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.

The Silk Trilogy Longlisted for CIBA Book Series Award

Quite pleased to see that The Silk Trilogy has been longlisted for the CIBA Book Series Award. Can you imagine being the judges, reading through that many books for multiple series? Mindblowing!

https://www.chantireviews.com/2023/12/14/series-award-2023-long-list-for-genre-fiction/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=series-award-2023-long-list-for-genre-fiction&mc_cid=de0ab6c5c8&mc_eid=59ee6074f9&fbclid=IwAR3C9PldTRawEKwDKOFnrUj5F-JO-3dMGQL7pof0OB4bT3E6HNYVPNW8t_g

3 for 3 Shelf Unbound Awards for the Silk Trilogy!

 'Homespun' has been honored with this 2023 award, along with a 4-page spread in their current e-magazine (I had to keep it under wraps until now). The Silk Trilogy now has the distinction of each of its novels being independently honored—in 2021, 2022, & now 2023—by Shelf Unbound as an overall finalist in their Best Indie Book Awards! https://issuu.com/shelfunbound/docs/a
wards-issue-winter2023-dec-jan-feb_?fr=xKAE9_zU1NQ

'Tapestry: A Lowcountry Rapunzel' Awarded Coffee Pot Book Club Bronze Medal

I'm tickled that Tapestry: A Lowcountry Rapunzel has been awarded a Bronze Medal from the Coffee Pot Book Club in the category of 20th century historical fiction! https://thecoffeepotbookclub.blogspot.com/2023/11/

Atmospheric Essays in 'House of Steps' by Amy Blackmarr

"Good heavens, honey... it's a hippie house!" -Amy's mother regarding her temporary Kansan home

Sophia Alexander with
House of Steps by Amy Blackmarr

I’ve just consumed The House of Steps while visiting my dear friend Kelly in North Carolina. Kelly keeps an ‘Amy room’ with a sort of shrine to her sister's award-winning books in it—and I don’t blame her one whit, as they are that well-written. In fact, their mother is thought to be descended from the national poet of Scotland, Robert Burns, so perhaps Amy did not pull her writing genius from nowhere!

The House of Steps is an anecdotal collection of short essays about Amy’s experience of moving (for a few graduate-school years) to a remote, cobbled-together house in Kansas with her dog. It’s a worthwhile follow-up to the raw authenticity of her first essay collection, Going to Ground, which sprang Thoreau-like from her pen during her pond residence at her family’s remote, south-Georgia cabin. Both essay collections, quite atmospheric, remind me of those by fellow Aries Southerner, Barbara Kingsolver. Blackmarr's essays fill me with a love for Georgia's natural environment, though I sense no equivalent appreciation for her temporary Kansas surroundings.

In fact, my favorite tales from The House of Steps actually relate back to her family and girlhood in Georgia, but this may be personal bias, since I’m familiar with the family. Nevertheless, I particularly enjoyed reading about their mother’s genteel reactions to Amy’s strange new Kansan house and Amy’s perverse defense of it.  Yet while Amy does allow isolated glimpses into her past life, they come only as she mulls her existing environment and life itself—and I do so enjoy hearing Amy’s unique take on her world. In summary, I do recommend Amy Blackmarr’s books, including House of Steps, as quirky, rich, perception-expanding, sometimes-amusing, regional, atmospheric reads.

Language Studies for Travel & My Writing Research

I am sporadically studying German and French, hard at work so that I can better decipher centuries-old letters by Sophia of Hanover that haven't yet been published in English. Fluent in neither, I flit from one to the other like Duo the Owl... but now there's Italian, too! One of my novels is set partially in Venice and Rome, and since I'm planning to go see these historic cities for myself, I've just switched to Italian this past month. So... my progress is will-o'-the-wisp from language to language, and I'd actually even reverted to Spanish for a while, too, since I had the Yucatan, Mexico trip last month. That was after our Montreal Spring trip, for which I'd brushed up on French. I was astonished at how essential and useful my broken, rudimental Spanish (mostly learned in high school) was while in Mexico, so much so that I woke up one morning, panicking that I was planning to go to Italy without knowing the first word of Italian. At this rate, it's pretty certain I'll never be fluent in any of these languages, but it certainly helps to be able to read signs and menus, say hellos and goodbyes and whatnot... Italian is very similar to French and Spanish, so while it's perhaps a little confusing, it's far easier to figure out sentence meanings this go-round! Sophia of Hanover and her siblings wrote in a polyglot way, sometimes in one language, sometimes another, sprinkling in words from other languages. She spoke German, Dutch, Italian, English, and French fluently, from what I understand. I haven't touched Dutch yet, but we will see what the future holds! I find the Duolingo app helps me to be consistent, but old-fashioned me does find it helpful to supplement at times with actual language books...

