Ms. Hen reviews A Year in Provence

In Provence

A Year in Provence
Peter Mayle
Alfred A. Knopf
1990
 

Ms. Hen decided to read this collection of essays because she was planning a trip to Provence, and one of her rooster friends recommended it to her. She does not usually read essays, but she admires them. She often has a difficult time writing the truth, but she appreciates people who can.
 

Ms. Hen started reading this book on the plane to France. She was immediately struck by Mr. Mayle’s impressions of the people of Provence: how they are all unique and quirky, and have their own way about them. Mayle is from Great Britain, and he noticed how different the people of Provence are from the British, and also of the way of life, how easygoing, and passionate the Provencals tend to be. Ms. Hen wonders if she spent enough time there, if she would notice a stark difference between the locals and Americans. She is positive she would.
 

The collection of essays consists of twelve chapters, each dedicated to one month of the year. The author remodels a French farmhouse in the Luberon region. He haggles with French contractors who work when they want to work, but when they do appear, their craftsmanship is superb. The author talks about one plumber whose passion in life is plumbing, and knows everything about how to heat a house, and also plays the clarinet on the side to unwind. The author asks the plumber how he heats his house, and decides to use the same system. The plumber says the best radiators are made in Belgium and Germany.




Mayle talks about the true passion of Provence: gastronomy. The French love to eat and know how to eat well. All the food in Provence is fresh and delicious. The produce, the meat, the cheese, and especially the wine, is the source of ecstasy for the locals. They spend two hours every day at lunch, savoring every bite, and enjoying life. Ms. Hen only spent two and a half days in Provence, but she came to understand that their way of life is not like in the United States. It’s slower and more intense, and the light in the region is perfect not only for enjoying a meal, but for artists and writers to become inspired.


Ms. Hen stayed near where Peter Mayle lived. She learned that he does not live there anymore because people used to hunt for him because they admired his books so much. She got a chance to tour the Luberon, and to be near the area that inspired Mr. Mayle. She recognized the names of the villages in the book, because she drove by them. The mountains are winding, and the canyon roads curving. Ms. Hen did not enjoy riding in a car in the twisting roads in the canyon, and she was told she turned white afterwards. The views from the mountains are spectacular, little villages dot the country, and burst with vineyards. Certain places, from the inside of the car, Ms. Hen could smell the grapes ripe to be picked. The light, soft and hazy, engulfs everything.



There’s not much that Ms. Hen could do in two and a half days in Provence that could give her the true essence of the region. But just a taste has inspired her to look at the world differently, and to try to be more focused in her everyday life to do her true work. A break in routine, and seeing the part of the world that Peter Mayle wrote about, helped change her outlook. Ms. Hen is grateful for reading this book while she was there, so she could understand the region more deeply and profoundly. Ms. Hen would recommend this book to anyone who has been there, and also to those who have not, to garner a perception of the place.

Ms. Hen reviews A Hidden Place

A Hidden Place

Robert Charles Wilson

Bantam Books

1986

Ms. Hen picked up this book at the Little Free Library in Downtown Boston because she liked the cover. She tried to explain to her hen friend that was with her that good books have good covers, but her friend didn’t believe her. Ms. Hen knows that it’s hard to believe that you can judge a book by its cover, but she has learned this in publishing seminars. If the company thinks the book is worthwhile, they will create an attractive cover. Ms. Hen has told you this before, but she wants to remind you.

Ms. Hen started reading this novel because it’s short and she wanted to finish a book fast before she goes on vacation this week. Even though this novel is not that long, it’s intense reading, and is dense at times. Ms. Hen thinks that the best part of A HIDDEN PLACE might be the writing; it’s well crafted and mellifluous. Some aspects to the book are not superb.

This novel is about a small town on the plains of the United States, Haute Montagne, where Travis, a young man, goes to live with his aunt and uncle after the death of his mother. His uncle gives him a job at the ice plant that he owns. It’s the Depression, and jobs are hard to come by, and Travis has limited choices. A mysterious woman, Anna,  lives upstairs, and Travis is intrigued by her. His uncle warns him not to consider her romantically, and Travis is afraid of him, so he acquiesces.

Travis becomes friendly with a waitress in the town, Nancy, and the two of them go to the movies a few times. She has heard about Anna, but she doesn’t understand what she is doing in the house or the town. Anna has a secret. Travis and Nancy discover that she is not human, and is looking for her other half, Bone, who has forgotten who he is and what he must do. Travis finds Anna attractive, and he realizes why his uncle didn’t want him to become involved with her, because he wanted her all to himself. Anna escapes from the house and Travis and Nancy help her.

