Review 460: Soul of Nowhere

Soul of Nowhere by Craig Childs
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

The book is mostly a group of essays, no plot or forward movement. Each chapter is a new location, where Childs walks and climbs around these desolate areas, primarily in the desert, where people used to live. Sometimes one other person is with him, or several, occasionally he goes alone.

They find remnants of past lives, typically broken bits of pottery, and on a rare occasion a pot that is unbroken. There are other signs. It starts with the cliff dwellers, so they explore a few of these homes high up on the cliffs. They do not take these objects, they put back exactly as found when picked up. Only sketches are taken, some are replicated in the book.

Childs writing style is dense with imagery but sparse on story. We don’t know what he does for a living other than wandering around these desert locales. He goes out for not days, but weeks at a time, and occasionally alone. Sometimes he provides the smallest bit of information about who his companions are - his wife, a friend, but not himself; he purposefully wants the focus to be on the land and the past. The land is harsh, difficult terrain and finding a way through, or a path, that appears to be their purpose. They also battle extreme weather, cold or very hot, and often with little food or water.

The last essay Childs comes to the essence of himself, or the land, and he is changed. It’s one of those times he is alone, later his wife meets him with food, which he has been low on for days, and very little water which he’s been rationing so little that he has been having slight hallucinations.

There was something here that was missing, perhaps the autobiographical material, or what exactly was he doing out there? This lack, this elusive substance, made the writing hard to get into, or find a way in. The essays seem to be repeating the same scenario, except for the last one, although that one too has similarities to the others. I had attempted to read this book before, many years ago, but didn’t get past page 27. At least this time I completed it.

Review 459: The Living Mountain

The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

Quite enjoyed the language and description of the Cairngorm Mountains in Scotland by Nan Shepherd.

This is listed as book four in a series, yet I'm not sure the connection between these four. I did read the first, and it was a fictional account, mostly biographical of Nan Shepherd growing up in a small village and misunderstood for wanting to be educated and literary. My understanding is this book is the only non-fiction book in the group, which puzzles me why it is included.

Nevertheless, this is a wonderful lyrical book about Shepherd's local mountains and what nature is there; how it changes during seasons, the light and water, the fauna, well everything you'd find there, and even of other people (briefly). While reading the book I could picture the place so well, nearly finding myself there in the mountains. The senses are fully described in her writing.

The publishers didn't want to touch the book when it was first written, they weren't sure what to do with it, apparently nature writing wasn't done. But years later in the late 1970s they did publish the book, thankfully. The edition I had was an audiobook with a long afterward written by Jeanette Winterson. The audiobook was narrated by Tilda Swinton which was just perfectly done.

The book is on the short side, but perhaps that will mean I will return and reread this book. It is another one of those books that you can enjoy multiple times and get more out of the rereading. I must try to do just that.

Review 458: The Vaster Wilds

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Gorgeous writing in this book! Takes place in the pre-America time, when the first settlers came and tried to establish a colony. They are dying of starvation and disease. A girl escapes and runs, runs through the woods and the vast wilderness hoping to reach the French. The journey is the tale, nature was unknown to her and now in full force.

The girl is not named, later as she is running there is backstory, discovering the story of her life how she came to be in that dying fort. As a servant that came from an orphanage she had several names, but none she felt were true to herself.

As she runs and gets more injured and yet still carries on, it is amazing at the force of her own nature. She derives her will from nature as well.

There are layers within the book, and the ending provides several interpretations. I could see this being read again and getting more out of the material. I don’t reread often, there are so many other books…

Review 457: Day

Day by Michael Cunningham
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

There’s something about this book, the characters, that I really couldn’t connect to, and I felt distant. Maybe it had to do with how they were introduced, well you were thrown in like you knew who these people were and only later, after some interactions and such, it is revealed how they are related or who they are. It threw me off a little.

There are a few sections where the dialog lacks the tags of names or he/she said, which maybe flows better, but I lost track of who was saying what and had to go back over it a couple of times. This would be no problem in an audiobook, but I read the print.

Then there’s the six-year-old girl who is learning her alphabet. She writes this letter to her parents about keeping the windows closed and a longer letter to her uncle. Isn’t she learning how to read? There are these little things, and how you are made to keep guessing, not put down exactly what’s going on; it didn’t help for me to connect with the story.

I will say the writing quality is solid, it is a well written book as far as language and sentence structure. The plot is how I expected, as the title suggests, just one day, so we get minutia and dailyness that honestly got a bit tedious in the first section.

For me this was just okay, not great and certainly not bad. I wonder if I had listened to the audio if the book would have gone better for me, perhaps.

