Lloyd Alexander’s Farewell Novel, 'The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio'

At last I've completed my final unread book by my favorite author—Lloyd Alexander’s very last novel—on this, the year of his centennial birthday. I have now read all of his published books and novels, achieving my goal for this year, in his honor.  As an author myself, I’d once taken to calling him my ‘favorite childhood author’, but I can’t fathom ever calling any author aside from him ‘my favorite author’ without qualifying it.  I bought his last novel, The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio (2007), long ago, and for some reason only read half of it at that time. This time, I read it aloud to my husband a chapter or two per night, enjoying it thoroughly.  We’ve been saying, “You’re a Chooch!” to one another, as Chuchio is called by many who know him, and it really does seem to be a light-hearted novel on its surface.

Author Sophia Alexander with her favorite
author's final novel

It’s not—at least not for me, not essentially. 

However, as I am not a truly objective party, it’s hard to know how much to recommend it to the unfamiliar reader. It’s fine as a novel in and of itself. Not one of his very best, but his writing craft is honed, and it certainly has his authentic voice and inspiration (unlike some of his early commission works). The novel meanders a bit, as others written in his last decade of life seem to do, but his trademark tongue-in-cheek (and sometimes slapstick) humor still makes us laugh.  So yes, go ahead and read it to your kids—or husband, as the case may be.

Lloyd Alexander dedicated this novel “for young dreamers, and old ones.” This feels personal, as at about age 12, when I was actually living in Pennsylvania (he was in Philadelphia, PA), I dreamt in a totally ordinary fashion that Lloyd Alexander was my father. In my dream, he walked into my room to wake me up, saying, “Good morning,” and peering out my little window as the sun shone in.  It was the simplest thing, absolutely normal, yet my heart was so glad.

I say now that he’s my ‘literary father’. His Chronicles of Prydain were my favorite series then (and certainly where to start if you appreciate YA or Middle-Grade Fantasy).  Since then, I have read everything of his that I could get my hands on. His were the first books that I ever requested a bookstore order for me.  Later, my husband and I hunted down his out-of-print novels online.  He even gave us one himself when we visited him on our first anniversary, about 13 years before his passing.

Some of his earlier, out-of-print works are memoirs, so precious to me. Janine Is French stands out above all for me, though I’ve come to realize that he spun this memoir about his wife rather artfully, making something lovely out of a difficult situation. I don’t love it less for that, though. I do read between the lines now, shaking my head. But it is beautifully done.

In Carlo Chuchio, young Kuchik asks, “Are you saying, Chooch Mirza, these [folktales] are lies?”

“Yes,” I said, “but some lies are better than others.”

He did love Janine, so much. She passed away at age 90, only two weeks before him (he was 83). He wrote this book somewhere near his passing, no doubt within that last year of their lives, as it was published by his estate after his death, and he did tend to publish almost annually. 

(Spoiler Alert.)

At the end of Carlo Chuchio, the love interest, Shira, has decided to journey onwards, about to cross a river that she’s dreamt of crossing.  She weaves a branch into a circlet, explaining that journeyers carry wreaths of willow to remember where they come from. I can’t help but think of the river Styx. (Lloyd Alexander read mythology insatiably as a boy.)  Chuchio tells her, “Weave a circlet for me. I’m going with you.”  And he did.  He truly did.

So, from my perspective, I see Carlo Chuchio not only as a farewell to readers for himself, but as a second, minor ode to Janine. I don’t think she’s in most of his books, actually—rarely the inspiration for a fictional character, at least not obviously. I think I do see her a bit in Mickle (from The Westmark Trilogy, his darkest YA fantasy series) and here, in the character of Shira.

Despite their hidden marital troubles, I’m convinced Lloyd Alexander was speaking of Janine when his character, Carlo, tells Shira’s little brother Kuchik simply, “I love your sister.”  This was the essence of his life, it seems, as she was getting ready for her journey—their journey—beyond the river Styx. He’d lived with her, mostly childless, for nearly 60 years.  And the charming ‘lies’ in Janine Is French perhaps gave his true heart away, after all.

I recently read an enlightening short story of his written in a peculiar, artsy, existential style when he was quite young (his earliest published work that I’ve seen) but jaded from the war, and he seems to have written it about Janine, saying (and I may be paraphrasing), “It’s you, it’s always you.”  I’m not sure that ever actually changed.

All that said, The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio is more the story of Carlo than of Shira or even Carlo-and-Shira. It’s memoir-like at times, Carlo being Lloyd, of course. Uncle Everiste’s early frustrations with the hapless Chooch mirrors Lloyd’s father’s frustrations with him. Interestingly, though, Lloyd had ceased to travel by the time we even met him in 1994, saying that the last time he’d gone somewhere, many years before, that had been it, as the river had caught on fire! (I'd love to know the specifics on that, but I don't think I asked at the time.) So Carlo’s restless, ceaseless travels are perhaps more analogous to his writing career progress than to his physical journeys.  On the other hand, maybe not—he’d traveled much in his early years, and he’d been happy to settle down with Janine in Philly—much like Carlo was happy to settle with Shira at her homestead—but then when she had to move on, over the river, he chose to go with her.

In his old age, perhaps all those decades in Philly seemed like the blink of an eye. Shira’s home was where the treasure was (like his Newberry medals, books, etc., in Philly), but he was leaving it all to be with her. Perhaps this earthly realm even seemed more Shira’s domain (hence it being Shira’s family home instead of his) because of her grandchildren and such—she had deeper roots to keep her here, though he’d been happy to share her space. And wished to continue doing so.

I’m sure I’ll continue, as I’ve always done, to re-read and sometimes review Lloyd Alexander’s books, for all that this feels so final. And that’s the beauty of literature, isn’t it? That we can continue to read and even re-read the thoughts and imaginings and wisdom of brilliant people long since gone.

