“I once set fire to the woods . . .”

Ever since reading these words I cannot get them out of my mind. These are words of Henry David Thoreau, and author John Pipkin uses this1850 entry in Thoreau’s journal as inspiration for his debut novel Woodsburner.

Taking off from Thoreau’s explanation in his journal of how he accidentally set fire to the woods while trying to cook up some fish chowder, Pipkin imagines how this 300 acre fire affected the villagers in the surrounding area. The characters are unforgettable: the Norwegian farmhand named Oddmund who dearly longs for his employer’s wife but can only admire her undergarments on the clothesline; the bookstore owner and desperately aspiring playwright named Eliot who is constantly noting pithy statements at any point during the day; Caleb, the fire and brimstone preacher and opium addict.

There are other equally memorable characters in the novel, and all are affected greatly by the fire including Henry David Thoreau. Like many of us, you might have dozed a little while attempting to read Walden for your American Literature class in college. Although Pipkin’s novel revolves around an event in Thoreau’s life, trust me you will not be dozing. Miraculously, I immediately went to the bookshelf in Lemuria to search for Thoreau’s journal writing to find the actual full account of the fire, to look for maps that would show where Fair Haven Hill is located, to reconsider this odd man who, with his father, created some of the finest pencils in the United States at that time.

Pipkin skillfully develops the characters chapter by chapter with increasing complexity, employing all to illustrate the “Young America” of the 1850s while suddenly and refreshingly showing Thoreau to be a fascinating individual worthy of reconsideration.

Can you tell that I loved this book?

“I once set fire to the woods . . . It was a glorious spectacle, and I was the only one there to enjoy it.”
The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, June, 1850

Really? What kind of person would make such a statement?  Pick up your copy of Woodsburner April 28 at Lemuria.

We are honored to have John Pipkin for a signing and reading at Lemuria on Tuesday, May 12 at 5 p.m. We are also pleased to have Woodsburner as our First Editions Club pick for April.

Check out www.walden.org (The Thoreau Institute) for all of the works of Henry David Thoreau, beautiful photographs of Walden taken during Thoreau’s lifetime, information about conservation projects in Walden Woods, and curious photographs of the Thoreau pencil. (All photos included in this blog are from the archives at www.walden.org.)

Also, www.johnpipkin.com has an author bio and reviews of Woodsburner.

View from Fair Haven Hill: Thoreau witnessed the “glorious spectacle” from the top of Fair Haven Hill.

by Kelly Pickerill

John Updike, circa 1960

Here at Lemuria we’re all mourning the loss of literary giant John Updike, who passed away Tuesday (see the New York Times article).

We’ve been talking about him since he died, bouncing “have you read . . . ” questions around.  For such a prolific writer it’s not hard to find some way each of us has been affected by his words..

Caroline said that she will miss his literary criticism.  He wrote a fantastic introduction for the novel Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara, one of her favorite books.  Lisa has read Mr. Updike’s book of short stories, Licks of Love.  She said she enjoyed the stories so much she gave them a second reading a few years later.  Ellis is in awe of the man, and is looking forward to reading all of the “Rabbit” books.

I personally dug his short stories about the Maples, a husband and wife whom Updike carried through all the stages of their tumultuous relationship.  Emily and I were just talking about these stories Monday night; she’s presenting one of her own short stories, inspired by Updike’s substance and style, Saturday at the Mississippi Philological Association conference at Mississippi College.

The Maples are a typical American couple beset by typical relationship drama that results from infidelity, jealousy, recklessness, and insecurity, but Updike handles his middle-class protagonists with careful prose that imbues their seemingly artless lives with importance.  Updike has said of his proclivity for focusing on middle-class American lives, “I like middles.  It is in middles that extremes clash, where ambiguity restlessly rules.”  Well, there’s nothing ambiguous about what John Updike has meant to the literary world.  His loss is felt here at Lemuria.

For a list of Lemuria’s John Updike first editions click here.

Wednesday night around 9:30 pm the National Book Award winner will be announced in New York City. This years nominees are:

The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon (signed copies here)

Home by Marilyn Robinson

Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen (signed copy here)

Telex from Cuba by Rachel Kushner

The End by Salvatore Scibona

Five young writers have been recognized by former winners of the National Book Award at the “5 under 35” celebration this year:

One More Year: Stories by Sana Krasikov

The Boat by Nam Le

All the Sad Young Literary Men by Keith Gesson

The Farther Shore by Matthew Eck

Last Last Chance by Fiona Maazel

Have you read any of the nominated titles???

