Grove: A Field Novel, by Esther Kinsky

I started Grove toward the end of July. I read it for a week, set it aside for a week, read it for a week, set it aside for a week, and thought I would read it for another week before finishing, but in fact the last section took me just two days. My slow progress and long breaks should not be seen as criticisms: I loved this book. But it reads very slowly, and it wasn't the sort of book I could sit down and read for a long stretch. I also, as I mentioned in a previous post, found myself writing a lot while I was reading this book. I'm not much of a poetry person, but more than once I've read interviews with authors who say that poetry is what they read when they are in the midst of writing something. For me, I think this book served the same purpose. (And Esther Kinsky is, in fact, a poet as well.) The book is very much about the language it consists of and the images it evokes. I don't know if that makes any sense. 

Grove is divided into three parts, which cover several trips to Italy taken by the narrator. The first and third part are solo trips in some rough present, in the wake of the death of a partner, about whom you learn little. Both are winter trips to out of the way places, or places reserved for summer vacations. In the middle section, the narrator recalls what seems to have been frequent childhood trips to Italy with her family. Her father, repelled by eels, and fascinated by the Etruscans, Byzantine mosaics, and Fra Angelico, brings his family to Italy to follow his passions. 

The subtitle "A Field Novel" is not totally clear in its meaning, but much of the book is centered on observations of the natural world in the villages the narrator visits, particularly birds and trees. Eels make unexpectedly frequent appearances in this book. There are observations on the built world as well, particularly in its run down state. All of these observations seem to be filters for the narrator processing her loss, of her partner and of her father before that. Another recurring theme is places of the living and places of the dead. The narrator visits many, many cemeteries, but the places of the living she visits aren't very inhabited by the living either. 

I could say much more, but I won't. This book is gorgeous.

The Intuitionist, by Colson Whitehead

I haven't been in the mood to read. Or perhaps I haven't been reading the right things. Or perhaps (and I do think this is the root of it) my mental energy has been sapped by work and I haven't had it in me to read. (Is that different from not being "in the mood"? Who can say.)

The week before last, I continued to read Grove in small bits and I got through the second section (out of three) in it. I also participated in a week-long #1000wordsofsummer beginning August 10. The two-week #1000wordsofsummer hit at a time when I was very busy with work and I didn't feel up to it, but when this one came up, even though I was again (still?) very busy with work, I decided to give it a go. I wrote upwards of 1000 words on 6 of the 7 days (and 500 and change on one of them), and ended the week with some 9500 words. (On one of those days, I wrote the >1000-word love letter to markets that was my last post here.) Grove turns out to be a very good book to read when I want to write. Or maybe just a very good book for what I've mostly been writing, which is memories of travel. That is, in fact, much of what Grove is, and it's definitely been part of my inspiration.

Last weekend, in a very unusual turn of events this side of COVID, I didn't read at all. I had to work half a day or so on Saturday, and after that I just laid around on the couch for a while, cooked dinner at 4pm, and then watched TV the rest of the evening. Sunday, I ran two errands, which involved walking 4 miles in total, and I discovered that I haven't kept in shape quite as much as I'd hoped (my legs were very sore on Monday). But it was nice to be out. It was in the 60s and rainy here, and I wore long pants and a jacket and it felt pleasantly cool. Monday morning, I thought about resuming Grove, but decided to take a week away and started The Intuitionist instead. Given that the last time I took a break from Grove, I chose a 700-page book and then also had to read another book for a book club, I thought I'd be smarter and pick something short, something that might last me a few days, and then I could go back to Grove refreshed, or at least sated in my desire for plot. But that's not quite how it worked out. It wasn't The Intuitionist's fault. I made decent headway Monday and Tuesday, but I barely touched it Wednesday and didn't at all on Thursday. I thought I could catch up on Friday because my day theoretically ends early on summer Fridays, but I didn't actually end early, and only had a little time with it before I had to do other things. Finally, yesterday, I went back to it and read in earnest. And then I read the full second half ("half" in how the book is broken up, it's actually less than half) this morning before I had to work again at 12:30.

It seems like The Intuitionist is the Colson Whitehead novel that gets recommended to me most often. I did enjoy it quite a bit, but I don't think it has the power of his two most recent books. In addition to those two, the other book of Whitehead's I've read is John Henry Days, about the to-do surrounding the issuance of a commemorative John Henry stamp, which I found slow going, but rewarding in the end. The Intuitionist reminded me more of it than the others. There was one thing peculiar to me that made The Intuitionist an interesting read. The book centers on the work of elevator inspectors. In my day job I work with the people who develop the elevator safety codes. One of my favorite people I know through work was personally responsible for this work at Otis, until his retirement several years ago. I kept wondering if he knew about this book. I'm half tempted to send it to him. I wonder what he would think.