I’ve only just realized that I’m finishing his entire published works and am reviewing his final novel at the same age he was—exactly a half-century—when my life was just commencing. He began with memoirs and advanced to fantasy. I began reading his fantasy novels and have come to favor reading his memoirs. Ebb and flow, beginnings and endings… the written word is less bound by time than most. Yet Lloyd Alexander still said farewell, in a way, as Carlo Chuchio, once more recasting his life, this time as a hapless Chooch who ultimately does find his beloved—and his treasure, but it was always more about the journey, anyhow.

Redeeming the Witchy Greek Goddess that is ‘Circe’ by Madeline Miller

 

Author Sophia Alexander holding her copy of Circe by Madeline Miller

I had asked Odysseus: “What did you do? When you could not make Achilles and Agamemnon listen?”

He’d smiled in the firelight. “That is easy. You make a plan in which they do not.”  

-p. 272, Circe

Circe, daughter of the Greek Titan Helios and granddaughter of the Titan Oceanus, is infamous for turning sailors into pigs when they land on her island. However, in this tale by incredible storyteller Madeline Miller, this much-maligned goddess’s situation is revisited so convincingly—from her perspective—that one wonders how her situation and actions were always so ill-depicted before. Miller has me convinced, as what else would be so likely to bring a nymph living alone on an island to do such a thing?

That said… even as Miller subtly points out the misogyny of extant myths by correcting them in Circe’s interests, I find her protagonist to be rather misogynistic in her own right, for all that I didn’t sense that Miller meant her to be. In Circe’s millenia or so of life, she never has a truly close female friend. During her exile on a deserted island, which lasts for centuries, she is finally sent other nymphs for attendants/company, but she never makes a single friend among them, nor does she seem to really try. The people who matter most to her are always male.

Circe even hates her mother, and her mother hates her.  Miller somewhat rectifies this offense to mothers later in the story, but even that is with regards to a mother’s relationship with her son, not a daughter.

Meanwhile, the story drips with lush, poetic descriptions and brings to life a number of the Greek gods and heroes in all their vanity and cruelty and beauty and self-interest. I was gripped by the tale from beginning to end and highly recommend it for its power and prose—and, of course, for its educational value in helping us to get a slightly better grip on those Greek myths. Madeline Miller holds a Master’s degree from Brown University in the Classics, and so within this novel we can absorb select drops of her coalesced Classical brilliance and understanding. All it takes is sacrificing just a few short, exquisite days of our mortal lives on this, Miller's altar to Circe. Totally worth it.

Founding Origin Story for Southerners Via Lost Colony Roots In 'The Only Land I Know' by Dial and Eliades

Author Sophia Alexander with the Lumbee heritage book, The Only Land I Know

The Only Land I Know (1996) by Adolph L. Dial and David K. Eliades* may unlock certain mysteries of our heritage and as such should hold widespread interest for a vast number of Southerners and American historians. The work is a rather brief and perhaps overlooked history of the Lumbee tribe of North Carolina in which Dial and Eliades have almost convinced me of Lumbee descent from Sir Walter Raleigh’s ‘Lost Colony’, the first group of English colonizers to settle in North America. They’ve also stolen my thunder in postulating the resultant wide distribution of native Lumbee genes, a speculation which could hold significance for a large contingent of American Southerners.

I heard about the early English settlers’ mysterious disappearance during an anniversary trip to the Outer Banks when we visited Roanoke Island; while there, we saw the outdoor play The Lost Colony, featuring Eleanor Dare and the first-known English baby birthed on American soil, Virginia Dare. These 1587 travelers had been miserably low on supplies as soon as they landed in America, and so their leader was forced to turn around and head right back to England to fetch more supplies. Unfortunately, he ran into delays for three solid years (no thanks to that Spanish Armada!), and by the time he made it back, the ‘Lost Colony’ settlers had abandoned their original settlement on Roanoke Island.  Well, the Roanoke Island Park Visitors Center postulates different possibilities as to their fate, and various historians have assumed their demise, but Dial and Eliades tell of how they moved off with a few Hatteras (Croatoan) native families and eventually settled in a remote, swampy area of North Carolina in present-day Robeson County, mostly retaining their English heritage—so much so that when English settlers moved through the area over a century later, they came across English-speaking, gray-eyed, bearded ‘natives’ who lived in a mostly English fashion and were familiar with the ability to speak-through-books, something their grandparents had done. Not only that, but 41 of the original surnames found among the original 95 surnames of the Lost Colony settlers were still in use by this group of ‘natives’ when a study was conducted.

I ordered this book, actually, after discovering what seem to be Lumbee ancestors on both sides of my family, to my astonishment (no, not the same line!**). Most white Southern families hushed up any non-white descent—and granted, it sounds like some of my Lumbee ancestors may well have had gray eyes and beards—but before even receiving this Lumbee history book, I’d already gotten excited about a theory I had of why I had all these Lumbee ancestors. It’s very simple!  What killed most Native Americans?  The smallpox!  Well, if English people without smallpox mixed with natives over a century before their descendants’ exposure to the smallpox, then their European genes would have protected many of the mixed-race Lumbees (likely meshing Eastern Siouan and Cherokee blood-strains among others). The Lumbee are now deemed the largest contingent of Native Americans east of the Mississippi. Dial and Eliades point out this smallpox-immunity causality, too, thus stealing my thunder, as I’d treasured my idea as original!

That said, my own genealogical research goes further, my theory continuing on to suggest that Native American genes (particularly from the Lumbee) are more generally widespread among ‘white’ Southerners, specifically, than they are among other American white regional populations, thanks to both our Lost Colony ancestors’ smallpox immunity and their ‘English ways’; likewise, I’d postulate that the incidence of Native American genes decreases among whites, in general, the further from Robeson County, NC, that we go***.  The same may be true for black families, as well, of course.

Recall that these Lumbees were already rather close to the English in their lifestyles and complexions, so we can presume mixing would more readily occur, as these people would not seem so ‘different’ to the new white settlers, certainly not as ‘primitive’ as other tribal Indians.  This all works together to support a notion of wider-spread dissemination among Southerners of native Lumbee genes from the Robeson County, NC, area.

