Book Bag

Books are piling up again and the problem of where to put them doesn’t get any easier. Maybe getting rid of some plates and bowls and stacking books in their place would work. One solution would be to change my habits and buy the desired books in either Kindle or iPad format, but that’s not going to happen. Too much pleasure in the feel and smell of a new book in the hand. Suppose I’ll just have to find ways to create new stacks that don’t impede movement around the house. The best idea yet is from my friend R who wants a company called Piney Woods put up a prefab ‘book’ cottage across the driveway and solve both our problems.

Over the past two weeks three or four bundles of books have arrived at the door, each bundle providing a few gratifying hours of reading. Three of the books I read front to back right away, and others I placed around the house to be picked up at random times to browse a page or chapter. Likely one or another book will eventually get a review of sorts later on, but for now the intention is only to introduce a few titles and relevant points. Seven books on the list and here they are…

Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness by Alexandra Fuller (2011)

Last month I read the earlier work, Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight and was bowled over by the author’s style and her fascinating stories of growing up in Africa. Fuller’s latest book tells a story that is much about her mother—a riveting character—and how she came to live in Africa. Again, the author captures the reader with a wealth of stories impossible anywhere else. This one I have read only a few chapters of, and at this point can’t say much about. The strength of this book is Fuller’s ability to make characters so real you feel them sitting next to you.

Scribbling the Cat by Alexandra Fuller (2004)

Perhaps some translation is necessary here: ‘Scribbling’ is African slang for ‘killing.’ The book’s extended title includes …Travels with an African Soldier and that is an accurate description of what this book is about. Fuller returns to Zambia to spend some time with her parents, and during that time meets an African man living on a banana farm nearby. K is a former soldier who fought in several of Africa’s wars of independence, but is finally living the life of a farmer in Zambia. This one too is still in the reading stage, leaving me unable to say more. The unfamiliar stories of life in Africa amaze from the first paragraph of page one. Crocodiles, mud, rain, snakes, drought, insects, stultifying heat…welcome to the African bush.

The Affair by Lee Child (2011)

Such a hardcore fan of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels, I have read each of the fifteen books the week of their release. Number sixteen is The Affair and this one too came to me only days after its release, pre-ordered months in advance. There is an element of mystery to all the Reacher stories, but more important is Child’s character of a moral man with the muscles and the smarts to right most wrongs. A Jack Reacher novel fits immediately into the ‘page-turner’ genre and is all about finesse, brawn and doing the right thing. Always and forever an exciting read.

Feast Day of Fools by James Lee Burke (2011)

Burke is the master of south Louisiana settings, but is more often these days turning his attention to south Texas. About Burke and any one of his thirty books, for the sake of brevity I will say only this: If you enjoy reading and you’ve never read a book by James Lee Burke, go to the bookstore today.

Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks (2011)

An on and off fan of Russell Banks, I found the title of this new book captivating, and buying it was far, far from a mistake. Two characters tell a story set on the west coast of Florida and each is fascinating. Sex offenses as they relate to underage victims is an extremely volatile subject but Banks carries this one off leaving the reader unquestionably in sympathy with the protagonist. How does he do that?

Gilgamesh, a new English translation by Stephen Mitchell (2004)

This is a story set in man’s earliest civilization, the 2750 BC Sumerian city of Urak, situated in present day Iraq at the convergence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The translation is what makes this version outstanding. The poetry is elegant and the tale wholly relevant to creation literature. In a story that precedes biblical literature, Gilgamesh is filled with Christian corollaries. It is the oldest story in the world, and in that sense alone is engaging.

The Gentlemen’s Hour by Don Winslow (2011)

Included here only because it arrived in the post late Wednesday afternoon and is one I've been eagerly awaiting. Winslow is an up and down kind of writer who can dazzle with one book and disappoint the next. Anyone familiar with his earlier book, The Dawn Patrol will jump for this new one which has the same characters and setting. Never read Winslow? Try California Fire and Life or The Power of the Dog.

