Ramblegram From My Wardrobe: 30 July 2023

TW: Suicide, Child Abuse, Mental Illness

Makes perfect sense to my therapist that I find my closet a safe space in which to while away time writing. Complex trauma/PTSD is challenging to treat much less live with; anything non-destructive that improves my quality of life is physician-approved. What disappoints me is I’m not her only client who regularly seeks respite in the textile abyss. Disappointing. On the upside, I’m singular by virtue of the fact mine is the worst story of ongoing childhood abuse – in multiple ways and by multiple parties – she’s encountered in some 30 years’ in practice.

I suppose that’s a win.

The news this week of Sinéad O’Connor’s death, presumably by suicide, brought out lots of astonishing biographical information about the singer I’d never heard. She was my contemporary; her music was a part of the soundtrack of my post-college life. I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got was in my CD collection and though I was never a super fan, I appreciated her beautiful voice. I’m not sure you can call yourself appreciative of music and not acknowledge her talent, whatever you think of her politics. Hers was a life of acting out in response to pain, which in turn became the catalyst for her art. She ripped the lid off horrific abuse at the hands of the patriarchy and her bravery both ruined her career and ultimately ended her life.

I’m aware it’s a slippery slope, but I support the right of a person suffering long-term, unrelenting mental illness to end their own life. It’s a ballsy statement and I don’t frankly care if I’m agreed with, but there’s a point at which abysmal quality of life makes existence untenable. When society and medical science fail, when all avenues have been exhausted, what are you left with? The prospect of suffering excruciating pain every, single day. Not all depression responds to medication. Therapy without medication works for many but for those who cannot find relief, mental illness eats them alive from the inside out. It’s a terminal cancer.

I don’t know what she tried or didn’t, and I’m not in a position to make the judgment she was right or wrong in what she chose. I do know the outpouring of angst and post-mortem empathy she’s receiving now was denied her in life. Sinéad made several attempts on her life in the past decades; that suggests a life of living hell. That’s over now and what right have we to judge. It’s sad for the world but the world is irrelevant.

Where was the world when she needed help? Exactly. It didn’t care.

In Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These, a Booker-nominated novel I read and wrote a bit about here, she tells of the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland, workhouses for “problem children” and “fallen women” which existed for decades. Damaged by her early life subjected to horrific abuse by her mother, Sinéad was sent to live with her father. And her father, tired of dealing with her rebellious nature, in turn shipped her off to one of these hell holes.

She’d survived one nightmare only to be subjected to another, as described in this article:

O’Connor described how she was just 14 years old when she was sent to the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity laundry, in Dublin, after she was labeled a “problem child.” This particular Magdalene Laundry only shut its doors in 1996.

She said “We were girls in there, not women, just children really. And the girls in there cried every day.
“It was a prison. We didn’t see our families, we were locked in, cut off from life, deprived of a normal childhood.
“We were told we were there because we were bad people. Some of the girls had been raped at home and not believed.
– Irish Central

Similar institutions exist in the U.S. and have for decades. Centuries, actually. In the 19th Century, in the U.S. and abroad, a woman could be locked away in an institution at the whim of her husband, no evidence required. This article in Time magazine describes the sort of male fear and hatred of women leading to commitment:

Women who studied or read—or who simply had minds of their own and a determination to use them—were demonstrating “eccentricity of conduct,” An meant they were “morally insane,” a diagnosis invented by James Cowles Prichard in 1835. They were to be locked away until they conformed to more natural, feminine behavior.

And:

Many of her fellow patients were also sane, but had been at the asylum for years; one, guilty of “extreme jealousy,” was midway through a 16-year incarceration. Elizabeth’s compatriots had been committed for reading novels, for “hard study” and for “insane” behavior during the “change of life.” (A woman’s menstrual cycle alone could see her committed, suffering from “uterine derangement.” Period-related madness was so commonplace that doctors encouraged mothers to delay the onset of their daughters’ menses by making them take cold baths and abstain from meat and novels.)
– Declared Insane for Speaking Up: The Dark American History of Silencing Women Through Psychiatry, Kate Moore

As a child constantly in trouble for acting out, she was one of the “morally insane.” Sinéad’s story infuriates me. Historical acts of misogyny against women infuriates me.

My own story has reached a boiling point, as well. I don’t intend to go further telling it on Bluestalking -at least not deep dives. Should I carry it through, should I bring it to light, I know I’ve made heavy references to it but the major work is happening elsewhere. The stories of women like Sinéad O’Connor only add more fuel to the fire.

This is a book blog. My intent is to revert to that format, not without digressions into my own personal life, because there’s a lot about me that’s worth sharing. It’s important for me to write true and it means so much to me people are reading it. These two things – books and life – are inextricably linked for me. If not for the love of books, I’m not sure I’d be here.

Suicidal ideation may nip at my heels but I’ve adopted it as part of myself. I know how it sounds but, as they say, if you know you know. We’re all made up of the sum of our parts; we do not have to give into any of them. I have no intention of succumbing.

After a couple years away, I’m leaning into reviewing – and other writing – like I haven’t in a while. Perhaps I never have. Publishers are contacting me again, offering me choice books for review, and, in turn, I’m reaching out to editors. I may not have the luxury of full-time writing but neither have I pushed to the full extend of my potential.

I enjoy what I do; I want to see where it can go. I plan to be here. I plan to stay.

Ramblegram From My Wardrobe: 23 July 2023

23-07-23 / Lisa Guidarini

Depending what day you ask, according to ChatGPT I am either a well-respected book reviewer/author interviewer who has published widely and participated heavily in literary events and publishing-industry panels, a book blogger whose name is actually “Lory” or “Loryn” (?), or a completely unknown quantity, “so do your own damn research, Susan!” Were I a less assured person whose sense of self-worth is defined by nonsense regurgitated by bots, this discrepancy may bother rather than amuse me – though I admit I did Google “Lory/Loryn” with no success.

AI is a blessing/curse. It’s only as good as the information it’s fed and the more it’s fed the more stupid it’s getting. The reason is it can’t discriminate between reliable data and junk. All its wee minions are out there data scraping willy-nilly and there aren’t any safeguards in place. It’s fun to play with but it presents very real dangers in the wrong hands, not to mention more of the same misinformation we’ve been dealing with for years. It’s a headache.