Ms. Hen liked this book, but she thought it was strange. It’s a story about a small town during the Depression, and how desperate and conservative the townspeople have to be in order to survive difficult times. But it turns into a science fiction novel, and Ms. Hen doesn’t quite see how that fits into the environment where the story takes place. Ms. Hen likes science fiction and magical realism, but she likes it in a context that she can believe. She doesn't understand why Anna and her other half have separated and have to get back together. She doesn't know why the things in this novel happen the way they happen. She believes that this might be meant to be a fairy tale, but she doesn’t comprehend why it has to take place during the Depression.

Sometimes when Ms. Hen’s mind is on other things, she gets distracted and can’t focus. Her mind right now is on the South of France and Paris and vacation, and that might be the reason why she didn’t enjoy this novel and much as she would normally. This reminds her a little of movies from the 1980s, like ET and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. This novel was published in that era, so those might be influences. If she read this at a different time, she might have liked it more.

Ms. Hen reviews Kaisebier Takes Berlin

Kaisebier Takes Berlin

Gabriele Tergit

Translated from the German by Sophie Duvernoy

New York Review Books

1932, 2019

Ms. Hen decided to read this on a whim because she read about it in the PARIS REVIEW, and she thought it sounded important and timely. She doesn’t usually buy books just because she reads about them, but this one sounded like something she would be interested in.

When Ms. Hen first started reading this novel, she was struck by the voice and the sound. The narration is quick and snappy, and is not like contemporary novels she has read recently. It reminds her of films of the 1930s and 1940s, in which the women are wisecracking and quick-witted. It was difficult for her to get into this book, but she did.

This novel is about a group of newspaper reporters at different papers in Berlin in 1929. They decide to take a mediocre folk singer and make him a star by writing about him in all their papers. It is about sensationalism, fake news and the power of the press. Kaisebier is not the main character in this novel, it is the people that surround him that take the center stage. One of the writers is writing books about him and selling rubber dolls made in his likeness that kids can take in the bath.

Kaisebier goes on tour, and an apartment building with a theater is built in his honor. There is a lot of discussion about the building and how many rooms the apartments should have, and talk about money, which Ms. Hen thought wearisome. The characters have different living situations.

This novel is about the Weimar Republic, with its excess and extravagance. The country is recovering from a war, and they don’t realize they are preparing for another one. The Nazis are on the peripheries, and a lot of people don’t take them seriously enough. The characters complain when they have to sell their china, but Ms. Hen wants to yell at them to look out because much worse things will happen to them in the future.

This novel reminds Ms. Hen of Kafka’s THE TRIAL, with the satire and absurdity discussing bureaucracy, and how the world is run. The world is a messed up place, and even people ninety years ago knew this was true. There is a part of the novel where the characters are talking about machines taking over people’s jobs, and Ms. Hen thinks that’s incredulous. Now it’s more pervasive that technology is in the process of pushing employees out the door. (She just finished watching a Netflix show which discusses this issue called BETTER THAN US, a Russian tragedy in the future with robots, and some characters want them to replace the workforce.)

Ms. Hen liked this novel, though she thought it was tedious at times, with all the talk of money and the building, and she would have liked more about Kaisebier and music and the way people reacted to him. She realizes that money is important, but reading about money problems is difficult for Ms. Hen. She has her own issues with money, and the subject bores her. She would rather read about tortured souls, and people who have nothing to live for, but keep living anyway.

Ms. Hen reviews Famous Men Who Never Lived

Famous Men Who Never Lived

K Chess

Tin House Press

2019

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel because she listened to a radio show on NPR about books. She doesn’t usually listen to the radio, but she heard a commercial that there was going to be a show about dystopian fiction for the summer, and she was intrigued. She found the show online, and became fascinated learning about new novels.

FAMOUS MEN WHO NEVER LIVED is different from other dystopian fiction that Ms. Hen has read. It’s about an alternative universe, in which there was a split in 1909, and another world went down a different continuum. There is a nuclear war in the other dimension, and some people in that New York had the opportunity to go through a portal to go to the New York that we know. The people who arrive in New York are considered refugees, but from another world. They leave everything behind, and there is no going back. The New York where they arrive is a little bit the same, but also drastically different.

The novel is about Hel, a former doctor in the other dimension, and her boyfriend she meets on this side, Vikram, a PhD student in literature, a type that does not exist in this world. Vikram works as a security guard at a storage facility, and Hel does not work, and lives off assistance. Vikram brought books with him through the portal, books unique to their world. Hel loves reading THE PYRONAUTS, a classic science fiction novel by Ezra Sleight, who was a household name from their side. Hel and Vikram find the house where Sleight lived in this world, but here, he died as a child. They want to turn it into a museum for the UDP, Universally Displaced Persons, a place to showcase their culture and history.

