May 2015

MAY 2015

MAY 1  Lilies of the valley day in Paris. 

Swam.  Va got mani and pedi at Tanger.  In Starbucks in walked Dave Cummings and his two boys, Noah, 14 in a new bright turquoise pair of Nikes, and Mason, 12, quiet.  Wish I had said more to him.  Rosie is four years younger, or six?  She and mom elsewhere.  Later, walking the arcade, we saw Monique Minichiello and her two red-haired teenage daughters, sophomores now.  Randy Hoyt’s girls.  Eric Johnson messaged he’s living near-by on Avery and wants some interesting magazines. 

Rick is having another heart flutter problem.  Tomorrow we dine with the RiverRats at Harpoon.  Lunch. 

Sunday almost noon  May 3 

Plans now to overnight after Brigham’s in order to see Arnold Arboretum.  Lilac sunday is Sunday.  Gorgeous day today. 

email to Donald in reply to his
yesterday

Enjoyed all of your comments.  I've guessed it---you would ask Mr Bloom to please remove Hart Crane from the list.  Important, yes, but now more and more only historically so, not eternal, as are the others. 

Am I right? 

Poor Mr Leader.  A guy tries to do a conscientious job and gets blasted from every angle.  I was not going to bring this up just yet, but he did contact me about thirteen months ago.  He wanted permission to use my letters and to get certain things correct.  Yes, I affirmed in writing back, Mr Burgo did live at International House but no, he never did take a course with Mr Bellow.  Yes I was a member of the now legendary seminar on Joyce in the Spring of '68 in which David Greene played such a memorable role.  Yes, Mr Bellow did nod to me one afternoon when we both were strolling on 59th Street in front of the Lab School.  And Yes I did interview Mr Bellow in order to see if he would permit me to enroll in said seminar on Joyce.  Mr Leader asked me to draft a private set of recollections with Mr Bellow (and his private secretary at the time who also lived in I House) and I sent him my 43 page manuscript with strict instructions to see how he used it before he sent his pages to his editor.  He agreed.  He did ask if he could use the privately famous photo of me taken at the gate of Taliesin which looks incredibly like Mr Bellow.  He thought it captured the aura of the zeitgeist more successfully than any other image he had encountered. 

Will everyone evetually agree he is the greatest American writer of the 20thC???

Greater than Eliot?  It is always pretty hard, isn't it, for a novelist to unseat a poet, when the final tallies are counted. 

I'll paste in some comments from my friend in UK who does oversee phd candidates at the university of falmouth.  Rupert Loydell: 
" so you doing a bit of supervision for some pennies and to keep your brain alert?
i have 5 degree dissertations this year but they are all
 by muppet students. a really strange year this year.
imagine doing degree level work on lord of the rings! why? "

Muppet students!   Perhaps we are grateful we never dealt with graduate students? 

--------
from Donald
Dear Bob,

Thank you for all the M.H. Abrams e-mails (although one was sent two or three times).  The Mirror and the Lamp and Natural Supernaturalism remain high favorites with me.  I did not know he was your inspiration to major in En glish.  Should we hold it against him?

May edition of Vanity Fair had favorable comments by Martin Amis on the new biography of Saul Bellow, but the review in the New York Times and today in the Book Review pan it, and for the same reasons.  Of course, since it only goes to 1964, our important influences on Bellow are not yet mentioned.  I say this because reviewers say  the author includes everything, and I do mean everything, Bellow is supposed to have experienced. And surely....

The same issue of of VF mentions Harold Bloom's next book from Mt. Sinai which names definitively the American Sublime (there are twelve that make it; see if you can name them before looking them up). I would dispute one.   I used to find Bloom impossible to read, but now as I grow old, I find I agree with him more and more, especially his comments on much of contemporary literary criticism.

 The April 3, 2015 TLS has a superb review of a book on Pope Francis, with him on the cover. of the issue. I've ordered the book.  Until then, the review is the best thing I have read on Francis.

Thank God it's now May.