While I’ve had a lot of fun playing around with it, when I see a literary powerhouse like The Paris Review taking the topic of AI-generated works seriously, I’d pretty much like to just go ahead and burn it all down now from an abundance of caution.

This article was a wake-up call. I need to do more research, in all the free time I don’t have. I’m not a hundred percent sure what it all means and I’m not sure I like it.

Read last week: The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt

Patrick deWitt’s 2011 The Sisters Brothers was a hilarious romp of a novel, written in biting, sardonic humor with occasional passages of brilliant, soaring prose. Not a lot of fiction writers make me laugh; it’s a tough genre to nail. Everything about that novel was perfect, which is why I didn’t hesitate splashing out for the full-price hardcover of his latest, The Librarianist.

Everything about it screamed out my kind of book, from the cover art to the description. Can you guess where this is going?

Bob Comet is a 71-year old retired librarian with no direction. Divorced many years and without a support system, he spends his now-limitless free time in a mint-colored house inherited from this mother, amongst a personal library of hundreds of books. Life is neat and orderly, routine and predictable. He’s not unhappy, just not completely content to fade away into his lair, lacking all human interaction.

Everything turns around for him when, out on his daily walk, he finds a confused elderly woman wandering around. Upon returning her to the senior center she’s in the habit of wandering away from, the promo verbiage claims, from here it’s all about the wonderfully quirky characters and trademark Patrick deWitt wit. Only, not so much.

This isn’t the Patrick deWitt of The Sisters Brothers, at least not the first 2/3 of the story. After willing myself through the serviceable, if a bit bland majority of the novel, I witnessed the author rousing himself in the section flashing back to Bob’s childhood. Here, finally, was something resembling the caliber of writing that earned his 2011 novel multiple award nominations and a film adaptation. The Librarianists never quite rose to that level.

My biggest disappointment is the missed opportunity and squandered talent. DeWitt gave Bob Comet an evocative name that promised all sorts of twisty subversion but left him in a stereotypical librarian role. Why? The writing is largely lackluster and even, at times, dull. Missing is the tight writing of his earlier work, the whip-smart, sparkly-eyed mischief. There are glimmers in the flashback portion, when young Bob runs away from home and joins up with two genuinely interesting, half-crazy older women who are traveling performers. As in The Sisters Brothers, deWitt knows how to write some crazy, madcap roadtrip comedy. Presented with an entire senior center-full of comedic potential, it goes flat.

I recommend you read The Sisters Brothers, instead. It’s very much in the True Grit vein, genuinely funny in an absurd, Mark Twain sort of way. Meanwhile, here’s hoping the author finds his way back to his true calling the next time around.

Ramblegram from My Wardrobe: 16 July 2023

19-07-23 / Lisa Guidarini

I’m a liar! A fake! A fraud! I am hideous; do not even look at me.

This week I am NOT composing from the corner of my closet, as I made the mistake yesterday of existing on my loveseat and now my back’s tweaky. I could absolutely drop to the floor, of this I have no doubt. It’s the getting back up again I’m not so sure about.

Fuckity.

Adjustment to the reduced medication continues apace and my consultation with Dr. ChatGPT confirms my brain’s chugging along in accordance with all expectations, as reported by random sources. Interest in things I love is rebounding, executive function allows for more efficient future planning, and the other day I may have felt an emotion. Crippling anxiety’s been largely held at bay, though one of those nasty emotions manifested as white-hot fury at a coworker whose sheer obliviousness continues to bring me misery. I’m not a person much prone to anger, save in extremis, but my filter’s been known to slip on occasion. I can’t control the actions of others, but how I deal with it’s up to me. Overall, the adjustment has been worth the struggle.

Again, please don’t take this as encouragement to ignore medical advice. Each situation is unique, and just because mine allows a certain autonomy that’s not a universal truth.

My first review for Washington Independent Review of Books published this past Monday and I’ve already requested my next book: one of the big novels of autumn 2023. There will be loads of reviewers vying for it and I’d have debased myself begging for it, only I didn’t need to because my editor is the absolute best. Past experience with a multitude of editors has not always been this smooth. Altercations are a thing – and so is ego. My burned bridges occasionally haunt me. The publishing world may seem big but editors move from publication to publication. This past week I pulled up the masthead of a publication I’d intended to query and, staring me in the face, was the name of an editor I had the misfortune to work with previously, writing for a different publication.

It’s a tangled web, friends.

My fling with nonfiction was satisfying but my real passion lies in literary fiction. Looking forward to digging into that.

Also in the queue is an author interview for a gorgeous book that’s pure poetry, a memoir of life on Skellig Michael, off the coast of Ireland. I’ll hopefully have that ready to publish here in the next couple of weeks.

All the writing I do amounts to the equivalent of a second job, only one that pays for shite. As AI takes over, things will only get tighter. I won’t just have other writers to elbow aside but robots who’ll work for even less pay. Glad the bots are awful at reproducing a writer’s voice. So far. Let’s hope it stays that way.

Ramblegram from My Wardrobe: 9 July 2023

09-07-23 / Lisa Guidarini

Calloo, callay, my first professional review in over a year will be published by Washington Independent Review of Books tomorrow! In contrast to my previous venues, they do not mass-upload reviews daily. The spotlight will be on me, which is at the same time thrilling and nervous-making. The editor-in-chief gave it the green light; it’s not like the unsupervised shite I spout off-the-cuff here, but a legit feature.

Spoiler: I enjoyed the book. I’ve read nothing like it and wouldn’t have picked it up on my own, but I okayed it when it was offered. If the review sparks your interest, it wouldn’t look bad for me at all if you purchased it through the WIRB link. Just sayin’.

I just checked and The Sullivanians is sitting at number one in its Amazon category – wow. Congrats to author Alexander Stille all round.

