Tristan & Iseult
Tristan and Iseult, Tristan and Isolde, Drustan and Yseult… the variations of spellings are endless, but the way the names – and the story – roll of the tongue, largely stay the same.
I didn’t read the story growing up, but I gathered the main plot points throughout other literary references my whole life. The story was built slowly, for me, an allusion here, a quip there, until when I watched Legends of the Fall for the first time in college, I thought I understood the the gist of the movie’s genius: naming the wild heart that could not be tamed “Tristan” and subtly throwing in that his wife’s name was Isabel.
The movie is based on a book by Jim Harrison, that I later read and was not so smitten by, I even wrote a less than glowing review here. But in finally reading Tristan & Iseult both to myself and aloud to my daughter, I’m finding the desire to re-read Jim Harrison’s novella swelling in my literary soul.
The part that never sunk in through other literature, or the heavily influenced King Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot love-triangle–the part that left me briefly chuckling in a “Oh I see what they did there” –was that there are TWO Iseults. (And *spoiler* Tristan’s wife in Legends of the Fall is known as Isabel Two.) The story of Tristan and Iseult follows the tale of Tristan falling in love with Iseult the Fair, Queen of Cornwall, but marrying another Iseult, called Iseult of Whitehands. If you wanted to twist literature and try to be one of those people who got extra creative, telling authors what they were really trying to say and all that, you could say the wild-hearted Tristan had mommy issues and was Oedipally in love with the first Isabel. But that’s just too much…
The point is that literature is pervasive, ancient poems permeating society for generations; legends evolving and growing, but also maintaining. The stories of Tristan & Iseult, in all their incarnations, heavily influenced the King Arthur tales, the theme or forbidden love–no matter how ridiculous–ending in passionate death (Romeo and Juliet, anyone), continue for centuries. Bits and pieces dribbled in to make each new story more rich with nuance and the truths behind the human condition.
So, I found the most “original” version I could find (and still read in English) for myself, and the most kid friendly version for me to read out loud for my eight year old. Rosemary Sutcliff is my go-to when it comes to ancient or medieval tales brought to life for a young audience. Much to my pleasure, she had a Tristan & Iseult published in 1991. Kiddo gave the story 4 stars on Goodreads, “It was really amazing, but also dramatic, and all the love stuff isn’t what would really happen.”
We had many discussions on the difference between love and passion. “Love is patient, love is kind, love does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, love is not rude or self seeking. It is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrong. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth…” A man who loves you will never encourage adultery. A woman who loves a man will not participate in adultery. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. Cheating isn’t love, it is passion. Some romance can be romanticized too much. It’s not that the “love stuff isn’t what would really happen,” it’s that it would happen, it does happen, and that’s not love, that’s agonizing obsession.
I enjoy working through literature with her. When she’s in college, I’ll be interested to see what her much more informed reaction will be to Legends of the Fall. As soon as my library is out of storage, I plan to re-read a few things, and see if my own mind has been changed by the experience of reading the literature that came before.
The Havana Treatment
Title: The Havana Treatment
Author: Peter Devine
My first Peter Devine book was True to the Code, a series of short stories that were as much historically educational as philosophically motivating. As much as I enjoyed my first taste of Devine’s prose, Havana Treatment was infinitely more riveting.
Peter Devine has an uncanny ability to put you in the middle of a character’s big moment only to take you right back out again. Each short story in Havana Treatment introduces you to a whole person in a just a few moments or hours, leaving you with a solid understanding of who they are, but wanting more of the story. Described as an exploration of the shelf life of a romance, Havana Treatment doesn’t disappoint, and each story is as compelling and oxymoronically uniquely typical as the next.
The human race is completely infatuated with the idea of love, and after spending time with Devine’s characters, it is easy to see why. A moment with someone can become a lifetime of dedication. A person’s soul can be boiled down to one momentous story that could have seemed so unimportant at the time, but because the encounter was so genuine it shapes someone forever.
Devine has such a strong grasp on these realities. His experience and all the people he has met in his life shape the wisdom in his tales; but in all his travels and worldliness, Devine still captures Americana and our ideas of romance like no other.
