Beyond Rivalry - other_people_said_it

Odd and Ordinary Dead People

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 16:59:54 -0500

Like many people, my favourite section of the newspaper is the obituaries. Some papers are better than others, and the Portland Press Herald in Maine is one of the best I've found for homey, chatty, detailed, quirky obits. Among the 5-15 obits that appear most days are some people who have led unusual lives and who have done extraordinary and ordinary things. And then there are the descriptors, some of which appear in almost every obituary ("deceased was happiest when spending time with family" in obituaries written by ... well, the family) and some of which you'll only read once in a lifetime.

Some clips from obits I've enjoyed in the last week or two:

"He enjoyed watching Nascar and having a Bud Light. " (Lance Morton, b. 1948?)

"She collected music boxes, dolls and unicorns." (Roberta S. Potvin, b. 1926)

"In his spare time he enjoyed clock repair." (David L. Adams Sr., b. 1939)

"He was a brilliant applied mathematician and solved one of his mathematical problems on the Eniac. ... Between 1963 and 1968, he was the first solo circumnavigator to sail in a fiberglass boat. His trip took him through the Panama Canal, onto Cape Horn, and around…

Out of Context: The Price of Butcher's Meat

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 09:58:04 -0500

Just finished Reginald Hill's The Price of Butcher's Meat (2008; published as A Cure for All Diseases in the UK), which was strong on Dalziel (still recuperating), introduced budding psychologist and sharp observer Charley Heywood through her emails, and brought back Franny Roote, who I'm convinced is a sociopath despite his own musings that he's not. Pascoe, Wield, Novello and Hat had minor roles this time, and Ellie was absent.

Some of my favourite bits:

Dalziel to Roote: "I can work out that you've been here long enough for our landlord to know you drink parrot piss!"

Roote: "Cranberry juice actually. ... Full of vitamins, you really ought to try it."

Dalziel: "Mebbe after morris dancing and incest."

Roote, describing Lady D: "She is, I believe, a very good hater."

In some Yorkshire pubs, the appearance of a stranger cuts off conversation like a toad in the blancmange ....

When Charley entered the lounge, Dalziel, occupying one of Tom Parker's low-slung Scandinavian chairs like the USA occupying Iraq, tried to lever himself upright but had difficulty formulating a satisfactory exit strategy.

Dalziel let out a sighing groan, or groaning sigh, the kind of sound that might well up from the soul…

Poirot for Illness

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 07:59:00 -0500

"It occurs to me now, for the first time, that film critics are the only people in the world who go to the cinema when they're not feeling well. Normal people slump in front of the telly and watch wall-to-wall Poirots until their eyes start to bleed. But the deadline of deadlines was looming. Captain Hastings was beginning to get on my nerves and the first blockbuster of the summer was in town. There was nothing else for it."

-- Marcus Berkmann, film critic, in The Oldie, July 2008.

Who Deserves What?

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 14:29:00 -0500

PD James' latest Dalgliesh crime novel, The Private Patient (2008), is set largely in Devon at a manor house-cum-plastic surgery center. Central themes seem to include worthiness and what we deserve, revenge, redemption, forgiveness, the inability to forgive.

When the book opens, the reader is in the mind of the soon-to-be murder victim, Rhoda, and after her death, at various times we're privy to the thoughts and feelings of a number of other characters, including suspects and police. Rhoda turns out to be a rather single-minded and self-focused woman whose actions have been at least partially responsible for others' pain and harm, and by allowing us the victim's pov at the start, I think James aids our ability to sympathise with her.

Speaking of her family of origin, Rhoda recalls:

"Those outbursts of violence, the impotent rage, the shame, had done for them all. The important things had been unsayable. And looking into her mother's face, she asked herself how could she begin now? She thought her mother was right. It couldn't have been easy for her father to find that five-pound note week after week. It had come with a few words, sometimes in shaky handwriting: With love from Father.…

The Likeness

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:47:00 -0500

Just finished The Likeness by Tana French, which follows on her evocative debut of last year, In the Woods, both set in Ireland. The Likeness would be a great readlike for Donna Tartt's The Secret History, with its focus on a closely knit group of college-aged students (grad-school-aged, in this case) who have secrets.

French's writing and emotional sensitivity are both superb.

The elements that most interested me are the thread of sacrifice woven throughout the book, French's evocation of sadness, and her portrayal of the settled, harmonious, familial, habitual, insidious, dysfunctional, oppressive, romanticised and idealised relationships and lifestyle among the five friends. I think that besides sacrifice, one of the major themes of the book is home: what constitutes home, family, the places we are free, the places we are held; and how some people sacrifice everything to create home, and some feel it a threat they have to run from, and some never find it, and some luck into it for a week, a year, a decade, a lifetime.

