Brighten the Corner Where You Are by Fred Chappell

Brighten the Corner Where You Are: A Novel by Fred Chappell


My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Brighten The Corner Where You Are is a novel about Joe Robert Kirkman, a farmer who lives in the mountains of North Carolina. Joe Robert teaches. Teaching is something he is forced to do because he needs the money, but it is also something he's good at. Fred Chappell's book is about a single day during which this storytelling prankster's event filled life pushes him into situations where his humor, imagination, and capacity to think makes the lives of the people around him better. At the same time Brighten The Corner Where You Are takes on deeper issues about the responsibilities of educators.

The book starts out with a prologue about Joe Robert and his son walking in the early morning toward their barn to feed and milk their cows. It's not dark, because the moon is huge. In fact the moon is so big that it is overbearing. So Joe Robert takes it down and places it in one of the steel containers he has for the milk. Joe's son, who is also the story's narrator, is horrified by this action and convinces his father to put the moon back where it belongs. This first part of the novel is what I would call magical realism, while what happens after that is more along the lines of exaggerated story telling. But whatever label is used, the writing is beautiful and works on multiple levels.

On the surface the story is about a teacher who knows he will have to face the school board that day, because he's been accused of teaching something improper. He's nervous about his upcoming trial and wants to make a good impression, but events keep tumbling his way that bruise his body and dirty his clothing. Still, he keeps moving forward through his day.

One of the most interesting aspects of the book is the way it covers the Creationism vs. Darwinism argument. Kirkman seems to be saying that the actual argument is not whether people were created by God in the exact form they are in today or descended from another type of primate. The real argument is can people have the complete truth revealed to them or do they need to constantly search for truth, getting closer and closer to the goal but never quite reaching it. There are also multiple incidents in the book that make Joe Robert question what he does for a living. One of those incidents makes him wonder if the desire for knowledge is the cause of pain, while others argue against that simplistic answer.

Brighten The Corner Where You Are is perfect for readers who like books that are fun to read, but still cover complex issues.




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Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell


My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Cloud Atlas is one of the most unusual novels I've read. It is a collection of six books set in different time periods and arranged like a pyramid. David Mitchell has split the first five novellas (I guess I can call them that) into two sections so the reader who starts at the beginning of the entire novel reads the first part of book 1, the first part of book 2, and so on until reaching book 6. Book 6 is presented in its entirety, then the journey down the far side of the pyramid begins with the second part of book 5, the second part of book 4, and so on until the reader finishes book 1. There are probably as many theories for why Mitchell arranged Cloud Atlas in that fashion as there are readers of the book. My own is that he was trying to say that time moves forward but ends up circling back on itself. I think he would have arranged it in a globe instead of a pyramid if that was possible.

The stories are linked in small ways. For example the letters in The Letters of Zedelghem are written to someone who shows up in Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery. And in Orison of Sonmi there is a reference to a movie (called a Disney in that future time) entitled The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish, which is another of the books in Cloud Atlas. Each of the six books has its own style. If I hadn't known Cloud Atlas had a single author I would have thought each book had been written by a different writer. Here are a couple of samples to demonstrate the differences:

From The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing
My judgment of Dr. Goose was unjust & premature. One must be cynical as Diogenes to prosper in my profession, but cynicism can blind one to subtler virtues. The doctor has his eccentricities & recounts them gladly for a dram of Portuguese pisco (never to excess), but I vouchsafe he is the only other gentleman on this latitude east of Sydney & west of Valparaiso.

From An Orison of Sonmi
Oh, our intelligence is not so crude that we cannot conceive of an outside. Remember, at Matins, Papa Song shows us pictures of Xultation and Hawaii, and AdV instreams images of a cosmology beyond our servery.

Mitchell is very meticulous in his use of language. There is an excellent feel for the settings and times. But each time he moved on to a different book I had some trouble getting used to the shift in style. Once I became accustomed to the differences I was fine with it. Also, when I started reading I had no idea that the second part of each story would eventually be told. That was frustrating.




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Memoirs From the Asylum by Kenneth Weene

Memoirs From the Asylum by Kenneth Weene


My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Memoirs from the Asylum takes its readers to a unique world as it helps them understand the thoughts and feelings of the people who reside there. Its setting isn't a strange country or a fictional land, but a building that could be a short distance from any of our homes. The behavior of the characters is shocking, but the shock makes sense in the strange logic of their world, a logic that stems from fear, resentment, and a need to find some control over lives that have wandered far from the path of normalcy. Ken Weene’s novel shows the worst of people who have been labeled insane while revealing their basic humanity. It’s a powerful book.

