dual personalities

Tag: Fred Vargas

March 7, 2017

What are you reading?

by chuckofish

 

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Last weekend I re-read Barbara Pym’s The Sweet Dove Died. It is one of her later books, published in 1978 after she had re-started her career. By this time, her writing is markedly bitter and cynical–which is sad, but not hard to understand. The main characters are all rather awful.There is only one “church lady” in this book and she is a minor character, living on the fringe of things, not unlike–one suspects–Barbara herself. Still, I enjoyed the novel. Pym has a sharp eye for character.

Amazon is supposed to deliver Fred Vargas’s new mystery A Climate of Fear today. Huzzah!

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What are you reading? Any suggestions?

2 Comments
February 20, 2017

“And infant voices shall proclaim their early blessings on his name”*

by chuckofish

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(Napping wee babes who look like they are sitting up, but are not actually.)

Although it appears that spring has sprung here in flyover country, we all know that this is unlikely. Not to say we did not enjoy the weather this weekend!

I worked in the yard and wore myself out, but what a nice change! While outside, I watched a battle royal between a bunch of crows and a red-tailed hawk that was amazing. Such a ruckus. I gather that crows hate red-tailed hawks and with good reason probably, but count me on team red-tailed hawk.

Anyway, no matter what happens now weather-wise, it won’t be long ’til spring.

I went to church and read the first lesson (the Levitcus reading about love thy neighbor as thyself) and was also the Intercessor. The Gospel lesson was the one about “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect,” which is setting the bar pretty high for this week.

I started re-reading An Uncertain Place by the French mystery writer Fred Vargas, who is a favorite of mine.

Adamsberg imagined Danglard’s mind as a block of fine limestone, where rain, in other words questions, had hollowed out countless basins in which his worries gathered, unresolved. Every day, three or four of these basins were active simultaneously. Just now, the journey through the tunnel, the woman in London, the feet in Highgate. As Adamsberg had explained to him, the energy Danglard expended on these questions, seeking to empty out the basins, was a waste of time. Because no sooner had he cleared out one space than it made way for something else, for another set of agonizing questions. By digging away at them, he was stopping peaceful sedimentation from taking place, and the natural filling up of the excavations, which would happen if he forgot about them.

If you have not discovered Fred Vargas, I recommend her.

Following up on my blogpost on Friday, I watched a lot of Miami Vice, season three.

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This is always a good idea.

The boy and daughter #3 came over after a day at the hospital for spaghetti last night and that was fun.

I could use another day after such a busy weekend, but, alas, I do not have Presidents Day off. Lucky you, if you do.

*Isaac Watts (1674-1748) hymn #544

5 Comments
July 18, 2013

This is how my brain works

by chuckofish

“[Adamsberg] had recently seen a photograph that had struck him as a clear illustration of his own idea of his brain. It showed the contents of a fishing net unloaded on the deck of a large vessel, a pile taller than the fishermen themselves, a heap of all kinds of things, defying identification, in which the silvery colours of the fish mingles with the dark brown of seaweed, the grey of the crustaceans…the blue of lobsters, the white of seashells, making it hard to distinguish the different elements. That was what he was always fighting, the confused, multiform and shifting mass, always ready to change or vanish, and float off again into the sea. The sailors were sorting out the pile, throwing back creatures that were too small, lumps of seaweed or detritus, and saving the familar useful species. Adamsberg, it seemed to him, did the opposite, throwing out all the sensible items and then looking at the irrelevant fragments of his personal collection.”

–Fred Vargas, The Ghost Riders of Ordebec

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July 15, 2013

Allons enfants de la Patrie

by chuckofish

Yesterday was Bastille Day. Did you remember? While the date is the same as that of the storming of the Bastille, July 14 was chosen to commemorate the 1790 Fête de la Fédération, celebrating the uprising of the short-lived constitutional monarchy in France and what people considered the happy conclusion of the French Revolution.

I am no francophile, despite my French-Canadian great-great grandfather (the mysterious Fabian Blais) and an enduring admiration for Gerard Depardieu,

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but I thought we would all enjoy this rousing scene from Casablanca.

