The Help & The Innocents Abroad

I finished The Help but didn't want it to end. The characters became so real to me that I wanted to know what happened next. I needed to know. But that's the way with good books, isn't it, they leave the reader wanting more. This is a first novel, and I can only hope that her second will be on the shelves soon.

Book Club, which is tonight, chose Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad, which I had to order from the library. When I picked it up last week I checked the last page, found that there were 406 pages, and divided accordingly, so that I would have a minimum number of pages to read to be finished in time. But as I read I didn't seem to be progressing as rapidly as expected. Alas, the book contains two volumes, Vol II is 406 pages, but Vol I is an additional 311, so my arithmatic was very wrong. I spent the weekend following Twain through Greece and Turkey and now the Holy Lands, and I have 65 pages to finish before this evening.

This is not a book I would have chosen to read, and it's amusing, but not his expected humor. The funniest part so far (and I'm near the end, so I doubt that there are many more funny parts) was the recital of his weeping at Adam's grave.

Since I stopped photographing my breakfasts I find I don't check Blogger every day, and as a result my dashboard often shows several posts from other blogs I follow, and then I have to catch up on all their doings.

Back to Twain! Have a good reading day!

The Help

I've finished Kathryn Stockett's The Help and I'm sorry that it is so, because I want to know what happens next. That is the best sort of book, one that introduces characters that are so real that it seems wrong for the final page to be the end of the story. This first novel is set in Jackson, Mississippi in the 60s, about women of color and women who are raised by them and who, as adults, employ them.

1776

This morning I finished David McCullough's 1776, which I thought was going to be a comprehensive cover of that first year, but wasn't. Instead it was a detailed account of George Washington's first year as commander-in-chief. What a time he had! A success in March in Boston and then nothing but defeat and retreat till that famous crossing of the Delaware in December. It's a wonder that the war was successful, so that it could be termed a Revolution instead of just another rebellion. McCullough presents the military events and politics of both sides in a fascinating account.

We are taught American History from grade school onward, a sanitized version without the mean drama and stress to all involved. Sometimes one side didn't so much win as take advantage of the other side's lack of action. Sometimes weather intervened for good or not. Sometimes it was just luck.

Last week my husband asked me if Washington really stood up in the boat, as depicted by Leutze. The answer is, probably they all did. They crossed in scows used to transport pig iron, 40 men at a time. Many were barefoot, in freezing weather. That battle was really a minor event, but has been elevated in American history to become much more than it was. I wonder if the painting helped with that elevation.

I have The Help to read and then John Adams. My year with McCullough will be at an end.

Waiting for coffee

One of the irritations of getting older is a dependency on meds that inflict additional annoyance in addition to the condition that requires the meds in the first place. Every morning I take a pill and then must wait an hour before eating. That hour is usually spent at the computer, or reading, or some other quiet activity that does not require much, because I haven't had my coffee yet, and my brain is not awake.

Lately I've been playing Lexulous, a sort of mini-Scrabble, which does require some thought, so I've got in the habit of leaving myself notes in the game as to possible words I can play in the mornings. This is a leisurely game. I post a word. Eventually my opponent posts a word. Eventually the game is done. I win more than I lose, but not at an astonishing rate. Slightly above average, is my guess. I do better after coffee.

And now it's time to turn on my little machine and separate my eggs!

I've stopped all that

Although I've stopped photographing my breakfast each day, I feel a mental tug as I sit down, Wait, where's the camera? You didn't take a photo! But then I remember that I've stopped all that.

It was fun to see if I could do something for a year, but I never really got in the habit of that photograph before coffee. The camera sat plugged into the computer from the previous day's uploading, and I'd have to walk back to get it. I seldom remembered it when checking the morning's emails.

Mostly the photos were the same, with minor variations. When we went on trips I'd try to show where we were, but breakfast can be the same anywhere. I didn't take photos on planes, because I think it's alarming to see a flash go off whilst confined in a small tube tens of thousands of feet above the earth.

We were once coming in for landing in Atlanta, in clear weather, and the tail of the plane was struck by lightning. I was in the middle of three seats, talking to the girl who had the aisle seat. She was from Spain, and she'd been showing me photos on her laptop of her mother's kitchen in northern Spain (but now I forget the town), so that I was turned toward the aisle, when I heard a tremendous crash, like a giant aluminum baseball bat hitting a metal trash can, and a ball of fire rolled up the aisle from tail forward. It happened very fast, and if I hadn't been turned that way I would have missed the soccer-ball-sized incandescence that flashed by.
The pilot was so calm about it, but he got the plane down quickly.

There was a time when I went out to breakfast weekly or better, but now none of the group wants or needs to get up so early, so we meet for lunch, and it's nicer to have my eggs and coffee and book without getting dressed first. We are rather quiet at breakfast, each eating and reading and exchanging small comments about the day's plans. And the camera has stayed plugged into the computer at the other end of the house.

Dracula is not for me

Since I've stopped taking photos of my breakfasts, I've stopped typing out my posts. I'm composing them in my head, but they don't seem to trickle down through my fingers onto the keyboard.


I've stopped reading Bram Stoker, just too horrid, and am instead reading A House in Corfu by Emma Tennant. It's her account of her parents' move in the early 1960s to Corfu, where they built a lovely house on a hillside with beautiful views of the water. I wish there were more photos, but her descriptions paint wonderful images in my head, the perfect thing to replace Stoker's.

Neil Gaiman, I'm so cross with you!!

Some time in the past year I started adding as labels the titles of the books I read at breakfast, and I'm sorry I didn't do it from the start. It would be nice to have a record of all I've read, but I didn't.

Most of the year was spent reading the works of David G McCullough, who writes fascinating books, but I am in a book club that meets every third Monday of the month (changing in January because of the holidays), so I had a lot of odd books to read also. For October, we are reading Bram Stoker's Dracula, which I have never read. I have the annotated edition, with pictures, maps, notes by Leslie S Klinger, and an intro by Neil Gaiman.

I am a big Gaiman fan, and have read his books with pleasure, so I dived into the Introduction, only to find, alas, that he gives away the end of the book! I didn't want to know! I realize this book has been around for a long, long time, but I've never read it, and I've never seen any of the films. I suppose my closest acquaintance with vampire Counts is Count Count from Sesame Street. But now, alas I know that...but I won't write it, in case you don't know the ending either.