Books - Book Review - The Life of Sir Ernest Shackleton - Hugh Robert Mill

This is my last book for the From the Stacks Challenge! Congratulations to me for finishing my first challenge of 2009!

Ernest Shackleton is one of my heroes. He didn't accomplish his goal of setting records in exploring the Antartic, he was really concerned about all his men and made sure that they stayed alive in the absolutely worse condition. (Read my review about his voyage on the Endurance and James Caird.)

I bought this 1924 Cheap Edition near the Southbank Centre in London. I paid 6.5 pounds and I felt a little bit guilty. But, looking at these Abe Book's listings, I feel OK about this purchase.
Shackleton is my hero, because he cared more about the safety of the men than the success of the expedition.

The biography might be a bit biased, because Mill was a friend and colleague of Shackleton. But, I still was impressed with the viewpoints.

Each chapter begins with part of poem that Shackleton liked to quote. His wife, mother, and sisters provided Mills with letters, diaries, photos, and list of awards, and other information that today's biographers may not have today.

In school, he wasn't a serious student, but he was loved and respected by both his teachers and students. But when he realized that he wanted to go to sea, he improved his math grades!

Captain John Hussey wrote, "... he was slow to pass judgement on his fellows. He ws just as quickly bored by commonplaces and by futile chatter. He could be calmly satirical without malice, and appreciated a subtle allusion and neatly phrased criticism."

During the 1901 - 1903 voyage of Discovery, two publications were published in Antartic: The South Polar Times (serious and literary) and The Blizzard (humorous and satirical). Shackleton's idea of inclusion for all men was shown, because he encouraged Frank Wild, an able-bodied seaman, to make contributions to South Polar Times.

I enjoyed the photos of Shackleton as a child and ensign. It's hard to find these photos.

If you enjoy reading about the Antartic, I hope that you can find this book! It's an engaging read.

Stuff - Little Joys

Lots of fun things are happening.

I am trying to regularly go to my weekday knitting group. Now that my arthritis is not bothering me, I can enjoy knitting and crochet without pain.

I also plan to check out another one on for the weekend.

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Susan Larson, the Times-Picayune book editor, has written an interesting article about translators. Check it out here!

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I have finished one reading challenge already. Now, I just have to write the review!
(That's the next posting.)

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I recently attended a exhibit about books. None of the books followed the traditional
format of the book, but it was beautiful and inspirational.

Here's the article and another picture.

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One Book, One New Orleans 2009 is starting up. We are in the phase of recommending books and reading them. I enjoy this phase, because I get exposed to authors that I normally don't read.

If you are in the NOLA area, please join us. You don't need to be a YLC member.

Two great perks: meeting and talking with the author and getting a free volunteer appreciation dinner at a fancy restaurant when it wraps up. (Food - Part of the New Orleans life!)

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That's it for now. The murder rate is now 8 for the month, and I am trying to be positive.
RIP.

Stuff - Question by KevinFromCanada

KevinFromCanada (a great reader and commentor, who FINALLY has a blog) asked me this question while a discussion was going on about Mookse's review Imran Ahmad's Unimaginative
and the roles of first and second generation immigrants outlook on life in the new country.

Kevin asked me, "For you, what author best captures the United States as you experience it?"
After mulling the question for several days, I must answer, "No One Yet."

That is why I am working on reading my ToBeRead Piles this year (see all my 2009 reading challenges that I am participating in) so that I can concentrate on Latin American writers in 2010.

For me, first generation Americans are the brave immigrants. The second generation are the children of the first, who were born in the US and may or may not speak Spanish, depending on how the parents feel about their native language. A child who comes to the US at a very young age is technically a first generation person but usually acts more like a second generation.

I have a weird situations that most Hispanics in the US don't have. The most important one is that my parents are from different countries and even continents. The first generation immigrants usually marry someone from the same country before leaving or on arrival.

This situation exposed me to all sorts of different Hispanics during my childhood, instead of just relating to one group. I sometimes can't tell who comes from which country from the accent, but I know which words to use or not use. For example, a bus is huahua for Cubans but huahua is a baby for Chileans. A camion is a truck, except in Mexico, where it's a bus.

