Molly Young will be on vacation for the next few months. In her absence, Book Her Review Colleagues featured Torch Featured will appear in your mailbox every other Saturday.
Dear Reader,
The day I found myself crying over my wallet miles away from Omaha during the final minutes of “Sex and the City 2,” I truly believed in the power of mild hypoxia. became. Of course, this is a phenomenon where the lack of oxygen in flight heightens the emotional response, and I love it. It can be spoiled by anachronisms and grammatical errors, and for those who are troublesome even for themselves, suspending that critical critic is a vacation in itself.
And that goes for books too! With red eyes these days, it makes sense to sob at the heartbreaking ending of “Giovanni’s Room.” Claustrophobic has never been more liberating than James Baldwin’s precision-cut classics. But when Monroe Boston Strauss finally got to the chiffon filling formula in her 1939 memoir, Pie Marches On, didn’t she cry? It may have been catharsis, but it was melatonin time. (“Sex and the City 2” is, after all, one frame of the worst movie ever made.)
These books can hold up at any altitude.
—Sadie Stein
From one of the greatest realists of the 19th century (just ask Zola!), this Portuguese family saga meets coming-of-age drama and romance is incredibly, improbably fun. is. José María de Esa de Queiroz is prolific and all his work is marked by human stupidity and a keen eye for material detail, but this novel is definitely my favourite. is. Length? Yes, but it’s a page turner. And Margaret Jules Costa’s 2007 translation makes it pure bedtime fun, and its weight brings comfort rather than burden.
As if a multi-generational tale of shocking marriages, changing Lisbon customs, high society issues, and an arrogant young gentleman getting a few nails nailed down wasn’t enough, ‘The Maias’ is an era. In other words, “At the end of the corridor was Alfonso’s study, furnished like a prelate’s room in red damask. Room Everything in the house—the solid rosewood desk, the low shelves made of carved oak, the understated luxury of the book binding—combines and is enhanced by paintings attributed to Rubens. It created a solemn atmosphere of hard-working peace.”
Please read: Flaubert, Dickens, Visconti (“Leopard” is the obvious comparison), “The Magnificent Ambersons”, Portugal, Velvet
Available from: your local library; anywhere good books are sold. (I bought it when Idlewild was still selling books!)
Roffman’s book was the first biography to delve into the early life of the prominent privateer Ashbery. This fluent and charming portrait makes a compelling argument for the importance of youthful influence. Books and music that introduced precocious teenagers to the larger world of art. death of his beloved brother.
Because Roffman knew Ashbery and had access to his childhood diary, boyhood, Deerfield and college archives, the results are intimate and detailed. She ends the book when Ashbury is in her late 20s and on the verge of success, but it shows a lot of the delicious side of the New York school’s electric early days. Bohemian New York artists, dancers and avant-garde musicians, many of whom are queer, plus O’Hara’s quirky Harvard roommate and seemingly ubiquitous “Ted” Gorey.
A must-read for Ashbury enthusiasts, but if you love poetry to make sense of this story growing up in a time when artistic possibilities felt endless and the life of the mind was (almost) as vivid as it was. It doesn’t have to be. Night in Greenwich Village.
Please read: “Kafka Was the Rage”, Elaine Dundy, Larry Rivers, Fire Island and, of course, everything from Ashbery, O’Hara and Kenneth Koch
Available from: your local library; anywhere good books are sold
why are you…
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just do it spring cleaning? As a young penniless poet in 1970s New York, Bob Rosenthal hires a temporary agency to clean his house. But of course, a house means a person. And people mean emotions, relationships and the unexpected. Rosenthal’s book Cleaning Up New York is a deeply humane, often hilarious, and ultimately touching little treatise on intimacy. Any tips for cleaning? Dirt always wins.
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your exercise green thumb? “The Flower Shop”, a collection of photographs of Viennese splendid florists Blumen craft, came into my life. But it’s a singular commentary on what the subtitle itself (affectionately) calls “charm, grace, beauty, tenderness in a commercial context.” please. A glimpse into the life of business and the people who have dedicated their lives to it.
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Pick yourself up, damn it? From legendary noblewoman decorator Dorothy Draper (who some believe attends a “vigorous walk” school of therapeutic therapy) to my desk for days that make me want to be antisocial. There is a quote I was pasting in. to be Dreary’ is a grumpy little imp who whispers to us that the things we know to be fun are a hassle, take too much time, cost too much money, and won’t be as fun after all. think. Don’t listen to that voice now. adjust it.
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