My own Lumbee ancestors were already residing in South Carolina in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Unfortunately, most common genetic testing currently omits large swathes of East Coast Native American genes, so it’s presently not a simple matter to check to see if you might have Lumbee genes, and you’re likely to be disappointed trying that route.  (I fortunately had my paternal grandfather tested ages ago by a now-defunct company that indicated on their limited panel that he had some Siouan heritage—and I fervently wish I had run a Native American panel on my other grandparents when I had the chance!)

One last optimistic point:  if my theory is true about widespread native Lumbee genes amongst us Southerners due to Lost Colony ancestry, this also means that a vast number of us Southerners are descended from the very first English settlers in America, preceding the Mayflower as well as Jamestown settlements!  Now, isn’t that somethin’ else?

Alternative theory:  [This is solely my own musing and is not inspired by this volume of Lumbee history, but it feels pertinent to include!:]  Pirates were rife along the NC coast, and many had covert settlements along the Outer Banks around the turn of the 18^th century.  Could it be that pirates settled in along with some lingering Native Americans there in Robeson County, adopting the popular ‘Lost Colony’ story to explain their English language, looks, and presence?  Perhaps they needn’t have been there so terribly long to be convincing before explorer John Lawson came through around that time!  One of the arguments for The Lost Colony ancestry for modern-day Lumbees is that they still use words common in 16^th-century English, or at least that was true in 1996. However, a similar phenomenon is also true on nearby Ocracoke Island (known to be settled by pirates) with the Ocracoke brogue having words from the 1600s; that brogue is dying out, but I did get to hear it from one older fellow in 2021!

All that said, I’d be surprised if pirates actually held the list of Lost Colony names to use as pseudonyms, and so I still veer towards the Lumbee being ‘authentic Lost Colony descendants’, but I felt the need to mention this piratey-alternative-possibility (which, again, I came up with myself).  After all, pirates could have paid someone to retrieve the list of Lost Colony settlers for them from England or elsewhere, as a good alibi might have been worth some coin to them.

Even if this were the true version of events, a few decades of pirate-native mixed bloodlines likewise would have protected their mixed-race descendants from smallpox, and instead of Lost Colony ancestry, it could be that us white Southerners have widespread pirate blood in us from the Lumbee!  Along with their Native American genes, of course…

*For the general public, I only recommend the beginning portion of this book, as it quickly devolves into the sad history of the Lumbee tribe’s more recent troubles, which holds far less personal interest for me, at least.

**Personal sidenote: My own family lines include Locklears (the most common Lumbee surname) on my mother’s side and Braveboy/Brayboys on my father’s side—honored for serving with the Swamp Fox in the Revolutionary War.  The ‘magical’ part of this research process was discovering yet a different ancestor from a line thought to have some native blood, whose given name, according to his daughter’s death certificate, was ‘Dare’!  I at first speculated that it might be a nickname, wondering what my great-great-great-great grandfather had done to merit it, but a day or two later I sat bolt-upright with the thought that it could be from the surname Dare!  Mind you, I may not be the direct descendant of Eleanor or Virginia Dare, as the ‘myth’ of the Lost Colony was handed down among the Lumbee, and it could simply have been a popular name among families already attached to the story of the Lost Colony (consider the number of George Washingtons there were, including George Washington Carver and some, named in that manner for GW, including in my husband’s own family). Anyhow, this supposed-ancestor Dare Hodge spurred me to seek out this book and this story, even though I have no real proof that he’s connected to the Lumbees himself at all.  I’m fairly certain the Locklears and Braveboys are Lumbee, however.

***Not to suggest that all white Southern families have Native American blood, of course.  In fact, I was dismayed some time back when I read historian Walter Edgars’ description of my ancestors’ area of South Carolina, in which I recall him as saying that they were uneducated, backwoods, and savage!  I can’t find the quote, so I’m paraphrasing, possibly taking imaginative liberties. Nonetheless, these people constituted large swathes of South Carolina, so I do think it’s widespread, anyhow, this Native American gene dissemination over centuries—be it via pirates or be it via The Lost Colony.  And my ancestors were in the thick of it, either way!

New Official Author Website!

I love this blogsite. You know I do!  And that's why it's taken me so long to get around to creating an official author website.  But it's finally out there, and I'm rather pleased with how it looks. It has nothing, really, that this blog didn't already have, except perhaps a more user-friendly aesthetic and a professional website address.  Check it out at sophiaalexander.net!

Jewish Kansan Adventure in 'August Bondi: Border Hawk' by Lloyd Alexander

I am slowly progressing on my journey to finish reading my last four unread books by my childhood favorite author, Lloyd Alexander, on the year of what would have been his centennial birthday.  August Bondi: Border Hawk is a cowboy-style story about a Jew from Vienna whose family immigrates to America, and he winds up fighting for Kansas to be a Free State (as opposed to a slave state).

I have to admit that August Bondi: Border Hawk is not recommended reading from my camp—not unless you have an abiding interest in the abolitionist revolutionary John Brown and/or have deep roots in Kansas and/or are a Lloyd Alexander devotee, no matter what. 

Sigh… Lloyd Alexander put out some literary treasures around this time, but he didn't put as much heart into writing commission work, apparently.  I suspect it’s commission work, anyhow.  It’s tolerably readable, but his wit and his heart are not much there.

The most amusing part of the whole book for me is when August Bondi has been swimming in the river and then pulls his ‘tunic’ back on. Perhaps the undershirts of Union Civil War soldiers were sometimes called tunics, but since Lloyd Alexander is famous almost exclusively for his YA fantasy novels, I felt suddenly transported into the wrong story--and would have liked to stay there.  

The second funniest thing in the whole book is that every time John Brown appears, almost to the end, he has ‘blazing eyes’. Eventually it started to make me laugh, even though the story was never meant to be funny.  I just plowed through the book, really, reading it aloud to my husband (who at once became a Lloyd Alexander fan upon meeting me). I suspect that Lloyd Alexander just plowed through writing it, too.