And despite sharing the Spanish language, it is the only common thing that binds Hispanics together. Each country or region within a country has its culture, and when people from different countries marry (usually the second generation), clashes can happen among the family members.

I still have ties to my relatives (but not too close). My parents tell me stories of their childhood, so I feel that I know their countries.

I have visited one of the countries but I felt out of place there. I liked the fact that it was full of brown people, but I didn't like that the roles of women is about 20 years behind the US.

From what I read so far, I can relate more to Julia Alvarez' characters. Alvarez is a second generation writer, but some twists that are different from mine. She writes about conditions in her parent's country, the Dominican Republic.

I can relate to some of the issues about being in the wrong political party and how the authorities come after you; one relative had to hide for several months in the Amazon jungles, until things cooled down, and another relative in Central America was killed by his own doctor, because my relative believed in the losing party's ideology.

However, the political and cultural aspects of the novels are different from mine.

The other characters that she writes about are the second generation and how they try to navigate between the culture in the US and the Dominican culture. I have had issues also, but not the same.

So, KevinFromCanada, I am starting on my quest to find an author that I can relate to. In my book group, we will be reading two novels by Hispanic writers: In the Time of the Butterflies - Julia Alvarez and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz. A good start.

I should have a definite answer for you by 2011.

Books - Book Review - UMBRA 2002 - NOOCA students

UMBRA 2002 is an anthology by students of a creative arts school in New Orleans, called NOCCA. This book counts as my STRANGE book for my 9 for 2009 Reading Challenge.

I defined STRANGE as a work outside my comfort zone. I don't enjoy reading anthologies, because I have to get accustomed to the change in voice of each author rather quickly. And normally, I read works written by adults, so reading poems, short stories, and looking at art done by high school students is outside what is standard for me.

Saying all of this, I am glad that I ventured from my regular habits. The art work is great. It's scattered throughout the book; the art has nothing to do with the poem or story, but that's ok. They can stand on their own.

The writing also impressed me. The students sound so mature, whether they are writing about something that could happen in their teens or the near future.

I can't review all the works, but I will mention two that meant the most to me.

My favorite poem is Theft by Flora Sheperd. She writes about her pain about:

Mother took all the books away!

Even the ones that I hid:

The agony of losing one's friends! Horrible, even though something like that wouldn't happen to me now. I feel her pain.

My Cuban Missle Crisis by Bryon Reiger is a wonderful short story. First, he describes something that has always bothered me about Fall in New Orleans: "October is a strange month in Louisiana. Sometimes the temperature drops to fifty-five. Then, when you get used to wearing a jacket to school, it jumps back to eighty."

The protogonist is back in time, during the time when Cuban wanted to drop missiles on the US. He flies over the Gulf of Mexico to stop the conflict. "I head butted Cuba with my football helmut, and the explosion launched me into space."

This portion of the short story reminds me of one of Haruki Murakami's stories in After the Quake, in which a frog and a regular man have the power to stop an earthquake.

I wonder whether the students are still keeping up their creative sides?

I think this is Flora Sheperd.

As for Bryon, he is either on the front lines in the Army or in a play. Not sure.

Illustration Friday - Pale

This week's theme is PALE.

I made the blue paler with white paint. I found some muslim material and a wax stamp with a plant material that have also been lightened.

Books - Book Review - Amerika: The Missing Person - Franz Kafka

This recent translation by Mark Harman counts as my first selection for the 2009 TBR Lite Challenge Option C.

Random House was nice to send me a copy of this unfinished work by Franz Kafka, along with notes to aid my reading. I accepted this book, because Kafka is one of the authors whose works scare me a bit. I have heard so much about his literary importance that I feel that I am not ready to read his thoughts.

Well, this novel left me confused. Kakfa never left Prague but seems to want to escape his confines by writing about moving to the US in the early 20th century. There is already evidence of electricity and telephone service in New York City, so it's not so shocking to Karl Rossman, the protagonist of the novel.

