Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy (1874)

A capricious young woman disturbs the lives of those around her.

Classics Review: Far From the Madding Crowd is written in a convoluted 19th Century style in which the subject of a sentence may prove elusive at times. I had to be less sleepy than I sometimes am when I read, and a cup of tea or coffee might be a valuable assistant. An annotated edition will help. But once I became used to the style I was happily deep within the story and the very human, faceted characters. None are simple. Among the geometric love story there's the obsessive Boldwood, the predatory Troy, the steadfast and aptly named Gabriel Oak, the dangerous beauty Bathsheba Everdene, the center of the storm. They can seem like archetypes, at times even stereotypes, perhaps Biblical or mythological characters, but always with some human element that reminds the reader of someone from life. Only Oak seems a little too good to be true, much like Boxer from Animal Farm (though he comes to a better end). Hardy uses humor and sarcasm well and subtly in Far From the Madding Crowd, especially in his chorus of rural characters, a sort of rustic mechanicals. "His fist [was] rather smaller in size than a common loaf," "Bathsheba did not look quite so alarmed as if a cannon had been discharged by her ear." But he can also employ pathos as with the story of the inimitably named Fanny Robin, who deserves her own book. Hardy himself seems wise and all knowing, from how to save a sheep, fight a fire, harvest wheat, make music, or reference all of the Bible, poetry, art, and literature. "The rarest offerings of the purest loves are but a self-indulgence, and no kindness at all." Far From the Madding Crowd was Hardy's first Wessex novel and a wonderful introduction to his work.  [5★]

My Antonia by Willa Cather (1918)

The immigrant experience among the pioneers on America's Great Plains.

Classics Review: My Ántonia at first simply seems to be Willa Cather (1873-1947) telling a random collection of stories about the backbreaking task of settling the Nebraska prairie. Characters come and go, the titular Ántonia doesn't appear for chapters at a time. The chilling wolf story comes from Russia. "I suppose it hasn't any form," a character says. The more the reader mulls over the book, however, the more layers there are to peel back. Our narrator, the native-born Jim Burden, does everything right, goes off to college, becomes a lawyer, and ends up miserably alone in a loveless marriage. His childhood friend Ántonia, a Czech immigrant, goes her own passionate way, lives on her own terms wrong decisions and all, arrives at fulfillment and happiness that Jim can only try to join. The immigrants are poor and struggling, but their families and culture are richer and stronger than the American-born. My Ántonia is owned by tough, independent women: "I like to be like a man," Ántonia says, showing off muscles work-hardened by the farm. The narrator's love interest (another immigrant woman) states, "I don't want a husband ... men are all right for friends, but as soon as you marry them they turn into cranky old fathers ... I prefer to be foolish when I feel like it, and be accountable to nobody." Although he wishes it was, the relationship between Jim, he's four years younger, and Ántonia isn't romantic. Instead there's a lifelong friendship, a deeper love. The center of the story is the hard labor of common people, the constant worry of farm work. A subject that, perhaps because it sounds deadly dull (sorry Nebraska), is all too rare in literature. Cather makes it work. The attitudes toward the immigrants are telling. They're placed in a separate train car, a character notes "you were likely to get diseases from foreigners," town boys lust after the immigrant girls but aren't allowed to date them. There are also many moments of living history, life on the plains, how things were done. Eugene O'Neill's famous actor father even comes in for a mention. My first book by Willa Cather, My Ántonia was a happy surprise, deceptively simple and powerful.  [4½★]

Fear of Dancing: The Red Moon Anthology 2013 ed. by Jim Kacian (2014)

The annual collection of the best in haiku-related writing.

Poetry Review: Fear of Dancing is the 18th edition of this annual compilation. Poets as varied as Richard Wright, Jack Kerouac, Etheridge Knight, and Sonia Sanchez have written books of haiku. Poets such as Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, and William Carlos Williams have written poems influenced by haiku. I try to "sell" haiku and its relatives as an adult art form (for some of us it's how we learned to count syllables in elementary school). It's a way to briefly express one's creativity, the talent required dependent more on one's powers of observation than on sitzfleisch. For those who enjoy reading or writing haiku it may increase mindfulness, awareness, and closeness to nature or the world around us. A perfect form for walkers and those who may "feel" more than philosophize. One can employ the 5/7/5 syllabic form but there's no requirement. It's a very democratic art form. I often think of how Emily Dickinson could find the universe in her minute observations. But enough of my mild evangelism. Fear of Dancing is much like the previous collections, always of high quality and excellently produced. There are 154 poems here from various publications around the world throughout the year, varied as can be. From the gently humorous title piece: "writing cursive/my unspoken fear/of dancing", to the more poignant: "but stop/the old man/never gets on". Other favorites were "unpicked apples/we promise/to keep in touch" and "thistledown scatters the visible breeze". There are also five essays that can be a bit overly serious, but also highly informative and validating (other people are thoughtful about haiku!). They cover subjects from English versus Latin roots in English-language haiku, an interview with scholar Makoto Ueda (who notes that ten million Japanese write haiku, which are published in over 800 "little magazines"), synesthesia, and modern or avant-garde forms. For anyone interested or curious about the various forms of haiku Fear of Dancing, or any of the annual editions (all are in print), is an invaluable resource and treasury.  [5★]

Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford (1960)

A memoir of growing up Mitford.

Nonfiction Review: Hons and Rebels begins as a series of reminiscences of a quirky childhood in rural England between the wars. All told with much humor as seen through the eyes of a member of an aristocratic family (her father was a baron) of six sisters and a brother, notably writer sister Nancy, a couple sisters who espoused fascism, the "little sister" who became a duchess, and poor Pamela who barely rates a mention and simply lived her own life. Fellow "pink" Nancy comes in for the sharpest digs and the brother comes off best. What is little explored is what kind of parenting created this menagerie. Or the raft of sublimated emotions, as discussing intimate family matters just wasn't done at the time. And maybe it is all in there with the blustering, somewhat racist father and the vague, somewhat hands-off mother. "This silly germ theory is something quite new," their mother asserted, "doctors don't have any idea what really causes illnesses, they're always inventing some new theory." The second half of Hons and Rebels presents Mitford absconding with her first husband as two fervent communists set on saving the world. The couple ends up in America living a kind of hand-to-mouth existence that always comes right in the end. The memoir ends as her husband volunteers to fly for Canada in the war while the author prepares to give birth. She later became involved in the U.S. civil rights movement (as did her daughter) and wrote books that mattered, most notably The American Way of Death (1963). If I'd first read Hons and Rebels in my romantic teens I might've seen it as a sort of blueprint for life (without the aristocratic trappings, of course). It presents a picture of England in a certain time and place, which to an American eye is reminiscent of the (seemingly exaggerated) British movies of the time. This was my first foray into the Mitford cult, which led me to read sister Nancy's (semi-autobiographical and similar) novel The Pursuit of Love, while the family biography, The Sisters, (2001) by Mary S. Lovell, sits on my shelf.  [3½★]