My favorite passage of all was when August Bondi is talking about how there are good men on both sides. He’s simply being open-minded, but my husband took issue with this passage—and it made me wonder whether or not that view was actually shared by August Bondi (Lloyd Alexander drew from his memoirs for writing the biographical novel). It seemed, however, to be Lloyd Alexander suddenly speaking for himself, at least for a moment. Unless I learn otherwise, I’ll assume this much-beloved author was attempting to inject some wisdom into a tale of adventure and strife, hoping it would stick and plant a seed of rationality.

(I'm publishing this blog on the birthday anniversary of Lloyd's wife Janine Denni Alexander. She's lovingly depicted in Janine Is French, just about my all-time favorite book—but not one of his famous ones. She was older than Lloyd, a war bride born 108 years ago today in France.)

Bill Bryson’s 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' Should Be Required Reading

Happy 20th publishing birthday to a science classic!  A classic I only got to just last year. I was blown away by Bryson’s summary of the history of science (up until 2003), including not just the major players (mostly scientists) and the gossip that interests us in them, but so many of the fundamental takeaways of their discoveries.  By relating the history of science to us in the order that he does, we gain a better appreciation of why these discoveries matter and how they changed science. These lead to improving our holistic understanding of the universe altogether.

    One of my biggest takeaways is how the dynamic crust of the earth and our volatile climate are the keys to life on our planet and probably any planet. So the same extreme climactic events that we dread are exactly how we got here in the first place!  On that note, we're in a comparatively balmy and peaceful lull at the moment, and while climate change is inevitable, pumping out greenhouse gases will only precipitate extreme weather, thus upsetting this delicate balance that we've lucked into for the last few thousand years. 

Author Sophia Alexander
with Bill Bryson's brilliant
A Short History of Nearly Everything

        My biggest critique so far is that the book's name doesn’t reflect its scientific focus. I don’t mind for myself, but seeing as how most of my current studies are in history, it’s brow-crinkling every time I recite it—and I certainly have been talking quite a lot about this book. He is continually putting information in perspective so that I can appreciate how amazing and fundamental it all is.

        I do question some of his ‘facts’—like his claim that we each have over a billion atoms that were once in Shakespeare himself.  Hmm. People in Australia do?  In Japan? In Madagascar? In Chile?  I blinked as my engineer son mused that he’d have to see what sort of dispersal rate they factored into their equations to see if there was any merit to that figure. Granted, we do shed cells continuously, but the body generally is interred after death, and it’s hard to imagine that many of those atoms finding their way to the nether regions of the earth (from where they began, that is).  Perhaps.  It certainly gave me something to consider!  In fact, I did have ancestors in London during Shakespeare’s time, so perhaps I should just own it:  I am Shakespeare, clearly, and so are you!

Oh, that’s just a fun little factoid, but he gives a ton of them, most of which I didn’t react to quite so unbelievingly. Truly, my favorite part of the book is really the first couple of chapters, in which he talks about the universe—so get a free sample download to your Kindle, or listen to the audiobook!   I was stunned at the sheer size of our solar system, beyond anything I had imagined. Pluto is basically a near neighbor to us at the center of the solar system. Conventional travel beyond our solar system seems sheer folly to anyone with common sense. Bryson has also, by the way, rather convinced me that Pluto is not technically a planet (heretical, I know, to most of us who grew up with Pluto being one).

2003 may seem out of date for a science book, but I’d argue that it isn't for this basic and holistic grasp of science. Most of the basics were down pat by then—but then again, I just saw a paperback 2016 edition online, so perhaps it's been revised. Regardless, much of his information seems solid to me (I do hold science degrees, which might make it a bit more digestable for me), and he received scientific honors as well as literary ones for this masterpiece.  If all advanced middle-school students had it for required reading, I suspect we’d have a lot more science majors out there today! 

For the last couple of pool seasons, this has been my poolside 'fun read', believe it or not, and that special combination of events--a perfect climate with an eye-opening book--have now established Bill Bryson as one of my favorite authors, just from this single great work. That said, I do intend to read more of his writing, for sure. 

Critiquing ‘Sense and Sensibility’ by Jane Austen (with spoilers)

Author Sophia Alexander with Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

In Sense and Sensibility (1811), Jane Austen's first published novel, she deftly describes behavior that sends my heart out to people, but she inevitably goes on to judge them rather harshly. Though she is quite a fine writer, and I very much recommend reading her, she's not particularly kind nor open-minded.

In the process of ever-so-slowly making my way through Jane Austen’s novels once again, I felt ‘monstrous glad’ to get to this beloved classic. (Note that the novel is sprinkled with ‘monstrous pretty’, ‘monstrous happy’, etc., all of which I find monstrous delightful!)  However, while Austen is indeed a wonderful writer, I’m taking issue with her ever so much more than when I was young. Perhaps it’s because my writing has been repeatedly compared to hers, especially with regards to our social commentary, which is what actually sent me back to reread her novels. Maybe it’s like when a young woman sees an audacious fellow and finds him exhilarating—she's absolutely interested in dating him—but then when he’s hers and his behavior reflects upon her, the same audacity is embarrassing!  The following critique is rooted in my assumption that Jane Austen configured many of her characters and the novel’s events upon her interpretation of people she actually knew, enabling incisive descriptions to combine with an utter lack of empathy (for those not her favorites).

I did finally resonate with the comparisons of our writing whilst reading Willoughby’s heartfelt confession to Elinor towards the end of the novel. It gripped me like almost no other moment in the book (as it must have long ago when I first read it) and had the decided ring of Stephen apologizing to Caroline in The Silk Trilogy!  Not that Willoughby and Stephen are the same character whatsoever, but under Stephen’s stiff, more proper veneer, maybe they do share certain qualities.

Austen did an amazing job with that—and even managed to make me feel rather sympathetic towards that despicable Willoughby. He was distraught about what he’d done, as his love for Marianne was real, despite everything.  However… Austen tends to be biased in favor of men in general, and her defense of Edward sends me spinning. In her estimation, Edward Ferrars is practically perfect, whereas his fiancée, Lucy Steele, is a conniving, manipulative parasite, but I beg to differ!

