#Non-fiction WWII French Resistance

MARCH

by Guillaume Pollack (no photo)

Finished: March 2023
Genre: non-fiction (WWII)
Rating: C+
Review: L’armée du silence (ISBN: 9791021049413)

Good news: I learned about a hidden side of a war. World War II was fought behind enemy lines by an army of silence. I did not realise how many resistance networks that were created led by the secret services of Free France and the Allies.
These networks are major players in the final victory against Nazi and fascist oppression. I kept wondering how the “resistance” is organised in Ukraine? We know they are there….

Good news: Excellent book for my French vocabulary. I don’t read many French history based books but hope to try more in the future.

Bad news: Writing style: At times the book lists so many people in the resistance (my head was spinning!),…names, dates of birth, schools attended, places etc. that goes on and on. The book read rather like a text book. After 200 pages I had to figure a way to keep reading…which was difficult. I underlined every name on a page…then proceeded to read around them! I was never going to remember all who joined the resistance so I need to grasp the gist of their operations. It is not written in a very exciting or particularly elaborate language, but perhaps it is better for that. It tells the stories of the resistance in a very meticulous and chronological manner.

Personal: This book is for the die-hard aficionado who yearns for MORE details about WW II. L’armée du silence is the story of men and MANY women who almost always remained anonymous Their secrets and the identity of their agents have so far been kept in archives in France and abroad, recently opened. I was most impressed by the best known network “Alliance”, by Georges Loustaunau-Lacau double agent who managed to get appointed to Vichy France. He made many daring escapes, survived concentration camps and eventually elected to the French National Assembly in 1951. What a life!

#Essays On Becoming an American Writer

FEBRUARY

by James Alan McPherson

Finish date: February 2023
Genre: essays
Rating: A++++
Review: On Becoming an American Writer (ISBN: 9781567927481)

Good news: James McPherson was the first African-American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction…and you probably never heard of him. Now is your chance to discover this great writer! He went from segregated Savannah Georgia, to Harvard Law School to professor at the University of Iowa’s Writer’s Workshop. It is  the number two university in USA for writing.

Bad news: The first 3 essays were interesting (black movement). The only objection is the scholarly tone. Not the best choices to “hook” the reader. I thought the book was going to be a soporific read…how wrong I was! I did not give up on the book…essays like Crabcakes, an essay about the comic Richard Pryor and the one that stole my heart was about his relationship with his daughter Rachel…brilliant! Just …keep reading!

Personal : This book is stunning! I did not want the book to end…so I put the author’s other books (memoir, short stories) and my reading wish list. So glad I finally got to meet James Alan McPherson!  Professor McPherson was the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction with his short story collection Elbow Room (Little, Brown, 1977). In 1981 and he was among the first of MacArthur Scholars.

I guess the old saying goes
…just saving the best for last for #BlackHistoryMonth23.
This was an amazing collection of essays
to re-introduce  us to James McPherson.
Who?
That is exactly what I said…but oh, was I impressed.
When a book lingers….even when trying to go to sleep
then I say: This writer is a keeper!

#2023 March Reading List

Shannon, County Clare

1. Do Not Disturb  – M. Wrong, 2021 (Rwanda) (NF) – – READING
2. Floaters –  Martin Espada  – (Nat Book Award 2021) poetry
3. On Becoming an American Writer – J. McPherson – REVIEW
4. If Walls Could Speak – Moshe Safdie, 2022 – (NF)

1. French Reading Challenge:
2. Enfant de Salaud – Sorj Chalandon, 2021 (novel) – REVIEW
3. L’Armée du silence – G. Pollack, 2022  (NF) – REVIEW
4. L’étranger – Albert Camus, 1942  (classic)
5. Miroir de nos peines – Pierre Lemaitre, 2020 (novel)
6. Les mains du miracle – Joseph Kessel, 1960 (nonfiction) –– READING

1. #Readingirelandmonth23 Challenge    hosted by  @746Books
2. Short History of Irish Literature – F. O’ Connor, 1968  Intro  – REVIEW              
3. Molloy – Samuel Beckett, 1951  (novel)- Irish Classics                            
4. Girl on an Altar – M. Carr, 2022 (play) Contemporary Irish                    
5. The End of the World is a Cul de Sac – L. Kennedy, 2021  Short Story – REVIEW
6. My Fourth Time, We Drowned – Sally Hayden, 2022  Non- Fiction  – REVIEW        

#Classic Journal of a Village Priest

FEBRUARY

by Georges Bernanos

Finish date: February 2023
Genre: novel
Rating:  B
Review: Journal d’un curé de campagne (ISBN: 9782253162865)

Good news: This is a classic novel by one of the last French novelist whose narratives are strongly influenced by the Catholic church. The author offers here the diary of a country priest. He seems a bit naive to me as Le curé is straight out of the seminary and has little knowledge of the customs of the world and sometimes becomes the laughing stock of others. But this all changes…..

