Ms. Hen reviews Unspeakable Things

Unspeakable Things

Kathleen Spivack

Alfred A. Knopf

2016

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel because she is acquainted with Ms. Spivack in writing circles - Ms. Hen is an on again off again member of the same poetry group as Ms. Spivack. Ms. Hen has been meaning to read this novel for a while, and she finally got around to it.

When Ms. Hen started reading this novel, she thought the voice was difficult to grasp. After a few pages, though, she realized why. This is a novel written by a poet! Novels by poets are different animals because they swirl the words around in their mouths like connoisseurs at a wine tasting. Ms. Hen got used to the poetic flair and the words settled into her mind after that.

This novel is about Eastern European immigrants, mostly from Vienna, who end up in New York while World War II still rages on. Maria, a young girl, lives with her mother, brother, and grandfather. Her father lives in Washington D.C., and is a translator for the war. Anna, or the Rat, comes to live with them, and sleeps in Maria’s bed. A pediatrician, Felix, takes care of Maria while she is sick, and does unspeakable things. The Rat tells Maria of her past in St. Petersburg while living amongst the Tsars.

This novel made Ms. Hen think of Latin American mysticism, specifically by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. There are a lot of weird, unsettling aspects to this story. The Tolstoi quartet, a string quartet, has the end of the last finger on their left hands chopped off, and go on a quest to find them. This is one of the dark places where this novel goes. Ms. Hen wondered if there was a tradition in Eastern European Jewish mysticism, and she read there was, but not specifically in fiction, more in the vein of mystical religious writing. Ms. Hen thinks Ms. Spivack might have invented her own genre.

One of the most gruesome and wonderful parts of UNSPEAKABLE THINGS is the part about Rasputin. Ms. Hen has learned about Rasputin, and what he did, and what he was like, but she has never read such a description of his actions. He was a pervert, but the Rat loved it. Ms. Hen wonders if the starved soul is one that would accept any kind of love.

This novel is about a community of people that immigrated to the United States that all had lost people to the war. People would ask each other, and who did you lose? It’s terrible for parents to lose children, and Herbert and Adeline’s loss of their son Michael scarred them, especially Adeline. Many unspeakable things live in this novel.

Something about this novel moved Ms. Hen in places she did not know could be moved. She was disgusted, but at the same time, could not look away. She kept reading to discover how more perverse this could become. Ms. Hen loved this novel. She likes being disturbed, and if that’s not your cup of tea, stay away from this novel! If it is, get ready to drink up the darkness and beauty within these pages.

Ms. Hen reviews Portrait of the Walrus by a Young Artist

Portrait of the Walrus by a Young Artist

Laurie Foos

1997

Coffee House Press

Ms. Hen read this novel several years ago when she took a class with Laurie Foos at the Boston Center for Adult Education when she was a student. She decided to read it again because she was doing research for a speech, and she wanted to refresh her memory of the book. It had been about seventeen years since the first time she read it, and that is a lot of time in a young hen’s life.

The first time Ms. Hen read this novel, she was dazzled by the magic of the story. This novel is about a teenage girl named Frances, who with lives with her mother and her stepfather, and her family is obsessed with bowling and pizza. She wants to be an artist like her father who had passed away. She sculpts sharks, but one day she goes to the aquarium and sees some walruses mating there, and she become obsessed with them. She writes fevered poetry about the walruses, and the walruses escape from the aquarium and chase her and her family friend/ employee, Bessie down the highway.

When she took the class with Laurie, she had a chance to ask her how the walruses escaped from the aquarium. Laurie said it was simply magic.

When Ms. Hen read the novel this time, she paid attention to Frances' desire to be an artist; however, she has to overcome the fact that she lives immersed in the world of bowling with her stepfather’s chain of bowling alleys. Frances’ father was an unstable artist who ate voraciously and came to the point where he never left the basement where he sculpted his chainsaw men, which made him a star in the art world. Frances becomes unstable also when she sees the walruses mating, and does not leave her room or bathe. Her mother does not understand art, and her stepfather is just as bad as her mother, but Bessie wants to help Frances, and she does what she can.