The Fast and the Furiously in Love
It may sound ridiculous, but one of my favorite love stories of film is in The Fast and the Furious franchise. And it’s not pretty boy Paul Walker’s character Brian O’Connor and his little family-style romance with Mia. They actually annoy me a little. It’s Dom and Letty (Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez) that make me swoon.
“I know everything about you,” Dom says, leaning into Letty as she’s backed up to the side of her car.
And that’s the hottest thing, isn’t it? Being known and still being loved so completely.
Want a panty dropper, date scene at the movies? Leap out of a speeding car on a bridge into the abyss of open air to catch your love as she hurdles to her death – not knowing that either of you will be saved – just knowing you have to catch her. Oh yeah, and she doesn’t remember you, and she shot you in the shoulder earlier, but… you know her, and you love her, and you have a history…
Screw flowers and diamonds, Dom has grand romantic gestures on lock down.
Noooo, I’m not an adrenaline junkie. Not. At. All.
“How did you know that there would be a car there to break our fall?”
“I didn’t. Some things you just have to take on faith.”
Maybe that’s my problem. I swoon over movies like Fast 6. Literally, I swoon. Cars, racing, fight sequences, love that survives gun shot wounds and absences. Sheer will power and stubbornness. This is what romances me. These are the things that speak to my heart.
And yes, I’d let go and fall to my death just to take a shot at the douche bag trying to sneak up on my lover. And for that, I find Han and Gisele utterly romantic as well. What can I say? I’m a sucker.
Other favorites in movie history:
UP: The old man and Ellie. The first 15 minutes of that movie make me bawl like a baby. I love it. I’m living it. A romance born of childhood dreams and companionship.
Persuasion: Based on Jane Austen’s book. Another story of will power and waiting. Add to that Emma and you have the friendship and affection I sought out when I started dating my husband.
Tonight You’re Mine: This is probably one of the rare love stories I am into where the characters have not known each other half their lives. It’s epically reminiscent of my college years, minus being handcuffed to a super star, mind you. But the movie feels as much like home as 1327 does when I see it on screen.
I’m not a speed demon criminal by a long shot, but Dom and I have very similar values. The ultimate romance is always one with your best friend and playmate. Just like Dom and Letty, who met at 15. Things like Titanic – that whole whirlwind of meeting that day and then feigning passionate love forever – never quite do it for it. It rings false every time. I remember seeing Titanic for the first time in the theatres and thinking, “She went on and had babies with someone else, why is she pretending he was the love of her life? He’s just someone she screwed on a boat. What a slut.”
Tonight You’re Mine is the only whirlwind I can get behind… mostly because it was very Pride & Prejudice in nature, there was bickering before companionship, there was an established bond before love. That and there’s the mad rush of music.
My husband thinks I’m a little ridiculous. But if I had amnesia, I’d want there to be someone to fight for me. Someone to tell me where my scars came from. Someone to let me know it’s ok to be me, and that the me I was before was someone worth loving. And if there’s fast cars, a nostalgic house, stubborn wills, and music… all the better.
Love Lang Leav
“I think this is where I belong – among all your other lost things.” – Lang Leav
It’s a full moon.
Quiet.
The tree branches are even still. No rustling.
The kind of night that leaves you staring at the sky, eyes peering through the cool fog in a way a camera lens can never quite capture.
So I retired indoors to read Lang Leav poems, proud of being mature enough for her to not be spoiled by the memory of the one who introduced us. Happy that no one can take the written word from me, no matter how awful they are.
Because I truly adore Lang Leav. She is my favorite currently writing poet, along with her partner Michael Faudet.
I think I read her for the first time in the Fall of last year. She was floating around Pinterest and I then followed her facebook page. Only Love & Misadventure was out then.
Then came Lullabies and Michael Faudet’s Dirty Pretty Things.
My other favorites, if you follow my blog, you know: A.E. Housman, Edna St. Vincent Millay…
Clearly, I enjoy the hint of melancholy mixed with nostalgia.
I like the presence of mind to live in the past, the present, and the future all in one moment. To acknowledge that your experiences have made you and your hopes are what you live for… and right now, this breath, simultaneously deserves all your attention. It’s a beautiful conundrum, balancing it all.