I had the pleasure of reading The Boat by Nam Le. As many other readers have noted, Le’s exploration of emotional and intellectual landscapes over an expansive geography is remarkable in this short story collection.

Luna Park Review asked Nam Le if he saw his own writing as somehow different from the majority of short stories being published today. He responded:

“Well, on balance, my stories are longer, I guess. But not so much as to be distinctive. I had to answer this question recently, of what it was I thought I was trying to do, and I came up with this formulation: that, for me, the project of fiction is to articulate consciousness with integrity. That’s what I try to do. What we talk about as ‘style’ is intrinsic to execution, of course, but should be, in my opinion, secondary in the reckoning of how ‘good’ something is. Barthelme and Bellow, Lydia Davis and Alice Munro, all different stylists, are all ‘good’; they just sit differently on each of the three branches (of ‘articulation,’ ‘consciousness’ and ‘integrity’). It’s a big tree. To mix metaphors, I think anyone who manages to pull off that trifecta is necessarily doing something new, something transformative. Maybe I’m old-school in that I still believe the finest thing a story can do is move its reader—to set off a little sob in the spine, as I think Nabokov called it. I don’t believe in technical self-limitation. I do believe 21st century consciousness is a complicated thing—and that its complications are without precedence. At bottom, I believe it’s a tough but good time to be writing.”

http://www.lunaparkreview.com/NamLeInterview.htm

Working at Lemuria, I have noticed that many readers shy away from the short story. Who could not love the short story? I rarely have the time to finish a novel at this point in my life. Though I have always loved reading and have degrees in English, I have many other passions. The short story allows me to experience another world, another view point in one sitting and there is never any guilt for having not finished. There is always the intellectual curiosity and wonder at how the writer is going to resolve the story, or perhaps not, in such a minimal number of pages.

Hey. My name is Emily Grossenbacher and I’m new here at Lemuria. I come to Lemuria from Yellow Dog Books, the now closed bookstore in Madison, MS. I’m a senior English major at Mississippi and working here is like being in a toy store.

Recently, I finished On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan. (click here for a first edition) Much like his other works, On Chesil Beach focuses on a couple and how minor infractions can forever change the dynamics of the relationship. McEwan almost preaches at his audience in this novel, writing about how patience, acceptance, and forgiveness are necessities in the beginning stages of a relationship.

McEwan knows how to pull at his audiences’ heartstrings, and he once again creates a novel full of regret and heartbreak that makes the audience want to rewrite the ending. At 200 pages its a good short read for anyone with a busy schedule.

Well, I’ll be back soon. Keep reading.

Emily

I had an unfortunate bout with a stomach bug this weekend which is rarely if ever a good thing unless you consider it the ultimate lazy persons diet. But, in this case, it turned out to be a good excuse to lay in bed and read the tragically beautiful novel Revolutionary Road.

I happened upon it in an attempt to move a giant stack of books from one remote corner of our house to an equally remote corner. My tendency in house keeping is to move things from place to place without truly sorting through them until I want to throw everything into the street. So, after wobbling off the top of the stack and nearly missing my toe, this novel presented itself to me and I was immediately drawn into it’s theme of “darkness lies behind the seemingly perfect facade of 1950’s suburbia.” This may seem like a common, if not completely overdone subject but many of the books and movies that draw on this idea are probably built on the ideas brought forth by this novel written in 1961. There is so much to love about this book.

Let me begin with the beautiful prose. Normally I have to read and re-read phrases or whole pages to feel like I am really gathering the full point a writer is trying to convey. But with Yates fluidity of words I found myself breezing from page to page while still gathering a true picture of the complex group of characters who are essentially neighbors in a Connecticut suburb off of the newly built Route 12. But, the realization occurs shortly after the first few chapters that their emotional, marital, and relational problems stem from much more than just the constraint of living in an artificial cheery world of pastel homes with perfect lawns.

This is really a universal, timeless story with the same issues that people have today. A young woman who is married with two children finds she lacks the ability to love due to the abandonment by her parents, A man feels trapped by his boring job, A middle-aged woman who spends most of her days staying busy so that she does not have to think too long about her institutionalized son or apathetic, retired husband. These and other people of the novel think their problems stem from their isolation in their “happy” community but really they are selling themselves short by playing into the very stereotypes they shun.