Let’s reexamine this:  Edward was already engaged to Lucy when he took up with constantly visiting this Dashwood household full of women-only.  Early in the book, he visits them for at least a week, staying right inside their cottage; afterwards, we find out that he'd previously been staying at Lucy’s and had traveled straight from Lucy’s to the Dashwood’s.  In fact, he was wearing a ring fashioned from Lucy’s hair, the same color as Elinor’s, causing the Dashwoods to smile, assuming that he’d somehow obtained a lock of Elinor’s hair to have it made.  Everyone everywhere whispers that Edward is in love with Elinor, yet he never tells Elinor nor anybody else about Lucy, his secret fiancée.

Well, Lucy is a much less fortunate girl than Elinor—of meager financial means and education.  But she’s plucky, and she's clever with her limited resources, managing to seem far better off than she is; Jane Austen relates this with a sneer, as if it makes her a sly thing, not to be trusted, even though her own heroines have financial troubles, too!  Edward can hardly stand Lucy, or so Austen wants us to think, and yet he continually writes her letters and visits her. If he's only doing this to keep up the engagement out of sheer duty, I cannot admire this—that is hardly faithfulness, my goodness! And it’s incredibly unromantic. When Lucy hears of Elinor’s attachment to Edward, she takes the sensible measure of confiding to Elinor that she’s already secretly engaged to him—showing her the irrefutable proof of recent letters from him, and a miniature portrait she carries.  Yet somehow Austen presents this all as diabolical craftiness, with Elinor being the long-suffering one, entirely suffering due to Lucy, not Edward! 

Before Lucy’s confidences to Elinor, Elinor was indeed fairly blameless in this affair, but Elinor pins little to no responsibility on Edward: no, Lucy is pathetic and manipulative, Edward doesn’t love her, he's only with her because of the previous unfortunate commitment, etc.  Elinor’s heart goes out to noble Edward, not blaming him in the slightest for his attentions to herself, his true beloved!

I’m aghast, feeling so sorry for Lucy!  Meanwhile, Lucy is a gracious guest to Lady Middleton, Elinor’s cousin’s wife, though Austen repeatedly misrepresents Lucy’s sweet, thoughtful behavior as sycophantic and wily.  Oh, let me mention that the snooty Dashwood girls can barely stand Lady Middleton or her children, though they owe her endlessly; I feel terribly sorry for Lady Middleton, and I’m glad she finally has a nice guest in Lucy. Austen speaks of Lady Middleton as ‘a fond mother... in pursuit of praise for her children, the most rapacious of human beings… her demands are exorbitant, but she will swallow anything.’ Jane relates Lady Middleton’s vanity in preparing her house for social events (not connecting this to the Dashwoods' subsequent enjoyment of those preparations), of her insufferable doting on her children, and of her classy reserve as being aloof, dull, and disinterested. I can only imagine her incredible self-possession in putting up with those bratty Dashwood teenagers who appreciate nothing she does for them and take no notice of her precious children!  Beautiful Lady Middleton knows the Dashwood girls care nothing for her—hence only lighting up, really, when her children enter the room.  How unpleasant for her!  Austen rather despises her for this, but I can completely relate.

Anyhow, towards the end of the book, Edward is disinherited for his years-long secret engagement to poor Lucy. So he technically stands by his word—except that he takes the opportunity to entreat Lucy to break off the engagement if she so wishes.  She says no, that she’ll still marry him, even in his dire new circumstances, but Lucy’s not stupid!  She knows he loves Elinor, and she’s growing increasingly tired of it all.

Elinor saves the day for her beloved Edward and his despicable bride-to-be by asking their friend Colonel Brandon to give Edward a parish near his own mansion so that he can earn his living (after quickly becoming ordained).  It’s a nice living, too!  But we eventually find out that Edward was so foolish that he didn’t even initially appreciate it, as Austen mentions only in hindsight that Edward ‘no longer resented [Colonel Brandon] giving him the living of Delaford’, even though he’d been nearly penniless and was desperate!  So my evaluation of directionless, fickle-hearted Edward is fairly low. Note that he’d previously decided on no occupation at all, as that suited his nature best, and it had been possible because of the fortune he was inheriting.

Then the twist occurs:  Robert Ferrars, Edward’s brother, gets extra inheritance as a reward for being the good son, and it’s bestowed on him precipitously, without strings.  Robert takes it into his head to ‘save’ his brother, though, so he starts visiting Lucy to try to get her to break off her engagement with Edward.  This has to affect her, to make her unhappy, and who knows what Robert honestly confirms about Edward not loving her?  However, she holds out, not quite willing to break it off with Edward, so Robert persists in visiting her, over and over, this lovely, staunch young woman.  But then… Robert and Lucy fall in love (and whose fault is that really? Who keeps visiting her?). Lucy, who is bright and ‘monstrous pretty’ yet knows Edward doesn’t really love her—and was looking to remain relatively poor with him besides—wisely opts to marry Robert the dandy instead.  What a shocker!  Everyone is aghast, but Lucy worms her way into the good graces of almost all parties eventually, whereas Elinor, who does marry that noble Edward, remains less favored because she really can’t stand any of them anyway.

Anyhow, Jane presents this all from the dignified viewpoint of Elinor, who insists upon thinking Edward is fairly perfect, even though he’d broken her heart and misrepresented himself.

That’s my defense of Lucy Steele.  And now for Mrs. Charlotte Palmer:

“It was impossible for anyone to be more thoroughly good-natured, or more determined to be happy than Mrs. Palmer. The studied indifference, insolence, and discontent of her husband gave her no pain; and when he scolded or abused her, she was highly diverted.”  Clearly a fool, hmm, Jane?

So, Mrs. Palmer declares that her husband’s mistreatment of her is funny, that he’s droll, that he suits her.  And she’s cheerful as can be.  Well, I feel admiration and pity for her, because what a brilliant way to deal with an awful situation.  But Austen declares her to be a ‘very silly woman’. 

