The Smart Girls are now reading Spycatcher by Peter Wright. Our next meeting is January 9, 2012.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Spycatcher
The Smart Girls are now reading Spycatcher by Peter Wright. Our next meeting is January 9, 2012.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
A Town Like Alice
Nevil ShuteOur next book is A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute. It is available widely used, and is also on both ibooks and Amazon Kindle. I highly encourage you to watch the 1981 Masterpiece Theatre version with Helen Morse and Bryan Brown. It's one of my favorite "book movies." It is almost impossible to get a hold of, except for a version on You Tube in 21 parts. It can be found here. We'll see you in December for our Christmas party!
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Peter Kreeft
Our book for November is Peter Kreeft's Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Heaven-- But Never Dreamed of Asking. Here a recent, worthy article by Kreeft that I mentioned during a past meeting. Some of you wanted to read it. It is on the subject of Lila Rose and Live Action. Happy reading!Tuesday, September 13, 2011
The Innocent Blood
One of the original reviews in the New York Times to whet your appetite for a thriller...
P.D. James
April 27, 1980
Turning the Thriller Inside Out
By MAUREEN HOWARD
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
INNOCENT BLOOD
By P. D. James.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
P. D. James is a writer of sophisticated English mystery stories, the sort of books that abound with an intelligence the reader feels complementary to his own. Those who delight in such fiction do not ask for emotional depth or intensity of style, but for the reassurance that, even in a world of murder, insanity and intrigue, a civilized logic can prevail. Surely, a quiet dose of superior murder mystery is one of the liveliest, least sinful of addictions.
In "Innocent Blood," Miss James has written a novel vastly dependent upon the genre that she handles with such success, but a novel clear and true. It is immensely readable, bright, almost satisfying with its artful plot and careful psychological dossiers. The themes of "Innocent Blood" are respectably literary: the quest for personal identity, the irrational love and strain of duty between parents and children, husband and wife.
Philippa Rose Palfrey, a cool, accomplished young woman about to go up to Cambridge, decides to discover her real parents. She is 18, and under English law can claim her birth certificate. For years she has lived as the adopted daughter of Maurice Palfrey, a debonair sociologist and television explicator of contemporary life, and Hilda, his passive wife, a woman whose lone finicky pleasure seems to be cooking and serving gourmet meals. Kind enough, good enough, the Palfreys have impressed Philippa with their deadening sense of responsibility toward her, as though she were yet another sociological sample fostered under perfect conditions. Given this made-up version of family life, who would not choose the facts? Philippa's gloss on her actual parentage-that she is the illegitimate daughter of a spirited maid by the master of a noble household-is an inauthentic as her life with Hilda and Maurice. "Innocent Blood" begins in the honorable novelistic tradition of the orphan's search for the past, and Miss James's self-assured heroine is given full warning by the Government counselor: "We all have our fantasies in order to live. Sometimes relinquishing them can be extraordinarily painful, not a rebirth into something exciting and new but a kind of death."
The truth is more bizarre than anything imagined: it is here that Miss James departs from the realm of the psychological suspense novel and enters into the familiar stuff of the detective story. Philippa discovers who her parents are: Mary and Martin Ducton, housewife and clerk of no ordinary stamp, for he had raped a Girl Guide and she had then beaten the child to death. The horror of the parental crimes seems arbitrary. Like the neatly severed limbs and clever hangings in mystery stories that reduce death to part of a game, the Ductons' violence advances the plot. We are not made to care, perhaps we are not supposed to care. Martin Ducton exists as part of a puzzle. A weak, modest man, his obsession remains private and, despite some further exploration, so does his wife's. Child-beating is presented as a foible that may accompany rape.
The father is dead, but Mary Ducton is about to be released from prison. Mother and daughter accept each other, sidestep their volatile histories, and begin an idyll, an interim life which P. D. James describes with a pleasant richness of detail. Mary and Philippa (now Ducton) go about London as tourists, working anonymously in humble restaurants, shopping, chatting about Shakespeare and George Eliot. Their freedom is false, for the reader knows it is only a matter of time before they will be trapped by the past. Norman Scase, the father of the slain child, is stalking them, tracking the bland murderess and fortunate daughter down to their hideaway, a contrived domestic nest with tea cups and plants.
Scase is the most original character in the novel. A lonely widower, almost grotesquely ugly, he is sweet-tempered, bumbling, naïve-a man of genuine feeling. "Innocent Blood" is a clever novel: the reader knows that he is being manipulated by the counterplot of melodramatic revenge. It is oddly exciting, for Miss James is accomplished at this sort of maneuver and it is a tribute to her deftness that I must not tell the results of the chase. She turns the intricate form of the thriller inside out, a device that brings her novel perilously close to being an adroit murder mystery manqué. The story is ingenious, but not surprising. There is never anything like the playfulness of Iris Murdoch's contrivances, which tell us a good deal about the accidental and comic nature of our passions. Nor does Miss James give us the macabre world of Beryl Bainbridge, where violence lurks, tangible, breathing, within the bounds of ordinary life.
