Kate’s 2¢: “Live A Little” by Howard Jacobson

“Live A Little” by Howard Jacobson

Kate’s 2¢: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,     describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

  The character voices Allan Corduner uses brings us right into the middle of an argument on the phone between the 91-year old mother and her 70-something youngest son. It is a dramatic and funny opening to “Live a Little”.

   Anyone over a certain age can identify with the “mislaid” words and memory. That is why (have I told you this before?) I have written my auto-biography. My husband or children can read it to me if I lose my memory. It will be, at best, a reminder of my life; or at least, it will be a beautiful story.

   It takes the story quite a while to revisit the events, lives,  and loves in each of these elder folks, until the meet each other. Then, they slowly bond over talking about Shimi’s recently deceased brother.

   I enjoyed much of the droll “elder” humor, such as: “…Though all the world ignores us, you alone are my thesaurus.”. However, I found the story moved rather slowly, except for the beginning phone conversation and the surprise at the end of the story.

From Wikipedia:

Jacobson’s fiction, particularly in the six novels he has published since 1998, is characterized chiefly by a discursive and humorous style. Recurring subjects in his work include male–female relations and the Jewish experience in Britain in the mid- to late-20th century. He has been compared to prominent Jewish-American novelists such as Philip Roth, in particular for his habit of creating doppelgängers of himself in his fiction.

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

Live a little DB96925

Jacobson, Howard. Reading time: 9 hours, 40 minutes.

Read by Allan Corduner.

Humor

Romance

Ninety-something Beryl Dusinbery keeps forgetting everything, including her own children, but spends her days stitching morbid samplers. Shimi Carmelli, last of the eligible elderly bachelors in North London, remembers everything–including a shameful childhood incident. But their combined talents allow them to eke out new adventures. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2019.

“There Plant Eyes” by M. Leona Godin

From Joan Myles, jmyles63@gmail.com:

From Homer to Helen Keller, from Dune to Stevie Wonder, from the

invention of braille to the science of echolocation, M. Leona Godin

explores the fascinating history of blindness, interweaving it with

her own story of gradually losing her sight.

There Plant Eyes probes the ways in which blindness has shaped our

ocularcentric culture, challenging deeply ingrained ideas about what

it means to be “blind.” For millennia, blindness has been used to

signify such things as thoughtlessness (“blind faith”), irrationality

(“blind rage”), and unconsciousness (“blind evolution”). But at the

same time, blind people have been othered as the recipients of special

powers as compensation for lost sight (from the poetic gifts of John

Milton to the heightened senses of the comic book hero Daredevil).

Godin—who began losing her vision at age ten—illuminates the

often-surprising history of both the condition of blindness and the

myths and ideas that have grown up around it over the course of

generations. She combines an analysis of blindness in art and culture

(from King Lear to Star Wars) with a study of the science of blindness

and key developments in accessibility (the white cane, embossed

printing, digital technology) to paint a vivid personal and cultural

history.

A genre-defying work, There Plant Eyes reveals just how essential

blindness and vision are to humanity’s understanding of itself and the

world.

About the Author

M. Leona Godin is a writer, performer, and educator who is blind. Her

writing has appeared in The New York Times; Playboy; O, The Oprah

Magazine; and Catapult, where she writes the column, “A Blind Writer’s

Notebook.” She was a 2019 Logan Nonfiction Fellow and has written and

produced two theatrical productions: The Star of Happiness, based on

Helen Keller’s time performing on vaudeville, and The Spectator & the

Blind Man, about the invention of Braille.

She founded the online magazine Aromatica Poetica as a venue for

exploring the arts and sciences of smell and taste; not specifically

for, but welcoming to, blind readers and writers. She holds a PhD in

English Literature from NYU and has lectured on art, accessibility,

disability, and technology at NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering, Rice

University, and the American Printing House for the Blind, among other

venues.

Praise for There Plant Eyes

“…elegant, fiercely argued.” —Wall Street Journal

“‘The dual aspects of blindness—that it is a tragic horror on the one

hand and a powerful gift from the gods on the other—remain stubbornly

fixed in our cultural imaginations,’ Godin, a blind writer and

performer, asserts in this thought-provoking mixture of criticism,

memoir, and advocacy.” —The New Yorker

“There Plant Eyes is so graceful, so wise, so effortlessly erudite, I

learned something new and took pleasure in every page. All hail its

originality, its humanity, and its ‘philosophical obsession with

diversity in all its complicated and messy glory.’”

—Maggie Nelson, author of The Argonauts

“Godin guides readers through the surprising twists and turns in

Western blind history, from ancient seers to contemporary scientists.

The lively writing style and memorable

personal anecdotes are delightful. This book is a gift to both blind

and sighted readers.”

—Haben Girma, human rights lawyer and author of the bestseller Haben:

The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law

“This sighted disabled person learned so much from There Plant Eyes!

The book took me on a cultural journey that showed how blindness is

beautiful, complex, and brilliant.”