Angela is super sorry and she begs for your forgiveness!
Title: Roomies
Author: Lindy Zart
Genre: Contemporary Romance (Clean)
Format: Kindle Ebook
I downloaded this ebook because I, too, have a story I’ve written about roommates. Mine is incomplete, along a similar vein, but very different. I was curious. Also, there was a reviewer (Angela) who hadn’t participated in a blog tour (I think) the way they were supposed to and remembered at the last minute. This blogger begged the internet to go apologize on Lindy Zart’s facebook page, I found that endearing and hilarious. I know what it’s like to fill your plate with piles of review copies and promises and then find yourself in a serious time crunch. And we do all this because we love you guys, indie authors and publishers, and I am one of you guys, and the goal is to offer as much support as possible, but sometimes we get a little overzealous in our passions. Then all the passions throw a temper tantrum, stomp their feet, and throw a calender at your head. Figuratively, of course. Really we just sit their dumbfounded and think, “Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap.”
Rather than wait to see if I won a giveaway, I took a $3 chance on an ebook of an unknown author. I highly recommend taking those chances as often as it moves you.
Zart’s romance is written much like the style of John Green’s A Fault in Our Stars, but reminded me more of Caprice Crane. Honestly, it’s got that snarky sarcasm. It’s also sweet and sappy in all the right places, along with a little real world mixed in with the overly sentimental. It’s funny. It would make a blockbuster hit, if it were filmed just right – I’d hold back a little on some of the soliloquies, but who am I to talk – I love a good soliloquy.
I read half the book, took a nap and walked the dogs, then read the other half. It was nice. It’s an easy breezy comedy and I found myself chuckling often at the narrator. All the characters are appropriately dense about their feelings and that of others, while sharply noticing things about the people just outside their inner circle… isn’t that how it always is in real life?
If you’re a parent that doesn’t mind innuendos and cursing, I’d recommend it to older teenagers. The story itself is cleanly written and everything remains in innuendo and summary – no quivering members or moist anythings – thank goodness.
Committed – Part One
Title: Committed
Author: Elizabeth Gilbert
Genre: Non-fiction of some kind. In a bookstore it would go in the memoir section, I’m sure – but it’s so much more than that.
I’m aware that when one decides to follow a book reviewing blog, they don’t expect the posts to start turning into self-aware sob stories. However, I cannot fully digest a book without it becoming part of me and my psyche and putting a little bit of pressure on my world view and myself.
When I read Eat, Pray, Love a few years ago, you may or may not remember my indignation. I was so irritated. This woman was so flippant! How dare she walk out on her marriage and go gallivanting and call that spiritual growth! I loved Gilbert’s writing style, I loved her way with words, but all I could think was, “What a selfish whore.”
That was unfair. I see that.
I’m reading Committed now. A friend had told me Gilbert would redeem herself in my eyes in this book. I was skeptical. How could I ever see eye to eye with this woman?
But that’s the thing. I don’t see eye to eye with her. But now, I’m ok with that. Not because of this book, though, I’m sure that helps; but because of me. I’ve come to realize some things about myself in the very short time that it has been 2014.
I have a very intense moral code. So intense, it is probably filled with much higher expectations for life than is humanly obtainable. Stepping outside of this moral code in the past has left me trembling. It terrifies me, because, simply:
I fall short. It is impossible to live up to it.
I expect others to live up to it. If we all strive to live up to it then maybe we can have a chance in hell of making it.
We don’t.
I see this now.
Yes, that makes me a hypocrite, I suppose. Often.
Yes, that means that deep down I hate myself for not being able to live up to my beliefs. Even saying this is in contradiction with my beliefs… I believe the whole bible to be true and even the bible says that we all fall short of the glory of God. I believe in being a strong, independent, secure human. Both of those things are in contradiction with me hating myself for falling short.
You see, it’s not just me being unforgiving of others. I am completely unforgiving with myself too. Especially when what I perceive as truth, and what I believe is right, is the polar opposite of what I want.
I was taught that my wants were frivolous nuisances to be disregarded. Bury them. Pretend they’re not there. Doing what you *should* do is far more important than doing what you want. Wants are things that destroy people, families, cities, empires. Look at history – use your brain. Don’t feel, use logic.