P. D. James is capable of handling her themes with astonishing clarity: not to simplify things for us, as in her thrillers, but to give us the crisp honesty of her novelistic perceptions. All the parents in "Innocent Blood" have deceived their children.. All the children are born of peculiar or misguided love. There are brilliant touches of irony in the summing up: Hilda, to Maurice Palfrey's chagrin, ends up with a scruffy new dog as comfort; Norman Scase settles happily with a sweet blind woman who will never see his awful face, and Philippa, at Cambridge, surmises, "if it is only through learning to love that we find identity, he had found it."
The curious thing is that P. D. James is gifted in the techniques of the traditional novel, can create place, gives great attention to significant detail and the pacing of her narrative, but seems to mistrust her own art and run for the cover of artifice. London is beautifully seen, the bus routes and parks, the smart dinner party and third-rate hotel. The city as she renders it is more than background, more than a movie set: vandals roam the streets at dawn, and so do enigmatic ladies in evening dress; it is alive with terror and good fortune. There is no need to tidy the scene, as Miss James does, with a perfect chain of events. The real mysteries are in the muddle of the daily continuum, and fine novels do not yield easily to solutions.
P.D. JamesTurning the Thriller Inside Out
By MAUREEN HOWARD
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
INNOCENT BLOOD
By P. D. James.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
P. D. James is a writer of sophisticated English mystery stories, the sort of books that abound with an intelligence the reader feels complementary to his own. Those who delight in such fiction do not ask for emotional depth or intensity of style, but for the reassurance that, even in a world of murder, insanity and intrigue, a civilized logic can prevail. Surely, a quiet dose of superior murder mystery is one of the liveliest, least sinful of addictions.
In "Innocent Blood," Miss James has written a novel vastly dependent upon the genre that she handles with such success, but a novel clear and true. It is immensely readable, bright, almost satisfying with its artful plot and careful psychological dossiers. The themes of "Innocent Blood" are respectably literary: the quest for personal identity, the irrational love and strain of duty between parents and children, husband and wife.
Philippa Rose Palfrey, a cool, accomplished young woman about to go up to Cambridge, decides to discover her real parents. She is 18, and under English law can claim her birth certificate. For years she has lived as the adopted daughter of Maurice Palfrey, a debonair sociologist and television explicator of contemporary life, and Hilda, his passive wife, a woman whose lone finicky pleasure seems to be cooking and serving gourmet meals. Kind enough, good enough, the Palfreys have impressed Philippa with their deadening sense of responsibility toward her, as though she were yet another sociological sample fostered under perfect conditions. Given this made-up version of family life, who would not choose the facts? Philippa's gloss on her actual parentage-that she is the illegitimate daughter of a spirited maid by the master of a noble household-is an inauthentic as her life with Hilda and Maurice. "Innocent Blood" begins in the honorable novelistic tradition of the orphan's search for the past, and Miss James's self-assured heroine is given full warning by the Government counselor: "We all have our fantasies in order to live. Sometimes relinquishing them can be extraordinarily painful, not a rebirth into something exciting and new but a kind of death."
The truth is more bizarre than anything imagined: it is here that Miss James departs from the realm of the psychological suspense novel and enters into the familiar stuff of the detective story. Philippa discovers who her parents are: Mary and Martin Ducton, housewife and clerk of no ordinary stamp, for he had raped a Girl Guide and she had then beaten the child to death. The horror of the parental crimes seems arbitrary. Like the neatly severed limbs and clever hangings in mystery stories that reduce death to part of a game, the Ductons' violence advances the plot. We are not made to care, perhaps we are not supposed to care. Martin Ducton exists as part of a puzzle. A weak, modest man, his obsession remains private and, despite some further exploration, so does his wife's. Child-beating is presented as a foible that may accompany rape.
The father is dead, but Mary Ducton is about to be released from prison. Mother and daughter accept each other, sidestep their volatile histories, and begin an idyll, an interim life which P. D. James describes with a pleasant richness of detail. Mary and Philippa (now Ducton) go about London as tourists, working anonymously in humble restaurants, shopping, chatting about Shakespeare and George Eliot. Their freedom is false, for the reader knows it is only a matter of time before they will be trapped by the past. Norman Scase, the father of the slain child, is stalking them, tracking the bland murderess and fortunate daughter down to their hideaway, a contrived domestic nest with tea cups and plants.
Scase is the most original character in the novel. A lonely widower, almost grotesquely ugly, he is sweet-tempered, bumbling, naïve-a man of genuine feeling. "Innocent Blood" is a clever novel: the reader knows that he is being manipulated by the counterplot of melodramatic revenge. It is oddly exciting, for Miss James is accomplished at this sort of maneuver and it is a tribute to her deftness that I must not tell the results of the chase. She turns the intricate form of the thriller inside out, a device that brings her novel perilously close to being an adroit murder mystery manqué. The story is ingenious, but not surprising. There is never anything like the playfulness of Iris Murdoch's contrivances, which tell us a good deal about the accidental and comic nature of our passions. Nor does Miss James give us the macabre world of Beryl Bainbridge, where violence lurks, tangible, breathing, within the bounds of ordinary life.
