Ms. Hen reviews THE HOMESMAN

THE HOMESMAN

Directed by Tommy Lee Jones

2014

Ms. Hen does not usually like Westerns, and she doesn’t like Hillary Swank either, but she saw the preview for HOMESMAN, and she was intrigued. She became interested in the story of the three women in the Nebraska Territory who went mad after a long, painful winter.

Hillary Swank’s character, the pious, unmarried and outspoken Mary Bee Cuddy is recruited to escort the women to Iowa to meet with the wife of a minister who takes care of people with mental illnesses.

The film opens with Cuddy making dinner for her neighbor; Ms. Hen was pleased the pioneer was making fried chicken. Cuddy asks her neighbor to marry her because she thinks they would make a good match with their farms, because she has land and knows how to manage money, but he turns her down flat because he says she is too plain, and he tells her he plans to go back East to find a wife.

As Ms. Hen said before, she doesn’t like Hillary Swank, but she is perfect for this part. She is headstrong and capable of taking charge of her life and situation. She blackmails George Briggs (Tommy Lee Jones) into taking the three insane women to Iowa because she feels like she needs a man’s protection on the journey. She cuts him down from the rope from which he was hanging that some men did to him after they caught him jumping a claim, taking someone else’s house while he was away. She tells him she’ll cut him down, but she has a job for him. She doesn’t tell him what it is until he’s down.

Ms. Hen thought this was a women’s film. Great performances are given by Swank, and the three women she escorts, Grace Gummer as Arabella Sours, Miranda Otto as Grace Belknap and Sonja Ritcher as Gro Svendson. Meryl Streep appears at the end as the minister’s wife in Iowa. Ms. Hen thinks this is an important film, because the mentally ill are not usually portrayed in such films as Westerns. But this isn’t a typical Western.

Ms. Hen thought this film wasn’t like a Western because most seem to be phony, completely unlike what the real Wild West was like. Ms. Hen doesn’t know what the real West was like, but she knows it wasn’t like BONANZA. This film seemed like it was similar to what the authentic West: dangerous, but beautiful, and full of daring people ready to start a new life in a new place. There were dangers such as Indians, stray settlers, and hostile hoteliers. The rules were different in the Wild West than they are today, where the law of the land didn’t exist, and nobody cared what could be enforced, they were out for themselves to survive and get by day to day.

This film is tragic and sad, but not in an unexpected way. Women were supposed to want to be like women and Mary Bee Cuddy doesn’t think she could get married and be like other women. George Biggs redeems himself and brings music to Mary who loved music and dreamed of a piano before she went on the journey with the women.

Ms. Hen loved this film because it was different, not like most Hollywood films. She discovered that it was a French and American production, and she decided that is why she enjoyed it, since it was French. The quiet power of this film lurks beneath the surface, a story of duty, longing and sacrifice. Ms Hen recommends this film, but be prepared for a reflection of reality.

Ms. Hen reviews THE BASTARD

THE BASTARD

Violette Leduc

Dalkey Editions

2003 Original publication 1964

Translated by Derek Coltman

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel because she saw the film VIOLETTE, and was intrigued by the story of Violette Leduc and her tumultuous life. Ms. Hen read a collection of short stories by Simone De Beauviour recently for the same reason.

THE BASTARD is about Violette Leduc and her experience growing up as a bastard, an illegitimate child of a servant and the master’s son. Leduc was born in 1907. Her mother is marked because she had a child out of wedlock. She takes her child to live with her mother, and the grandmother dotes on the child and spoils her until she dies. Leduc said that her grandmother’s death frees her, since she could not hide in her apron ever again.

Ms. Hen was enthralled by THE BASTARD.  It’s not because there are dozens of chickens and hens scattered all throughout the pages. It’s because the writing has a dense beauty to it; the writing is heavy with words, and the descriptions of things are so unique and desperate that Ms. Hen has never read anything quite like it recently.

When she meets her stepfather, Violettte greets him, and he brushes her aside, and she writes, “I turned to ice for thirty years.” Her mother works hard when she marries the stepfather; she wanted to prove to him that she could be a good wife. Violette is sent to boarding school.

Ms. Hen thought THE BASTARD might be considered to be like Proust, but with some well written lesbian love scenes. She wrote, “A caress is to a shudder what twilight is to a lightening flash.” Violette has a love affair with her schoolmate Isabelle, and after that a teacher at the school, Hermine. A student reports them and Violette is expelled, and Hermine fired.