When she goes to the bowling alley with her family, Frances meets the man who makes pizza, Dirk, and they have a strange encounter. Dirk breaks into the house and attacks Frances, which disturbed Ms. Hen when she read it this time.  There is a lot of teenage angst in this novel, but Frances does not go to school, which Ms. Hen thinks is curious, and she also does not have any friends, which is unusual for a teenager. Ms. Hen tried to figure out why, but she thinks her father might have wanted her to be homeschooled, but that was never explained in the novel.

This novel has a lot of fairy tale qualities to it, and it’s magical and weird and full of sexual innuendo with Frances inspecting everyone’s underwear lines under their pants. Ms. Hen didn’t know if she would like this novel after reading it so many years ago, but for the most part, she did! It’s charming and odd, and that’s the type of thing that Ms. Hen fancies.

Ms. Hen reviews Lust for Life

Lust for Life

Irving Stone

Heritage Press

1934

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel because right now she is interested in books about art, and also historical fiction. She did a search for novels about artists, and this one appeared. She has always been interested in Van Gogh, and wanted to learn more about him. Years ago, she read the letters between Van Gogh and his brother Theo, but she had a difficult time enjoying that book. Ms. Hen decided she doesn’t like to plug through letters; she would rather read a novel.

Ms. Hen thought LUST FOR LIFE was gripping. It’s about Vincent and his journey towards becoming an artist. The novel follows through with his failures in life: in love, in his careers of choice, and his artwork. Each section is about a place where he lived, starting with London, then the Borinage, Etten, the Hauge, Paris, Arles, St. Remy, and Auvers.

Vincent had a failed love affair in London, where his landlord’s daughter rejected him. He obsessed over her, and refused to acknowledge she did not love him and was betrothed to another. He did not do well as a clerk in London, and his family suggested that he join the clergy. He wanted to be an evangelist, but he struggled with his studies. He was sent to the mining region, but he became neurotic about helping the impoverished miners. He was dismissed from working there, and went back to his parents’ house.

Everywhere Vincent went, he made a disaster of his life. He tried to learn to be an artist in the Hague, but he ended up living with a prostitute and driving his mentors away. When he went to live with his parents, a woman fell in love with him, and her family rejected him, and drove him out of town. He desperately worked at his art, but got no encouragement, and no respect. He was unstable and stubbornly refused to let anyone tell him he could not be an artist.

Ms. Hen admires Vincent because he persevered at his art, and did not let anyone tell him he didn’t have the capacity to do what he wanted. He never saw great success in his life, but he has posthumously. He was mentally ill, and it was possible he was never happy or content, but he lived a fascinating life.

Ms. Hen loved the scene where he went to Theo’s art gallery and saw the Impressionists for the first time. She thought it was beautiful that he was provoked and inspired by the light and colors of Monet and Pissarro and the others. Ms. Hen has had moments like that when she is reading or viewing a film or looking at art, if it’s something she’s never experienced before, she could be illuminated by a work.

Ms. Hen finally learned the true story about how Van Gogh cut off his ear. That was the incident that proved to everyone around him that he was truly insane. A prostitute chided him because he did not have any money to pay her, and she joked with him and told him that he could give her one of his ears as a payment. He went home, and cut off one of his ears and handed it to her wrapped in a package. When she saw it she fainted. He was put in the hospital, and not long after, the sanitarium.

Ms. Hen took her time reading this novel. It’s a very dense read, but worth the effort. Ms. Hen loves reading about unstable, but brilliant artists, because those are the kinds of people she connects with the most.

Ms. Hen and Van Gogh

Ms. Hen Celebrates the Truth

Ms. Hen and the elephant bag

Birthday 3/5/2019

           Once upon a time, there was a girl who was not like everyone else. At first she wanted to be like everyone else, but as she grew up, she gave up that notion. She knew she was strange, and she accepted it. She made a great attempt to appear as everyone else did; she did not have strange hair or clothes, and she tried to do things that normal people did, though it strained her.

            She walked through her life like a zombie sometimes, and occasionally she became a zombie. She didn’t know what to do. She thought she could have been like everyone else, but one dreary cold winter’s day, she decided there was no chance she would ever be normal. She decided to continue pretending like she was normal, to trick everyone, but she realized that was not her destiny.