—Alice Wong, Editor, Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from

the Twenty-First Century

“In the fascinating There Plant Eyes, Leona Godin moves effortlessly

from erudite explorations of the construction of ‘blindness’ in the

times of Homer and Milton; to incisive and often funny examinations of

technology that helps—or does not—the blind individual; to personal

stories of her own life as a writer and performer. I was only a few

pages in before I realized that what I thought about being blind was

either wrong or woefully insufficient. The reader will be lost in

admiration for the breadth and sweep of Godin’s gifts as a writer and

cultural critic.”

—Riva Lehrer, author of Golem Girl: A Memoir

“I’ve been waiting most of my life for a book like There Plant Eyes to

demystify what it means and doesn’t mean to be blind. With eloquence

and wit, M. Leona Godin articulates what our culture has gotten wrong

for centuries. Blindness, she makes clear, is a feature, not merely a

difference. I’ll be recommending this book every chance I get.”

— James Tate Hill, author of Blind Man’s Bluff

“We are inevitably blind to realities outside our own experience, and

it takes a sensitive writer like Godin—with her poet’s ear—to give

insight into sightlessness.”

—David Eagleman, neuroscientist at Stanford, author of Livewired

“…erudite, capacious…As Godin wonderfully shows, we’ve come a long way

in our quest to understand what blindness means.”

––Kirkus Reviews

“By turns heartfelt and thought-provoking, this is a striking achievement.”

—Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)

From Bookshare:

Synopsis

From Homer to Helen Keller, from Dune to Stevie Wonder, from the invention of braille to the science of echolocation, M. Leona Godin explores the fascinating history of blindness, interweaving it with her own story of gradually losing her sight. There Plant Eyes probes the ways in which blindness has shaped our ocularcentric culture, challenging deeply ingrained ideas about what it means to be &“blind.&” For millennia, blind­ness has been used to signify such things as thoughtlessness (&“blind faith&”), irrationality (&“blind rage&”), and unconsciousness (&“blind evolution&”). But at the same time, blind people have been othered as the recipients of special powers as compensation for lost sight (from the poetic gifts of John Milton to the heightened senses of the comic book hero Daredevil). Godin—who began losing her vision at age ten—illuminates the often-surprising history of both the condition of blindness and the myths and ideas that have grown up around it over the course of generations. She combines an analysis of blindness in art and culture (from King Lear to Star Wars) with a study of the science of blindness and key developments in accessibility (the white cane, embossed printing, digital technology) to paint a vivid personal and cultural history. A genre-defying work, There Plant Eyes reveals just how essential blindness and vision are to humanity&’s understanding of itself and the world.

Copyright: 2021

Book Details Book Quality:

Publisher Quality Book Size: 352 Pages

ISBN-13: 9781524748722

Related ISBNs: 9781524748715

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Date of Addition: 07/29/21

Copyrighted By: M. Leona Godin

Adult content: No

Language: English

Has Image Descriptions: No

Categories: Nonfiction, Disability-Related, Biographies and Memoirs, Literature and Fiction, Social Studies, Language Arts

Submitted By: Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions: This is a copyrighted book.

Kate’s 2¢: “Complete novels: the heart is a lonely hunter ; Reflections in a golden eye ; The ballad of the sad café ; The member of the wedding ; Clock without hands” by Carson McCullers

“Complete novels: the heart is a lonely hunter ; Reflections in a golden eye ; The ballad of the sad café ; The member of the wedding ; Clock without hands” by  Carson McCullers

Kate’s 2¢: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,     describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

“the heart is a lonely hunter”

–Mr. John Singer who is a deaf-mute (He used to speak, but the sounds were scarry.) loses his friend and apartment mate to mental illness.

–Biff and Alice run The New York Café where Jake Blinder gets drunk; Singer takes himto his boarding house.

–Mick Kelly is a teenager, who minds her little brothers and wants a piano, while her parents cater to boarders in their large house.

–Dr. Copeland’s sons are Hamilton, Karl Marx and daughter, Porsha, is cook I the Kelly’s boarding house.

–From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940) is the debut novel by the American author Carson McCullers; she was 23 at the time of publication. It is about a deaf man named John Singer and the people he encounters in a 1930s mill town in the US state of Georgia.

“Reflections in a golden eye:

–Deals with elements of repressed sexuality, both homosexual and heterosexual, as well as voyeurism and murder.

–Reflections in a Golden Eye is a 1967 American drama film directed by John Huston and based on the 1941 novel of the same name by Carson McCullers.  The film stars Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor.

“The ballad of the sad Café”:

–The Ballad of the Sad Café is a work that best represents McCullers’ fictional art. In this novel Carson McCullers portrays destructive infatuation, sexual ambivalence, longing for communication and the human need for love. The novella features three main characters and it is set in a Southern town that is melancholic and desolate.