Subsequent to getting that review off my plate, anxiety this week has subsided from last week’s roiling pit of despair, gnashing of teeth, and rending of clothing. My writing is more impressively volcanic the higher my stress level but spewing the stress hormone cortisol is not optimal for my health. In place of dunking on my family this week, I’m working on two longer pieces I’ll start pitching to specific editors once I’ve gotten further than bullet points in a Moleskine.

Just as you don’t so much as whisper Macbeth in a theatre lest you tank a dramatic performance, without an agreed-upon commission you don’t see writers disclosing targeted editors. Having tussled with my share, I prefer sneaking up on them to full-frontal assault.

FINE, I’ll reveal vague preliminary information which says precious little of substance: one piece links to my ancestry in a peripheral way and the other aims across the pond. For the ancestral piece, I’ve established a necessary connection for obtaining source material of both archival and anecdotal types. For the other, I have source material ordered and a shit ton of YouTube videos bookmarked.

Photographic proof I left the house this weekend: Farmers Market Haul

I haven’t done this sort of heavily-researched writing in ages but I feel strangely calm about it. On the one hand, that’s stunning – and possibly suspect – coming from a woman sitting in a closet wearing clothing on her head. But let me remind you: I’m a degreed librarian with a Masters in finding reliable information. If that part bothered me, my alma mater would shrink in disgrace. Actually, they wouldn’t give a shite. But I would.

Much reading to be done, and I feel creeping Sunday evening end-of-weekend dread setting in. I bid you adieu.

Ramblegram from My Wardrobe: 4 July 2023

04-07-23 / Lisa Guidarini

My lineage consists of a long line of mostly-redneck ancestors who somehow managed to both be barking mad and entirely tedious, at the same time. You’d think barking mad would at least be interesting, and perhaps if you haven’t heard the stories a million times they would be. I’m just grateful to have completely detached myself from the lot of them. The Trump era made quick and convenient work of that, as did the fact most of the previous generation is dead.

One of my great-grandfathers (maternal) reportedly died in an asylum. The particulars I do not know, though the where part was the Mississippi State Insane Hospital (Whitfield) in Jackson. He’s not the only member of the family to pass through there; it’s only surprising to me the count wasn’t higher. The rest of the crew escaped and ran yelping through the cotton fields, after having seeded the next generation.

However fucked up you think the South is, multiply it by a factor of a thousand.

I’ll be the first to admit there’s some entertainment value. My paternal great-grandmother swore she watched the Civil War from the roof of her family’s Tennessee cabin, before their eventual migration by covered wagon down into Mississippi, which sounds like a fascinating story until you do the math and realize she was born a generation or two too late. I have cousins who ate that one up with a spoon and repeated it so, by the time it got to me, I believed it and repeated it to impressed Yankee friends – until I learned how numbers work.

This same great-grandmother – Nellie Martha Jane Sanders Waldo Jaco, to you – sat down with my late uncle, the felon (convicted for raping a distant cousin and incarcerated, two of his three daughters wailing it was a wrongful conviction), and spun tales of wall-climbing demons who perched along her ceiling, glaring down at her. If you’ve seen these Mississippi cracker, dilapidated wood cabins with rusted metal roofs, it’s not far-fetched imagining them crawling with evil, just saying. Pre-prison, he recorded all her nonsense on cassette tapes, which unfortunately would later perish in a fire at his house, likely set on purpose for the insurance money.

I’m genuinely sorry those didn’t survive. The loss has robbed me of so much ridiculousness. To get any of that history back, I’d have to mend fences and I’m too stubborn for that.

An Evangelical Christian, I expect she fancied her pure and godly soul the reason Satan went after her ass employing such unsubtle messages, and I don’t know how that particular story played out. But then, I’ve also heard whispered rumors of her connection to grain alcohol stills up in the Mississippi piney woods, which gives me pause.

Like you, I am mystified by the suggestion of contradictory messages.

I remember her mostly for her miniscule stature, as well as thinning hair scraped back into a bun so tight it’s lucky no one was around in case a rubber band should break and shoot out like a missile, and her rants to my brother that his long hair was a shame unto God, to which charge my brother responded by laughing, then jumping the pig pen on his mini-bike. To me, the fact he didn’t die proved his righteousness.

A few years later, the bony little matriarch would mortify us all by making a huge scene at my grandmother’s funeral, heaving herself up onto the body and wailing. Never mind during my grandmother’s life and slow, agonizing death from cancer her mother saw no value in her – a thing she expressed both loudly and often. In death, either her mother developed a conscience or one of her hairpins finally worked its way out of her bun and into her brain. I have my pet theories. We are all mad here.

I only mention the above glimpses into my legacy because I’m currently typing this from the interior of my bedroom wardrobe. To me the fact isn’t unusual but I try to see things from the perspective of others, who may not have damaged genes. I consider all my off-kilter behaviors inherited, including periodically hanging out in my closet in times of great stress.

I did most of my growing up in a Victorian-era home in Illinois, where we moved after my father’s second affair caused my mother to influence him to take a promotion up north right quick. Four-year old me got caught in the middle when I picked up the phone to a strange, sobbing woman asking for my father. When I translated that to him in my admittedly confused state and handed him the phone, my mother sitting right there, I got a smack upside the head for what seemed to me impressive personal assistant efforts on behalf of a preschooler. She might as well have been the moving company calling to set up a date, because that’s what she set in motion, between that call and a few stray florist shop receipts.

The Victorian was a vast upgrade over the house in Mississippi, though unfortunately my father moved with us along with all our furniture. My bedroom closet was large and used as storage for trunks of clothing, which made for a perfect place to hide – for both reasons of general principle and legitimate danger no child should know. Men and their appetites, I tell you. In the back of my closet was an attic room I was warned not to access, as the flooring was over 100 years old and I’d likely fall through. A careful person could scoot sideways along the floor joists, but I was a gallumphing cow. The attic room was also spooky as hell, and I was terrified of it. The door would occasionally just pop open without apparent cause, sending me flying out of the clothes and screaming down the stairs. It was dusty and filled with cobwebs, surely a demon portal my great-grandmother could have woven a tale about. Still preferable to being around my family and a much more benign threat than the other reasons I learned to curl up tight and hold my breath.