A Love Letter to Some Markets I've Visited

For me, the Marché Jean-Talon is the ur-market. The first time I visited Jean-Talon, in Montreal's Little Italy, was in August of 2007. I had taken the train up to Montreal for a few days to visit a friend who was living there, and we went out there to pick up some produce for our dinner. Jean-Talon in August is a sight to see: vegetables for miles; everything big (the vegetables are bigger in Canada because of the long hours of sunlight in summer - it’s true!) and bright and bursting. The colors: green, obviously, but so many shades of green! And red, of course, but also purple and yellow, and orange. Buckets of red and yellow tomatoes; of green, orange and yellow peppers; of purple and pale green and golden and white cauliflower. The most beautiful mushrooms, of every variety from white to golden to earthy brown. And berries: strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries. A giant tub of ground cherries is $20 Canadian. And let’s not forget the plants and flowers. Potted pepper plants with tiny red chilis, basil, rosemary, and other herbs I couldn’t identify. Bunches of dried purple, orange, and yellow flowers. 

Since that first visit, I’ve made a point to go to Marché Jean-Talon every time I’ve gone to Montreal. It’s the largest permanent open air market in North America, though obviously the selection shrinks dramatically in the Quebecois winter. In the summer, the market stands selling produce extend well outside the structure, but in winter, the central part of the market remains open, the bakers and butchers and cheesemongers still open for business, and a scaled back outdoor market with whatever is in season (or whatever never goes out of season). I’ve also sought out Montreal’s other markets. None is as impressive as Jean Talon, of course, but each has its charm and sensibility. 

Perhaps Jean-Talon opened my eyes to markets as a concept. While New York has a few nominal markets (the Essex Street Market, which I never visited in its traditional hey day; the Chelsea Market, which feels too segmented into shops to be a proper market; and the glut of food halls that have made homes in the city overy the past few years), there has never seemed to me to be a market culture here. The Union Square green market, and some of its smaller counterparts, are perhaps the closer comparisons, but unlike at the Montreal markets or the ones I’ve visited since in other parts of the world, you should expect to pay more at our green markets than you would if you bought the food elsewhere -- admittedly, for higher quality food. (This is perhaps a peculiarity of American farming and food costs, which I don’t know much about, but have heard anecdotally from many European visitors that our food seems to them outrageously expensive. And I, on the flip side, am always struck at how inexpensive food is when I travel.) Or maybe it’s just New York. When I lived in Boston, I remember going to Haymarket on Saturday mornings. There, the produce is dirt cheap (and often on its last legs). My father, who lives in Philadelphia, does the bulk of his shopping at the Italian market, where he might pay $1 for a bucket of tomatoes or peppers. The Italian market.

The first time I visited Palermo, in 2015, I got a little map of the city which showed each of the city’s three main markets and the specialties of each: the Mercato di Ballarò, the city’s oldest market; the Mercato il Capo, where you can buy clothes and cell phone accessories alongside your vegetables; and the Vucciria night market for street food. Having by this time visited many markets, I was expecting a market structure, if not a fully enclosed space. I walked up to the Mercato di Ballarò, along the streets lined with vendors, wondering where the main market was. I turned north and walked toward the Mercato il Capo, and then as I approached the Porta Carini, past roughly constructed tables heaped with vegetables and fruits, with tarps stretched overhead, I saw the prototype for the Philadelphia Italian market. How had I failed to recognize it? The Italian market indeed.

Elsewhere in Italy, I’ve seen enclosed markets and covered markets with market stalls. In Grassano, in the hills of Basilicata, I stopped in the Mercato Coperto di Piazza della Libertà, a small, rather ugly indoor market with vegetable stalls, butchers, a fish stall, and a couple alimentari stalls. It was mid-morning on a weekday and the market was quiet, with only about half the stalls open for business. I went in to use the restroom, but paused on my way to have a look around. If I ever want to feel down about American food culture, I need just remind myself that in a backwater Italian town of 5,000, you can walk into the dingy little market in the town center and have at your fingertips all the varieties of cheeses, the cured meats, the fresh meats, the olives, the oil, everything you could wish for, and whatever produce is in season. It breaks my heart.

In Venice, where square footage on land is scarce, the Mercato di Rialto takes over the space under the tall arches of a building that’s raised one level up (ground floors are risky in Venice anyway) and runs right up to the canal side. Though distinctly Venetian in form, right down to the ogee arch on the windows of the upper level, the market hall is reminiscent of the petites halles market structures found in many a French village. The market in Mirepoix, in Ariège, is on Mondays in one of these structures. It sits directly across from the church on one side of the town center, but the market stalls - couverts - continue under the arcades that go fully around the central square.