Sacrifice

"I don't tell people this, it's nobody's business, but the job is the nearest thing I've got to a religion. The detective's god is the truth, and you don't…

You Can't Be Judgmental (And Yet)

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 11:40:00 -0500

I've watched most of season 5 via Hulu on my laptop. "Lucky Thirteen" (5x05) -- genius show. "Joy" -- again the realisation that House says what most people are really thinking but automatically censor because it's cruel and would cause conflict to say aloud (particularly, in this episode, about Cuddy becoming a mom; what he says is truly cringe-worthy -- and yet it's part of what was in my thoughts, too).

A few bits:

Wilson to House: "I'm leaving."
House: "What? Are you going to take another two months. Boy, you're really milking this bereavement thing, aren't you? [Pause] I mean good for you. Take all the time you need."

(Dying Changes Everything, 5x01)

House to Cuddy: "You have to stop Wilson from committing career malpractice."
Cuddy: "Talk to him."
House: "I already talked to him. Twice."
Cuddy: "Mocking him and insulting him --- let's see --- yes, technically those are categories of conversation.... Talk to him. Deal with his grief. Talk to him about what he's going through."
House: "That's a brilliant idea. I'll take him out for a beer. That'll make up for the fact that Amber's in a pine box and that there's randomness and chaos in the…

A Dog Can Change Your Life

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:36:00 -0500

"Then, last week, I went to see an acupuncturist as a last resort for back pain I’ve had for over a year. The woman asked me how old I was. When I told her I was 42, she said, “You look so old! I thought you were much older.” I would have been offended, but I felt like she was saying what I felt and that the back pain was making this true. My face evidently was showing tough times too. She promised to fix me—that remains to be seen—and, as I was leaving, she said, You need to change your life today. Go outside. Not so much sitting anymore. You need to be happy, find a way. I walked out thinking I’d gone to a therapist or a fortune-teller. I felt sick for a few hours after that, possibly more from what she’d said than from the needles, and when I woke from a nap, I went directly to the animal shelter." -- Hard Times Dog by Colette LaBouff Atkinson

Have a Light Snack

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 10:21:00 -0500

I like Magic Molly's 'For the faint of intuition'

"For someone who frequently and automatically monitors herself (am I hot? cold? tired? desirous of a cookie?), I'm still not so good at coming to a diagnosis."

Not sure of the diagnosis but I think the treatment is almost always, Have a light snack!

Casting Spells

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 16:26:20 -0500

Not sure why Booker-prize-winning novelist Ian McEwan (Amsterdam, Atonement, Saturday) was asked for his opinion on climate change policy and the new U.S. administration, but in this piece in the WSJ (8 Nov. 2008), he wrote this lovely bit:

"The contest for the presidency, like all elections, had the self-enclosed quality of a squash game, a chess match, a post-modern novel -- and this one was far better than most. While the candidates appeared to address an external reality, they were bound by strictly ethereal requirements: to cast spells on large crowds while seeming ordinary, to trample their opponent into oblivion while seeming pleasant, to be inspirational yet sensible, to avoid offending a score of sensitive constituencies, and, an old wizard's touch, to promise the electorate various gifts without further borrowing or raising taxes. ...

btw, McEwan argues that Obama must act decisively on climate change, taking advantage of the "unearthly powers" now attributed to him.

Reginald Hill Interviewed

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 09:12:00 -0500

Shelf Awareness briefly interviews one of my favourite crime novelists, Reginald Hill, for their daily email, timed for the publication of his latest Dalziel and Pascoe mystery, The Price of Butcher's Meat -- which, tragically, is not yet listed as 'on order' or owned by any library in my community's library loan system. It's available now!

Turns out he's enamored of literary classics written by George Eliot, Dickens, and Austen, as well as contemporary works by the likes of Terry Pratchett, Markus Zusak, and David Mitchell. Not a big fan of JK Rowling, whose first Harry Potter book (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, paperback version) he bought for the cover, "'but only because there was also on offer a version with a dull anonymous cover so that sensitive adults didn't have to reveal they were reading a kids' book on the train! That struck me as really sad, so I bought the original and flourished it for all to marvel at my childishness on the way home. Didn't enjoy it all that much though, but who am I to disagree with x million readers across the whole age range?'"

I've lauded Hill before, here and here, oh, and here, at…