Review 456: Tartans: Pleasures and Treasures

Tartans: Pleasures and Treasures by Christian Hesketh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Having finished reading this book a couple of months ago, I wanted to return as this book changed my understanding of tartans and kilts.

The book goes back to the beginning, as far as possible to the clothing worn by the Scottish, particularly in the Highlands. For most people, it was not much and back then mainly animal skins as they were poor and this was hundreds of years before the sheep came to the landscape. Only chiefs and richer men wore tartans. The earliest written reference to Highland dress is from 1093. while one of the earliest images of a tartan is from 1571, and it looks vastly different from what you see today. The book covers all the changes from the earliest time until modern, which in this case was 1961 when the book was published.

Clan tartans may not have been consistent with specific families, up until the Battle of Culloden. The author says the evidence is murky, a point that will always be debated, but one thing was certain that “none of the tartans known to have been worn by the Jacobite chiefs of the time can be identified with any clan tartans in use today.” And more evidence is given to back this up.

That battle changed everything. Afterwards, the Dress Act prohibited the highland clothing, which was quite popular by the Scottish men. The only place one could wear a tartan during this time was in the army. The author suggests that many signed up in order to wear their beloved kilts. Well there was high unemployment, and poverty, it was a good job. Still, it seems ironic to join those oppressing you.

Interestingly: “Trousers were so unpopular among the clansmen, that for long journeys, rather than put them on they preferred to hand them over their shoulders, and wear instead a makeshift skirt”.

During the 35 years of the hated act, the clan tartan and kilts became romanticized. And yet, “the Act [was] to break the link uniting the people of the Highlands to their traditional form of dress, and in this it succeeded only too well…. Highland dress became less and less the everyday wear of fishermen and crofters, and more and more a conscious manifestation of national pride.”

In 1822 King George IV visited Edinburgh and wore a kilt of the Royal Stewart tartan. This was a significant event, a turning point in the history of Highland dress. This was also the era when for the first time when manufacturing of perfect accuracy large quantities of the same design and material became possible.

Shortly after, in 1831 the book The Scottish Gäel was published, a first book to describe tartans in existence. The author readily admitted it wasn’t exhaustive, but did accurately describe 55 different setts. The next book several years later, Vestiarium Scoticum, contained illustrations of 75 tartans. According to Hesketh the veracity of some of these tartans are hotly debated, some may have been invented for the occasion of the book. Oddly enough, the authors of the Vestiarium, were brothers with quite the false claim of their background, “idiotic fraud”. Yet despite this the book has become important, along with other books by the brothers on the Highland culture.

Queen Victoria visiting the Scottish lands in the mid-1800s became much attached and established a place at Balmoral. She even brought Scotland to England with Scottish dances at the royal balls, thus brought the Celtic revival.

Today (still the 1960s) they saw some women, girls, wearing kits, which is not the traditional way, and the author was against that. There is a small amount of information on the women’s wearing of tartans, and how that has changed through the years.

It was a fascinating and informative book, despite being quite short. I must stay something about the format and style. The writer frequent wrote complicated double negative sentences with often would obscure the meaning. Found that frustrating at times to get what she meant. The book contains a large number of images: photos, drawings, plates, and such, it is to a great benefit of the book. I looked through the book many times before actually setting down to read the text. The problem with the text though, is when it refers to an image or plate it is often on several pages before or ahead, so while reading you are constantly flipping through the book. I’ve never seen such poor layout of a book before. 

Due to those two complications the book didn't get the full five stars.

Initial short review:

finally finished this short book.

quite informative about tartans and kilts. I hope to add some additional notes.

Review 455: Clear

Clear by Carys Davies
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Initial short review:
A fairly short book, but powerful.
More thoughts on this one soon.

Fuller review:

An introspective novel set in the 1840s during the time of the clearances in Scotland. John, a minister who is part of the newly split Scottish Church, establishing the Scottish Free Church. Since this new church is poor John cannot provide for his wife Mary and takes on extra work, such as this job he agreed on, to remove the last tenant from a remote island, as it could pay well.

Shortly after arriving on the island John falls off a cliff. Ivar, the tenant finds him unconscious and brings him back to his home, helping to restore him back to health. Once awake it took some time for the two to understand each other, not only did John need to continue to heal, but they spoke different languages.

It’s a short novel and contains mostly thoughts of one or the other. We also get Mary, John’s wife, although she is not the main focus. I quite enjoyed her character and wished for more of her.

The book, the language is beautiful despite all of the hardship and upheaval. My initial thoughts were this was a powerful book and perhaps due to it being short, but after finishing it, I did want it to go on.