Bad news: Pg 1-34 was difficult to get into this book…lots of ‘Catholic Church’ bashing. Need to improve my “clerical French vocabulary” Toute de suite! Just when I think I can follow the daily journal of the priest….suddenly another character goes off on a rant about the ancient world, the rich aristocrats, the poor working class and the ever powerful L’Église. These rants in the first 30 % of the book (pg 7-101) totals 53 pages!! If I am going to finish this book I will have to skim the future harangues!

Personal: With all the drama that happens in a rural village (and there is a lot!) …Georges Bernanos distilled his view of the Catholic Church in just one sentence (pg 166) that impacted me:
“Who are you (church) to judge the faults of others?” The story is told by the priests recounting of his experiences in his diary. He reflects upon them with hindsight. Le curé is treated with hatred by many of the villiagers. They see him as an an unwanted intrusion into their lives. As he feels himself to be an outcast by the townspeople, he increasingly relies on his faith for strength.
But even this begins to fade. This was a very powerful book…once I got past the “rants” in the first 25% of the book. Bernanos was awarded the Grand prix du roman de l’Académie française in 1936, the year it was published. Journal d’un curé de campagne is considered one of the masterpieces of 20th century French literature. The book is available in English translation and a good suggestion for the European Reading challenge!

#BlackHistoryMonth Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois

FEBRUARY

by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Genre: novel
Rating: D-
Review: The Love Songs of W.E.B Du Bois (ISBN:9780008516482)

Good news: During 2023 I am going to concentrate on reducing the number of books on my Kindle. That is why I’m going to give ANY book on my TBR a chance. This looked like a good place to start for #BHM.

Bad news: This book is 300 pages too long… it sacrifices depth for breadth. I just could not finish it. So disappointed because I saw many rave reviews…(Oprah’s Book Club).

Personal: Undaunted by the introduction (HUGE family trees of several families)…I pushed on. While the first half of the book was interesting (1960s-1990s)… it became repetitious and felt like a long soap opera once the youngest (Ailey) was off to college. I made it to 50% mark…then was tired of the melodrama in the Garfield family (Coco, Lydia and Ailey). Lesson learned: Any book 800+ pages…I must read the reviews (score 2 and 1) before buying the book!! Once again…many people loved this book about a multigenerational Black American family…so you will have to read it for yourself and decide.

#BlackHistoryMonth A Knock At Midnight

FEBRUARY

by Brittany K. Barnett

Finish date: February 2023
Genre: non-fiction
Rating: B
Review: A Knock At Midnight (ISBN: 9781984825803)

Good News: It is important to keep reading racism in USA…and not only during #BlackHistoryMonth. This award winning attorney shares with the reader her childhood growing up in East Texas.

Her family was strong but it seems society was against them every step of the way.
Impressive to read how Brittany became the backbone of the family…helping a mother who has been incarcerated, caring for her younger sister, keeping up her grades….and eventually studying law.
#RivetingMemoir

Personal: This is the 5th book I’ve read about mass incarceration of Blacks in USA.

 In the order of Best..to good: Blood in the Water (Heather Ann Thompson)…then The New Jim Crow (Michelle Alexander) Just Mercy (B. Stevenson) followed by Halfway Home and A Knock at Midnight. All the books are eye-openers. Yet I feel…nothing seems to change in the USA legal system.

#Biography John Updike

Finish date: February 2023
Genre: biography – Updike by Adam Begley (ISBN: 9780062410894)
Rating: A+++++

Good news: I did not want this book to end. Having discovered  John Updike for the first tiime,  I did not want to lose him in the final chapter.His life  began in  Shillington Pennsylvania. It was unremarkable. Nobody goes there. There is nothing to see, yet for Updike it is the most  comforting place on earth.

Good news: In the first chapter I connected immediately  to Updike remembering  my own  hometown USA.   Playgrounds where we played dodge ball,  the library where the floors squeaked in hushed silence and Mahoney’s  drugstore where we gorged on cherry cokes and hot fudge sundaes.Updike’s  mother told him “he could fly” and he believed her. She was determined not to let her son John become a Shillington ‘know-nothing’. Adam Begley has done an excellent job bringing  Updike’s  literary greatness  to life  by analyzing his short stories, novels and  poems.

Good news: This book gives the reader so many insights  into  the ‘autobiographical’  aspects of Updike’s writing. (timeline: 1932 – 2009). The Centaur is a touching tribute to his father, The Maples stories  expose Updike’s  marital woes and the  Henry Bech stories reveal   Updike’s  alter-ego filled with literary  adventures.