First, let me present the facts that I need to quibble about in Kafka's world: the Statue of Liberty holds up a sword, there is a bridge to connect New York City to Boston, and Ramses is an important city in the Eastern Seaboard. Would being correct about these facts change my view of the novel? Maybe not.

Karl runs into the craziest immigrants and US citizens that I have ever read about. Before he gets off the boat, he manages to meet his rich uncle, who is a little off. He gets beaten up several times (even by a rich girl!). The conversation seems a bit forced. There is something that doesn't ring true with the writing.

Karl the immigrant tries to survive in the New World, but isn't having much luck. He finally goes through a nutsy job interview process and decides to take a change with a theater group in Oklahoma.

The novel has no true ending. Kafka never finished it, and there are portions where he skipped several chapters, so your imagination has to fill it in.

I had to stop reading it for a few days at a time, before picking it up again, and then I would have to go back a few pages to pick up the thread of the narrative. There were so many people in the work and such crazy interactions, that I just couldn't keep it straight.

Books - 2009 Mini-Challenge - January

For January's Mini-Challenge, I decided to tackle:

Make a donation. You can either donate to an organization that supports reading OR make a physical donation of a book (or books) to ANYONE.

Fair Grinds Coffeehouse (where a fab knitting group also meets) has a lending library.

You can take books and also bring in books.

Some of my used books can't be sold, but they are still in good enough shape to take one or two more readings. So, I donated them to the library.

With the recent economic situation, money is tight, and many people are buying fewer books. So, my little gift helps others to still read without killing the personal budget.

Stuff - Illustration Friday - Contained

This week's theme is CONTAINED.

So, I have one container containing a smaller one.

The larger one is made from many pieces of paper glued together. The small onee is a small knitted basket.

Books - Another Reading Challenge

I am doing one more challenge, but this one doesn't involve just reading books, but there are activities that I normally do over the year.

In 2009 Mini-Challenges, you can select to do these activities in any order:

Complete all 12 mini-challenges between January 1st and December 31st, 2009.
Challenges can be completed in any order.
Overlaps are allowed.
IF you are a member of the Yahoo group, you do not need a blog to participate. IF you are NOT a member of the Yahoo group, you will need a blog.
Sign up by either joining the Novel Challenge Yahoo group OR leave me a comment on this post.

Here are the 12 challenges:

1. Read a collection of short stories and either blog about it, OR tell the group about what you read.

2. Read a play. Blog about it, OR tell the group about your experience.

3. Read a nonfiction book; write a review on your blog or post it to the group.

4. Read 2 essays from the same collection; write a review on your blog or tell the group about what you read.

5. Go to a book event; blog about it or tell the group about it.

6. Borrow a library book, read it and review it on your blog (or tell the group about it).

7. Read a book by a new to you author. Do a little research on the author…do they have a blog? How many books have they written? Have they won any prizes? Where do they live? etc… Blog about the book you read and the author OR tell the group about them.

8. Make a donation. You can either donate to an organization that supports reading OR make a physical donation of a book (or books) to ANYONE. Blog about it or tell the group what you did.

9. Promote literacy. This is wide open - use your imagination. You could give a child a book, or read a book to someone who cannot read, or volunteer at an event which promotes literacy, or donate to your local library, or write something on your blog with a link to a group which promotes literacy, or anything in between. The only rule with this one is that you must PROMOTE literacy in some way…

10. Participate in a buddy read or Group discussion. This can be a face to face group, an on-line group or a one on one discussion with a friend who read the same book. Either way, blog about your experience or share with the group. Did the discussion give you greater appreciation or insight into what you read?

11. Read a book outside your comfort level or from a genre you don’t normally read. Blog about it, or tell the group about it.

12. Read a classic (defined as anything published before 1970). Tell us why it fits the category of being a classic. Write a review or tell the group about the book.

Stuff - Little Joys

The New Orleans Public Library opened a modular branch not far from my house. What this means is that the library is inside a large mobile or manufactured home. It's not too big but the great thing is that all are books are NEW! Yeah.