Hel goes to a party to try to gather interest in her project about the museum, and brings THE PYRONAUTS with her. She shows in to the head of a museum, and misplaces it. She tries to get the novel back, but the woman does not have it. It’s the only copy that exists in this world. Hel goes wild with desperation trying to get the book back.

This novel is about refugees, and what happens when they leave everything they know, and cannot go back. The UDPs have a shared culture that nobody in this world could understand. There are books and movies and history that people do not know here. Even things like commercials on TV, or the fact that women there did not wear high heels. Their side might have been more dangerous, and it does not exist anymore, but it belonged to them.

This novel made Ms. Hen think about culture, and what she knows and likes, and she tried to imagine how she would feel if it all disappeared. She came to the conclusion that everyone likes different things, and people from other countries, and people of different ages, have memories and enjoy movies and music and TV shows others don’t. Ms. Hen knows that there are even people who don’t read books (the horror!) and she realizes those people have different cultural sensibilities than people who do read. She wondered if she could let everything go away, and tried to imagine what that would be like.

Ms. Hen thoroughly enjoyed this novel. It made her think, and not everything she reads does that. She loved living in this weird world for a little while, meeting people from a different dimension, and imagining an alternate universe. She likes books that pose the idea that anything could be possible, because somewhere and someday, it could become true.

Ms. Hen reviews Other People's Worlds

Other People’s Worlds

William Trevor

Penguin Books

1980

Ms. Hen happened to find this small novel in the Little Free Library probably in Downtown Crossing, but she does not remember. Most of the books she finds are from there, but she takes so many, and does not always read them right away. She picked this up because she has read William Trevor before, and admires him. She found this book charming, but distressing.

This novel is about England, probably in the 1960s or 70s, and a group of people affected by a conman named Francis Tyte. Julia is a widow, but still attractive, with two grown daughters. Julia lives with her mother in the family home called Swan House. Francis convinces her that he is in love with her. He is an actor who is well known for a series of tobacco commercials.

Francis is a tricky and conniving man. Since he is an actor, he can convince people he is interested in them. He has a daughter with a woman who works in a shop, Doris, who he sees now and then. Doris is obsessed with him. He told her that he is married to an elderly dressmaker, and he can’t leave that woman, because she is sick and dying. He is married to a dressmaker, but has not seen her in a long time. Francis scorns Julia, and Doris gets involved. Doris is a drunk and makes a spectacle of herself. Her daughter, Joy, does not go to school because the kids in school have crazes and the latest one is tattooing, and she does not want a tattoo.

One of the things that struck Ms. Hen about this novel was the use of the internal worlds of the characters. The last few books she has read have been contemporary, and have been focused mainly on the surface of the characters’ lives. Ms. Hen thinks that writers now might be more influenced by movies and TV, which can only show what is happening with the person externally. Ms. Hen enjoyed reading about the lives of people and how messed up they were. Ms. Hen thinks that genuine pathos is something that might be lacking from fiction these days.

Another aspect of this novel that struck Ms. Hen was she thinks that there's a chance these events would not take place in the world today. A man would not have the capability to be as big a con man that he was then, because now things are more open. Also, Ms. Hen likes to believe that women are not as weak and subservient these days as they are in this novel.

There is one brief mention of some chickens in this novel. Francis is walking around a sketchy part of London, and he prostituting himself. He sees, “By a row of dustbins a cardboard carton was full of chickens feet.” Ms. Hen thinks this was put in to show how weird this place was, and untrustworthy. Ms. Hen thinks this is an unsavory use of chickens, but it works for the novel.

Ms. Hen liked this novel. It was starkly different from the other books she has read recently, but she thinks sometimes it’s good to shock the system, like jumping into a cold lake on a lukewarm day. Life can be terrible, but it can always be worse.

Ms. Hen reviews The Water Cure

The Water Cure

Sophie Mackintosh

Doubleday

2018

Ms. Hen had read about this novel a while ago, so she put it on her library list and requested it, and it took months to be delivered to her branch. She knew that it was dystopian women’s fiction, and that genre is hot right now. She imagined if there was a long wait for the book it should be good, but that is not always true. Some people read novels just because the subject is stylish. That is not true for this novel. Ms. Hen became enthralled.

THE WATER CURE is a novel about three sisters, Grace, Lia and Sky, who live on a remote island or peninsula with their father and mother. The parents want to keep their daughters away from society and men, because they say men are poisonous and bad for women. The novel starts off with the father, King, disappearing on one of his trips to the mainland to get supplies. Mother tries to console the girls, but they are depressed that their father is dead.

One day some men appear in their area. The young women have never seen men besides their father, and they notice how different they are. They smell strange and are more vocal. Mother does not want them to be near the men or for the men to touch them, but of course she can't stop what comes naturally between men and women. Dark things happen to the family. Grace was pregnant and loses the baby. Mother disappears. The girls have to fend for themselves against the men. They have never learned how to take care of themselves.