Freud would say it’s a return to the mother’s womb, a regressive behavior. Despite how much I disagree with many of his ideas, this one tracks. Survival skills learned in childhood came into being for a reason. And if you’re still utilizing them as an adult, it means they worked. Doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t fire for random reasons, though, once they no longer serve an immediate purpose. But there’s certainly no harm in building yourself a little fort in a closet. I’m not feeling endangered at the moment, just overwhelmed by an ADD and trauma-addled brain that’s a bit fractured, aggravated by a connection it doesn’t always quite hit and thanks largely to inherited factors aided by childrearing nurturing that is anything but safe.

As with epileptics, the missing neuron connection is achieved medically. I decided not long ago I wanted to take over the responsibility of monitoring my own neurons, thanks very much, to a medically-supervised extent. I do not advocate going this route alone; I have the full blessing of medical professionals. It is very important to add this!

A little regression’s to be expected, in medication weaning, a return to the need for the comfortable and familiar. This small space muffled by fabric enables me to focus, no outside stimuli intruding, combined with the knowledge there is no other human here. No one can walk into my space. Having a wall against my back is reassuring, nothing but softness (and a suitcase that doubles as a desk) around me. I sometimes bring the newspaper in here, books, and my journal. This is the first time I’ve dragged in my laptop and it’s interesting to me that by letting my brain choose where to start, it chose to go the backstory route.

It’s Plato’s myth of the cave, only the shadows on the wall have more a Proustian flavor – just not quite so sweet.

As therapy sessions go, this has been a cheap one. The dive only skimmed the surface but I believe I got my money’s worth.

Until next time, from my wardrobe.

Mid-year check in from the book-mad, coddiwompling rambler

04-06-23 / Lisa Guidarini

Enviable is the word that struck me this morning, whilst drinking my coffee and berry-banana

smoothie amongst the riot of flowers on my apartment balcony. For all twenty-six years of my mostly-unhappy former marriage, I longed for just such days – unstructured, solitary weekends free of demands I do anything aside from following my fancies and whims.

Spoiler: Some of the best lives consist mainly of fancies and whims.

My definition of perfect weather occurs in the Chicago metro area once or twice a year like clockwork, to my reckoning. The upper-Midwest of the United States vacillates between cold and depressingly wretched to breathtakingly hot and humid, occasional tornados tossed in for variety. I, an unapologetic curmudgeon and reviler of weather extremes, have been gifted with a rare high 70s-low 80s F breezy day. For the moment, all’s right with the world.

Sundays mean luxurious mornings spent with The New York Times, and this week’s one of the more delicious. The Books Section today features the summer reading crop, an extra-large collection of reviews. I covet this edition, even if I don’t wind up reading any of the books. It’s as much about absorbing the best writing of some of the best reviewers, a lovefest of the upper tier in my own specialty, as the books themselves.

Speaking of books and reviewing, I’ve joined the staff of Washington Independent Review of Books, so that’s new. On Friday I received the first title I’ll be writing about, due a month-ish from now. Stay tuned for that, will post once it’s published on their site.

In contrast to today, the first half of 2023 wasn’t kind to me, mental health-wise. That’s one thing keeping me from blogging, aside from general lethargy not helped by a stressful day job. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been through far worse. This year’s iteration was an unrelenting fugue state, allowing me to care about little outside the constant streaming of Gilmore Girls on Netflix. I watched all seven seasons twice through, beginning a third round before I managed to claw myself away from the idyllic world of Stars Hollow.

I know what precipitated this, and that fact’s not going away. Not a damn thing to be done about it. I did talk to a therapist and did titrate meds but, without intending to sound dismissive of the professionals, I bloody well pulled myself out of this one. Wrestling with demons teaches you to wrestle with demons: I see through depression’s tricks and, most importantly, I know myself.

Controlled wallowing is fine, so long as it’s time-limited. The growth part happens once you’ve managed to tear yourself away from the catatonic consolation that is internet streaming and facing what’s pulling you down. I self-medicated the same way during lockdown and, believe me, what I watched was far more embarrassingly low-brow than Gilmore Girls. Like all coping mechanisms, though, it served a purpose. In retrospect, while I realize a shorter duration would have been ideal, I’m not beating myself up about it.

That would be the “growth” part.

One very therapeutic, non-medical “rest cure” that further helped dig me out was taking time off

work to spend a long weekend in Mark Twain country – Hannibal and Florida, MO. I am not a Twain super fan but recognize his place in the American literary canon, putting forth Huckleberry Finn as one of the most important and culturally iconic American novels of all time. Considered in company with his contemporary (and CT neighbor) Harriet Beecher Stowe’s astonishing Uncle Tom’s Cabin, as well as Faulkner’s Light in August, Twain’s novel remains the boldest, most daring early novel written by any white author, calling out the historically vile treatment of Black Americans – one reason it was widely banned on publication and continues to be.

Notice I omit To Kill a Mockingbird from this list (GASP, I know), a novel literally re-written in order to assuage white guilt, when publishers found Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman – a vastly superior novel – potentially offensive to the sensibilities of white readers. Huckleberry Finn was written at a time publishers had bigger balls, to be honest; Twain got away with it because of his massive celebrity status – not that he avoided backlash. The key scene – in which Tom Sawyer’s conscience wouldn’t let him turn in Jim as a runaway slave, realizing “slavery is a God-given right” was bullshit and acknowledging Jim as both human being and equal – was explosive in a way we cannot appreciate in this de-sensitized age. It was a pivotal moment in American literature, the loudest outcry condemning the enslavement of Black people in American letters. It was risky on Twain’s part and he knew it. His conscience wouldn’t allow him not to say it anyway.

It was proximity that tipping the balance toward Hannibal; the places he was born and grew up are literary-related destinations I can reach in just over five hours. Years ago I’d visited his stunning Victorian-era home in Hartford, CT, and I have been to Hannibal before, eons ago. Re-visiting on my own did not disappoint.

While I could carry through and talk more about Hannibal, I requested and received a review copy of a non-fiction title inspired by Twain’s experiences as a riverboat pilot, intending to write about it here, so I’ll hold that for another time. It’s a good a carrot to get me back for another post. The trip’s duration may only have been four days but the advance research I did was fairly expansive. It would be a shame to waste all that.