Violette has affairs with men as well. She has a long relationship with Hermine, until one day Hermine leaves. Violette had worked at a publishing company, but she quit, so she could stay at home. After Hermine leaves Violette gets a job as a secretary and meets Gabriel, her old friend again, and eventually marries him.

Throughout the book, Violette likes to pick flowers. She picks them illegally, from parks, and houses, and she picks them in the forests and the fields. Ms. Hen thinks this is because Violette is looking for her own flower, and since her name is Violette.

Violette leaves Paris during World War II with Maurice Sachs to go to the Normandy. This is when he encourages her to write, and she starts. He gives her an exercise book and tells her to sit under an apple tree. She becomes successful in the black market trade. She mails food from the country where it is plentiful to Paris where people are hungry. This amazed Ms. Hen. She didn’t think people could send food in the mail without it spoiling, But there are ways for everything when people are hungry, for food and money.

Ms. Hen was dazzled by THE BASTARD. The book is a dense read, Ms. Hen found that it took her a long time to finish it, since she had to take breaks and come up for air every now and then. It isn’t often that a novel gets under Ms. Hen’s skin and infects her, but this one did. She highly recommends this novel, but to the reader, be prepared to experience Violette Leduc’s heartbreak firsthand. THE BASTARD is not for the weak.

Ms. Hen reviews THIS IS NOT YOUR CITY

THIS IS NOT YOUR CITY: STORIES

Caitlin Horrocks

Sarabande Books

2011

Ms. Hen stumbled upon this book by accident. She had no idea what this slim volume would be like, but the book ended up dazzling her. She does not want to say that she is stalking the author, so she will not say such a thing. Ms. Hen is a hen of discretion, and will not answer any incriminating questions.

This collection is composed completely of stories about women. Ms. Hen realized as she read the book that the ages of the characters get progressively older as the book goes on. The first story, “Zolaria,” is about a ten-year old girl, and the last story, “In the Gulf of Aden, Past the Gulf of Guadarfi,” is about a woman about fifty years old.

The stories in this book are strange, but some of them are strange in an ordinary way, such as “Steal Small,” about a couple who looks for dogs to sell to make a little extra money. In the story, Lyssa and Leo live together with a dog kennel in the back of the house. Lyssa works at the Goodwill and Leo works at a slaughterhouse killing cows all day. Ms. Hen didn’t like their world, but she understands that people can live like this. Leo finds dogs to sell to a friend, who in turn sells them to laboratories for experiments. Lyssa pities a beautiful Dalmation and almost sets the dog free. This story is visceral in a way that brought Ms. Hen into their lives. Some people do things that others could not imagine doing, but they do those things because they don’t know how to survive any other way.

The story “Embodied,” is about someone who seems completely normal, but is not because she believes she has lived 127 lives. She sees people all over the town where she lives that she used to know in her past lives. Ms. Hen loved this story. She doesn’t believe in past lives, but it’s fun to imagine we could have been someone else in a different life. She’s not sure if the character is crazy, or if she truly has had all those lives, but for the purpose of the story, the reader has to believe that the character is telling the truth. The lengths to which the woman goes to fulfill her duty to her former selves shocked Ms. Hen, and she knew the character is serious about her former lives, and probably isn’t crazy.

Ms. Hen likes to assume that everyone is crazy sometimes, or they have been crazy, or will go crazy, but sometimes that is not true.

The characters in this collection all seem to be sane to Ms. Hen. In the title story, “This is Not Your City,” Daria, a Russian woman, deals with the disappearance of her daughter. She lives in Finland, and her Finnish is minimal. She is a tortured Russian soul; she offered herself on a dating website to find a Finnish husband, and brought her teenage daughter, Nika, with her when she got married. The daughter does not do as well at school as she did in Russia, mostly because of her language skills. This is a story about a woman who survives; she wants to help her daughter flourish in the world. She teaches her daughter that sometimes the honest way isn’t always the best road to travel.

Ms. Hen loved this book. The stories are short, but engrossing, and Ms. Hen found from these stories that even what seems like an ordinary life can be extraordinary in its own way. Ms. Hen realized from reading THIS IS NOT YOUR CITY that some people have astounding survival skills, and Ms. Hen would like to think that she would be up to the challenge if the time comes. This book took Ms. Hen’s breath away.

