Book Review: A RELIABLE WIFE by Robert Goolrick

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the sort of story that Jo March got condemned by Prof. Bhaer for writing. It’s scandalous and mad, and definitely for adult readers only in its sensual depiction of extreme loneliness and the lengths people go through to escape it. I couldn’t pull myself away after reading the first page.

A rich man advertises for a wife, and the woman who arrives on the train is not the one he was expecting.

I think what fascinates me is the thought that this book, and another one like it, was inspired by true events and real people’s lives, as written in another book (“Wisconsin Death Trip” by Michael Lesy).

Apparently, country living in turn-of-the-century America wasn’t all wholesome apple pie and barn dances.

As thrillers go, this one is top-notch and will definitely keep you turning pages way past bedtime.


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Book Review: THE SNOW CHILD by Eowyn Ivey

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"We are allowed to do that, are we not? To invent our own endings and choose joy over sorrow?"

Trigger Warning: The book starts with a suicide attempt quite unlike any I've ever read depicted. And the rest is a story of quiet and steely courage. Having confronted the darkest abyss, there's nowhere to go but upwards, to the light.

Jack and Mabel are a couple in their fifties who move to Alaska in 1920, eager to escape their past. But when a mysterious child comes into their lives, they soon discover that parenting just might be harder than the physical challenges of eking out a living in an unforgiving landscape.

I have a feeling that this book will be better appreciated by mothers.

Being a single woman of a certain age, I can only express admiration for Ivey's prose. But then, since I happened to read this book after her second novel (To The Bright Edge of the World -- which I LOVED), I couldn't help but compare the two books and found the second one far superior to the first.

Ivey writes of motherhood's challenges and deepest tragedies in a way that seems to say, "You are stronger than you know. And you are not alone." Her heroines start off as gently brought up young ladies unsuited for the wilderness of Alaska, but then they dig within and do what we women do remarkably well: adapt.

Her heroines are women I would like to become, someday. They become masters of their fate.

I liked that the protagonist was in her fifties. Not many novels feature older women, which is a shame. They possess a confidence and wisdom that I long to have, someday. Aging like an Ivey heroine is something to aspire to!

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Book Review: A JANE AUSTEN EDUCATION by William Deresiewicz

A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter by William Deresiewicz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Austen sells. The market is simply flooded with Austen-inspired books. This one stands out because

1) It is written by a man.
2) And not just any man… but an English professor at Yale!!

This was a light read, and I think it was intended as such. If you’re an Austen fan, you’ll enjoy it for the new insights over familiar characters and events. If you haven’t read Austen yet, this may inspire you to give her a try. Deresiewicz managed to interweave his own adulting story with the adulting of Austen’s heroines (that nature-loving, forever-walking posse of possessors of inner beauty).

I’d rate it 3.5 stars out of 5, because while I found it enjoyable, I did find myself wondering if he still remained friends with the people of his inner circle (even relatives!) after publication. I was uncomfortable with the way he poked fun at them, elevating his own “inner riches” at their expense, despite knowing that he was keeping with true Austen fashion.

Apparently Deresiewicz isn’t the only male admirer of Austen. In the book, he mentioned a Rudyard Kipling short story, “The Janeites,” which features a secret society of World War I soldiers who met regularly to discuss Austen’s works in the trenches. Light in the darkness.

And this is why we are drawn to Austen:

“Austen was asking us to pay attention to the things we usually miss or don’t accord enough esteem, in novels or in life. Those small, “trivial,” every day things… that is what the fabric of our years really consists of. That is what life is really about… the hourly ordinary… Every life is eventful, if only you know how to look at it. She understood that what fills our days should fill our hearts.”

Austen has something to offer everyone! Go ahead and give her a try!


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Book Review: THE WATER IS WIDE by Pat Conroy

The Water Is Wide by Pat Conroy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I stumbled across Pat Conroy's THE WATER IS WIDE on sale at Fully Booked a few years ago (a well-spent P50!), but then misplaced it until a teacher recommended it. (Thank you Sir Jaime!) Dug it up from the (literal) TBR pile and tada!

Pat Conroy wrote this tender book about the year he taught underprivileged African-American students in an island cut off from the rest of civilization, where students could not recite the alphabet and did not know what a highway was. And this was in the '70's! And it was a WILD year, filled with such struggle, but such truth and joy. His anger for the broken educational system was very evident, as was  his love for his pupils which shone brightly through the text.