This novel reminded Ms. Hen of THE TEMPEST and LORD OF THE FLIES because it’s about a society with no rules and everyone runs amok. It’s obviously also reminiscent of THE HANDMAID’S TALE, since it is feminist dystopian fiction. It takes place in a time in the future that is not known. Not much technology exists, but we know it’s the future because of the way the parents explain how society crumbled because of men.

Ms. Hen noticed that the tone of this novel is quiet. Not a lot of noise happens in these pages. She could hear the sounds of the water, and of whispering, but the book never turns up the volume. The last novel Ms. Hen read, BLUE ANGEL, was loud and at times it screamed at her. Every novel has a different tone, and the author directs the sound like a conductor does a symphony.

There are not many chickens in this novel, because they are in a remote area and do not have animals anymore or that much fresh meat to eat, but there is one significant mention of a chicken, “When I put the blade to his neck and press, aiming for just under the ear, dragging down under the jaw, I might have thought about your lifting the chickens by their feet and swiping the knife across their throats.” She is thinking of King and when they had chickens and what he did to them.

Ms. Hen read this novel quickly, and after she finished, she had a book hangover, and had to stop reading for a day. That doesn’t happen often, but she likes it when it does, because she gets so involved in a world, that she doesn’t want to let go and go into another one. Ms. Hen approves of this novel and thinks you will too J

Ms. Hen reviews Blue Angel

Blue Angel

Francine Prose

Harper Collins

2000

Ms. Hen bought this book at a used bookstore shortly after she read another novel by Francine Prose, HOUSEHOLD SAINTS, which she adored. That was one of Ms. Hen’s top ten last year, and she read it right before Christmas. Ms. Prose has a way of creating believable, fantastic novels, which Ms. Hen admires.

This is a world that is familiar to Ms. Hen. The protagonist is a creative writing professor at a small, expensive, middle tier college in Vermont. Ms. Hen has been in a lot of creative writing classes, and these are scenarios that she knows quite well. The person whose story is being workshopped has to keep quiet while their darling is butchered. And it is always pulverized, no matter how good it is. A lot of sensitive people can’t handle it. The young people in this novel are typical creative writing students, though they might not be advanced.

Ted Swenson has been teaching at Euston for almost twenty years. He has never had an affair with a student, but that changes when he meets Angela Argo. He describes her as ferret-like, but she is a talented writer. He becomes obsessed with her writing, even though he is happily married to the college nurse. The college introduces a new no sexual harassment campaign; Ted finds it annoying that he is forced to go to a seminar while he has never done anything wrong. At least not yet.

Ms. Hen thought this novel could be considered LOLITA in reverse. Ted isn’t the one that wants to behave badly, and Angela is no wilting flower. She uses him to get what she wants. Ms. Hen read that this novel is supposed to be satire, and it seems ridiculous to her at times.

Ms. Hen thinks the author did an excellent job of writing from the point of view of the opposite gender. Ms. Hen has never attempted this, she is not sure why, but she thinks she does not understand the male brain enough to get inside and to think what they think. Ms. Hen imagines that Ms. Prose is able to do this because she is writing about a character that she knows, the creative writing professor, which is not difficult for another professor to write.

There are lots of significant chickens in this novel. On the first page, in the initial creative writing workshop, a story is being discussed in which a chicken is raped, and Swenson thinks about this, “so blindly focused on the imminent challenge of leading a class discussion of a student story, in which a teenager, after a bad date with his girlfriend, rapes an uncooked chicken by the light of the family fridge.” Ms. Hen thinks this is a great way to begin a novel. It catches the reader’s attention, it’s weird and freaky, and there is a chicken involved. Ms. Hen does not condone these actions, but she understands why the author chose to do this, to shock and disgust, and goad the reader into continuing.

Angela, the student that becomes Swenson’s downfall, is writing a novel entitled EGGS, which Swenson thinks is the best student writing he has ever read. It’s about a teenage girl who is doing a science project trying to breed chickens in her backyard, who has a crush on her music teacher, “What to do with the broken egg? My dad transferred it, oozing gunk to his other hand, and picked up an egg from another incubator. It broke. It smelled bad, too.” Ms. Hen likes that the novel is called EGGS, and the character is attempting to hatch chickens.

Ms. Hen thoroughly enjoyed this novel. It felt familiar to her, but foreign at the same time. She felt sorry for Ted, but not honestly sorry. He had bad luck, but it could happen to anyone. This is a good example of a story within a novel, or several stories within a novel, which Ms. Hen admires. There are many things to appreciate in this novel, and it continues to twist and turn and surprise.