Somewhere in that teaching, there’s a logical fallacy. Like Gilbert’s ice cream purchases correlating with drownings example – which made me laugh out loud. (Statistically where there are higher ice cream purchases, there are more drownings. Obviously, this does not mean that buying ice cream will increase your chance of drowning yourself, that would be a logical fallacy – yet, that’s exactly the kind of logic that has been ingrained in me.)
Now, 10 days away from 30, I feel a strong urge to fix this problem.
This is not something that can be fixed in 10 days.
Shockingly, despite my looming 10 day notice, I find myself a little at peace while reading Elizabeth Gilbert – author whose views I have previously found revolting – has spent page after page talking about forgiveness.
Things I have always been really cranky about – HOW does someone behave THAT way – she spells out. Instead of just saying, “It happens,” she takes great descriptive pains that only an eloquent writer could take to tell me how. To explain. Pages 108-110 left me in tears. Finally, I see why people have been so angered by my judgement. Finally, I see why I have no right to judge.
I was wrong. I’m sorry.
I’m not sure how this will effect my future decisions. But at least I can start to not hate myself, whatever they might be. Yay for mid-life crisis number two (and I’m not even mid-life yet, am I?).
I’m not finished reading yet, but I’m sure I will be soon. I have so much to say and think about this book and there will be a second post on it in the future.
Lacuna
Title: The Lacuna
Author: Barbara Kingsolver
lacuna
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n.noun
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An empty space or a missing part; a gap.
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A cavity, space, or depression, (Biology) in a bone, containing cartilage or bone cells.
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: a blank space or a missing part : gap <the evident lacunae in his story — Shirley Hazzard>; also : deficiency 1 <despite all these lacunae, those reforms were a vast improvement — New Republic>
- (Printing, Lithography & Bookbinding) a gap or space, esp in a book or manuscript
- (Architecture) another name for coffer; an ornamental sunken panel in a ceiling or dome
- sheet that forms a distinct (usually flat and rectangular) section or component of something
- hiatus
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Origin: L, a ditch, hole, pool from lacus: see lake
Barbara Kingsolver’s work embodies and embraces nearly all these definitions in some way or another. It’s really quite brilliant, although not nearly as riveting as the concept itself.
Whereas The Poisonwood Bible was completely riveting, but I was far less intrigued by the concept. Funny how that happens. I love Kingsolver, I think she’s a genius. She has managed two completely different reading experiences in one career and I only hope that I could accomplish that one day. With Poisonwood Bible, I was captivated by the place, the drama, her ability to tell a story from five completely distinct voices. I could not stop reading, could not wait to get back to the story.
The Lacuna put me to sleep. Honestly. But it’s not a terrible book. To be fair, I was tired – really tired – this week. When I read books like this, I often think of that quote at the end of Fight Club, “You met me at a very strange time in my life,” I want to tell the book. A time when everything simultaneously puts me to sleep and keeps me awake at night. On top of that, I was totally distracted by the concept. I would start reading and instead of getting lost in the story I’d get lost in my thoughts about the story. I’d soak in every nuance of the word lacuna and sit and pick apart every aspect of how that word is tied to MY story – MY life.
“What do you know about love?”
“Nothing, apparently. That it winks on and off like an electric bulb.”
– pg. 184
Those lines hit me pretty hard. There’s the honest truth of so much about the world right there. At least for me, I see it so truthfully. Love is like a light bulb to me – a choice – you click it on and click it off. You decide to love someone in a moment, or not. I’ve talked about this endlessly in other posts, I’m sure. I think it fascinates me so completely because how I feel and think about love is so unaligned with how those around me feel and think about it. While contemplating this word and this story and this quote I remember noting a conversation with someone I had a little over ten years ago. He had not had a romantic feeling about a girl all day and considered this a triumph. It baffled me, as I had not had a romantic feeling about a person in possibly a month or more. When romantic feelings came to me they always overwhelmed me in their suddenness, the complete surprise of it throws me all the time, because I don’t have them often. I’m not saying romantic thoughts – I love my husband, have loved him for 15 years – but the *feelings* (not the butterflies or the goosebumps as related to physical feelings, but the emotional ones) I don’t have much. Explaining this is difficult and often leaves me faced with strange looks. I consider myself a passionate person who loves deeply and loyally, but have often been told how cold and void of compassion I can be. I understand both descriptions of my personality because when I do feel, it is a strong sense of emptiness. I feel a deep hole in my soul – like a lacuna.