Ms. Hen reviews NOT A SELF-HELP BOOK - THE MISADVENTURES OF MARTY WU

NOT A SELF-HELP BOOK - THE MISADVENTURES OF MARTY WU

Yi Shun Lai

Shade Mountain Press

2016

Ms. Hen does not usually read self-help books, but this is not that kind of book.  The character in this novel, Marty Wu, loves to read self-help books in order to improve her life. She is searching for something to change, to help make her outlook better, and to help her deal with her mother and her problems.

This book is different from other novels Ms. Hen has read. For one thing, the protagonist is very young. Ms. Hen doesn’t have a problem being around young people, and even reading novels about them, but this book is about a young person in today’s immediate society. Ms. Hen found this novel refreshing because she has never read a novel about a young person that could be one that she might see standing in line at a coffee shop, staring at her phone, with headphones on, worried about her future, and who could shortly make a disaster of her life.

Another aspect of this novel, which is new to Ms. Hen is the subject matter: it is about a young woman with a “tiger mother,” a term used to describe Asian parents that are overbearing and demanding. Ms. Hen’s parents were never anything like Marty Wu’s mother. Ms. Hen knows that parents like this exist, because she has heard stories. Marty’s mother is a force of nature, and nothing Marty does can please her. Whatever Marty says or does her mother throws a negative retort back at her daughter.

This novel is about a young woman trying to find herself, and what she wants from her life. Marty Wu works at a magazine in the sales department, and she acquired the job from her boyfriend, the boss, who soon became her ex-boyfriend. Marty is a mess, she wants things that she doesn’t have; she flubs a sales conference in a dramatic way, and gets fired. She dreams of opening a costume shop, but her dream seems to slip father and farther away when she travels to Taiwan with her mother.

The drama gets deeper and deeper in Taiwan. Her mother insinuates to the relatives what Marty did to get fired from her job. Marty tried to find peace in the house where she lived when she was young. The description of the family house is beautiful; Ms. Hen wished she could go there and relax. She especially liked the way the courtyard is described while Marty is painting with her aunt, “…my aunt’s one rooster, standing head and part of his wing above his harem of hens.” Ms. Hen also loves the Taiwan in the novel; it is a place where Marty can become the person she wants to be, by being the person she always has been.

This novel is about a young person living in a difficult world, and trying to find her way amidst the turmoil in her life. Reading the novel is like listening to a person speak really fast, trying to figure out life. The diary style of writing works well for the immediacy and energy of the novel. Ms. Hen got to know Marty’s voice and her problems, and how she tried to solve them. NOT A SELF-HELP BOOK is a fast-paced, rollicking ride through someone’s troubled life that is not yours, which might make you appreciate your own problems. Ms. Hen enjoyed the novel because it is a different perspective for her, and she likes seeing the world through someone else’s eyes.

Ms. Hen reviews WHEN THINGS OF THE SPIRIT COME FIRST

WHEN THINGS OF THE SPIRIT COME FIRST

Simone De Beauvoir

Translated from the French by Patrick O’Brian

Pantheon Books

1979

Ms. Hen chose to read this book because she recently watched the film VIOLETTE, about Violette Leduc, and Simone De Beauvoir appeared as a character in the film, and was her mentor and friend. Ms. Hen was curious about both writers, and she was browsing in a used bookstore and by chance she found this jem.

Ms. De Beauvoir says in the introduction to the book that she had several unfinished novels before she started writing these stories about young women she knew, including herself. She thinks that her writing improved when she wrote about women’s issues that were from real life rather than things she invented. Ms. Hen agrees with her in that writing should be personal and honest, even when it is fiction. Ms. De Beauvoir claims this collection is a beginner’s work, but Ms. Hen couldn’t help but think, what a beginner!

The stories are each about one young woman and the story’s title bears her name: Marcelle, Chantal, Lisa, Anne, and Marguerite. Ms. Hen thought a lot of these stories were sad; the characters don’t seem to have any hope for their lives, and seem to dwell in misery. She believes the reason is their Catholic upbringing, and the pressure that society put upon them to behave in a certain way and do what their parents tell them.