P. D. James is capable of handling her themes with astonishing clarity: not to simplify things for us, as in her thrillers, but to give us the crisp honesty of her novelistic perceptions. All the parents in "Innocent Blood" have deceived their children.. All the children are born of peculiar or misguided love. There are brilliant touches of irony in the summing up: Hilda, to Maurice Palfrey's chagrin, ends up with a scruffy new dog as comfort; Norman Scase settles happily with a sweet blind woman who will never see his awful face, and Philippa, at Cambridge, surmises, "if it is only through learning to love that we find identity, he had found it."
The curious thing is that P. D. James is gifted in the techniques of the traditional novel, can create place, gives great attention to significant detail and the pacing of her narrative, but seems to mistrust her own art and run for the cover of artifice. London is beautifully seen, the bus routes and parks, the smart dinner party and third-rate hotel. The city as she renders it is more than background, more than a movie set: vandals roam the streets at dawn, and so do enigmatic ladies in evening dress; it is alive with terror and good fortune. There is no need to tidy the scene, as Miss James does, with a perfect chain of events. The real mysteries are in the muddle of the daily continuum, and fine novels do not yield easily to solutions.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Like Mother, Like Daughter Blog
LikeTo clean your house, one blogger recommends:
"start in the room you share with your husband.
The reason is simple, but profound. Your home has many areas that express family life, but your bedroom expresses the foundational relationship between you and your spouse -- the inner sanctum where the sacrament of your marriage is consecrated and continually renewed with the conjugal gift. If it weren't for the intimate aspect of your commitment, your family would not be. God has ordained it so. It was that way from the very start. It has always been that way. It always will be that way."
The reason is simple, but profound. Your home has many areas that express family life, but your bedroom expresses the foundational relationship between you and your spouse -- the inner sanctum where the sacrament of your marriage is consecrated and continually renewed with the conjugal gift. If it weren't for the intimate aspect of your commitment, your family would not be. God has ordained it so. It was that way from the very start. It has always been that way. It always will be that way."
Has anyone else discovered this blog? Love the wisdom here.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Saturday, August 27, 2011
"The Help" Book Club Kit
Have you been procrastinating? Stop it! No need to wait for someone to finish her copy and have mercy on you, still waiting on the library hold list or Amazon to deliver. We have 9 copies of Kathryn Stockett's The Help. You can pick up your copy from Mary Emily's house; call her and she will leave a copy for you in the mailbox (214-808-2936).
Curious about Irving Library service for our Smart Girls club? Learn more here: book clubs.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Our Archives Are Up!
All of our reading lists have been transferred from Google Groups. You will find them on the right sidebar. "Member Suggested Books" is a nice place to add that book that you've been thinking of, but will most likely forget before the yearly planning meeting. You can browse the list, or edit it by clicking POSTING and then EDIT PAGES. Of course, you have to be signed in to the blog first.
If you want to post something to the blog and are unaccustomed to Blogger (or just don't have the time to learn it), just email it to me and I'll put it up.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Reading List for 2011-2012 Year
I decided to just put the list in a post for now so you can order your
books and get started. First order of business was to move the
meetings to 1st Mondays of the month unless otherwise indicated by the
date. The time is still 8 pm.
Sept 12 Mary Emily chose The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Oct 3 Brigette chose The Innocent Blood by P.D. James
Nov. 7 Nancy chose Everything you Wanted to Know about Heaven by
Peter Kreft
Dec. 5 Barb chose A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
Jan. 9 Katie chose Spycatcher by Peter Wright
Feb 6 Terri chose A Burned out Case by Graham Greene
Mar 5 Lisa Chose 5 For Sorrow 10 for Joy by Rumor Godden
Apr 2 or 9 Megan chose The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by
Rebecca Skloot
May 7 Meg chose Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
June 4 Carole chose A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken
Aug 6 Jennifer chose The Memory House of Matteo Ricci by Jonathan D.
Spence
(This will also be our picking meeting for the next year).
Katie
books and get started. First order of business was to move the
meetings to 1st Mondays of the month unless otherwise indicated by the
date. The time is still 8 pm.
Sept 12 Mary Emily chose The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Oct 3 Brigette chose The Innocent Blood by P.D. James
Nov. 7 Nancy chose Everything you Wanted to Know about Heaven by
Peter Kreft
Dec. 5 Barb chose A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
Jan. 9 Katie chose Spycatcher by Peter Wright
Feb 6 Terri chose A Burned out Case by Graham Greene
Mar 5 Lisa Chose 5 For Sorrow 10 for Joy by Rumor Godden
Apr 2 or 9 Megan chose The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by
Rebecca Skloot
May 7 Meg chose Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
June 4 Carole chose A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken
Aug 6 Jennifer chose The Memory House of Matteo Ricci by Jonathan D.
Spence
(This will also be our picking meeting for the next year).
Katie
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