Meanwhile, this perfect-weather day is escaping while I sit here, typing away. I had to come back inside to connect to the internet with my laptop, for whatever reason. See how much I wanted to talk to you? I gave up an hour or two of one of the two days I can’t bitch about weather in 2023 – and apparently I don’t mind virtue signaling about it.

Here’s to turning the corner on 2023, better late than never.

O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker

04-01-23 / Lisa Guidarini

Maybe some people are just born with the deck stacked against them, and no matter the good intent of their efforts, nothing can change anyone’s bad opinion of them. Take poor Janet, from the late Elspeth Barker’s only novel O Caledonia. A clumsy, bumbling child with frizzy hair and no social skills, even her own family found her unpleasant company. When the poor girl was murdered at age 16 in the family’s highland home, despatching her body and being shed of her was their one concern.

Only her pet jackdaw was left to mourn, dashing himself against the castle walls.

” She recognized in herself a distaste for people, which was both physical and intellectual; and yet she nurtured a shameful, secret desire for popularity, or at least for acceptance, neither of which came her way.”
– O Caledonia

O Caledonia is an absolute joy of a novel, smoothly flowing, at times poetic, with a nasty satirical bite. Like Austen’s Northanger Abbey, Barker makes merry with gothic conventions, while taking the opportunity to wax lyrical about silly young girls whose heads have been turned by books.

Though the story begins with a murder, this is neither mystery nor thriller. Strange as it sounds, the poor girl’s death isn’t the point but, rather, the culmination of a series of events starting from her birth and ending in her premature demise. The young misanthrope was never long for this world, a point the novel drives home very effectively through scene after dire scene featuring a not always well-intentioned Janet. In one particularly hilarious scene, while her mother drives them to the dentist her younger sister – the literal golden child of the family – inexplicably falls out of the car. Grabbing the door and pulling it closed, Janet’s only thought was, essentially, oh god, I hope I don’t get blamed for this. Then, when instead of going out for tea and cakes they turn around and take her bruised sister home, Janet is frustrated and resentful.

Not a pleasant girl, granted, but still not sure she deserved a stabbing. Call me irrational.

As the oldest, Janet’s robbed of any hope of parental love as a series of increasingly adorable, perfect children are born. Fed up with being occasionally expected to help out, when charged with bringing her baby sister in from the rain Janet grabs the infant by the head, dragging her out of her pram then through the mud by whatever limb she managed to get hold of. Inevitably, she was punished, and rightly so, but no effort she made ever paid off, so why even bother?

I could see her point.

Barker does show some sympathy, allowing her one consoling friendship with cousin Lila, a fascinatingly eccentric, witch-like character whose continued residence at their inherited home, Auchnasaugh, comes as a requirement stipulated in the will of the uncle who granted her family the property. A hermit who may despise people even more than Janet, Lila nevertheless welcomes the girl into her dark and strange little cottage on the grounds of the castle – at least for a while, but nothing good ever can last for the poor thing.

“Vera (Janet’s mother) had hoped, when they first came to Auchnasaugh, that Lila might wish to help with the children; she visualised her as a cross between a doting and quaintly dotty aunt and an eccentric family retainer, who would know her place but find fulfillment in a modest share of their family life … Lila had countered by dropping cigarette ash in the baby’s cot and providing a steaming bowl of daffodil bulbs cooked in parsley sauce for the children’s lunch, claiming that they were onions.”
– O Caledonia

Elspeth Barker was a journalist and book reviewer whose life bore a striking similarity to her main character’s. Raised in Drumtochy Castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, like Janet’s father, Barker’s also used their home to house a preparatory school for boys. It’s not a stretch to imagine young Elspeth whiling away her time in books, though I certainly hope her family didn’t despise her and the boys weren’t as nasty.

Drumtochty Castle, Elspeth Barker’s childhood home

O Caledonia set the bar high for my reading year and I hope it’s a sign of good things to come. It’s earned itself a perfect 5/5 and I’ve already shifted it to the re-read list.

Fans of Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle would probably love this book. Speaking of, I should re-visit that one, too.

The Scottish Highlands setting really sealed the deal for me, as if I wouldn’t have loved the wretched, book-obsessed anti-heroine in any environment. I just wish Elspeth Barker had had time to write more novels, and I’m keen to track down her book of essays and reviews, Dog Days, which doesn’t seem to be available anywhere – believe me, I’ve been checking.

Like Janet, I’ll keep soldiering on, despite being an incredibly irritating human being.

Bluestalking’s Best Reads of 2022

23-12-22 / Lisa Guidarini

When did I last make a Best Reads of list? I honestly can’t remember. Apparently I’m making one this year, which feels somewhat like a victory against my indolence. Nah, that’s too harsh. I’ve simply gotten out of the habit and I’m struggling to get back to regular blogging. I could make any number of excuses but you’ve heard them before, so let’s skip it.

It was a decent reading year, overall. I used Goodreads to record most of my reads, which worked out to be around 35 I’m able to name. Of those, three fell into the Did Not Finish pile I chucked aside as useless. Two of those three were book group reads, or books recommended by a group I didn’t wind up joining. I followed along from home, telling myself I’d go to the meetings if I liked the books. Well, funny story, in addition to those DNF titles there were three others I finished but very reluctantly. That’s a whopping five, which makes them a bit shit when it comes to picking books. Call me silly, but seems to me the books are an integral part of a book group – hence the name.

Another four were online book group read-alongs – via Facebook and the now-defunct online Literati site, which sent me an email a week ago abruptly announcing that’s it, they’ve packed up shop. My guess is other members like myself got fed up their celebrity book group “leaders” never posted a damn thing during the discussions, which left us all paying money for books we read on our own. That’s fine, I like books. What I don’t like is the promise name-brand authors are going to share their personal favorites then chat with you about them, only to find out they’re basically just hand-selling.

Ah well. That’s more books I’ll choose for myself in 2023.

