses interviews and the view of the detective in the present as she tries to decide if the case is as open and shut as the public would like for it to be.  this is one of those books that i really don’t want to put down.

by Zita

Karl Marlantes talks about how reading helps us understand people different from ourselves and what reading Eudora Welty’s Delta Wedding meant to him. Comments on The Matterhorn are still coming in. Click here to see the latest and the comment from Karl himself!