'Meditations' by Marcus Aurelius: Two Millenia Old, yet Relatable

Author Sophia Alexander with her e-book of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

While procrastinating on my own writing, I’ve been reading Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations: A New Translation, which at once scolds about letting small things distract us.  Hah, the irony!  Nonetheless, I am blown away by how so many of his concepts are in alignment with my own. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-190 A.D.) was a Roman emperor and a Stoic philosopher who keeps coming back to the concept of Memento Mori, remembering that you will die—mostly with the motivation of prioritizing what’s important and putting our troubles in perspective.

His thoughts on being a better person—and coping—are presented in a somewhat different structure and light than I’m used to. The meditations begin by summarizing positive lessons he’s learned from a variety of specific individuals in his life.  One man took friendship to a higher level when he showed that he would “not just shrug off a friend’s resentment—even unjustified resentment—but try to put things right.” I’m impressed at how much Marcus encourages patience, even saying, “no one does the wrong thing deliberately.” My wheels start churning a little when he points out that our priority is to protect the spirit from anything that might lead it astray, adding that the “applause of the crowd, high office, wealth, and self-indulgence… might seem to be compatible… for a while. But suddenly they control us and sweep us away.” Certainly a slippery slope, anyhow. 

I'm also impressed when he says to “be attentive to the power inside you and worship it sincerely.”  Yes, he refers to the ‘gods’, as he lives in the time of the Roman pantheon, but I hadn’t thought he’d entertain a concept like this, which reminds me of what I’ve understood the Hindu term namaste to mean: ‘the light in me sees the light in you’.  Maybe an awareness of one’s own divinity was more common in polytheistic cultures?

He begins his ‘Book 4’ (the ‘books’ are more like chapters here) with a motivational talk: “Our inward power, when it obeys nature, reacts to events by accommodating itself to what it faces… it turns obstacles into fuel… What’s thrown on top of the conflagration is absorbed, consumed by it—and makes it burn still higher.”  Just a little thrill-read there!

I get a more general thrill at contemplating that I’m reading the inner thoughts of a man—a Roman emperor, no less—from nearly two millenia ago, mostly because they so often resonate with my own--almost like feelings are universal and always have been, hmm?

All that said, some of his philosophizing creates moral loopholes for his conduct. He tells himself to dissociate his spirit from what his body parts do, which perhaps comes across as worse than it is, though it's hard to know when he's not specific and is continually chiding himself for lustfulness.  A sort of belief in predestination (maybe a ‘Not my fault, even if it’s my hand!’ concept) could assuage any guilt he has about ordering executions and such in his role in the government.  He says at one point: “Three days of life or three generations: what’s the difference?”  To be fair, he does precede this with some insightful conversation about our transience: “For you can’t lose either the past or the future; how could you lose what you don’t have?” He talks about how we become part of nature again, about how the only time we have is ‘now’: the past is gone, and the future is just a concept, and ‘a brief instant is all that is lost’ at death, which is “nothing but the dissolution of the elements from which each living thing is composed… something like birth, a natural mystery, elements that split and recombine… [Y]ou will vanish into what produced you. Or be restored, rather. To the logos from which all things spring, by being changed”. Perhaps he isn’t entirely wrong in his assertion that you’re only losing the present.  However, some postulate that time is just a dimension, that we aren’t so separated from the past and the future as all that, so I’m not buying it entirely.  But it's a comforting thought, in a way—especially in coping with loss.