 

Also I have been reading the latest novel by my favorite French mystery writer, Fred Vargas. (Fred Vargas is the pseudonym of the French historian, archaeologist and writer Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau.)

The Ghost Riders of Ordebec is really good! Her mysteries are character driven, not plot driven, which is the way I like them. They are not police procedurals. If you have not read any books by Fred Vargas, I suggest you start with her first Commissaire Adamsberg mystery– L’Homme aux cercles bleus (English title: The Chalk Circle Man). You are in for a treat!

My weekend was a pleasant one. My Episcopal Souffle was a success and dinner on Friday with my compadres was fun per usual.

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I went to several estate sales and bought a few embroidered hand towels and a set of fabric napkins, which you can buy for a few dollars and are usually new, having been put away in a drawer somewhere and never used. They are out of fashion, but I love them–and I use them!

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I worked in the yard, which was hot work, but satisfying. I always feel close to my mother when I toil in the yard, because she used to do so year after year. She frequently had dirty knees because she always wore skirts!

I watched the movie Quartet, directed by Dustin Hoffman, and starring Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay and Billy Connelly.

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The movie takes place at a home for retired musicians, where the annual concert to celebrate Verdi’s birthday is disrupted by the arrival of Jean, an eternal diva and the former wife of one of the residents. It was filmed at some beautiful house in Buckinghamshire. I enjoyed it and the setting was lovely. Good music too.

And now it is Monday and it’s back to the salt mines!

4 Comments
July 5, 2013

Speaking of teacups

by chuckofish

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“Your great-great-great-great-grandmother had these cups, when she was married,” said Hepzibah to Phoebe. “She was a Davenport, of a good family. They were almost the first teacups ever seen in the colony; and if one of them were to be broken, my heart would break with it. But it is nonsense to speak so about a brittle teacup, when I remember what my heart has gone through without breaking.”

I had no plans for the 4th of July, so I finished reading The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne, which I had started (prompted by daughter #2) while on my vacation in Florida. What a great way to spend a good chunk of a day off! It is, indeed, a luxury to be able to read, uninterrupted, for any length of time during the daytime hours when one is a working person who normally crawls into bed exhausted quite early.

I must say, I agree with daughter #2 that old Nathaniel Hawthorne is wonderful and should not be relegated to the reading lists of bored high schoolers.

Published in 1851, the same year as Moby-Dick, The House of Seven Gables explores themes of guilt, retribution, and atonement in a New England family and includes supernatural aspects and witchcraft.

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I wonder what Dean and Sam would think of it?

But I digress…The story was inspired by a gabled house in Salem belonging to Hawthorne’s cousin Susanna Ingersoll and by those of Hawthorne’s ancestors who played a part in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Since we are descendants of one of the teenage girls who was a chief accuser in those same trials (Ann Putnam), I can relate.

It is extremely readable and modern in its approach and organization. I was impressed and will read more Hawthorne! How did I miss him in all my years of reading?

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Now I am going to read Fred Vargas’ newest Commissaire Adamsberg mystery The Ghost Riders of Ordebec. If you are not acquainted with Fred Vargas, you should be. I am not a big fan of mysteries, but I like her very much.

I also framed a Florida memory in an estate sale frame

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and hung it on my office wall.

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Well, it’s the little things in life that make us the most happy, right? That and fireworks on the levee!

Randys-Fireworks

3 Comments
May 15, 2013

He said it

by chuckofish

“The multitude of books is a great evil. There is no measure or limit to this fever of writing; everyone must be an author; some out of vanity to acquire celebrity; others for the sake of lucre or gain.”

–Martin Luther, Table Talk (1569)

Sadly, four hundred and fifty years later, this is still the case. I can hardly bear to go into a big bookstore these days. It is too depressing to see the mess that is produced.

However, there are still some bright lights out there. I see that there is a new Fred Vargas mystery coming out in June.

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I do love Commissaire Adamsberg, the chief of police in Paris’s seventh arrondissement!

And there is a new Alexander McCall Smith #1 Ladies Detective Agency book coming out in November.

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I like the title of this new one!

Hilary Mantel is working feverishly to finish the third and final installment of her Thomas Cromwell trilogy–one fears before she is too ill to write. Ugh.

Anything else I can look forward to?

3 Comments