A Winner in My Book

I woke up tired yesterday morning. Happy, but tired. I’d stayed up much too late finishing a good book, and I know you understand how much fun that can be. Which book, you ask? None other than Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See, which rightfully placed as a 2014 National Book Award Finalist.

What can I say about this marvel? I was captivated from page one, although I was ready not to be. The story of a blind girl. The story of a Nazi radio whiz. Show me, I thought, in deference to living in the stubborn state of Missouri. Show me how to make that sort of story, those sorts of characters, work.

Hats off to you, Mr. Doerr. Your book has indeed impressed this writer. The book starts at a fast clip and gallops along until the end. Short, tense, lovely chapters. Intriguing, well-portrayed characters. A good dose of history, too – the book details the post-D-day bombing of St.-Malo, France, and the beginning of the end of WWII. What’s not to love? I suggest you delve into this wonder as soon as you can. Even if you lose a little sleep, I bet you’ll be glad you did.

Snow Day!

It's the third snow day in less than a week, here in Missouri, and I wanted to share the magic.  There's something about snow days that bring out the kid in everyone.  What a weird phenomenon -- first crouching around the radio or T.V. to be extra sure your school or place of business is, indeed, closed; then the celebratory jig or sigh; then the "free" day to spend shoveling, cooking, eating, playing.  Former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins nails the essence of a snow day in his poem bearing the same title.  Enjoy!

 

Snow Day

By Billy Collins

 

Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,

its white flag waving over everything,

the landscape vanished,

not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness,  

and beyond these windows

the government buildings smothered,
schools and libraries buried, the post office lost

under the noiseless drift,
the paths of trains softly blocked,
the world fallen under this falling.

In a while, I will put on some boots
and step out like someone walking in water,

and the dog will porpoise through the drifts,  

and I will shake a laden branch

sending a cold shower down on us both.

 

But for now I am a willing prisoner in this house,
a sympathizer with the anarchic cause of snow.
I will make a pot of tea
and listen to the plastic radio on the counter,
as glad as anyone to hear the news

that the Kiddie Corner School is closed,
the Ding-Dong School, closed.
the All Aboard Children’s School, closed,
the Hi-Ho Nursery School, closed,
along with—some will be delighted to hear—

the Toadstool School, the Little School,
Little Sparrows Nursery School,
Little Stars Pre-School, Peas-and-Carrots Day School  
the Tom Thumb Child Center, all closed,
and—clap your hands—the Peanuts Play School. 

So this is where the children hide all day,
These are the nests where they letter and draw,
where they put on their bright miniature jackets,
all darting and climbing and sliding,
all but the few girls whispering by the fence. 

And now I am listening hard
in the grandiose silence of the snow,
trying to hear what those three girls are plotting,  
what riot is afoot,
which small queen is about to be brought down.

Billy Collins, “Snow Day” from Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems (New York: Random House, 2001). Copyright © 2001 by Billy Collins.

 

 



NBCC Lifetime Achievement Award



Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, circa 1970s

 

I couldn’t be happier that Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, two leaders of the feminist movement, have been named winners of the 2013 lifetime achievement award from the National Book Critics Circle. Their twelve books, especially The Madwoman in the Attic (1979) and The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women (1985) have been broadly read and taught, and have changed the face of literary criticism and influenced generations of students and scholars. I’ve personally used both books extensively in my women’s literature and Women’s Studies courses, and am grateful for the work these two women have put into their scholarship.

The two friends met in the early 1970s when they were teaching English at Indiana University. They designed a new course together on literature by women and went on to collaborate on a dozen books, working by phone and through the mail after Gilbert went to teach at the University of California at Davis. Gilbert’s and Gubar’s voices have long spearheaded feminist literary criticism and Women’s Studies, and they richly deserve this award, which will be presented Feb. 28 in New York. Here, here, Gilbert and Gubar – enjoy your well-deserved accolades!