At one point, Marcus even says that whatever happens is “for the best. So nature had no choice but to do it.” I was stunned at hearing this, as it’s mirrored in the Pollyanna philosophy of a 17^th-century polymath, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, on why God lets bad things happen—a sort of ‘least of all ills’ concept of things, though here Leibniz’s ‘God’ is Marcus’s ‘Nature’, something Leibniz dared not say, after what happened to his contemporary Baruch Spinoza—who did equate God with Nature, only to be excommunicated and likely murdered for it.  Hmm, perhaps Leibniz read Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations at a certain point, absorbing it like a sponge, just as he absorbed Isaac Newton’s Calculus concepts!  (He'd seen some of Newton's early mathematical papers related to this subject, but they’re both credited with inventing Calculus on their own, the f(x) functions and the integral sign ∫ being Leibniz’s version whereas Newton used dot notation.)  I’d blown off Leibniz’s 'All Is for the Best' philosophy when I was first introduced to it, thinking it merely a self-protective effort to prove that his philosophies were Christian and not at all heretical, but Marcus, too, has “a resolve to accept whatever happens as necessary and familiar.” The Roman emperor even refers to the world as “a living being—one nature, one soul.”  Luckily for Marcus Aurelius, he was the emperor and didn't have to worry so much about being persecuted by the authorities.

It's interesting that I cast off Leibniz's 'least of all ills' philosopy despite having been fascinated as a girl by a Hans Christian Andersen tale, "The Story of a Mother", in which a woman is heartbroken about the death of her darling child, only to be given foresight of the cruel future that would have otherwise awaited the child. I dwelled on that concept of 'God knows best', very similar to this one, after reading it, and that story truly is the second most memorable of all those I read in my volume of The Complete Works of Hans Christian Andersen (superceded only by "The Matchstick Girl"). Perhaps that oft-depressed author had been influenced by the philosophies of Leibniz and/or Marcus Aurelius, in one way or another.

Having managed to entirely bypass philosophy in school, I only heard about Meditations from the Daily Stoic, Ryan Holiday, who recommended Gregory Hays' translation as the best. Ryan sells a leatherbound version, but I was able to instantly download it for free to my Nook. Ryan's online videos on Stoicism can be inspiring to listen to, and often he speaks with wonderful zeal, though I've laughed at his sometimes morbid, over-the-top 'You will die!' reminders. He's fond of pointing out that Marcus speaks from experience about grief, that he’d suffered in the death of several of his children—no doubt true, but let me interject that I doubt this busy emperor felt the loss of his children as keenly as the woman who birthed them. Marcus only describes his wife as “obedient, loving, humble,” yet I doubt any loving mother could truly agree with, “Three days of life or three generations: what’s the difference?”  But maybe I’m projecting. I can't fathom being Stoic or expecting Stoicism in that situation.

Marcus sometimes sinks into depression, or rather jumps in head-first. He wants to be detached from even things like music, anything that perks his interest, idealizing being ‘disinterested’ and saying that the way to do it is to analyze it to death, basically. When he’s stressed out and bringing up death constantly, it’s not always in order to put bad things in perspective.  Sometimes, yes.  But often it very much sounds like, “What a relief it would be to just die…”  Just sayin’.  But this wasn’t meant for publication, to my understanding.  He may have struck some of that if he’d known where it would wind up. 

Another critique is that for all his ideas of 'oneness', he certainly thinks about society as a caste system.  Convenient for the emperor, hmm?  I’m sure it helped keep order, at a basic level.  Or at least in their existing empire, it did.  But how easy to spout stuff like that when you’re the one on the apex. Not that it really makes him happy.  He's a bit depressed, I’m sure of it.  Are power-mad people truly happy?  I suspect he's less power-mad than most emperors, but he certainly has his share of it.  He keeps talking about setting people straight in their mistaken ways, and his tone there strikes me--and probably them--as a bit obnoxious.  Yet he's not oblivious to this, saying many people will undoubtedly be relieved when he dies, tired of being judged by him!  Poor fellow. He's doing his best.

Oh, but he strives to be so serious.  I do get where it’s not always appropriate to be joking, that some gravitas is a good thing. But in his case, he needs a good laugh a bit more often…

While I did not find much humor overall in these Meditations, I’ll leave you (hopefully not literally, not yet) with this quote: “Don’t let yourself forget how many doctors have died after furrowing their brows over how many deathbeds. How many astrologers, after pompous forecasts about others’ ends. How many philosophers, after endless disquisitions on death and immortality…”