An African Childhood

Not more than three days ago I complained to a friend that his recommended book wasn’t holding my attention. Of course, there are dozens, hundreds of books that grab the reader from the first page, which if nothing else displays the writer’s talent for devising a grab-hold start. Then there are an equal number of books and stories that start off with a bang but drift into an ultimately slow and turbid telling. Happily, the one that didn’t hold my attention a few days prior suddenly caught fire and swooped me up into an almost tactile surge of life, love and growing up in Africa. The book is Alexandra Fuller’s 2002 memoir, Don’t Let’s Go to the Dog’s Tonight, and along with being a chronicle of the author’s and her family’s attachment to Africa, is also a gritty but loving portrait of an amazing and astonishing mother; and add to that, caring portrait of a remarkable and uncommon father.

The years of Alexandra Fuller’s childhood and youth were spent first in white Rhodesia, which after independence became Zimbabwe, in Malawi and finally in Zambia. Most of those years were lived under constant threat from guerrillas or corrupt soldiers and officials, not to mention a landscape of utter harshness. By early childhood she had learned how to use an Uzi, smoke cigarettes and drink beer. Most times, in driving to the nearest town they were required to travel in guarded convey in armor plated cars, forced to hire government spies as houseboys and required to kill spitting cobras nesting in the kitchen pantry. Yet beneath all that was a deep and undisguised connection to the land. Fuller’s father was a jack-of-all-trades, farming tobacco in one place, managing cattle in another and often called up as a reserve soldier to fight guerrilla forces. An extremely capable man, nothing was able to get the better of or defeat him in overcoming whatever was placed before him. But apart from the African landscape, the real star of Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight is the author’s mother.

As a character, she is a giant of modern literature, a woman of such vibrancy and life, of such passion and devotion, it is little surprise that her mind is finally unable to handle all the drama of her life, sending her into collapse and a long spell in a mental hospital. Not easy for anyone, man or woman to lose three children, one to meningitis, another to drowning and the last stillborn, and suffer that while hacking out a life behind razor wire, drought and no electricity. Beneath the weight of those conditions she manages to raise two girls, assist her husband in the tobacco fields, decorate Christmas trees, offer first aid to the nearby blacks (despite her strong racism) and to care for the six or seven dogs always sharing their home.

Fuller’s memoir draws its title from a line in a poem by English writer and humorist, A.P. Herbert:

“Come,” said he—“a night for dancing,
Lips alight and bright eyes glancing.
Come!” the young man cried;
“Youth should never pause from pleasure,
Fill the cup and trip the measure!”
But the girl replied—

Don’t let’s go to the dogs to-night,
For mother will be there…

The reader has to wonder if there is a connection in this to the fun loving parents who sought every opportunity to fill a cup and dance the night away. Wonder too that all the drinking didn’t pull them down or prevent them from accomplishing the work ahead. There is comedy aplenty in Fuller’s stories, one of the best a Christmastime party and the crowning Christmas cake dosed daily with injections of brandy by Mother. Startling enough that any of the soused guests at the party were able to sit upright with a plate of cake. With Mother too wobbly to light a match to flambé the cake, a guest offers to help and blows the cake up, raisins, nut and bits of cake sliding down the walls. The unfortunate explosion didn’t seem to hamper anyone’s enjoyment of eating the bits and pieces off the walls.

Perhaps the richest treasure in Fuller’s pages is the bringing to life a beautiful, yet cruel land, whose fumes, fragrances, mud, dust and flowers overflow every page of the book. There are passages that crinkle the nose with the force of one or two word descriptions in perfect economy. When a pet dog is sliced up by offended blacks wielding pangas, Fuller’s mother carries the dog in her arms and you almost expect bloodstains to appear on the page. There is a brand of quirkiness nearly always delightful in the writer’s prose, but the basics of her style are never less than impressive.

Fuller’s is a memorable story of family, awakening and the love of a hard, primitive land.

‘I can hear men around the campfire singing softly, taking it in turns to pick up a tune, the rhythm as strong as blood in a body. The firelight flickers off the blue and orange tent in pale, dancing shapes and there is the sweet smell of the African bush, wood smoke, dust, sweat. My bones are so sharp and thin against the sleeping bag that they hurt me and I must cover my hip bones with my hands.

I make a vow never to leave Africa.’