The book is a novel structured like a memoir. The story begins in first person as told by one of the patients in the asylum then it switches to third person to tell about other patients as well as doctors. Yet the events still seem to be filtered through the perspective of the main narrator. This technique blurs the distinction between reality and fantasy in a way that leaves the reader with an excellent picture of a mental patient's world. Marilyn, a catatonic patient, is living her life in a fantasy world she's found within a crack in the sheetrock on her bedroom wall. Further on in the book another character, a doctor, appears to see the world Marilyn has created.

The pages of Memoirs from the Asylum are filled with strange, but intriguing characters. There's a patient named Allan who is content to spend his time staring at catatonic Marilyn. There's an air-guitarist who carries an empty guitar case everywhere he goes and another patient whose act of violence with a chair kills one of the doctors. And there are the fantasy characters such as Eric, the younger brother of Marilyn who somehow transforms into a dog and Timmy Wang, who exits Marilyn's story but leaves a body part behind.

The language in Weene's book can be outrageous at times, but it can also switch at any moment to elegant, beautiful descriptions. Here, for example, is one way Ken Weene describes life in the asylum.

If jazz is the music of life, how can we describe the music of the asylum? Discordant, raucous, lacking in form, it is the music of a creeping, groaning machine. The sound does not uplift, nor does it invite introspection. Its emotions are anxiety and loss. It is not sad, because it does not care. Wheels squeal in resistance to one another, off-key notes of electric energy fill the air like errant bolts of lightning from a demented god. Bangs and crashes of doors and tempers provide erratic tympani. One cannot dance in the asylum. However much one may whirl about the dayroom, it is not dancing. Dancing requires freedom. Music, real music, requires freedom.

Steve Lindahl – Author of Motherless Soul




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Anno Domina by Patrick Lafferty

Anno Domina by Patrick S. Lafferty


My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Anno Domina is set in the future when the world is visited by the daughter of God in human form. This is not the second coming of Jesus. This is a separate soul who will “be sitting on the left hand of the Father, while Jesus sits to His right.” America has been through the “Water Wars,” a sequence of battles fought to protect our country's dwindling water sources. Laws have been established to keep the peace and those laws limit freedom of speech. Estephania Rodriguez (“la Hermana de Jesus, as she was dubbed by her followers...”) has broken those laws by saying “All those who thirst, of this nation and all the nations, need but ask Me and they will drink their fill. I will provide you with the waters of this land and all the land.” She has received the death sentence for this crime.

Lafferty has taken a fascinating approach to his story. This novel is not about Estephania Rodriguez. She shows up only briefly. Most of what She says is relayed by other characters. This book is about the people who surround Her. In the process Lafferty made me think about the ones who surrounded Jesus at the time of His death. It is amazing how well his story covers that complicated subject.

There are similarities to the events leading up to the execution of Jesus throughout the book. Damien Driver, the governor who has the power to pardon Estephania Rodriguez, cuts his hand while preparing an avocado and has to wash off the blood. A reporter who is following the events is named Luke. The adherentes (the followers of la Hermana) abandon her. And the church officials (represented by Bishop DeMarco) hold the politics of the situation above all other considerations.

Anno Domina grabbed me and didn't let me go until I reached the end. But there were also moments when Lafferty touched on various interesting topics. My favorite of these was when Felipe Martinez and Father Joe compared their understanding of the way God communicates with them. Felipe said, “I think it's what other people call their instinct, their gut feeling. It's that little voice in the back of your head that tells you something is really, really right or something is really, really, wrong.” Father Joe responded by saying, “It's as if God is all around me, like an ocean and I'm floating along with His every ebb and flow. And even though I feel like I know where I'm going and what I'm doing, the tack I take sailing through life, I'm merely pushed along by His gentle breezes and tidal waters.” I loved the way those two perceptions were similar, but different and I loved the fact that Lafferty took the time to share the subtle differences.




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On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan


My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The first sentence of Ian McEwan's short novel, On Chesil Beach reads, “They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible.” My first impression of these words was that McEwan's book would be about clumsy sex. And in some ways I found that I was right. But the word “conversation” in that sentence is far more important that it first seemed. Although a huge portion of the novel is dedicated to a very detailed description of Edward and Florence's awkward sexual experience, I think it is fair to say the book is really about their dysfunctional communication.

I recently read Fall of Giants by Ken Follett. In that book there was also a description of the first sexual experience between two virgins. But in Follett's novel the lovers spoke to each other and helped each other through the barriers of their inexperience. In McEwan's work Florence and Edward have different desires and very different assumptions. They seem to be as right for each other as any two people can be, but they approach their relationship with only concern about themselves. Neither of them tries to understand what the other is feeling. At one point in the book McEwan describes Florence's desire with the following sentence. “She wanted to be in love and be herself.” I think it is fair to say they shared that desire and that was the problem.