            The heart is like a birdcage, if a bird is trapped, it might not flourish. If you let the bird free, it could fly out the window and never come back. Why would the bird come back if it has the option of flying in the blue sky, away from your prying eyes? She was the bird that became free because she let go of what people thought of her, flying high in the air, like she never cared, though it pained her to know that she couldn't be a clone, accepting the fallacies that we’re fed about the way our lives should be; she would be her own creature and silently tell the world to fuck off.

Ms. Hen reviews Girl with a Pearl Earring

Girl with a Pearl Earring

Tracy Chevalier

Penguin Group

1999

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel because it goes along with two others she has read recently, TULIP FEVER, and THE MINIATURIST. She is fascinated by this time period right now, because the Netherlands in the 17^th century was a lot like our society at this time, prosperous, but dysfunctional concurrently. She ordered this novel from the library.

Ms. Hen had seen the film years ago in the theater when it came out. She had heard that the book was excellent, but she never read it before now, partly because she had seen the film and she knew what happened, and also because she forgot. The book is a multi-layered story, and when she read it, it was difficult for her to remember what happened in the movie. Some pivotal things are different, but that does not make the film less beautiful. Ms. Hen watched the film again right after she finished the book, and there are a lot of aspects of the story missing, but a novel can be much longer than a book. Both are exceptional.

Griet is a young woman whose father has gone blind in the Delft china factory. She has to go to work as a maid in the famous artist’s Vermeer’s house. She leaves her sister alone with their parents. Griet is unhappy in the house because Katherina, the painter’s wife, does not like her. Griet wants more from her life than being a maid. She desires beauty.

The butcher’s son, young Pieter, pays attention to Griet, and she accepts. He searches for the church where her family worships and goes there. Her mother is excited because a butcher’s son can provide the family with meat, which the family lacks because there isn’t enough money. Griet shops at the butcher’s for the Vermeer family, and is choosy about the meat, even though Vermeer’s family does not have that much money either because he paints so slowly. Though she is being courted by Pieter, she yearns for Vermeer.

Katherina and her husband have a lot of children. They are Catholic and Griet is a Protestant. Griet’s father remarked about his Catholic coworkers that they were lively and seemed like they liked to have a good time. Griet does not like the paintings of the Crucifixion in the house.

Ms. Hen thinks Griet is a bold character. This novel is an imagining of how the painting might have come into being, but there is no proof. The author wrote in the forward that she did a lot of research for this novel by simply looking at paintings. She wrote that there isn’t a lot written about daily life, but she could learn about it by studying the artwork of the time. Whether or not there is truth to how the painting came to being, this is a realistic interpretation.

Ms. Hen loved this novel. She thinks is goes along perfectly with the other novels she has read about this time period. This was a fascinating era in history because that country was successful, but it had numerous problems. Art flourishes in prosperity, but it can come with a price.

Ms. Hen reviews The White Castle

The White Castle

Orhan Pamuk

Vintage International

1985

Translated from Turkish by Victoria Holbrook 1990

Ms. Hen picked up this book at the Little Free Library near where she lives. She had never heard of the book or the author, but she liked the title and the cover so she took it home. It was free, so the price was right. She has learned in seminars about writing that publishing companies give attractive covers to books they think are worth it. So, a person can judge a book by its cover, contrary to popular belief.

Ms. Hen didn’t know what to make of this novel at first. The tone is quiet and unassuming. It takes place in what is supposed to be 17^th century Istanbul, but that is not explained in the novel. That was written on the back of the book. The setting of this novel reminded Ms. Hen of Dorne, the fictional country in GAME OF THRONES, which Ms. Hen learned is supposed to be based on Spain. Ms. Hen thinks that both Dorne and the Istanbul of this novel are places that have darkness hidden underneath them, but are bright, sunny, dry locations, which can be deceiving. She read that the description of Istanbul is not historically accurate.

Ms. Hen decided this novel is allegorical. It’s about a man meeting someone who looks just like him, and that tortures his soul. It’s about the dark side of us all that we don’t usually have to face. The protagonist does not like that he gets to know his double and that fact between them is not discussed.

A young scholar travels from Venice, and is captured by the Turkish, taken back to Istanbul and sold as a slave. He eventually comes in the possession of a man who looks just like him. No explanation is offered as to why they look exactly alike. They study together and Hoja, the master, asked the slave to teach him everything he knows about science. They sit at a table, which is not part of the Turkish culture, and write together. They also tell each other their life stories.