This year’s Booker Prize list engaged me and I read five of the longlisted novels, then became angry my top two favorites (The Colony and Case Study) didn’t win. Adding insult to injury, two books I was very meh about (Oh! William and The Trees) advanced to the shortlist. They always manage to piss me off somehow, yet still I return. To be fair, they’ve introduced me to loads of great reads.

I bought the book that did win the prize, which wasn’t published in the States until after the prize had been awarded so I couldn’t have read it before, anyway. It has potential. The premise is great and the first few pages are promising. I’ll talk about it once I’ve gotten to it, update to come.

Non-fiction reads in the biography category were both about male writers and written by females: Myself and the Other Fellow: A Life of Robert Louis Stevenson by Claire Harman and Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit, both stellar. The RLS was inspired by a planned return trip to Scotland, though that odyssey was shifted to Ireland, but at least now I’m better-equipped for next time I go – tentatively planned for late 2023. I do highly recommend the Solnit title, too, if you have even the slightest interest in George Orwell. Fascinating how she structured that book, telling some of her own story then thoroughly examining Orwell the man, rather than Orwell the author.

My one completed book about books (most of these I don’t read straight through but I took this one on a retreat), Classics for Pleasure by Michael Dirda, is also a recommend. Many of the books he writes about I’ve already read but that makes his essays no less enjoyable.

Enough preamble. Let’s get to my list – in no particular order:

” Always when I play back my father’s voice,” Maria says, “it is with a professional rasp, it goes as it lays, don’t do it the hard way. My father advised me that life itself was a crap game: it was one of two lessons I learned as a child. The other was that overturning a rock was apt to reveal a rattlesnake. As lessons go those two seem to hold up, but not to apply. “
– Play It As It Lays

Joan Didion died in 2021, arguably the finest American essayist ever. Her writing was often politically and socially charged, classified as “new journalism” along with writers like Tom Wolfe, whose Bonfire of the Vanities I read and enjoyed decades ago. Her minimalist prose was a sort of homage to Hemingway, whose essays she hand copied to study his style. Because her writing was so journalistic, she’s a writer who seems to polarize readers. I adore her.

Play It As It Lays was one of the first books I read in 2022. It’s gritty and realistic, grim but not without purpose. It reflects the time and place in which it was written and set: 1970s Hollywood. I shouldn’t have liked it, much less been blown away. I have little interest in either the 70s or Hollywood but it transcends its subjects.

It was all about the writing; it cuts like glass.

“What happens in a room lingers there invisibly, all deeds, all words, always. Not seen, not heard, except by some, and even then imperfectly. In this very room both birth and death have taken place. Long ago, maybe, but the blood is still visible on certain days, when time wears thin.”
– The Promise

Speaking of the Bookers, The Promise was the 2021 winner. It is spectacular.

The story of a family falling apart in South Africa of the apartheid years, it revolves around the youngest member of the family, Amor, who’s almost a mystic or sage. Even though she moves away from them and distances herself, she’s always a presence. The book is tragic and beautiful. I loved it and vowed to read more by Galgut.

1987, Hungary (Translated into English 1995, 2005

“She was lonely. Who isn’t lonely, I’d like to know? And that includes people who do have someone but just haven’t noticed.”
– The Door

Such an odd book! And that’s exactly why I loved it. With elements of magical realism and a distinctly dark tone, the story is about an older woman who basically takes ownership of a couple and asserts herself into their lives until she becomes essential. She gains power over them, but not in a truly sinister way. Yes, she controls them but without malice.

I love darkly psychological books. I say that all the time, and The Door is a prime example.

“Bless me, Father, said Francis, for I pushed the Englishman off the cliff. One Hail Mary, said Micheál. Bless me, Father, for I have pushed the Frenchman off the cliff. One Our Father. Two Hail Marys.”
– The Colony

I said my best reads are in no particular order, but that’s not entirely true. I’m realizing now The Colony is my absolute favorite read this year. My impulse is just to yell it’s fucking brilliant, pick it up. Because it is fucking brilliant. Pick it up.

It’s about a tiny, insular island that’s home to the last pure Irish speakers living in the traditional way – that is, trying very hard to survive by fishing and trading skilled labor for food and other essentials from mainland Ireland. Because they need the money, they allow a couple visitors at a time to stay in their ruggedly beautiful community. In the story, both summer visitors are men: one a linguist who’s a perennial visitor, on the island to study and write about them, the other an artist, an older man who believes himself a more brilliant painter than he is, and whose motives are ultimately devastatingly selfish.

Magee alternates the story of the island with chapters about the brutality of The Troubles, relating bloody attacks between the unionists and the nationalists in Northern Ireland going on at the same time the islanders are realizing the inevitability their lifestyle is no longer sustainable. The effect is breathtaking. This book hasn’t left my head.

“Karen, her elbows folded on the deck-rail, wanted to share with someone her pleasure in being alone: this is the paradox of any happy solitude.”
– The House in Paris

Finally, I made time for Elizabeth Bowen and she smashed all expectations. I’m not sure she’s like Virginia Woolf but I love her writing for similar reasons. Her prose style is very modern, her themes including breaking away from Victorian values and running madly into the 20th century. As an Anglo-Irish writer, much of this book examines a tug of war between her homeland of Ireland – seen as somewhat provinicial – and a more modern life outside its borders.

Because Bowen doesn’t feel completely comfortable in either world, the theme of house and home is very prominent. It’s almost gothic the way she writes about houses, as if they are sentient. Actually, it is gothic how she describes the moods of houses and their ability to warp life within them.

In addition to her novels, she’s known for accomplished ghost stories. I haven’t read hese yet. I hope to in 2023.

_____________________________________

If there’s a common thread in these five books, it’s atmospheric quality. I like a good plot – which all these have – but I’m more impressed by authors able to flex their skills manipulating the reader to feel, to really resonate with the prose. I don’t need to like characters. In fact, brilliant writers are capable of making the reader viscerally revile the characters while riveting with a plot that drags them through the muck.

Now that is my kind of book.

All these works could be called brooding and dark; there’s nothing sunny and happy here. I’m not a depressed person anymore but I maintain an interest in realism over relentlessly cheerful writing. There are exceptions, when I’m in the mood for it, but truly good comic writing demands the same mastery as the darker stuff. Books that don’t challenge my mind are incredibly dull and I don’t have time to waste on dull things.