How can Jane see what’s happening so clearly, yet not comprehend what’s going on at all?  Again, I feel certain that she must be describing people she knows.  She’s so spot-on in the descriptions, but she misses entirely on having empathy for their situations, no ‘putting herself in their shoes’ and trying to make sense of it. Then again… am I wrong?  I’m convinced I’m not, because obviously Mrs. Palmer knows she’s being mistreated, but it isn’t going to do wonders for her social life if she throws fits, especially in public.  However, if she can somehow just make her husband out to be an odd sort whose cantankerous, ornery ways are funny to her, then maybe she can have the semblance of an ordinary life and even have guests over, etc.  Poor Mrs. Palmer! 

I’m dismayed at Jane Austen, and no, I’m not going to blame it on her times.  I’ve read others of and before her time with quite broad, empathetic minds.  Anne Brontë, offhand, is from a slightly younger generation than Jane, but she’s incredibly empathetic.  I’m starting to understand why Austen’s family burned her letters.  She’s not terribly kind nor understanding, and add to that a quick tongue…  Sigh.

Now for a defense of passionate Marianne Dashwood:

Austen has such contempt for Marianne’s intense feelings.  The ironic thing about it is that Austen aptly presents the intensity, the heartbreak, perhaps as witnessed herself or relayed to her by some such passionate friend or relative. However, Austen also says mockingly: “The business of self-command she settled very easily:—with strong affections it was impossible, with calm ones it could have no merit.”

Austen keeps suggesting that Marianne is choosing to be distraught: when she is devastated, it aligns with her romantic notions to nearly die of heartbreak, etc.  Just, for heaven’s sake, Jane!  Why so mean?  There must have been a lot of jealousy brewing in Austen’s catty, clever little pen!  Well, judgment, too, but I tend to share that trait with Austen (as you can tell from this critique), so I do designate a difference: Jane Austen could stand to be a bit kinder.

In defense of Jane Austen:

Given that Jane Austen's older brother apparently compared her emotional intensity to Marianne's, it's likely that Austen was scolding herself on letting her passions get so out of hand. With that in mind, we can feel far more sympathetic about her trying to logic her way into reining them in.

At other times, Austen actually takes her inherently catty tongue and turns it into a character flaw, which is brilliant. For instance, Austen at first speaks condescendingly of Mrs. Jennings, Lady Middleton’s mother. Nonetheless, Mrs. Jennings turns out to be a wonderful woman even by Austen's own estimation. When Mrs. Jennings invites the Dashwood girls to accompany her to London, she tolerantly declares, “I thought it would be more comfortable for them to be together; because, if they got tired of me, they might talk to one another, and laugh at my odd ways behind my back.”  I take it, then, that we’re to assume Austen's initial condemnation of Mrs. Jennings was drawn from the perspective of the Dashwood girls and was not from her omnipotent perspective.

As for her insufferably persistent approval of Edward Ferrars, Elinor does at last say to Edward, just once near the end, “Your behaviour was certainly very wrong,” to my immense relief.  As is to be expected in someone as incisive as Jane Austen about human nature, she apparently does know how unfair she’s being at some level, at least sometimes. It might even be argued that her 'omnipotent' narrator is meant to be a mesh of the opinions of the book characters. Besides, she likely had a hard time condemning the brother (named Edward) in whose house she lived.

Sidenotes of interest:

Even though it’s days of travel to get to London, they speak simply of ‘going to town’!  I find that quite interesting, what a hub London must have been! 

Young women were apparently not allowed to write to men unless they were engaged or married to them.  Elinor assumes there has been an official engagement when she sees that Marianne has written to Willoughby.

We assume that everyone was relatively isolated and that it took forever to communicate before telephones, but mail went out and arrived in London day-of at that time—as is shown by Marianne expecting Willoughby to arrive on the very same day that she sends him a letter. I’ve read that in later Victorian times, mail could be exchanged as much as a handful of times daily by post!

On that note, I was at a family reunion out in the South Carolina countryside just yesterday, and an elderly woman confirmed, “People think we couldn’t have known what was happening very quickly back then, because we didn’t have telephones, but we knew everything that happened almost at once, better than now!”  I don’t think she was referring to the post informing them, but perhaps folks weren’t quite as isolated as we think they were before all this technology.

Lastly, and best of all, I “an’t” the least sorry to report that herein this novel lies further proof that our Southern “ain’t” descends from conversational English. Jane Austen includes “an’t” a full five times in this novel, with the identical meaning to “ain’t”! A mere spelling trifle of a difference ain’t of concern to me. Or as Jane Austen would more likely have written: "It doesn't signify".

 

'What Lies Above' by Caitlin Lambert Is a Riveting Dystopian Debut Novel

Author Sophia Alexander holding her copy of What Lies Above

What Lies Above, by Blue Ridge Mountains dystopian author Caitlin Lambert, tells of Eva, a teenager who lives underground and works for a society that she’s always trusted—until she discovers that they are only pretending her friend’s father has died. After he disappears, more worrisome events occur. She soon realizes that all is not as it seems—and, unfortunately, she has to conclude that her society is not at all to be trusted.  On a mission to save her best friend, she clambers into the electrical grid to make her way to the Government Sector, where only the elite—and her best friend—are allowed.

Meanwhile, Eli is a government worker tasked with disciplining runaways, among other things. He justifies his position by telling himself that he is protecting his family at home, drawing suspicion away from them.  He also knows that he is not punishing runaways with the force that many loyal government zealots would inflict.  Unfortunately, Eli’s diligence is recognized, and he is recruited for special military purposes.

The story flips back and forth between Eva and Eli, who do not meet up as soon as I expected they would.  Ms. Lambert leaves many questions unanswered, which I’m assuming is because there will be a sequel.  For instance, I still don’t know what happened to Eva’s friend’s father, nor to her best friend—not for sure.  However, the author does throw a plot twist in at the end that for some reason I had not foreseen (hats off to any author who manages that without inciting my gall at its randomness—but this wasn’t random and was quite well done).