One of the last books that I borrowed from the Main branch was an interesting one, but it had MOLD. Main branch didn't flood during the Katrina, but a few windows blew in. I guess the book got wet from the rains, and if no one has borrowed the book, it would have remained festering on the shelves. I hope they can buy a new copy. I kept on reading it, despite the mold, because I just couldn't put it down.

With books in the modular branch, I don't have to worry about that.

I want to spend more time visiting local bookstores this year, instead of running in and out and greeting the owners and just quickly browsing. I vow to spend more time at my favorites, as a start.

McKeown's Books and Difficult Music has expanded their space! Congrats to MK! She started this bookstore a few years ago. She also hosts Difficult Music events and the new space has room for artists to display their works.

Blue Cypress Books is in a new location with more room also. I love how she decorated the space. EA plans to hosts more events for 2009.

DeVille Books is now fully moved into its location. WR has done a great job with decorations. She is also opening an art gallery in the back part. And, she continues to host the International Fiction Book Group of New Orleans.

The new Borders Uptown is open for business. I have gone in and bought magazines that I can't find anywhere else. I might also buy CDs in the future. (I still don't own an IPod.) But, new books, I will buy at my regular local bookstores.

To check out other bookstores in New Orleans, click here.
I need to make updates, which I will do in the next few weeks. I am debating whether I need to add plays to the list; it's spoken words and it's also literature but it's also visual. I don't want to be adding movies also. Mmm. Please help me decide.

I am exercising a bit more. I am losing inches, not pounds, but it's a start. I can do more exercise without panting or fainting. Yeah for me.

I am also going to start doing Illustration Friday again. It's a creative outlet for me and helps me with my writing, even though it's not directly related to writing.

Books - Book Review - Cloudstreet - Tim Winton

Cloudstreet was the last 2008 selection for the New Orleans International Fiction Book Group.

It was a sweeping family drama, set in the 1930s to the 1960s. Two families live in one house in Perth, Australia.

The owners inherited the home with the provision that it couldn't be sold for 20 years.

The renters were not having much luck with their farm and moved to Perth. Once there, the wife hatches ideas for making money and all the kids participate.

The families are wary of each other until almost the very end of the novel.

This is one that I need to re-read. It seems straight forward on the first reading, but there is more. One of the children has a brain injury and "sees" more than everyone in the house. These images are relevant to the novel, but I missed some of the significance.

I also learned the effects of the Great Depression were also felt in Australia, not just in the US.

Winton has been named one of the best writers in Australia. I need to check out his other works.

If you have read other works, please let me know.

Books – Book Review - The Mysteries of the Middle Ages: The Rise of Feminism, Science, and Art from the Cults of the Catholic Europe – Thomas Cahill

This is my second book for the What’s in a Name Reading Challenge. This book fits the category of TIME of day: the Middle Ages.

Cahill has written non-fiction works to exam certain times in history that have affected the Western World. I have read How the Irish Saved Civilization and the Gifts of the Jews. He also wrote about Greek civilization and the world before and after Jesus Christ’s life. I need to read them, so I can understand my fiction reading more.

Nan Talese, a Doubleday imprint, was nice enough to send me this autographed copy in 2006, but with my loss of concentration after the Katrina, I wasn’t able to concentrate on such an important work until recently.

First of all, the book is beautiful. The hardback copy has the nicest paper that I have seen recently. There are pictures of art works from the Middle Ages, reproduced in color, and there are some newer illuminations at the side, that look like older ones.

Cahill wasn’t able to cover every topic of the Middle Ages, but I did learn some important facts. If you are not Catholic, he assumes that you don’t know too much and makes clear explanations of the beliefs and policies of the Church at that time.