This novel reminded Ms. Hen of WAITING FOR THE BARBARIANS by J. M. Coetzee, in the way that it’s slow, atmospheric, and can have multiple meanings. Ms. Hen had to read that novel twice when she was in college, and she didn’t love it, and she doesn’t remember it that well, but she remembers the feelings it gave her, of uncertainty and disgust.

There were a few mentions of chickens in THE WHITE CASTLE, which Ms. Hen appreciated. The plague hit the city, and people were dying, and, “A bricklayer who quarreled with all the neighbors about their chickens getting in through his wall, had died screaming with fever one week ago.” And also Hoja developed a weapon that he believed would destroy their enemies, “Hoja would describe to me the devastation his red rooster would wreak upon his enemies.” Hoja called his weapon the red rooster. Ms. Hen thinks it’s appropriate that a weapon would be called a rooster because they’re tough.

Ms. Hen liked this novel, but it wasn’t the best book she has read recently. She thinks that it was a little too slow for her taste, and too masculine. Few women appear in this novel, which Ms. Hen didn’t enjoy. Women are background characters and are not significant, which is historically accurate, but that doesn’t mean Ms. Hen has to like it. Ms. Hen is sure that there were interesting women in that era, though this novel doesn’t recognize that. This novel is about a man finding himself and losing himself and ultimately becoming someone else.

Ms. Hen reviews The Miniaturist

Ms. Hen with the doll's house at the Museum of Fine Arts

The Miniaturist

Jessie Burton

Harper Collins

2014

Ms. Hen first learned about this novel through the PBS miniseries. She didn’t watch the whole thing, she only watched a few minutes of it. She doesn’t have patience to watch a TV show when it’s on TV; she prefers to watch it on her own time. She went to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston shortly after the show was aired, and in the Dutch 17^th century room, there was a doll’s house similar to the one on the show. The house is a perfect tiny piece of art, and it looks like everything inside is real: real dishes, real vases, tiny beds and chairs; it’s so adorable that Ms. Hen can gaze at it for a long time. She went back to the museum as she was reading the novel to inspect it further and take a picture with Ms. Hen.

She decided to read the novel because she wants to learn about that time period, which is the same as another novel she read recently, TULIP FEVER. But she thinks THE MINIATURIST is superior. It’s better written; it’s not written in a thriller type of style, and it’s full of surprises.

Petronella comes to live in her husband, Johaness’ house with his sister and his two servants. They were married in her town, and they did not consummate their marriage when they were wed. She wonders if he does not love her, or something is wrong because when she moves into his house, he continues to treat her with indifference. She married him because her family is poor, and she needs to survive. His sister, Marin, is domineering and cruel to her at first.  Johaness buys her a cabinet house as a wedding gift, which is expensive. It has tiny rooms that are an exact replica of their house.

At first, Nella hates the cabinet house. She would prefer his love rather than receive gifts from him. She does not know what to do. She hires a miniaturist to furnish the house, and she becomes frightened by the objects that are delivered. She becomes friends with Cornelia, the maid, and is fascinated by Otto, the manservant who is a black man. There are no people of color in Amsterdam at that time. People stop and stare at him in the street. Nella doesn’t like how they stare.

This novel shocked Ms. Hen, then it continued to shock her. She knew something creepy would happen, then creepier things kept happening. In this way, it reminded her a lot of a novel she read recently, FROG MUSIC, by Emma Donahue, which was also historical fiction, about San Francisco in the 1800s. Ms. Hen thinks the style in which THE MINIATURIST is written is admirable; the writing is excellent, the pacing is well done, and it did not cease to surprise her. She likes to be surprised by what she reads, because she prefers not knowing what is going to happen. The ending of the novel is not as exciting as the rest, but it is like life, it continues on. A quality novel shouldn’t have an ending; it should be realistic, a line which does not end. Ms. Hen doesn’t like to spoil things, and she doesn’t think this is a spoiler.

Ms. Hen adored THE MINIATURIST. It is a perfect winter novel, because it takes place in winter in Amsterdam, and the descriptions of the frozen canals are lovely. She enjoyed being taken away to a different time by a novel written in a way that would not have been written in the time it took place. But that doesn’t mean situations similar to this would not occur. Bizarre things have always taken place, in every point in history. Civilization can demented, and the more advanced we become the stranger the world gets.