Good news:  Adam Begley explains Updike’s  “delicate art of weaving popular culture, politics and economics into the fabric of the narrative” (pg 394) of the  Rabbit series (Rabbit, Run;  Rabbit Redux;  Rabbit is Rich and  Rabbit at Rest). Updike introduces us to Harry ‘Rabbit’ Angstrom   whose basketball skills did not translate into post-high school success.

Personal:

This biography is a wonderful start. Subtle meanings and painful backround information will make the “Maples stories” come alive. Updike’s prose is drenched in his personal life.

I won’t go any further  into the details of Updike’s  life because I want you to discover this writer for yourself. There is always a sentence that lingers after reading a book.  Updike’s  description of a family home filled with children    ” wandering in and out with complaints their mothers brushed away like cigarette smoke”.     Updike describes  what it was like  in….hometown  USA. This  is an excellent biography of a great writer and I would highy recommend it.  Begley does not write a biography as a summation of facts.  He lets us discover Updike — essay by essay, story by story, novel by novel.

#BlackHistoryMonth The Age of Phillis

FEBRUARY

by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Finish date: 01.02.2023
Genre: Phillis Wheatley Peters life through poems
Rating: B
Review: The Age of Phillis

Bad news: Poems were interesting….that’s all. I only REALLY liked one “Isabell” (pg 93)…very touching.

Good news: Pages 167-187 “Looking for Miss Phillis”. The author explains the 6 years of research to gather the true facts about the poet.

Personal: I read the poems as a story…not concentrating on layout, word choice etc. Just read it like a story. I’m sure you will feel the injustice done to slaves even if not every poem is to your liking. But please…do read pages 167-187…so impressive the dedication H.F. Jeffers reveals…because she wanted Phillis’s life to be brought to our attention.

#Modern Library Challenge Darkness At Noon

by Arthur Koestler

Finish date: 31 January 2023
Genre: historical fiction
Rating: C-
Review: Le Zéro et l’infinie (Darkness at Noon) (ISBN: 9782253003410)

Good news: I can check off yet another book on Modern Library’s 100 Best Novels 20th C. I cannot agree with this choice of Darkness at Noon as an outstanding novel. There are better books from 20th C that easily could take its place on the list!

Bad news: Pages 144-183 were very difficult to read in French. It was a long discussions between old friends (Roubachof in prison- Ivanov prison warden) about the politics of The Party. Ivanov insists Roubachof sign a confession because he tried to split the Communist Party (CP)…and spends a long time trying to convince the Rubachof to do so.

Personal Writing: Straightforward style, absolutely credible characters…but not very likeable. The narrative switches back and forth between Roubachof’s current life as a political prisoner and his past life as one of the Communist Party elite. Roubachof is a former high-ranking Party official now in prison, charged with treason for betraying the cause.

Most impressive parts of the book were describing Roubachof’s imprisionment and the excruciating interrogations he went through. There was a lot of CP politics that honestly I had to skim a few pages. The book was written (1940) 23 after the CP was established in Russia (1917). I’m sure readers in 1940 were fascinated by the narrative. On pg 251 Gletkin (interrogator) says: “…nécessité pour Le Parti rester uni” unfortunately…CP lasted only 51 more years. In 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev removed the constitutional role of the Communist Party. Because of this it allowed non-communists to take power.

I discovered this book on Modern Library Best 100 Novel 20th C. It is rarely on anyone’s reading list…now I know why.

#BlackHistoryMonth Halfway Home

by Reuben Jonathan Miller (no photo)

Finish date: February 2023
Genre: non-fiction
Rating: A+++++
Review: Halfway Home (ISBN: 9780316451482)

Good news: Ruben Miller, social scientist, records human behavior of prisoners and ex-prisoners as a result of the relationship between mental states and social situations. Miller also emphasised the “ridiculous” policies that states have enacted to prevent people (African-American) from rebuilding their lives. #Eye-opener

Personal: This was not an easy book to read….confronted me with what life is really like for the incarcerated. Raw, heartbreaking accounts of lives that have been rejected by society. It sent shivers down my spine. How does one survive when as Nina Simone sings in the gospel song Sinnerman: …the river boils, the sea bleeds and the rock refused to hide them.I must recommend reading this stunning book! Ruben Miller expresses empathy for the people he studied…but also revealed how close his own personal life is to “…being black, poor and living in the time of mass incarceration.” The author’s special gift is this “proximity” and his ability to navigate his writing for the public.

All I can say is…remember who you elect to local, state and federal positions….are they there to help or hinder? Finalist Los Angeles Book Prize 2022 – Reuben Jonathan Miller, “Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration”. Find it at the library….and educate yourself!
#MustRead