Kingsolver has a way with moving you to re-evaluate your entire existence in one sentence over and over again in a book – in a way that writers strive to do just once in their lives. If I write one excellent sentence that moves someone, I will have considered myself accomplished. So here is another favorite from the beautifully quotable Kingsolver:
“This is what is means to be alone: everyone is connected to everyone else, their bodies are a bright liquid life flowing around you, sharing a single heart that drives them to move altogether. If the shark comes they will all escape, and leave you to be eaten.” – pg. 185
I kept saying the word lacuna over and over in my head. Lacuna, lacuna, lacuna… over and over I let it slip seductively off my mental tongue – while I read, while I did house work, while I slept. I dreamed about it. Not the story, not the setting, but the word. I dreamed about the idea.
“[Y]ou can’t really know the person standing before you, because always there is some missing piece: the birthday like an invisible pinata hanging great and silent over his head, as he stands in his slippers boiling the water for coffee. The scarred, shrunken leg hidden under a green silk dress. A wife and son back in France. Something you never knew. That is the heart of the story.” – pg. 325
I’m a little bit in love with the word, and yes, with the feeling of the word. Thank you Barbara Kingsolver for defining this word oh so eloquently in 507 pages.
Love is a Choice
Title:Love Is A Choice
Authors: Dr. Robert Hemfelt, Dr. Frank Minirth, Dr. Paul Meier
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Publishing
Genre: Psychology/ Self-Help/ Christian Living
Length: 275 pages
Back in college I read Happiness Is A Choice with a few girls I knew. We went to a Baptist school, but clearly weren’t behaving like the other little Christian girls we knew, so of course we devoured a book that seemingly addressed all that was wrong with us and how to fix it God’s way. Mostly, it just made us feel better.
Naturally, I spotted this in a giant giveaway pile, knew it was by the same authors, and impulsively picked it up. Approximately 3 years later (now), I got around to reading it.
It did not make me feel better.
At least not at first anyway.
Reading Love Is A Choice from a parental perspective can be daunting and, to say the least, overwhelming. The first half of the book had me completely convinced that everyone on the planet has been abused in some form or another… active abuse, passive abuse, this abuse, that abuse. Unless you’re Jesus, NO ONE IS SAFE. I am not Jesus, so essentially, all I determined was that my kid was going to grow up to have issues. NO MATTER WHAT I DID. For that, I kind of hated it.
However, because all these very human issues and mistakes run rampant in the world – because we are human – it ends up being a good read. Handy. Fair warning, so to speak. Be careful of this, be careful of that, be warned that these kinds of actions effect your children this way or that way into adulthood. And above all, put God first.
I can get on board with that.
Just remember when looking at this cover and judging whether or not you think this applies to you, codependency probably doesn’t mean what you think it means. I know I was fooled. Essentially the core sort of means the same as what I thought, but all the nuances are different. If you’ve read my blog for long, you know I love a few good nuances!
Anyway, it took up the better part of a week after my kiddo was asleep… when I wasn’t reading a Thomas Jefferson biography or going over homeschooling stuff… and I don’t feel like my time was wasted. Self-help isn’t typically a genre I care much about, so that means if I mostly like it then it’s probably pretty stellar. Check it out.
Below is a picture of me and my kid, who along with my husband, I choose to love every day – the best I can. P.S. The first week of October is Banned Books Awareness Week. BE AWARE! Read a ‘banned book.’ As far as I know, Love is a Choice isn’t banned anywhere and this statement has nothing to do with the review, just my t-shirt.
Photograph by Michael Palmer
Anakalian Whims 
Literary Journal Monday – Mapping My Mind
March 10, 2014 at 10:14 pm (In So Many Words, Reviews, The Whim) (ADD, ancient history, books, dystopia, dystopian society, fiction, Gone, good books in the woods, Hunger, Lang Leav, literary journals, London Review, love, Michael Grant, poetry, reading life, reviews, romance, series, social commentary, Tonight You're Mine, You Instead, young adult)
I am not ADD, but my mind is often many places at once. It goes and goes… it races… it is unstoppable.