Caitlin Lambert piqued my interest with her laser intuition regarding next-level warfare. My blood quickened with her emotional intensity and intense action scenes.  She had amazing descriptions. And I loved her characters’ ethical predicaments.

At the same time, by the end of the story, I couldn’t think straight for worrying about her characters not eating!  Breatharians?  It went on too long, so long that I didn’t buy it when they were worrying about ethics, pivotal choices, or anything else that didn’t meet their survival needs.  I needed them to have a bit of respite here or there simply so that I could sink back into the action!

Then… her young adult characters—most often opposite sexes together—were so chaste and physically unaffected by each other so as to seem fairly sex-hormone-less.  I do like a clean story, and I believe Caitlin is a Christian author, but this was baffling to me as a reader. It’s as if such thoughts never crossed their minds!  If I were freezing to death, I’d bundle up with just about anyone, I do believe—but her chaste young people huddled on their own, ensuring that we don’t see any Jacob/Bella (Twilight series) heat going on!  I was unsure of any romance even to the end, despite a few possibilities, though there were intense emotional connections in many directions. Romance was surely going on, though… maybe?… but those strongly forged relationships could all have been platonic, every one of them!

That said, I am excited for the next book, and I hope it comes out soon.  Unfortunately, the author’s social media seems to have been loaded with wonderful posts and videos around the release of this novel in 2021, and there was some mention of having completed another book (I assume the sequel), but then it’s as if she dropped off the face of the planet…  Let’s hope she’s simply hard at work on the sequels... or getting distracted like me... but I can't help but worry, given the content of her novel, especially!

Jujuwrimo Rough Draft

I'm in the midst of 'Jujuwrimo' with some writing friends: July Just Write Month, so styled by fellow author Kellyn McClarry. It's a Nanowrimo-style effort to get out a fresh new rough draft, and it's magical to see the progress! We're basically accountability buddies reporting word counts, whining, and encouraging each other. We'll be at this for the rest of July, so if you're wondering where I'm at... it's probably at my writing desk!

August 1st update:

Jujuwrimo complete!

Rough draft #3 done!

My YA Fantasy Trilogy now exists (but needs a lotta lotta work)

ASPCA Adventures in 'Fifty Years in the Doghouse' by Lloyd Alexander

 

Author Sophia Alexander with Lloyd Alexander's 'Fifty Years in the Doghouse'

Fifty Years in the Doghouse (1963) by Lloyd Alexander professes to be a book about William Michael Ryan, one of its most active and valiant ASPCA agents for over a half-century, but his anecdotes probably make up less than half of the book.  This work would have been more accurately and appealingly marketed as a history of the ASPCA, especially its New York City division.

As a history of the ASPCA, I can see how the book would hold immense charm for people who have been involved with the organization or wish to know more about it before becoming involved.  Of course, as the book is over sixty years old, it’s more of an early history of the ASPCA, but that holds its own value for such a venerable institution, and they’d do well to republish it simply to distribute to their facilities and employees and benefactors.

While there are countless fun anecdotes about animal rescues, I particularly enjoyed hearing about the ASPCA’s founding by an aging dandy who suddenly found profound meaning in life in his old age.  He was outraged by the mistreatment of horses on the streets, among other problems, and his early organization even found itself taking up the cause of abused children, who weren’t as legally protected in New York, it seemed, as pets and horses soon were, thanks to all those fighting for animal welfare.

It’s unfortunate that this book was marketed as a biography of William Michael Ryan, a hard-working, worthy man relatively few knew or will ever know.  I suppose it was a last minute change to give the book a more personal flavor and popular appeal, but this seems to have required reorganizing the chapters as well.  The reader is immersed at once in anecdotes about Ryan saving critters, for sure.  But when the unsuspecting reader then comes upon numerous inner chapters on drier ASPCA history and its structural organization, they’ll be disconcerted and feel a bit upside-down, since the old switcheroo has been pulled. Certain other chapters feature anecdotes of other ASPCA agents and officers. There’s a bit of celebrity name-dropping.  Lloyd Alexander even repeats himself on occasion.

That said, I had no idea the extent of the society’s work, nor of their authority.  They had facilities for air-traveling animals and hosted all sorts of exotic species. William Michael Ryan was particularly good at adapting facilities to accommodate as necessary. From horses, dogs, and cats to monkeys, elephants, lions, and pythons, this book is full of heroic and compassionate anecdotes.

Fifty Years in the Doghouse is the second of the last four unread-by-me, published books that I’ve collected by Lloyd Alexander. I’m reading them this year, on what would have been my favorite author’s centennial birthday.  He’s an incredible wordsmith and later won the Newberry Medal for his children’s fantasy novels, but my favorite work is his charming 1959 novel about his wife, called Janine Is French.  It’s out-of-print, as are many of his early books.

I’m affirmed in why I never got around to these lingering four books, however, as I do believe this and the one I began with—Park Avenue Vet—were commissioned projects that do not convey Lloyd’s full measure of inspiration and passion.  Nevertheless, Lloyd’s wordsmithing is apparent, his humor is often there, and he still does his best to give beautiful meaning to the stories he tells.  He was born the 30^th of January in 1924, a hundred years ago this year.

The Silk Trilogy & 'Homespun' Finalists with Chanticleer International

Yay!  The Silk Trilogy has now been honored as a Finalist for Best Series by Chanticleer International, and Homespun as a Finalist for their Laramie Americana Awards, too! (Yes, these are the awards that have been progressing from a longlist to shortlist to semifinalist to finalist!)

https://www.chantireviews.com/2024/02/29/the-2023-laramie-book-awards-finalists-for-americana-fiction/?fbclid=IwAR3PWxlD1mZg0hUJXh68tlHiOlw1gmAu0Smw5_uYBP3KggU-ZYQFyEXVzkA

https://www.chantireviews.com/2024/03/04/the-2023-ciba-series-award-finalists-for-genre-fiction/?fbclid=IwAR2zcs1ckSfKur87pyLARM2_vVX2bzL5f9DL84i3Nh-jjzzcn8STtV5wIIs

The Silk Trilogy Progresses to the Chanticleer Short List!

