Book review: A Pirate Looks at Fifty

Book review: A Pirate Looks at Fifty

by | Apr 24, 2019 | Book reviews, Books, Joys of reading

don’t start singing right away…

 

 

Book review:

A Pirate Looks at Fifty

 

Jimmy Buffett (b1946)

New York: Ballantine Books, 1998

 

Full disclosure: I’m not a Parrothead, but I’m related by blood to a gen-you-wine Buffett fan, so I take the liberty of using familiar language, even though “the king of somewhere hot” has never seen me and isn’t likely to in this earthly paradise…

A Pirate Looks at Fifty is a memoir-ish book by Himself, written more than 20 years ago, I spotted it in the local library’s discarded book sale bin and I did the right thing.

Seems to me, for starters, no one should ever discard a book full of Jimmy Buffett stuff, he’s just so much in love with life and he is a magnet for vicarious attention, I dare you to read Pirate without getting at least a fleeting urge to head for the islands and see the world through Jimmy’s eyes.

You don’t even have to read the whole book (actually, I confess, I didn’t), just read as much as gets the juices flowing and then get on with your regular life, and you can dip into it again any time you want. Buffett’s music and Buffett’s style are a buffet—grab what you want, anytime, sing along as the spirit moves, and go back for more whenever…

You don’t even have to like margaritas to get the full, slobbering, belly laugh, hijinksed, hot damn but mucho mellow effect when you sing along with Jimmy about the Mexican cutie and the lost shaker of salt.

I double dare you to not sing a couple verses and the refrain right now, you have to, really…

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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2019 All rights reserved.

 

A poem about the right thing

…and the lesser incarnation…

“Vanity”

click here

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Seeing far: Selected poems with 47 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”

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Book review: The Poems of Robert Frost

Book review: The Poems of Robert Frost

by | Apr 5, 2019 | Book reviews, Joys of reading, Language, Poetry, Reviews of other poets

no need for a treasure map…

 

 

Book review:

The Poems of Robert Frost

With an Introductory Essay “The Constant Symbol”

 

by Robert Lee Frost (1874-1963)

New York: The Modern Library/Random House, Inc., 1946

 

In his opening essay, Frost says “…poetry…is metaphor, saying one thing and meaning another, saying one thing in terms of another, the pleasure of ulteriority. Poetry is simple made of metaphor.”

My copy of The Poems of Robert Frost is a treasure ship with two old, stained green covers. I’ve been reading it for more than 50 years. It’s a bit beat up, but when I open it, it shines.

I’m not reckless enough to name “my favorite” poem—I keep changing my mind as I read through them again. Frost is a teacher. He has found so many of the right words, and he has put so many of them in the right order.

I always enjoy “The Last Word of a Bluebird (as told to a child).” The Crow carries the little Bluebird’s final message to Lesley. In his low voice he brings word about the north wind and the impending winter cold that drives the Bluebird away. The compassionate bird urges Lesley to be good, and promises that “…perhaps in the spring/He would come back and sing.”

I’m waiting for the spring, and I have a good book to help me pass the time.

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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2019 All rights reserved.

Book review: The End of Greatness

Aaron David Miller comes up short…

click here

As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”

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Book review: The Girl at the Lion d’Or

Book review: The Girl at the Lion d’Or

by | May 23, 2018 | Book reviews, Books, Joys of reading

Faulks has so many words

             that mean “ache”…

 

 

Book review:

The Girl at the Lion d’Or

 

by Sebastian Faulks

New York: Vintage International/Vintage Books/A Division of Random House, Inc., 1989.

 

Richly Gallic, redolent of the interwar period in Europe, The Girl at the Lion d’Or is a cumulative revelation of Anne (the Girl) and a steadily burdensome understanding of the sad hindrances in her life. She comes to love Hartmann, who is ultimately contemptibly weak and viciously temporizing.

I wanted to read faster near the end so I could know the outcome, but I resisted the impulse. I wanted to read all the words.

Faulks really makes it worthwhile to read every word. His prose is tenaciously literate and evocative.

He has no mere words—he writes passages that invite the reader to understand deeply and to feel deeply.

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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2018 All rights reserved.

 

Book review:

Founding Mothers:

The Women Who Raised Our Nation

by Cokie Roberts

The Revolutionary War,

        as fought by women…

click here

 

In other words: Poems for your eyes and ears with 64 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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Book review: Seven Gothic Tales

Book review: Seven Gothic Tales

by | May 3, 2018 | Book reviews, Books, Books Commentary, Joys of reading

They’re not flamboyant,

     but they are fabulous…

 

 

Book review:

Seven Gothic Tales

 

by Isak Dinesen (1885-1962)

Dorothy Canfield, Introduction

New York: Harrison Smith and Robert Haas, Inc., 1934

420 pages

 

 

Isak Dinesen’s story doesn’t stop with Out of Africa. For starters, Isak Dinesen isn’t her name, but you probably know that.