I was craving a little bit of dystopian society literature after reading Herodotus. My brain spinning in a circular momentum about democracies, oligarchies, and dictatorships. Darius and then Xerxes tyrading around ancient lands building the Persian Empire. A thousand utopian and dystopian variations of all societies throughout history – a million possible outcomes for our modern world – twisting about in my mind. Conveniently, it was at this moment that a trailer for the movie Divergent came on and I thought, “It’s about time I read Veronica Roth.”
Cue discussion of autism I’ve been having on and off with people since reading Not Even Wrong written by Paul Collins. Collins is an amazing author and obscure historian. Still suffering from story hangovers from Divergent and the movie Tonight You’re Mine (all about instantaneous human connections) – I found myself thinking about my niece’s Gone series.
Set in a town in California, all the kids fifteen and under have been left in a supernatural bubble – all adults over puberty have vanished, leaving kids and babies to fend for themselves and create a new government. Not unlike Lord of the Flies, different factions have formed. One is under the leadership of Sam Temple, another under his half brother Caine (the biblical implications of Caine and Abel not to be lost on readers, of course). Sam and his new girlfriend, Astrid, are two of the oldest left behind. They have formed a parental union for the younger kids, caring for all the helpless, including Astrid’s autistic brother.
Like bumper pool – or pinball, if you missed out on the bumper pool phenomena – the synapses in my brain spark and twitch and leap bringing me back to Paul Collins/Not Even Wrong/ McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern. Then, I find myself thinking, “Goodness, it’s Literary Journal Monday.
London Magazine February/March 1981 Vol. 20 Nos. 11 &12
The Private Letters of Tennessee Williams and a piece on Gore Vidal catch my eye. I flip through the first few ads, the table of contents, then stop dead on a heading: FINAL REMINDER.
My thoughts have veered so far off track that I forget what I was reading altogether. I flip through the journal in my hand trying to grasp the reason I had sat down to look at this in the first place.
It’s March. St. Patty’s Day is coming up. Irish authors keep popping in and out of my mind. Ireland… Scotland… Tonight You’re Mine… music… poetry… Derek Mahon, an Irish poet’s name blinks at me from the page of the literary journal in my hand. Literary Journal Monday, of course. I read the poem “The Elephants” first. I love elephants. Then my eyes skip over to “April in Moscow” and I read “Spring burst into our houses…” It does, doesn’t it? Just bursts right in and none too soon. At the end of the poems there is an ad for the Poetry Society Bookshop at 21 Earls Court Square in London. I wonder if it is still there.
If they do still exist, I bet they have a copy of Lang Leav’s Love & Misadventure. I’m dying for a copy. Leav has been speaking to my soul lately. Misadventures stuck in the cogs of the mind of a woman turned 30.
A line from Grant’s book swings into full view of my mind’s eye:
There rarely is when a hug is really needed. It’s that moment Leav writes about…
The lack of selfishness between the characters at this point is refreshing in fiction and real life.
In a 2014 American Society of infantile adults who never learned to fend for themselves and work hard without constant praise, we are fascinated by literature and movies where children and teens are forced to grow up overnight and be adults.
It’s sad when the idea of fifteen-year-olds co-leading a community and making wise, unselfish decisions for themselves and each other sounds absurd and fictional. My associative mind leaps back to all the ancient history I’ve been studying, back to the likes of King Tut – pharaoh at age nine – dead by nineteen, married somewhere in between.
We believe in responsible marriages like the Romans, but we chase telepathic connections like the Greeks. What a very convoluted and contradictory way to live – the reality of a dystopian society is that every society is a dystopia – even a society of one. Our minds are everywhere and nowhere. Of course we are in conflict.
I suppose you Literary Journal Monday followers got a little more than you wanted. I bit off more than I could chew today. I attempted to map my own mind and identify all the associations and patterns, leaving myself somewhat exhausted from chasing whimsies.
At least I got to spend a few stolen moments in this room…
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