-Caroline

The narrator of this book is Enzo, an old lab mix (as in labrador retriever), who has a very fine tale to tell with a very wise, old soul-like point of view. Enzo lives with a young family whose pack leader is Denny, a race car driver, and his wife Eve and their daughter Zoe. At first glance, this is a perfect family if such an animal exists. All is not the American flag and apple pie, though. Into every life comes the inevitable–death, breach of trust, disease and ruthless in laws as well those things that see us through those tortuous times like wonder and passion and redemption. Enzo is happy being a dog and telling his tale but he’s learned a few tricks and a few truths for an old dog. For instance, Enzo fantasizes that one day he will be reborn with opposable thumbs, as a human being. Fear of death is not a phobia with him with such an afterlife or afterdog probability. In the meantime, Enzo enjoys the sitstay passenger seat in any racing car with his pal Denny. When Enzo gets left behind, he discovers the joys of the weather station on television and learns everything there is to know about the earth and its various moods. You might call this penchant a magnificient obsession. Then things really start to happen. People aren’t as happy and the American dream disintegrates. Enzo suffers as do all the other protagonists in the book when the best of times becomes the worst of times. But with suffering comes endurance and with endurance, hope, and so on. I don’t want to spoil this magical book for you by summarizing the plot. This is a big hearted book with a morality tale. It was chosen by the Independent Booksellers as the Number 1 read of the summer and beyond. I give it all my opposable thumbs up. -Pat

After reading and enjoying Steven Pressfield’s Gates of Fire on the recommendation of a friend, I was looking forward to the arrival of Pressfield’s latest novel. Killing Rommel follows the British Long Range Desert Group, which was tasked with tracking the German desert units and finding Rommel, the brilliant German tank commander. The British group had only limited support and had to act autonomously for hundreds of miles in the North African desert, trying to maintain contact with the Germans without being detected.

Pressfield tells the story of the British unit, focusing on the interaction of the men isolated in the desert, forced to rely entirely on each other for survival. The historical details of the group are impeccable, illustrating the perilous nature of operating a motor unit isolated for hundreds of miles in the desert. Less epic than some of his earlier novels, what Killing Rommel loses in grandeur it gains in immediacy. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys historical fiction or has an interest in WWII desert warfare.

These two books almost made me want to go back to school to finish my art degree (which is saying something). If you opt to take my recommendation, you must read them in order; The Cheese Monkeys followed closely by The Learners. Chip Kidd, the author, is a dust jacket designer turned author…thank heavens. Not only are they damn fine books, they are a couple of beauts.

I don’t know a single person from around my generation who did not read Roald Dahl as a child…or even as an adult. Because seriously, do you really ever grow out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or the BFG? Well Roald’s writing gene has thankfully passed through the generations to his very beautiful granddaughter named Sophie. Sophie Dahl is famous for many reasons, first being that she is the granddaughter of a great author, her own writing, and for being discovered as a model while walking down the side walk in London. Sophie has written a previous book called The Man with Dancing Eyes. Her new book is entitled Playing with the Grown-Ups. In interviews she has said that the book is semi-autobiographical. The book is the coming of age tale about a girl named Kitty. The beginning of the book opens at Kitty’s grandparent’s house in the country. Kitty and her mother live with the grandparent’s until Kitty’s mother has one of her spiritual episodes and she decides they must move to New York City. The mother in the story is extremely flighty and prone to migraines which put her in the bed for days. Kitty grows up with very little supervision and therefore tends to be quite wild at times. She dabbles in drug-use and getting involved with older men. Ms. Dahl writes in a way that is very easy to identify with. At times during the story I felt like I was reading about my own adolescence. I absolutely adored Kitty and I wanted to give her guidance through all of her trails as a young woman. Although the artist mother, Marina, is not a great parent or role-model I felt for her. Marina allowed herself to be manipulated by many men and she would fall into a deep bouts of depression every time she was cast to the side by them. I loved this book because it was an easy read but still very literary and interesting. I hope there are many more books in Sophie Dahl’s future because she has certainly made a fan out of me.

Janet Maslin wrote a glowing review for the New York Times regarding Stefan Merrill Block’s upcoming novel, The Story of Forgetting. I have also heard great things about The Story of Forgetting from booksellers who have raved after finishing advance copies of the book, so I am really looking forward to reading it.