Marcelle is a serious young woman who falls into the hands of the wrong man, and pays the price by losing her freedom. She doesn’t realize who she is marrying and what she is getting herself into. Chantal is a young teacher at a girl’s school in the provinces and she tries to be the “good” teacher, but is shocked by the students’ behavior when one of them asks for advice on a delicate matter.

The character Lisa goes to the dentist, and on her way a middle-aged woman accuses her of being her husband’s mistress. She goes to the dentist, and he tries to flirt with her, and says, “’Pretty girls shouldn’t be allowed to study.’” Ms. Hen was shocked by this. She was shocked because no professional man would be allowed to say that to a young woman in today's society, and if he did, he would be fired.

Ms. Hen thinks it’s horrible that men were allowed to treat women like that in France in the 1930s. Ms. Hen is happy that she doesn’t live in a society where this kind of behavior is acceptable, and has decided to celebrate that fact that she was not alive eighty years ago when men were allowed to act like that. Life for women isn't perfect now, but society has improved as time moves on, as Ms. Hen believes.

Anne is a character who is tied to her mother, and she thinks she has to follow her mother’s commands. She comes to a tragic end. Marguerite is the wildest character in the collection. She goes out to cafes to drink and toys with men, but falls in love with the wrong man. She is the person who is most likely to come out okay of all these women. Marguerite is based on Ms. De Beauvoir, and Ms. Hen can see how her independent streak was born.

A lot of these stories made Ms. Hen angry and upset, not because she felt sorry for the characters, but upset that society made it possible for such women to exist. Ms. Hen likes to think that women have more options today, and are not stuck with no way out. Ms. Hen loved this collection of short stories, even though she felt sorry for the characters, and the book made her sad, she’s happy she does not have to live with the utter hopelessness that they felt in that time.

Ms. Hen reviews Portland, Maine

Portland, Maine

Ms. Hen recently went on a short trip to Portland, Maine. She wanted to get away for a few days and she didn’t want to go far. Usually when she goes on a trip, she travels to faraway places like Europe or Washington D.C., somewhere she can get on a plane and not have to worry about going in a car, since she is a bit driving impaired. She has her license, but she prefers not to drive because she finds it stressful.

Ms. Hen took the Amtrak from North Station to Portland. She has taken the train before, but most of the time, she has gone south to New York. She found the train to Maine less crowded and more pleasant than going south. She had two seats to herself the whole time back and forth. The trip takes about two and a half hours.

Ms. Hen stayed at a bed and breakfast place called the Inn at St. John http://www.innatstjohn.com. She picked the place because it was inexpensive and it was right near the train station. She walked in the door, and classical music was playing and the place was lovely. It seemed to her to be the kind of hotel where people go to have love affairs. She wasn’t having a love affair, and was initially nervous that the strange atmosphere would bother her, but it didn’t.

Ms. Hen at the Inn at St. John

The hotel is the oldest in Portland, and is a European style hotel, and it didn’t have an elevator. Ms. Hen was on the top floor. She didn’t realize how awkward the stairs were, or she would have taken the offer someone made to help carry her bags. Some of the rooms at the hotel have shared bathrooms, but Ms. Hen’s room had a private hall bath, which was the second cheapest room in the hotel.

Ms. Hen thought her room was charming. It was perfect for getting away for a few nights. It had a refrigerator, a coffee maker, a TV that she didn’t watch, bathrobes, and the people at the hotel left a basket of snacks. Of course free WIFI was available. There was coffee and tea in the lobby all day, but Ms. Hen is a coffee snob and she always brings her own, because hotel coffee is usually below par, and yes, the coffee at this hotel was as expected.

Ms. Hen didn’t have any concrete plans as to what she was going to do. She mostly explored the streets and looked at things, went out to eat, took pictures, and went shopping. She thinks it’s wonderful to be in a different place. The hotel is near the downtown area where a myriad of used bookstores and art galleries and restaurants are located. The first night Ms. Hen ate at a fantastic vegetarian Thai place called The Green Elephant, and she had Thai Basil fried rice with vegetarian meat and it was tasty.

It snowed the second day, and Ms. Hen decided she would walk to the Old Port area, which was a long walk from the hotel. She got lost and wandered farther than she should have. The day was cold. Ms. Hen had planned in advance that she would go to a place called The Blue Rooster for lunch because she liked the name of the place. She had a beet goat cheese sandwich and poutine tater tots, and she ate quickly, since the tater tots were hot, and she needed the warmth. The place is a café, and is very small, but the food was delicious.