Donald

today
Dear lBob,

You hit it correctly.

You are good, indeed very, very good. Far more time and imagination than I have. I am delighted that you were contacted.  I expect vol. 2 to be about two thousand pages. By way of comment: I am tiring of extra long biographies.  Look what Erdman did in one for Joyce or Peter Brown for Augustine.  A Winston Churchill might take two or more volumes, but Claire Booth Luce???  I am enjoying Andew Roberts's one volume on Napoleon (and he, too, would deserve more}

I think Bellow will  probably be considered the greatest American writer of the second half of the twentieth century, but look how Sam Tanenhaus in the NYT Book Review ends his otherwise well written review of Leader's tome. " Slipping away ...!"   I know, the pendulim swings.  I must also take exception to his remark about Bellow's" movie-star good looks."  As he aged, I found his face distinguised, distinctive, even a bit sexy (he certainly had a swagger about him).  So, fascinating, yes, but movie-star handsome?  De gustibus....
Martin Amis's review of the nonfiction is excellent."Deep readers of the World, Beware" remains a masterpiece, as does the essay in which Bellow wrote:
"Show me the Proust of the Papuans or the Tolstoy of the Zulus, and I will read them."

Donald.

Dear D --

Forgive me, I was lying.
Through my teeth as they say.
I've always fancied myself a great novelist who never wrote, so I try these little micro-fictions on unsuspecting souls as a dumb exercise in passive-agressive idiocy or some-such.  Learned it from my father I think who would tell a customer the beef roast was superb this week, Mildred fixed it last night, when we had warmed up ham and soggy green beans.  This while I was off stage stocking the shelves to the right of the meat counter.  He at least was selling his wares to support the family.  I have no legitimate excuse except vanity of some species.

Agree with you about the movie star issue.  As he aged he kept something striking in his glance and demeanour but otherwise, no.

I think today's bios have to be written for the next generations --- it is no longer a pleasure to read one's age being portrayed in such detail and leaden prose.  I have glanced at the tome on Cheever, another on Leonard Cohen, one or two others and I really can't get into reading them for pleasure.  You see up close and personal how fragile and unattainable a true portrayal really is of the person, of the time and period, of the age.  History becomes yet another miracle to wonder at.  Or flawed opera (as Don Sheehan used to refer to liturgy).

Also--why can I not interest myself in re-reading any of Bellow's novels?  Or James's.  Just don't have that kind of energy any longer?  And I use it most shallowly for "what's new" rather than what was really worth it a while ago?

Have you watched the tv show "Revenge?"

Bob

------------

and from Phil

These days virtually all stories, whether on TV in a film or a book, strike me as meaningless as Harlequin romances that Peg used to read by the bucketful.  She would read two or three a day and just toss the books into a growing heap.   I called the FLBs - fucking little books - for women.  And that's what most stories today seem like to me - FLBs,  stupid little stories for stupid little people.  Even so-called "good fiction" seems like that to me.   After the story finishes I ask: "what was the point of that, other than to take up time?"   Yet the paradox is that I fault people who haven't read widely and seen a fair number of films. 

---------

I like Phil’s opinion.  No softy English major stuff for him.  Bellow ain’t worth nuttin’.  That’s it. 

Donald on the other hand replied suitably---

Bob,

Did you think for one moment I thought you were telling the truth?? Terriblly
 disappointed that we are now unable to carry on the charade.   Or can we? I presumed you understood that my remarks in the initial e-mail were totally in jest  and meant to spark your imagination.  Which they did..  I shall choose to interpret "Forgive me, I was lying" as a lie.  Clever of you to introduce the untrustworthy narrator into the discourse.

Donald
--------------

Touché, M. Burgo, touché.  I will reply.  On another point---the American townscape, landscape, looks and feels so vast and empty.  Is that why we like going to Europe, to see a scene more dense, more anxious and fraught with enclosure and weight? 


You've saved me a phone call !  Youl are still alive and you are still "in process!"