• Hildegard was a lonely child and adult.If she hadn’t been rich, by the time she was 8 years old, she would have been betrothed. Boys would be starting their apprenticeships.
• The nuns in Hildegard’s order didn’t cut their hair or cover it up. They wore white, silk veils and you could see their long hair.
• Eleanor of Aquitane learned to read both Latin and Oc (Old French of the South) – very unusual.
• When she married and moved to Louis’ palace in Paris, she brought tapestries from Bruge to add a layer of color to the walls and to add insulation.She made everyone eat with tablecloths and napkins.Her pages had to wash their hands before serving the food.Theatrical troupes and troubadours entertained.
• Universities generally followed the Greek model recommended by Julius Ceasar’s librarian, Varro, who died in 27 BC.
• The first university in Europe was started in Bologna in the 1100s.
• Six years of lectures in grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, arithmetic, Eucledean geometry, astronomy, and musical theory. Two years of debates and lectures, to let everyone know what they had learned. More time was required to study medicine and architecture. After oral exams, students got a BA. One more year of study yielded an MA and the right to teach. 12 more years you could study law, medicine, philosophy, or theology. Most of the students had the means to study for such long times, but there were scholarships for poorer students. Sometimes a nobleman send a smart but poor boy to the university, so that when the boy graduated, he would return home and increase the intellectual atmosphere of the place.
• Peter Abelard rejected the idea that the Jewish people killed Jesus.
• The Muslims kept copies of Aristotle’s writings, and through a team of Arabic, Greek, Jewish, and Christian scholars in Spain, had them translated into Latin.
• Thomas Aquinas used these teachings from Aristotle to develop the positive idea of a loving God and Jesus, instead of a vindictive one.
• Roger Bacon at Oxford, was the first scholar to study natural sciences using observation and experimentation.
• St. Francis of Assisi first presented a manger scene with people and live animals.
• Giotto di Bondone started drawing realistic scenes and drew people in profile, not staring straight at you, as prescribed by Byzantine rules.
• Due to political intrigues, Dante was sentenced in absentia to death in 1302. He spent one or two years in different Italian cities until he died in Ravenna in 1321. He was finally reunited with his family in Ravenna in 1319.
• Cahill gives a thorough explanation of his poem, Commedia, so if you have never read it, you will be tempted to try to read it.
• 
  For those who wish they could live as royalty in those times, I wouldn’t recommend it. Despite the fact that the royals changed their clothes often and that incense was constantly burning, a castle (even a large one) would reek, because there were only chamber pots, not toilets, for waste evacuation. Eiu.

His style of writing was clear and fun at the same time. The only thing that was a bit out of place was the last chapter. He is not happy with recent Church actions and explains why. It really had nothing to do with the topic of the book; I guess he was trying to motivate his readers to do something about the situation.

Books – Book Review – 1 dead in attic – Chris Rose

This is my first selection for the What's in A Name 2 - Reading Challenge. The category that this book falls under is Title with a Medical Condition. Being dead is a medical condition.

Chris Rose is a columnist for my local newspaper, The Times-Picayune. He wrote a series of articles talking about the state of New Orleans, right after the Katrina. In the edition that I read, he collected what he felt were the best and self-published a book. There is another edition that has been published nationally; I haven’t read it and am not sure whether it explains locations and stores better than the edition that I read. He assumes that the readers generally know the geography and neighborhoods of New Orleans in the edition that I read. I know that he can’t make the same assumption in the national edition.

He generally tried to talk to people about why in the world they wanted to go back home. The stories covered a lot of neighborhoods and described the upheaval of life in the Fall of 2005 and early 2006.

The title refers to the markings that search and rescue teams made on the doors, when the waters receded. Rose saw that a marking had the shorthand notation of indicating that a dead person was found in the attic of this particular home.

Rose was later able to find out that Mr. Thomas Coleman, an 80 year old retired longshoreman, died there.

The only part that I couldn’t relate to was the one about people committing suicide over the loss of the city that they used to know. I just don’t get it. Maybe because I’ve lived in other places and know that life can go on (although not in the same manner) gave me a better perspective. Sure, it’s sad, but not enough to off myself.

The part that I relate to the best is the lack of concentration in The Elephant Man. chapter. “I have tried to watch TV or read a magazine but when I see or hear phrases like “Tom and Katy” or “World Series” or “Judge Miers,” my mind just glazes over and all I can hear is the buzz of a fluorescent light. That’s the sound of my cerebral cortex.”