I may finish another book or two in 2022 but I’m confident nothing can dislodge these five. Here’s to more stellar reading in 2023 that pushes my boundaries and shoves me out of my comfort zone.

I hope the same for you, too. Cheers.

Holidays in full swing

19-12-2219-12-22 / Lisa Guidarini

Looks as if a crafty Christmas extravaganza blew up Chez Bluestalking, as I prepare to greet the holidays with a gusto that frankly surprises me. I’d given myself permission to skip it this year, in favor of pared-down, basic decor. Maybe a wreath on the door, I said. A poinsettia plant if I’m feeling fancy. I’ve been working loads of hours and I honestly wasn’t feeling it.

Once I decided to buy the tree, things just snowballed of their own accord.

Home Depot will deliver live trees at no additional charge! This is a Fraser fir.

There’s something about a Christmas tree that commands drama. You can’t leave it standing naked, and since I gave most of my holiday decorations to my daughter last year I was basically starting from scratch. A lot of stuff came from resale shops; I extended a couple of work lunches and ran out in the evenings. Before I knew it the place was filled and festive. It wound up a whole lot more expensive than a wreath on the door – which I already owned, by the way. That, and a tall, skinny fake tree I wound up sticking my office.

I blame Pinterest for what came next, the obsession with dehydrating fruit and hanging it in garlands around my apartment. It’s pretty and feels like an accomplishment. My evenings were a lot more varied working on that. It’s nothing I’ve done before and I’m happy with how it looks. If it lasts more than one season I’ll be doubly pleased.

In addition to gluing it to candles, I made ornaments and the aforementioned garland:

Dried pears, oranges, and limes strung with cranberries make lovely rustic ornaments.

Every year it’s been getting harder and harder coordinating with my kids for our traditional meal. They all have partners now, plus my divorced status forces them to make time for each parent, as well. Last year I did appetizers and desserts instead of a proper meal. When I mentioned making lasagna from scratch this year my two sons were pretty enthusiastic.

When I make lasagna, I make my own red sauce. And when I make red sauce, I put in a crazy amount of garlic and wine and simmer it all day. I haven’t made it since I’ve been divorced, which is seven years now – wow, time’s been flying. I have the basic recipe memorized but I never make it the same way twice. It’s not an exact science, it’s a matter of splashing out the money for quality ingredients and devoting the better part of a day to chopping and sauteeing, simmering and pouring it in containers.

The resulting smell is pure heaven, not to mention the taste. Once you’ve had homemade red sauce, that jarred stuff tastes like absolute garbage.

Basic, traditional focaccia bread topped with rosemary.

Baking focaccia bread, however, does require precision; yeast breads rely on a specific ratio of warm water and sugar to produce the gas that creates those wonderful bubbles. The taste relies on salt, rosemary (in this case), and lots of olive oil. Loads of it, in the dough itself and over every inch of the top. Olive oil makes a soft crust and delectable taste. They say it’s a healthy fat, and I certainly hope so considering the amount I’ve consumed these past two weeks.

I baked two focaccia breads before I was happy with the result. Focaccia makes glorious toast; the first test loaf has all but disappeared. The other two I’ve thrown in the freezer, and I’ll probably make more before Christmas. There will be six of us and, at this rate, I’ll be sending bread home with the kids.

I hope they take lots of pictures, because this may become the stuff of Christmas legend. It’s dangerous cooking this much in a given year, lest they begin to expect it. How thoroughly and unusually domestic of me, from stringing cranberries and dried fruit to making real food. If I do it once a decade, it proves I’m still capable of it. It’s good to flex that culinary muscle every now and then. It feels like a personal challenge putting in the effort to prove I am still capable of creating extraordinarily delicious food.

I guess I’m set for the next decade, if the pattern holds.

In the midst of all the holiday prep, I’ve been working on my Best Reads of 2022 list. I think I have it decided, though in the course of creating it I bolted off on several tangents.

I participated in a few online book group reads this year, speaking of things I haven’t done in ages. I already mentioned To the Lighthouse in my last post, and the experience, though rushed, re-ignited my obsession with all things Woolf. The group finished it in just over the two weeks allotted (our moderator bumped things out after a few of us expressed a problem keeping up) and I’d like to go back through everyone’s summaries to tie it all up in my head.

Then the Booker Prize – another interest re-kindled. I re-visited that as I was toting up numbers and examining reading patterns.

For next year’s reading, I’ve purchased a bespoke, dedicated reading journal. It’s incredibly organized, with built-in pages for listing books read, books bought, books I’m lusting to buy, brief reviews, and even an adorable blank bookshelf where I can color in the volumes and write the titles as I finish. Pricey as hell, but if it keeps me better organized it’s worth it to me.

It’s a short work week – this week and next, actually. Over the course of the next few days I’ll be juggling the planning of tasty cocktails, wrapping the last of the gifts, baking, and writing my end of the reading year posts. I’m not taking extra time off for the holidays. My hours are flexible, plus we get banker’s holidays. Between Christmas and New Year’s I’ll get it done.

In the meantime, I’m hoping your holidays aren’t fraught with negative things. Mine aren’t without their share, but at least this year my coping mechanism of going over and above is working pretty well.

Take care of yourselves, friends. I’ll be back to talk books soon.

Re-reading To the Lighthouse, December 2022

28-11-2228-11-22 / Lisa Guidarini / 1 Comment

” … they came out on the quay, and the whole bay spread before them and Mrs Ramsay could not help exclaiming, “Oh, how beautiful!” For the great plateful of blue water was before her; the hoary Lighthouse, distant, austere in the midst; and on the right, as far as the eye could see, fading and falling, in soft low pleats, the green sand dunes with the wild flowing grasses on them, which always seemed to be running away into some moon country, uninhabited of men.”
– To the Lighthouse

In 1995 I first discovered Virginia Woolf. A stay-at-home mother with an infant and toddler, exhaustion didn’t dampen my need for mind-expanding reading; it lit a fire. When I felt my intellect beginning to leak out my ears, I genuinely worried if it wasn’t used it would begin to atrophy.