Marché Jean-Talon has been around for less than a century, while the market in Mirepoix has been going for hundreds of years. But you can see the latter reflected in the former. The style of the market is very French. But situated, as it is, in the heart of Montreal’s Italian community, that influence is there as well. Many of the shops that surround the market sell Italian specialty items. Maybe that’s part of what makes it so special for me. It’s a market of the new world, and the first market I fell in love with.

Convenience Store Woman, by Sayaka Murata

As I wrote yesterday, I had a book I had to finish ahead of a book club meeting this morning. That book was Convenience Store Woman, by Sayaka Murata, which was this month's selection for the Idlewild Books Women in Translation book club. (As it happens, August is Women in Translation Month. Go read some women in translation!)

This is a slim book (160 pages, but smaller than standard trade paperback size) that I read in a couple hours yesterday. The narrator, Keiko, is a 36-year-old woman who has been working in a convenience store for half her life. It's never spelled out, but Keiko is likely neuroatypical. Her job at the convenience store comes with training and a manual that serve as a model for being for Keiko. She recognizes that she is not what other people consider normal, but she learns to appear normal by mimicking them, with a deep understanding of what she's doing. She borrows other people's patterns of speech, but will combine different patterns to suit the occasion. Her deep self-awareness makes her aware of this behavior in other people too, where they probably don't even see it themselves. For instance, she observes that her sister has changed after she has a baby, and she attributes it to the time she is likely spending with other parents. Her observation of other people was, for me, one of the most interesting aspects of the book. 

Convenience Store Woman shared certain similarities with a book I read earlier this year, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. Like Keiko, Eleanor devotes much of her own attention to appearing normal and generally going unnoticed. But Eleanor suffers from PTSD, and her story is one of recovery and entering "normal" society. Keiko goes some length toward trying to take a path that would seem more typical for a woman her age, but her self-discovery is that she belongs in the convenience store. 

The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas

I dug myself into a bit of a hole last weekend. I still have The Famished Road and Light Years sitting unfinished (187 pages into the former and 160 pages into the latter) on the table beside my couch. About two weeks ago, after finishing Emma, I started a new book: Grove by Esther Kinsky. It's a beautifully written book about loss and solitude and travel and Italy, which I will write about eventually when I finish it. I read it for five days, Monday through Friday of the week before last, and arrived, on the Friday, at the end of Part One. It was very slow going. The chapters are short, which keeps things moving in a way, but I found myself pausing a lot, thinking a lot, writing a little, and actually starting up my Italian studies again. (All of these are positives, it's true.) But Grove is not the sort of book you dive into for a weekend of reading and that was the sort of book I thought I needed last weekend. So, I set Grove aside and I picked up The Three Musketeers last Saturday. I read about 70 pages that day and another 70 or so on Sunday. Almost immediately I had the thought that it had been foolish of me to take a break from one book with another book that was nearly 700 pages long -- especially foolish considering there was yet another book I needed to read for a book club meeting a week later (that is, tomorrow as I'm writing this). The visions of arriving at this weekend -- today -- with five unfinished books on my side table loomed over me. Fortunately, as the days passed -- even as I was back to working during the week -- my reading pace picked up. Late Thursday, it occurred to me I might actually be able to finish The Three Musketeers on Friday (thanks to my work's summer Fridays early closure) and start today fresh with just my book club book to finish. And I did: I read just over 200 pages yesterday and finished it just in time for my weekly Friday night movie club screening.

This was the second Dumas book I've read. The first was The Count of Monte Cristo, which I enjoyed despite the poor translation (which I have written about previously). The edition of The Three Musketeers that I read was translated by Richard Pevear, which was part of the attraction for me. I knew this wouldn't have the stumbling adherence to the French syntax that made The Count of Monte Cristo so awkward. I hoped that my enjoyment of the story would benefit as a result. I was not disappointed. I also feel fortunate that I didn't actually know the story of The Three Musketeers at all. In fact, my primary awareness of them came from crosswords, where they are occasionally answers (Athos most frequently), and which was how I came to know their names (and which was also the source of much confusion on my part, prior to reading the book, about the fact that there were clearly four of them, not three). But beyond the names, I knew nothing. The book is an action-packed delight. The distinct characters of the musketeers themselves, and of their lackeys, were wonderfully entertaining. Milady, the evil genius villain, is incredible. I'd love to read an alternate version centering her story!