Nevertheless I know what you mean.  We watch dumb tv shows and I think all of
this.  I make myself pick up the book(s) I am trying to take an interest in and I
do---for a while, perhaps, but not for as long and not with the real or fake enthusiasm
I was able to muster a while back.  20 years ago?  We had lunch with friends
Saturday over in Vermont and one fellow was new to us all, a neighbor of an old
friend, and I kept marvelling to myself on the way home how much energy he seemed
to have even though he works as a public defender lawyer for the state of VT and
as I learned later, he had to put his younger wife into a mental home in CT for
schizophenia about six months ago.  But he's playing racketball every morning and
riding his bicycle like crazy, I also learned later, to numb himself with denial and
exhaustion.  Still---he still seemed like a college kid--so young even though 50!

Can 20 years make that much a difference?  And/or is it spring fever, like everything
else, all over again?

Saul Bellow as the greatest writer of the American 20th C?  Or of the second half of the
century?  Friend in St Louis raises this topic, looking at reviews of the huge new bio of
Bellow.  Maybe, maybe not.  Either way, I have no personal interest any more in looking again at any one of his novels.

WTF as the kids would text?  Great Lit might be over for a few centuries.

Lukacs I found published a short book recently called A Short History of the Twentieth Century.  I bought it and will read it, I think. Or today I think this.

Stay tuned.  Sent you a "humorous" text "about" you and Peg, these days.  My homemade attempt at a Roz Chast style verbal cartoon about your new lives together.

Hang in there,

B

-------

Donald is generous with his praise --- even before his martini

Bob,

Please start writing that godamn novel that I think you may well have in you, if for no other reason than to make me especially envious..  Do not make it too serious.  Parody and satire seem more your style.  A bit  autobiographical (but of course, not too revealing,) and lie through your teeth: (Art is the lie that tells the truth) .  All right, we'll settle for a good New Yorker short story.

I shall comment on the contrast between European and American landscapes at a later date.  One can certainly begin there, superficial ( I mean that literally, not pejoratively) as it might be,  but one may always begin at the beginning  with what meets the eye and dig deeper.  We are never more European than when we are in America, nor more American than when we are in Europe.  You may or may not include yourself and Virginia in my apercu.  I employ the royal or editorial we.
--------------------

Phil forwarded something about Vietnam vet statistics---most depressing. 


I am touched and heartened by Donald’s urging and faint belief that I could indeed pull off something.  Maybe it is even a stronger belief than I acknowledge.  And the thought of provoking someone other than myself to be envious should be cause enough.  Why is it not?  Why not indeed?  Why shouldn’t it be.  Notice that in spite of all my promptings and veiled beggings for such encouragement from Phil he has never gone ahead and said anything similar.  Or if he has in his own mind it has never quite registered with me, or registered as clearly as this note from Donald has.  We look for the approval and blessing of the right one who will unleash our creative urgings.  But who exactly is that?  And if not Donald who might it be? 

I don’t like it feeling so hot so fast as today.  I missed my early morning walk and now I think I have to take it as if it were a matter of life or death.  Or something.  We swam but that is not the same, for me, no matter what.  Now, 9pm, it is so hot and muggy.  I don’t feel comfortable.  Too big a dinner I guess, of cold tortolini and cheese and salsa.  I keep imagining the paradisical days of macrobiotics, nothing but rice and vegetables.  As if. 

Tuesday night  May 5   

Donald quip may have given me what I was looking for after all: “if for no other reason than to make me especially envious.” 

This has morphed into something like this:  I don’t really want to write this novel but the task has been imposed upon me by two friends---D who is racing me to the finish and W who set us both to the task with the offer of a magnificent prize.  Whoever of us finishes the novel and gets it into print for all and anyone to see, wins . . . . a penthouse in the Nordstrom tower in NYC, a huge stipend for life and the private equivalent of a MacArthur Genius Grant.  I have come to Copenhagen to make it happen and to avoid any possible subversion by D and his crowd.  I am somewhat on the lam, in secret.  At the same time I am asking any and every one to lend a hand in some way without spilling the secret.  It is a secret challenge, no one may know. 