Baroness Karen Christenze von Blixen-Finecke (née Dinesen) was a Danish author who wrote using several pen names, notably Isak Dinesen.

Her oeuvre is lush and memorable. Out of Africa is a compelling classic tale of life and love. Who wouldn’t love Denys Finch Hatton? After you’ve read Babette’s Feast, you don’t have any trouble recalling what it’s about. The films by the same names are authentic delights.

Seven Gothic Tales isn’t flamboyant, but it is fabulous. If you’re a writer, you may feel—a lot, or a little—that you wish you could write like Isak Dinesen. If you’re not a writer, you could wish that you may be one in another life.

Her muse is fertile and friendly—she manages, on page after page, to write what Coleridge identified as “the best words.” The storytelling is warm, the characters are vivid and realistic, and the context is so desirable.

Two of my favorite Gothic tales are “The Old Chevalier” and “The Poet.” The narrator in “The Old Chevalier” mentions, with approval, “I…do not think that I could ever really love a woman who had not, at some time or other, been up on a broomstick.” In “The Old Poet,” one of the characters is “the Councilor,” who “maintained an idea of paradise, for his generation had been brought up on the thought of life everlasting, and the idea of immortality came naturally to him.”

Isak Dinesen writes with casual skill to create worlds in which humanity thrives, and she fills Seven Gothic Tales with civilized entertainment.  

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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2018 All rights reserved.

 

Forget about Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Dracula is a scary book, really…

by Bram Stoker

click here

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​As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”

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Book review: The Bridges of Madison County

Book review: The Bridges of Madison County

by | Aug 15, 2017 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature, Joys of reading

Book review:

The Bridges of Madison County

 

by Robert James Waller (1939-2017)

New York: Warner Books Inc., 1992

171 pages

 

The Bridges of Madison County was notably popular when it was a new book. However, I’m aware that not everyone is a fan.

If you’re looking for highly stoked eroticism and high-rolling lives that throw off sparks when they touch, look elsewhere.

Frankly, for lots of tastes, here’s good advice: look elsewhere no matter what you’re looking for.

For me, Bridges documents the chance intersection of the putatively unremarkable lives of Francesca and Robert with all the heat and dazzle of slow-moving lava, without its destructive power. They come together, they permit each other to nourish their beautiful personae, and they generate a passion that consumes without burning.

Francesca and Robert come together too late in their lives, after unbreakable commitments have been made to other cherished persons who, regrettably, are not like themselves.

I am drawn to the unsounded depths of their love and their absolute, cascading, undeniable recognition of each other as the unforgettable objects of their burgeoning desire.

They understand that they must be content with the short lifetime of their dalliance. They honor their love by deeply understanding its nature, and by accepting the permanent separation that their unyielding integrity requires.

Robert whispers to Francesca: “…this kind of certainty comes only once…”

The Bridges of Madison County is a love song, a courtship, a delicate primer on yearning, a too brief opportunity to know how it feels to be in love like that.

Do yourself a favor, and give it a try.

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  A poet is a “maker”

…and it doesn’t have to rhyme…

click here

Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2017 All rights reserved.

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As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”

 

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Book review: Grace Notes

Book review: Grace Notes

by | Apr 11, 2017 | Book reviews, Books, Books Commentary, Joys of reading, Language, Poetry

Book review:

Grace Notes

 

by Brian Doyle

Chicago, IL: ACTA Publications, 2011

 

You know, some of Brian Doyle’s prose, in this collection of his musings and essays, comes pretty close to my concept of poetry.

You ask why? Doyle is so particular, and so deft, in choosing the right words to frame his mood, his awareness, and his imagination in so many examples.

Try this excerpt from “Their Thin Bony Shoulders.” Doyle was invited to tell some stories and otherwise talk to nuns in their Benedictine monastery in Oregon. Among other subjects, he told them about “my mama.”

“And I stood there at the lectern, in that cavernous room in that lovely old monastery, with its cedared air like music in the nose, the extraordinary faces of the nuns held up to me in the twilight, and I tried to imagine or articulate or conceive a world without my mother in it, and I started to cry, and I could not stop.

Forty-nine years old, and still sobbing in front of nuns.

No one spoke.”

Don’t even try to pretend that your eyes aren’t a bit damp.

 

In Doyle’s Grace Notes, you can also take some time with “Advice to My Son,” “A Child is Not a Furniture,” “On Miraculousness,” and 33 other treats from his inquiring and incisive mind.

 

Book review: The Blithedale Romance

by Nathaniel Hawthorne, not his best…

click here

 

Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2017 All rights reserved.

​-
Seeing far: Selected poems with 47 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
​

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