It is, I think, a fitting book to read on the eve of the official start of this (still) young teacher's 13th year in education. And what a historic year we face!!

There's something very special about reading books by and about fellow teachers. It puts us in direct contact with like minds and hearts, fellow do-gooders whose struggles and triumphs so closely mimic our own. 

I smile to recall how I started out, twelve years ago. To quote Pat Conroy, "we wanted to do so much, wanted to be small catalysts in the transformation of the disfigured sacramental body..."

This year will be a historic one. A generation from now, books will be written about the year that teachers the world over had to go digital. I suppose we Filipino teachers should count ourselves lucky compared to our counterparts abroad, because we had a few months to train ourselves for the big adjustment.   

Pat Conroy wrote that "Like other teachers, I failed. Teaching is a record of failures. But the glory of teaching is in the attempt." With all due respect to Mr. Conroy, this is where I disagree.

We CANNOT fail. Failure is not an option because there is simply too much at stake now. Like Mr. Conroy, we teachers believe that whatever hope for the country that is yet to come, will come from the children. The next generation whose minds we now mould, whose hearts we heal (whether asynchronously or synchronously).

It is an imperfect system. There will be challenges, that is a given. But I'm confident that we in the field are more than prepared to meet them head on. We know how to learn, and therefore, we can learn to adapt to almost anything life throws our way. We've faced life-threatening disasters in our classrooms and dealt with each one calmly and efficiently, we can do the same now. We've worked in less than ideal conditions, with constraints ranging from physical afflictions to financial limitations, and we've transcended all of them. Because we teachers don't let anything stop us from fulfilling our mission.

Pat Conroy summed it up well. He hoped to pass on his philosophy to his pupils at Yamacraw Island, South Carolina: "Life was good, but it was hard; we would prepare to meet it head on, but we would enjoy the preparation."

The past two weeks of dry runs and orientations were not easy, but we enjoyed the preparation. And tomorrow, the official start of SY 2020 begins!

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Book Review: THE KING'S GENERAL by Daphne du Maurier

The King's General by Daphne du Maurier
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"My last ride. The sun in my eyes, the wind in my face... unforgettable, unforgotten, deep in my soul for all time."

You know those "unputdownable" books that make you stay up until the wee hours of early morning to finish, the ones that make your eyelids defy gravity and your body defy the lack of coffee? Trust me, they come few and far in between. And this is definitely one of them. Daphne du Maurier made me feel like if I put the book down, the Civil War I was living in would come to a disastrous end! And so I didn't.

"You have no pride then, no feeling for your name?"
"My name is Honor, and I do not hold it tarnished."

How much trouble can Honor, an immobilized lady, get into during the English Civil War? This book answers: A LOT.

The idea for this novel came from the discovery of a skeleton inside a secret room, in the old house where du Maurier lived.

Good authors have the capability of showing their reader another time and place, as a ghostly witness to history. GREAT authors transport you there in High Definition and make you feel like you're bleeding in a different century, before the discovery of antibiotics! And today I care so much about the Royalists and Parliamentarians!!!

It was apparently a best-seller back in 1946, and trust me, all the hype about Daphne du Maurier is real! I will now hunt down all her books because, quite simply, NOTHING ELSE COMPARES. I am hesitant to label this book as a "gothic horror," or as a "romance," because while there are elements in the novel, to classify it under those convenient phrases is to diminish the epic that is "The King's General." (And also, the plot of TKG violates some basic rules of the romance genre, but to say any more is to spoil, so that is all I shall type!)

TKG brings to mind a Disney animated film so wonderfully made, that they make spin-off TV shows based on the characters from it. Well, that's what TKG is like, compared with the best romance novels I've read (and I've read far too many!).

What sets TKG apart, for me, is how the heroine was ever clear-eyed about the many faults of the man she loved. It was very "realistic" in the sense that she showed the limits of all-consuming passion, that there were things far more important and enduring. 

I was particularly touched by this passage:

"For mine own part I desire to acquire an honest name or an honorable grave. I never loved life or ease so much as to shun such an occasion, which if I should, I were unworthy of the profession I have held, or to succeed those ancestors of mine who have so many of them, in several ages, sacrificed their lives for their country."

Some people accuse her of purple prose. But I'll take the noble, vivid color any day over the pale, washed out imitations in print!

Sky darkening, storm clouds gathering? Go flood-proof your domain, then hunker down in bed with this book to wait it out. It will be your most unforgettable and enjoyable rainy day.

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