I can relate to that. In September - October 2005, it took me the longest time to read a 250 book of short stories! All the star’s problems seemed insignificant to me. I would even lose the thread of the plot while watching tv.

This little book is a tough read, but a necessary one. It took me the longest time to get the courage to read it, but I am glad that I finally tackled it. I hope that nothing like this ever happens in your community!

Books – Book Review – Stalingrad – The Fateful Siege 1942 –1943 – Anthony Beevor

Most of my knowledge of WWII has been from movies and History Channel programs, and most of it has been of battles in the western European theater and of Holocaust issues.

I really don’t know much about the Russian side of things. Last year, I finished Moscow 1941 - A City and Its People at War (and if you want to know more, I recommend that you read that book first) and then start Stalingrad.

Moscow 1941 explains how the factories were moved from Moscow to the Urals and has more details about some of the generals that also fought in Stalingrad. It’s a good introduction to the sacrifice of the Russian People for the Motherland.

In this book, you also learn of the sacrifice of the soldiers on both sides and the civilians in the region. If nothing else convinces you, this book will make you realize that Hitler and Stalin only cared about their own glory and cared nothing for the ordinary Hans and Boris. Anyone who was not in the inner circle was truly abandoned.

Stalingrad is very far from Moscow and present day St. Petersburg. It’s on the steppes on the Asian side. However, Hitler wanted to capture it to have a foothold on the Volga River, stop further munitions manufacturing, and humiliate Stalin by capturing a city with his name. However, Hitler didn’t count on the bad Russian winters and how it would affect the supply line and the will of the Russian people to overcome all odds.

Beevor has excellent maps to follow the battles. Otherwise, I would have no idea where anything happened, since names in Russia have changed and some parts, where the battles took place are independent countries once again. There were excellent photographs of the soldiers and civilians acquired from various archives.

Here are some facts that I learned:

• Russian dogs were sent to German lines with backpacks filled bombs.
• When there was no wood to make planks to make roads more passable, Germans would use Russian corpses as the planks.
• Germans were ordered not to write about the awful conditions so that the people at home wouldn’t be demoralized.
• Civilians in Stalingrad were not given much notice to evacuate. Some people stayed in bombed out buildings for the duration of the battle. They had to fend for themselves in terms of food and water.
• Russian tanks were built better than German ones. German ammunition would bounce off the Russian armor.
• Some Russian supplies were brought in by camels.
• In August 1942, Russian soldiers didn’t have any more ammunition, so they took German guns and bullets from dead German soldiers. The Russians also had to boil wheat from the stalks to have something to eat.
• There was a shortage of trained soldiers, so recent Naval Academy graduates from Leningrad were recruited to fight on land.
• Russian soldiers were allowed to smoke while fighting.
• Both sides had to deal with lice. There was not enough wood to melt snow and have water for bathing and washing clothes.
• New uniforms were new armies only. Russian troops had to get clothes off dead comrades, even the underwear. When it was winter and a soldier was wearing a white camouflage suit and got shot, he would get it off as quickly as possible so it could be reused by someone else. If he got stains and blood on it, he would ask for forgiveness before giving it to someone else.
• Hitler could not believe that Russian women worked in factories and built tanks. Even in the Gulags, prisoners made ammunition to defeat the Germans.
• After the defeat, German soldiers died quickly in the hospitals. There were few supplies for anyone, especially for the enemy. A soldier stole some butter and died in pain, because his body was not used to fats.
• Both sides succumbed to cannibalism to survive.

A must read book, if you are interested in this topic!

Books - Book Review - The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley

This is my fourth selection for the From The Stacks Winter Reading Challenge. I finished the book in December, but just didn't feel like posting until now.

I was browsing at Blue Cypress Books and found it. The beauty of going to a used bookstore is that you might find books that are treasures and that you just wouldn't stumble upon by browsing in the Internet.

And, The Greenlanders is such a find!