Once my son and daughter were old enough to throw in a stroller and transport to the library, I was ready to pick up a book with actual words for myself, not just cartoon animals with simple rhymes. Because my kids and their patience were short, that first venture into the adult fiction area was a calculated short dash. I grabbed To the Lighthouse knowing it was a classic but lacking much knowledge about the novel and Woolf in general, beyond a vague understanding of her place in the literary canon. I knew enough to believe I should read her, that not having done so was a gap in my education. And when I put my kids down for their nap, I opened the cover and devoured.

I didn’t own a lot of books in those years – mostly college textbooks with a few stray novels peppering the shelves. My then-husband gave me a very hard time when I bought books, much less took time from the demands of motherhood to read. Picking books up for free at the library was moderately better, still not encouraged. Current-day me is shocked I tolerated such a lack of respect and empathy. I absolutely wouldn’t now. Still, for too many years I placed sole responsibility for my perceived lack of power on him. From the distance of decades, it’s easy to see should haves and could haves. I just don’t have the energy for grudges anymore. Plus, things worked themselves out. I’m now divorced and autonomous – and I own hundreds of lovely books.

Reading well is the best revenge.

Fast-forward nearly 30 years and I’m re-reading To the Lighthouse for the first time. I’ve read Mrs Dalloway at least three times and many of her other works once or twice though, but I’d never made it back to TTL until my Facebook book group chose it as one of our December 2022 reads. Five chapters in, I find myself agreeing with me from 30 years ago: To the Lighthouse is a masterpiece.

To the Lighthouse is not a difficult novel. Woolf has a reputation for impenetrable prose that’s overblown because her trademark style was stream of consciousness, honestly no more difficult to understand than the average person’s monkey mind. It’s just that you’re listening to someone else’s monkey mind. Seriously, sit down and listen to your brain. Really pay attention, especially when attempting to meditate. The brain rebels when it feels restricted. Never do we sound more outright crazy than when we are attempting to repress thoughts:

Empty your mind.

“I need to pick up milk my ass itches is it hot in here or is it me who is that guy my god he breathes so loudly I want to slap him oh dammit I forgot to empty my mind my toe itches I wonder what John meant the other day when he said oh crap I’m thinking again and I’m thinking about the fact I’m thinking what time is it anyway how much did I pay for this class I’m staying home next week.”

That text up there, does it sound familiar? Stream of consciouness wades into that crazy-wonderful mess, picks it up, and slaps it onto the page. Again, because it’s not your mess, it takes a minute to get the rhythm. As the reader, you’re being dumped into as authentic a representation of the true functioning of the mind as it gets.

Woolf knew most – if not all – fiction is structured artificially and that life just doesn’t work like that. If real art imitates life, it follows that fiction should not be bound by these impossible rules. Life doesn’t pick up at Point A, move smoothly through Points B, C, D, then smoothly pull up at the station in time for Point Z. Neither do real people start out one thing, experience catharsis, then inevitably grow in a predictable way.

To the Lighthouse has a loosely-defined “plot” in that a family and its acquaintances are present in the beginning and some of them ultimately wind up at the end. In between, some people die, some go their own way, and a few make it to the final page. What does that sound like? Oh, I’ve got it: LIFE! If your story, or my story, anyone’s story were being told without benefit of a narrator voicing it over, this would be the sum of it: people randomly show up, time passes, things happen, some people are still there in a decade.

Woolf employs the device of starting the novel in medias res – in the middle – with no preamble. If you’ve read the Iliad or the Odyssey, you’ll recognize this as the method Homer employed. In all epics, there is a Hero, a Man on a Very Big and Important Adventure. He’s Brave and Strong and, again, Very Important. He goes through Trials, he is Tested. Ultimately, he reaches a Destination and does a Thing.

Virginia Woolf knew all about epic poetry, having at age 8 taught herself to read Homer in the original Greek (keep in mind her father was a famous scholar, thus she had advantages). She also lived on the cusp of the Victorian Era, bridging into the 20th Century. Her parents were Victorians, and, although quite artsy and educated, mirrored the expectation men and women had traditional roles. As her parents died and she became involved with the artists, writers, and philosophers known as the Bloomsbury Group, Woolf’s circle shifted to the constant presence of Bohemian libertine/socialists. Several of them were bi-sexual – some swapping partners and/or having open affairs – all of them valuing the life of the mind over mundane responsibility.

Of course, when you have money you can afford to thumb your nose at society, and they pretty much all did.

Even with all her privilege, intelligence and education, Woolf nevertheless knew she was still bound by certain societal expectations. Women were becoming more accepted in the literary world but the fact remained the history of literature – and the world – was written by men. Epic Heroes were exclusively men. So, in To the Lighthouse, she picked up the genre of the epic poem and plopped it down in the middle of the domestic lives of the Ramsay family. Instead of Odysseus, there’s Mrs Ramsay, perfect example of the Victorian era matriarch, as modeled by her own mother. Instead of an epic sea voyage to accomplish Very Great Things, there’s one family’s hope to take a short boat trip from their summer home on the Isle of Skye to a nearby lighthouse.

To the Lighthouse, on the grand literary scale, proves that life, as experienced by an average person, can have as much meaning and drama as all the voyages of Odysseus. Sometimes great hopes are symbolized by a not-so-simple day trip, and, sometimes, the great epic poet, the teller of tales, is a woman.

In a nutshell, this is why the book’s studied so widely. It’s a damn fine book, in some ways autobiographical, with a tremendous amount of beauty and relevance. The backstory, what makes it so autobiographical, is fascinating to Woolf scholars. I’ve started my deep reading of it, as well as some secondary sources. The book group’s pace will be breakneck, covering it in two weeks (frankly not a fan of that speed but okay). l’ve been to both the place Woolf chose to set it – Isle of Skye, Outer Hebrides, Scotland – and the area it’s actually based on – Cornwall.

I’m going to be reading like a mutherfugger over the next two weeks to keep up. I hope I don’t drop the ball for my part of the discussion. Now that I have the luxury of permission to read, there’s full-time work in place of a household filled with children. It’s always something but at least I’m the one rowing the boat.