The Handmaid's Tale

First of all, it is not the Handmaiden's Tale. Handmaid, it is. Many will be familiar with either the film or the television series. But Margaret Atwood is just too good of a writer to not get the full force of the story in the original.

From the Bibliophile's Devotional for June 10th:

"In this rich story of a dystopian future, the Republic of Gilead is an oppressive, underpopulated, Christian theocracy ruled by men. Right-wing fundamentalist set up the repressive state in the 1980s (the novel was published in 1986) after murdering the U.S. president and members of Congress. It is a bleak place. Women have been disenfranchised and are prevented from working or having money or learning to read. Homosexuals, jews, old women, and nonwhites have been sent to the Colonies to clean up toxic waste.

This cautionary tale is celebrated for its gorgeous prose and controversial for its forthright feminism. Atwood reminds the reader that all of the horrifying ways in which women are oppressed in this novel have been played out in history."

It's Longer Than Moby Dick

Moby Dick is often referred to as the book most readers have not read or not finished. For me and many others I would guess Remembrance of Things Past is that unfinished epic. I have actually finished the first of three volumes. Though that took me at least four attempts. I have not yet opened the second book. And probably never will.

Today, May 30th, The Bibliophile's Devotional speaks of Proust's magnum opus, thusly:

"This very challenging book - a 3,000 pages novel that was once dismissed as the work of a self-indulgent neurotic dilettante - left one critic complaining that Proust had devoted fifty pages to 'how he turns over and over in his bed before going to sleep.'"

Books Near & Far

I've been away. I know how is that even possible from quarantine. Let's just say it was more metaphysical than actual. Combination of some good reads and a healthy dose of bingeable cable. In fact, when asked: "How you guys doin'?" I have taken to responding with: "My brother and I take easily to sloth."

But I have been neglecting The Bibliophile's Devotional, which has delivered some memorable offerings both old and new. First, from May 10th, the new. I have heard of Don DeLillo but not his 1985 book White Noise. It now awaits me on my kindle.

"A brilliant satire of mass culture and the numbing effects of technology, 

White Noise tells the story of Jack Gladney,

 a teacher of Hitler studies at a liberal arts college in Middle America."

Need I say more? Seriously, Hitler Studies.

Also published in 1985 comes Larry McMurtry's classic Lonesome Dove. A great read and one of the few novels that was adapted near perfectly to television. This was the May 19th selection from The Bibliophile's Devotional and the first of four straight days of wonderful reads.

May 20th brought Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner published in 2003 just two years after the United States got involved in Afghanistan the setting for the early part of the novel.

May 21st brings us Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? which we all know was the basis for the film Blade Runner. Dick was a pioneer of science fiction and still one of my favorite writers in a genre filled with luminaries.

May 22nd finds us delving back to Animal Farm, George Orwell's allegorical tale from 1946, which rounds out the current book shelf suggestions from the Devotional.

Like Water for Chocolate

The book by Laura Esquivel is the Cinco Di Mayo offering of The Bibliophile's Devotional. Yes, the photo above is a promo for the movie, but it so captures the essence of the book and the food.

The Devotional sums up the novel this way -

"Words seem to literally smolder on the page of this Mexican author's exuberant first novel. A tribute to the senses, it combines magical realism, seething eroticism, and food to concoct a sensual feast."

Each chapter opens with an extravagant recipe: For turkey mole she writes: "Fifteen days before the turkey is to be killed, begin feeding it small walnuts."

A lush novel that reaches for all your senses and it has two of my favorites in the title.

The Bone People

The Bibliophile's Devotional tells us "this unusual novel is woven through with dreams, myth, magic, the world of the dead, and the traditions of ancient cultures." My kindle tells me I read this book back in 2005, I may need to reinvestigate. I'm sure it was a recommendation from a friend, anyone wish to take credit?

What struck me about the write-up in The Devotional are these words of inspiration and motivation to all struggling novelists.

The author "spent twelve years writing this novel and then was unable to find a mainstream press to publish it. Published by a small feminist New Zealand publishing collective, it sold out its initial print run in six weeks and went on to become the most successful novel in New Zealand publishing history."

The Bibliophile's Devotional

I have a dear friend with whom I periodically exchange books, articles and academic ephemera. Today in the midst of deliveries of food, hand sanitizer and catnip, came this book. With this thoughtful gift a long-standing personal dilemma has been resolved.

I have been looking to keep this little grey blog focused my quest to publish Grey Angel, my novel. Pandemic reflection and quarantine news are not serving that quest. But a daily dose of selective literature will surely spark something resembling literary at least once or twice a week.

I hope you will look forward to my meanderings sparked by The Bibliophile's Devotional.

Today's bon mot from Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier.

"At the first gesture of morning, flies began stirring."

"Inman, a confederate soldier wounded at the battle of Petersburg, wakes up in a hospital ward. Flies buzz around the long wound in his neck that after months has finally started to heal."

Thank-you, Don. 

. . . and a grateful bow to the book's author Hallie Ephron "the best, friendliest, hippest librarian you ever met."