It's set in Greenland, during the time when the plague is killing Europeans. Since they have little contact with anyone over there, they don't die off from the plague.

It's been settled by Norwegians, but they don't consider themselves that anymore. They call themselves Greenlanders and are proud of what they are doing.

When a ship from Norway missed Iceland and landed in Greenland, they observed, "The folks about us are unlike those with whom they share a tongue, Norwegian. They are half-wild, like horses left in the mountains to fend for themselves, and they balk at being led..."

They have lost some of the skills of their forefathers (like making boats and swords, because of the lack of trees and metals), but learned new skills (like using snares and traps to hunt animals). They had enough time to plant and harvest food. (A recent History Channel documentary talked about a warmer period of time that allowed farming in very northern climes and grapes made into wine as far north as England).

The settlers used wood from abandoned homes or shipwrecks to repair their homes and make new furniture. And to keep out the cold, they ground up mussel shells, mixed it with water, and put them in the spaces between the stone.

Smiley wrote this novel in a tone that fit the circumstances; it moved slowly during the long winters, but a bit faster during the warmer weather. There were a lot of characters, but Smiley made a useful list, especially to keep track of everyone, up to four generations of a family. Also, there were two great maps on the inside covers, to know where in the story a certain character was traveling: one was of the Northern Atlantic, and the other was a detail of the settlements (steads) and towns in Greenland.

I enjoyed the stories of humanity injected in this epic work. For example, Thorunn, an old lady, came to Gunnars Stead to beg for fresh milk from a cow. Helga refused, because there was a Greenlander belief that if a woman wanted to give birth to a son, she needs to drink fresh milk only. To keep warm during the long winter nights, several people slept in a bedcloset, not just married couples. (I need to find a picture of this!) If a hunter died during a hunt, the others put the corpse in a vat of water, dismembered the body, boiled the water, and took the bones back to the settlements for a Christian burial.

The good as well as the bad was depicted in the novel: the famines, the journeys from one stead to another (usually by boat), the get-togethers (especially the THING) and weddings.

You are transported to another time when reading this work. I hope that you can find it and enjoy it as much as I did.

Books - Book Review - The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne

This is my first book for the Casual Classics Challenge 2009.

I decided to re-read Nathaniel Hawtorhne's The Scarlet Letter. I didn't remember much about it, but it was great to revisit it.

It's set in Boston in the late 1600s - early 1700s, when no one in the right mind willingly left Europe to come to the New World, unless the search for religious freedom was greater than the possibility of dying prematurely from being in the wilderness.


Hester Prynne, has had a child out of wedlock and refuses to reveal the father's name. For this sin, the Puritan community has punished her by requiring her to wear an A on her chest for adulterer and she decides to stay on in Boston, instead of going back to England. "Here, she said to herself, had been the scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment, and so perchance, the torture of her daily shame would at length purge her soul and work out another purity than that which she had lost; more saintlike, because of the result of her martrydom."

It did take me a bit to get used to the language, but once I got used to it, the reading went faster.

I did enjoy the description of early Boston. I don't think any of it exists today. Hester's home "stood on the shore, looking across a basin of the sea at the forest - covered hills toward the west. A clump of scrubby trees, such as alone grew on the pennisula, did not so much conceal the cottage from view.."

The father of the child, Mr. Dimmesdale, didn't reveal himself, but felt very guilty nevertheless. The people of his church "fancied him the mouthpiece of Heaven's message of wisdome, and rebuke and love. In their eyes, the very ground on which he trod was santified. The virgins of his church grew pale around him, victims of a passion so imbued with religious sentiment that they imagined it to be all religion .." The older people told their children to bury them near him. Mr. Dimmesdale was so thin and not well that no one thought he could outlive the older people. Meanwhile, he didn't think that the grass over his grave would even grow, "because an accursed thing must there be buried."

So people complain that novels don't tell much about life, but this one gives a view of a life now gone. A world in which sin was taken seriously (maybe too seriously) and a description of what would later become the United States and how these early settlers influenced the outlook of later generations.

I read this novel in high school but I had vague memories about it.