May TBR: Bowen, Misery May, Eichmann, Etc!
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- Опубликовано: 9 июл 2024
- Join me as I sift through a few books I’m thinking about reading this May.
BOOKS AND AUTHORS MENTIONED:
The Hotel by Elizabeth Bowen
The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen
The House in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen
Eudora Welty
Carson McCullers
Write Like a Man: Jewish Masculinity and the New York Intellectuals by Ronnie A. Grinberg
Philip Roth and the “Midcentury Misogynists”
Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science by Renee Bergland
Eichmann in Jerusalem by Hannah Arendt
Molly by Blake Butler
Grief is for People by Sloane Crosley
Trondheim by Cormac James
Intervals by Mariane Brooker
The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
BOOKTUBERS AND BOOKTUBE EVENTS MENTIONED:
Ros @scallydandlingaboutthebook2711
Sarah @HardcoverHearts
#authorspotlightseries
#miserymay
Joe Spivey @JoeSpivey02
Scott @GunpowderFictionPlot
Gemma @GemofBooks
@saintdonoghue and Open Letters Review
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![Philip Roth and Blake Bailey [CC]](/img/1.gif)
Combining Dickinson and Darwin sounds fascinating. I look forward to hearing more about that as well as our buddyread.
I’m really looking forward to both as well!
I think Bowen's "To the North" is remarkable. But of those you mention, "The House in Paris"is my favorite. Happy to find those who acknowledge Bowen's place in the modern literary cannon.
Wonderful to hear! Although To the North is not on the group read list, I would love to read it at some point soon. Thank you for the recommendation!
I may be the person who left a comment about mid-century misogynists. I saw the term used in Anna Funder’s book on George Orwell’s wife, Wifedom, and it reminded me of you. On page 52, she writes: “Having now become both a writer and a wife, I find myself envying the titanic male writers, those unthinking ‘mid-century mysoginists’ (insert almost any big name here). I don’t envy them for any personal reason or anything to do with their work/travel/gun-toting/sexual antics, etc. - or maybe I do. What I most envy are their conditions of production. So many of these men benefited from a social arrangement defying both the moral and the physical laws of the universe in which the unpaid, invisible work of a woman creates the time and - neat, warmed and cushion-plumped - space for their work.”
Yes!! I believe that was it! And I notice she uses quotes, too. Another commenter mentions an older usage-which she used in print in an essay years before. Did I see that essay? I don’t remember it at all, but possibly. I am eager to read the two books sitting by my nightstand about Orwell and women-Wifedom and Julia.
mid century misogynist is such a good & accurate phrase !!! for so many male authors i can think of ! good luck w ur reading :)
The waves of misogynistic fiction that have come our way is a bit stunning. Hope you’re doing well.
You mentioning Carson McCullers in relation to Elizabeth Bowen made me think of McCullers’ visit to Bowen’s Court in Ireland in 1950 which was very stressful for Bowen. McCullers planned to stay a whole month. Disregarding the time difference she called beforehand at 4am. Bowen’s husband picked up the phone and was mistaken for the butler (which Bowen’s Court did not have) and McCullers thought it hilarious. After her arrival she broke in on Elizabeth Bowen while she was working, something Bowen hated. And she was bored and drank lots of whiskey. She came back after a break in London, taking her husband, also an alcoholic, with her. Bowen asked Rosamund Lehmann to take them on a car drive, during which she was made to stop at every pub. Bowen described McCullers as “a destroyer".
I love that you’re in this group read, Hannah! I’m planning to read Eudora Welty’s The Optimist’s Daughter.
Thank you for sharing this crazy story. Dearborn’s biography of McCullers talks about the same situation. That kind of behavior was very common for her, especially at a particular time in her life. As soon as I can find time, I’m eager to read a Bowen biography!
I recently brought up Natural Magic as well. It looks like an awesome pairing of topics for books and I'm looking forward to it soon! Lovely video Hannah
Thank you! We’ll have to compare notes on Natural Magic!
@@HannahsBooks Sounds like a plan once I can get a hold of it haha
You are always reminding me of authors that I want to revisit and learn more about; in this case Welty, McCullers, and Dickinson. Portrait of a Lady has languished on my shelves for many years! I hope you have a great May.
Thank you for this nice comment! Portrait has been languishing on my shelves for much too long too! I recently read one of his other novels and will discuss it here soon.