–“The Ballad of the Sad Café” is a novella by American author Carson McCullers, first published in 1951 by Houghton Mifflin as part of the author’s short fiction collection The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories. The novella tells the story of a bizarre love triangle in a rural Georgia mill town, where a general store proprietress falls in love with a hunchbacked man—much to the ire of her convict ex-husband

“Twelve Mortal Men”

The so-called epilogue  or coda, “The Twelve Mortal Men,” seen in the context of the character-narrator’s struggle becomes not a cryptic appendix to a gothic tale but, instead, the positive act of a man of changed perspective. In this section the narrator fulfills his own earlier inchoate suggestion to “go down to Fork Falls highway and listen to the chain-gang.”

“The Member of the Wedding”

— From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Plot[edit]

The novel takes place over a few days in late August. It tells the story of 12-year-old tomboy Frankie Addams, who feels disconnected from the world; in her words, an “unjoined person.” Frankie’s mother died when she was born, and her father is a distant, uncomprehending figure. Her closest companions are the family’s African American maid, Berenice Sadie Brown, and her six-year-old cousin, John Henry West. She has no friends in her small Southern town and dreams of going away with her brother and his bride-to-be on their honeymoon in the Alaskan wilderness.

The novel explores the psychology of the three main characters and is more concerned with evocative settings than with incident. Frankie does, however, have a brief and troubling encounter with a soldier. Her hopes of going away are disappointed and, her fantasy destroyed, a short coda reveals how her personality has changed. It also recounts the fate of John Henry West, and Berenice Sadie Brown’s future plans.

“Clock without hands”

— The main thread is Malone’s dying of leukemia, but his friend, the Judge, Sherman, and the grandson are more often featured with all their prejudices.

   I realize these stories reflect the period during which they were written.  The narrator did a good job of reading what was written, however, I got very tired of hearing the stereotyped poor grammar and speech of the racist diatribes.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Carson McCullers (February 19, 1917 – September 29, 1967) was an American novelist, short-story writer, playwright, essayist, and poet. Her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940), explores the spiritual isolation of misfits and outcasts in a small town of the Southern United States. Her other novels have similar themes and most are set in the deep South.

McCullers’ work is often described as Southern Gothic and indicative of her southern roots. Critics also describe her writing and eccentric characters as universal in scope. Her stories have been adapted to stage and film. A stage adaptation of her novel The Member of the Wedding (1946), which captures a young girl’s feelings at her brother’s wedding, made a successful Broadway run in 1950–51.

McCullers was born Lula Carson Smith in Columbus, Georgia, in 1917 to Lamar Smith, a jeweller, and Marguerite Waters.[1] She was named after her maternal grandmother, Lula Carson Waters.[1] She had a younger brother, Lamar, Jr.[1] and a younger sister, Marguerite.[2] Her mother’s grandfather was a planter and Confederate soldier. Her father was a watchmaker and jeweler of French Huguenot descent. From the age of ten she took piano lessons; when she was fifteen her father gave her a typewriter to encourage her story writing.

Smith graduated from Columbus High School. In September 1934, at age 17, she left home on a steamship bound for New York City, planning to study piano at the Juilliard School of Music. After losing the money she was going to use to study at Juilliard on the subway, she decided instead to work, take night classes, and write. She worked several odd jobs, including as a waitress and a dog walker.[3] After falling ill with rheumatic fever she returned to Columbus to recuperate, and she changed her mind about studying music.[4] Returning to New York, she worked in menial jobs while pursuing a writing career; she attended night classes at Columbia University and studied creative writing under Texas writer Dorothy Scarborough and with Sylvia Chatfield Bates at Washington Square College of New York University. In 1936 she published her first work. “Wunderkind”, an autobiographical piece that Bates admired, depicted a music prodigy’s adolescent insecurity and losses. It first appeared in Story magazine and is collected in The Ballad of the Sad Cafe.[5]

From 1935 to 1937, as her studies and health dictated, she divided her time between Columbus and New York. In September 1937, aged 20, she married an ex-soldier and aspiring writer, Reeves McCullers. A New Yorker profile described her husband as “…a dreamer attracted to big, capable women.”[6] They began their married life in Charlotte, North Carolina, where Reeves had found work. The couple made a pact to take alternating turns as writer then breadwinner, starting with Reeves’s taking a salaried position while McCullers wrote. Her eventual success as a writer precluded his literary ambitions.[6]

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

Complete novels: the heart is a lonely hunter ; Reflections in a golden eye ; The ballad of the sad café ; The member of the wedding ; Clock without hands DB91754

McCullers, Carson. Reading time: 30 hours, 27 minutes.

Read by Mare Trevathan. A production of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress.

Disability

Literature

Five novels published between 1940 and 1960. In The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, John Singer, who is deaf and mute, becomes confidant to several town residents. In The Member of the Wedding, a young girl invites herself to the honeymoon. Some strong language and some descriptions of sex. 1960.

Downloaded: August 21, 2021

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