Not only is Homespun a semifinalist, still in the running for the Laramie Award by Chanticleer International, but the entire Silk Trilogy is in a separate Chanticleer contest for complete book series of any genre.  I was pleased to be informed that The Silk Trilogy has now made the Short List for this contest. 

 

https://www.chantireviews.com/2024/02/11/the-2023-ciba-series-award-short-list-for-genre-fiction/

'Homespun' a semi-finalist for the Laramie Awards!

 

Chanticleer International likes to draw out the suspense, and it works! Homespun is now a semi-finalist for the Laramie Awards.

Here's the link for the semi-finalists:

https://www.chantireviews.com/2024/01/14/the-2023-laramie-book-awards-semi-finalists-for-americana-fiction/?fbclid=IwAR1wn1Vu-W7wL47c-cKfI2xdzzqt-bZFU4q3u0gFxgLgZTMjHZUR6Zzl7W4

October's original post:

Homespun just longlisted for the Laramie Award for Americana Fiction. Much obliged if you'd cross your fingers for it making it to the next round, too!

Here's the link for the longlist: 
https://www.chantireviews.com/2023/10/09/the-2023-laramie-book-awards-long-list-for-americana-fiction/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-2023-laramie-book-awards-long-list-for-americana-fiction&mc_cid=1755091776&mc_eid=59ee6074f9 

November edit: Yay! Homespun made the Shortlist, too!

https://www.chantireviews.com/2023/11/16/the-2023-laramie-book-awards-short-list-for-americana-fiction/?fbclid=IwAR15gz48j9ZMa538A7qCCKphGzWMSsA6bTnAkFHIltZpbKnRvLzT8FPAQkE

Cats Galore in 'Park Avenue Vet' by Dr. Camuti and Lloyd Alexander

 

Author Lloyd Alexander with one of his cats.

One hundred years ago this month, my all-time favorite author was born.  I’m not saying Lloyd Alexander was truly the best author in the world, only that that’s been my decided opinion ever since I was in the third grade. My teacher read the Chronicles of Prydain to us at the excruciatingly slow rate of one short, perfect chapter per day, emblazoning his words and artistry upon my mind. I’d ponder the daily chapters and couldn’t bear to miss a day of school.  Lloyd Alexander was born the 30^th of January in 1924, leaving not only an array of award-winning fantasy novels but also his prior nonfiction works—sprinkled with tongue-in-cheek, self-effacing humor, always polished. Here I am reviewing an early work entitled Park Avenue Vet (1962).

Author Sophia Alexander with
Lloyd Alexander's Park Avenue Vet (1962)

For this year of Lloyd’s 100^th birthday, I am at last reading the four remaining books that I’ve never gotten around to reading (or didn’t finish, in one case). I do believe three of the four are now out of print. I collected these volumes long ago but never felt drawn to them, in particular, tending to instead go back to my favorites time and again. This first was written in collusion with Dr. Louis J. Camuti, a veterinarian who at the time (1962) had already been making house calls exclusively for cats for forty long years.

Dr. Camuti certainly lucked into getting Lloyd Alexander to work with him on his cat tales.  Lloyd had already written My Five Tigers, a charming book about the stray cats who adopted Lloyd and his wife, Janine. Park Avenue Vet did not turn out to be quite so delightful as its predecessor, for all that Lloyd’s style pervades the writing.  It starts out well enough and is full of interesting cat anecdotes from beginning to end—cute enough that I contemplated trying to order another copy for my cat-loving daughter. Soon, however, one realizes that although Dr. Camuti has a certain understanding about cat sociology and a decided affection for cats, he’s not particularly broad-minded and is nowhere near the intellect that Lloyd is. It seems obvious in the passages where Camuti insisted on keeping something in the book, as it’s suddenly less tasteful and falls flat, as if even Lloyd simply couldn’t muster the charm to make it flow as well as the rest of the writing. After all, it can be literally impossible to transform puffed-up insularity into ‘charming’. Besides, I do believe Lloyd himself was in some way offended by the old-fashioned perspective. Camuti comes off as a pompous, name-dropping know-it-all, and this happens increasingly towards the end of the book.  Camuti co-authored another book a few years later, but he had to use another author to polish it for him, as by that time Lloyd Alexander was working on his more successful fantasy novels (Newberry Award-winning!)—but also, I suspect that Lloyd Alexander had already had more than enough of Dr. Louis J. Camuti in the writing of Park Avenue Vet.

Still, for all that, it’s not the absolute worst (so far) of Lloyd Alexander’s books. That dubious soubriquet goes to another commissioned biographical work: August Bondi: Border Hawk, so dull as to seem to be written by someone else, quite devoid of Lloyd’s trademark wit.  It’s truly as if Lloyd Alexander were pinned down and forced to write lines!  Mind you, I read that book well over a decade ago, and I’m almost curious enough to give it another go, to see if it really was that bad.  But clearly I don’t recommend it.

My all-time favorite Lloyd Alexander work is Janine Is French, which is about his beloved Parisian wife and is utter charm from beginning to end. I’m quite sorry it’s out of print.  For most people, and definitely for the underage crowd, The Chronicles of Prydain is where to begin. These five novels are inspired by Welsh legend. Not only does Lloyd’s wit and polished style enchant the reader, but his characters wrestle with ethics and lofty ideals about truthfulness and finding their purpose; these come through in his novels in a way that his nonfiction anecdotes simply don’t do.

Park Avenue Vet may not inspire the reader with idealism, but it will make the reader love cats all the more. Even non-cat-lovers will find themselves enchanted with felines, at least for a while.  As for the devoted and now-disparaged cat veterinarian, Dr. Camuti—I’m sure I’d have enjoyed meeting him and hearing his stories first-hand.  He loved cats very much and never stopped attending them. He continued to work as a cat vet until he dropped dead at the age of eighty-seven, on his way to a house call.  Now that’s devotion.