Ms. Hen at the Blue Rooster waiting for her lunch

Ms. Hen walked around the Old Port area, and some of the streets were paved with cobblestones. There were lots of quaint shops, and it seemed like it would be packed in the summer with tourists. Many of the seafood places on the water were still closed for the season.

On her last full day, Ms. Hen went back to the Old Port District to search out some seafood for lunch. She ate at Gritty McDuff’s, a brewpub and restaurant where she enjoyed some baked stuffed haddock. The tables at the place were not the most comfortable; they were picnic table style, with seats that had no backs.

Old Port area

Ms. Hen always feels rushed when she eats at a sit-down restaurant when she travels alone. But she never feels rushed when she goes to a coffee shop, because the employees don’t pay attention to how long a person stays. Ms. Hen went to a few great independent coffee shops in Portland. She went to Yordprom Coffee, where she had an almond croissant and a soy latte; Tandem Coffee and Bakery, which is a converted garage, but Ms. Hen though it was too drafty inside; and Bard Coffee, in the Old Port area, where Ms. Hen went twice and loved the coffee and atmosphere.

Ms. Hen drinks coffee at Bard Coffee

Ms. Hen thinks it’s great to get away for a few days, with no grand plan and no expectations. She didn’t feel stressed or rushed, and she didn’t feels like she had to do absolutely everything on her list. She did some writing in her hotel room in the mornings before she went out. Portland Maine is trendy and cool in its own way, with a Mainer edge to it.

Ms. Hen reviews SACRED COUNTRY

SACRED COUNTRY

Rose Tremain

Washington Square Press

1992

Ms. Hen has recently become interested in transsexuals, not the how, but the why. Why would someone want to be different from they way they are? Why would a woman feel that she is supposed to be a man and vice versa? Ms. Hen found a lot of nonfiction books about transsexuals, but she wanted to read a novel, because she thinks she can get inside a character’s skin better if she reads fiction. She found this novel, about a transsexual man, his life and transformation.

Mary Ward feels as if she were trapped in the wrong body from the time of the two-minute silence when the king of England dies in 1952. She is six years old. Her father had lost one of his ears during World War II. Her father wanted her to be a boy when she was born, and is disappointed that she is a girl. Her brother, Timmy, is not as strong as Mary.

Mary does what she wants to do, and does not listen to people. SACRED COUNTRY is filled with lonely characters: Mary’s mother’s Estelle, goes in and out of a psychiatric hospital; her brother, Timmy, does not want to work the farm; their neighbor, Walter, dreams of going to Nashville to become a country singer. Nobody in the book has what they want, and they dream of other lives.

The setting plays a big part in how the characters feel about their lives. In Suffolk, in the village of Swaithy, people have no hope that their lives will change. Mary does not want to be a girl; when she visits her grandfather she decides that she want to be called Martin, and her grandfather goes along with that. He is intelligent enough that when the time comes for Martin to reveal his true self, the grandfather accepts him.

Mary moves to London and tries to survive in the big city, attempting to transform himself into Martin. He seeks professional help, makes friends, works at a magazine, and has a series of operations. He suffers from not getting what he wants, but he keeps going on.

Martin struggles to find peace, but it comes to him in waves. He can’t get exactly what he wants, but he finds that he does not need that much in his life to be satisfied.

Ms. Hen was pleased that there were chickens in SACRED COUNTRY. The Ward family owns a farm, so of course they had hens and roosters running around. Ms. Hen’s favorite chicken in the novel was the patient in the psychiatric hospital with Estelle, Alice, called “The Chicken Lady.” She decided one day that she would rather be a chicken than a human.  Many characters in this novel want to be something that they’re not, and The Chicken Lady is an extreme version of that notion. Ms. Hen knows that The Chicken Lady is out of touch with reality, but she thinks that if someone wants to be an animal it’s admirable that she would want to be a chicken.

Ms. Hen loved this novel. She thinks she doesn’t understand the why of transsexuals, but she understands that some things simply are the way they are. We can’t change how we feel, but we can change our view of the world. Change comes from within, and viewing our lives with new eyes can be enlightening, as it is for Martin Ward when he becomes who he is supposed to be.