McEwan's language is perfect. I listened to the audio version of the book and thought it was very well read. (McEwan does the reading himself.) It's a perfect book for someone who wants a well written, short read by an author with a good feel for human emotions and failings.

Steve Lindahl - author of Motherless Soul




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A House Near Luccoli by D. M. Denton

A House Near Luccoli by D.M. Denton


My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Classical musicians were the rock stars of the seventeenth century, especially in places like Genoa, Italy. A House Near Luccoli takes an interesting approach to one of those stars, Alessandro Stradella, a composer who was famous during his life but whose fame has faded compared to contemporaries such as Vivaldi and Handel. The book's narrator is Donatella, a young woman who has the good fortune to live with her aunt and ailing grandmother in a house owned by Signor Garibaldi, the prince of Genoa. The prince offers an area of the house to Stradella as a place to stay and work while he's in Genoa. The novel is told from Donatella's point of view. If the plot was set in the twentieth century, A House Near Luccoli would have been Patty Boyd's story rather than George Harrison's or Eric Clapton's.

In keeping with its period, A House Near Luccoli reads more like a symphony than a rock song. It is separated into parts that are like movements of the larger work. The language is not simple, making it the type of book I like to read slowly. There is so much in every phrase and I found I was often flipping back to let the meaning of Denton's words sink in.

Donatella loves to paint. Her sense of style and perfect hand make her the ideal copyist for Stradella's work. This is pointed out by Nonna, Donatella's grandmother, in an interesting scene where Nonna appears to be offering her granddaughter to Stradella for multiple purposes. “'Come here,' Nonna pleaded as Donatella could never refuse. 'Look, signore, at the beauty in her.'”

In addition to his composing Stradella's duties include performing. He calls on Donatella to sing while he plays and he tutors her for that task in one of the most sensual sections of the novel. “'Keep your arms up.' His hands pushed against her diaphragm. 'Make it a sliding note, higher, higher,' he dropped them from the inflation of her breasts, 'with body and voice until you can't feel any difference,' to her waist. 'Reach from your toes!'”

A House Near Luccoli mixes fictional with historical characters. It was fun to use Wikipedia to learn more about Stradella as I read the novel and Youtube to hear performances of his music. I recommend this book for readers who enjoy historical fiction with beautiful language.




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Bebe & Friends by Jean Rodenbough

Bebe & Friends by Jean Rodenbough


My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Bebe & Friends is a book for animal lovers. It is a collection of writings from people who have rescued animals. Most of the stories are about dogs, but there are also plenty of pages dedicated to cats and even one story about guinea pigs. Jean Rodenbough found the contributors, collected their stories, then put the work together along with descriptions of her own animals, a number of her poems and fascinating histories of animal rescue organizations. It is a very powerful approach that works in a unique fashion. The only other book I've read that uses this approach is Rachel's Children also by Rodenbough and also a wonderful read.

One of the contributors, Patsy Beeker, writes about a cat that was “found on the side of the highway on a ninety-five degree day by a Department of Transportation worker who was picking up the body of the kitten's dead mother. The tiny kitten was injured, but alive.” Beeker writes that the cat had to have an eye removed, along with the treatment of other injuries, but Beeker is convinced there is a spirit looking down on that small animal. She writes: “If you read the Bible, you know the verse about 'His eye is on the sparrow'. Surely, someone had an eye out for a plain little black kitten who needs that extra eye, any way he can get it.”

Marina Julia Neary is another contributor who writes about her guinea pigs. I loved her description of the idea behind one of the names she chose. “Having published novels on the Irish Rebellion, a period of history that fascinates me, I named the new guinea pig Hugh, after Hugh O'Neil, Ulster's legendary chieftain, the Earl of Tyrone, who defied Queen Elizabeth.” At the end of her piece Neary writes about another beloved guinea pig saying, “She died peacefully of old age on Easter in 2006. There is only one place she can be, and that's on the lap of St. Francis in heaven.”

My wife and I have had a few rescue dogs ourselves and my daughter volunteers at one of the shelters described in the book, Animal Rescue and Foster Program, so I thought I knew most of what goes on behind the scenes. But I learned a great deal from this book. The book is about animals, of course, but it is also about the special people who love and care for them. There are dark moments, as would be expected with this subject, but the pages are also filled with uplifting and beautiful stories.

Steve Lindahl author of Motherless Soul




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