I just watched an interview of the author of Molly. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but also, everyone grieves differently. It seems he used his writing to try and process his grief as well as the shock of what he learned. With that, I look forward to hearing your thoughts on it.
Thank you for sharing this. Grief is a funny thing-and turning it into a narrative really does help us grapple with what’s happened…
I look forward to seeing that review if you write it. 🙂
I was so ecstatic to see you mention it! If you do decide to read more, we will have to chat about it!
I'm very interested in the Grinberg book. Terrific video, Hannah. Sorry to hear that you had a difficult reaction to the shingles shot. I think that I was knocked out for about a weekend after I had the second injection. Hope you're feeling better.
The book is fascinating so far. (Thanks for the sympathy! I am definitely starting to feel better.)
@@HannahsBooksGood! Glad to hear you’re on the mend. I was just advised to get the pneumonia shot as I’m pretty high risk, so I did. I wasn’t as sick as I was from the shingles shot, but it definitely knocked me out! 😔
@BookChatWithPat8668 ♥️
❤
How nice to see you here! ♥️
@@HannahsBooks Thanks, Hannah!!
I am so delighted that you are joining us for the Bowen Author Spotlight. I read Grief is for People and found it to be helpful as well as funny at times.
I wish I’d been able to participate in some of the previous reads! Such wonderful projects! Thank you so much for putting them together. Glad to hear that Crosley worked for you.
I’ve been reading about those Jewish intellectuals. I read recently the correspondence between Hannah Arendt
and Mary McCarthy. Then I moved on to “Seeing Mary Plain,” a biography done largely as an oral history. I’ll be reading the Eichmann book. And, finally, until I got the shingles shot I thought of myself as someone who didn’t
have side effects to vaccines. I experienced a rude surprise.
I very recently bought a used copy of the letters-something I’ve been thinking about a lot since Steve Donoghue mentioned the collection. What did you think? The bio/oral history sounds fascinating!
@@HannahsBooks I ADORE letter collections. This was a surprise because the two women seem so different. McCarthy is witty and caustic. Hannah Arendt is a PHILOSOPHER. As I read the letters, the relationship made perfect sense to me. McCarthy is a fierce defender of Arendt (particularly regarding "Eichmann in Jerusalem."). I would say that McCarthy is more sensitive to what she perceives to be ups and downs in the relationship.
And "Seeing Mary Plain" was great fun. It's long and very detailed. I occasionally had to take a break but I loved it. I'm very interested in the cluster of people who founded and contributed to "Partisan Review." Diana Trilling was married to Lionel, Elizabeth Hardwicke was married to Robert Lowell and Mary McCarthy was married--for a time--to Edmund Wilson. Though they were women of great domestic and literary accomplishment, not a one of them saw herself as a feminist.
I'm about halfway through a book about the founding of Jamestown. I'm not in the mood for it and it's been a struggle to get through it. I want to get through the colonial period though so I can get to other periods of US history.
I absolutely understand! At some point when I was preparing for comps in grad school, I almost lost my mind trying to be orderly. Books about the Puritans almost did me in…
There’s something that feels a little Ted Hughes about the author of Molly.
Ooh, that really makes it sound creepy (even though I sort of love Hughes’s writing)…
Hello Hannah
I will read three of the Bowen books, Grief is for People, and will take a look at Molly. Trondheim and Intervals look interesting as well. Take good care. As ever, TK 😊
We’ll have to chat!
I’m not the original commenter but mid century misogynist pops up in association with an Emily Gould tweet from several years ago.
Yes! Thank you. She has a much older essay that uses the phrase. I don’t think I’ve seen her usage before, but I suppose I might have. Or perhaps we both came up with it independently. It is rather obvious, I suppose.
Thanks for a wonderful roundup. I think I must make time for Bowen this month. I am doing Historathon so time is tight, but it will make a change from Vikings.
@@battybibliophile-Clare I’ll talk more about her soon-but she isn’t as easy to read as I was expecting. Having the group to read with has been excellent.
@@HannahsBooks I'll look forward to that. I have a biography of her too, I think.
@@HannahsBooks I'm reading the Hotel at the moment, I found the same, not an easy read.
I read Eichmann a few years ago. I look forward to your thoughts on it.
I last read it when I was slightly younger than Joe Spivey and radically more naive. Although I remember even some of Arendt’s wording, it feels like a totally different book now.