Friday night   May 8

Overnight in Coolidge Corner last night.  Marriott Courtyard. 
Long wait at Brigham’s for Dr Johnson.  He worked under Dr Arthur Day who has moved to Houston.  Saw nothing to suggest that the shunt is not still working just as it should.  Or not.  No way really to know but the three key symptoms are not present as they were twelve years ago and nothing has really gotten worse.  He was very nice and basically we got the feel that our visit was not necessary or at least there was nothing to worry about. 

We met up with Mike Farkas and had a very late lunch at Anna’s Taqueria.  Ok, not great.  Gave Mike the books and drove him over to his place in Brighton.  Gorgeous day.  Flowering trees everywhere.  They we drove him to Kenmore Square where he was meeting a friend.  We strolled Beacon street a little before turning in. 

Today I got up earlier and took a morning walk.  About 7:30 am.  Breeze and cool but glorious sunshine again.  After breakfast we drove out to Arnold A.  Got a wheelchair but then took it back after getting about 1200 steps down the roadway.  My hand wouldn’t take trying to hold onto it until we needed it.  Climbed half-way up the hill and saw some of the early lilacs.  Got lost getting out of the city, lost in Southie as per usual.  Even with Siri on the GPS! 

Tuesday  May 12  Been a while it seems.  Zipped the paperwork back to TIAA for the home loan, very disgusted by the badly organized cache.  Heard a piece on npr about these lines of credit coming back again after the recovery from the near-collapse.  No wonder if this paperpack is any indication.  No wonder it toppled.  Worst sort of bankish forms and no explanations.  Shoulda gone with the local bank and walked in when necessary to deal with a person.  Gale Dorval for instance.  Dumb of me not to.  refresh salon in the morning.  Walked around south Laconia near the big catholic cemetery.

Re: Bankishness gone wild ---headline in today’s Salon  “The magnitude of falsity is enormous”: Federal judge rips into banks implicated in 2008 collapse

And on Higher Ed ---  “Academia is the Titanic”: Mark Bauerlein on teaching in the morally-bankrupt grind of the new American university.   

After French group at Foster’s.  Brendan Hart showed up and an old fellow who studied under Madie Barrett, Kate H, the Quebec teacher and Va.  Brendan talked with me a bit before and after.  He’s interning at Snowboarder magazine in CA.  Was Tom ___ his ski teacher?  Tom the redheaded skier who studied writing here.  For a few moments the old teacher-gestalt juices flowed and the pinball bumper lights flashed and I wanted to be back in the teachery mode.   Kate confirmed that all tenured teach 4-4 . . . she then whispered “unless you’re FOJ---a friend of Julie’s.   Ah, ha.  Same old place and its tales. 

note from Dennis
Bob, Thank you for the payment. And the extra. That's very helpful just now. How many quilts have I made for this family? Thankfully the weather is breaking and the heat is fading away. No air conditioning at work today and they refused to open the doors. I hate air conditioning but I hated that dead air worse. Just dreadful. So that wonderful breeze when I walked home proved to be such a tonic.
Watch Grace and Frankie. Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin are delightful together.
Take care.
Love Dennis

--------

We did see the first episode of Grace and Frankie. 

WEds morning  May 13  Peo meeting and day off. 

Drove down across the Mass line, back up west of Manchester through Weare.  Beautiful day. 

Thursday  May 14 

Chilly but gorgeous and breezy day.  Note to Donald been in my head a few days so I’ll try drafting it. 

“ The De Burgo library receives The New Yorker, New York, TLS, The New York Review of Books, and The London Review of Books, among Bob,

Please start writing that godamn novel that I think you may well have in you, if for no other reason than to make me especially envious..  Do not make it too serious.  Parody and satire seem more your style.  A bit  autobiographical (but of course, not too revealing,) and lie through your teeth: (Art is the lie that tells the truth) .  All right, we'll settle for a good New Yorker short story.

I shall comment on the contrast between European and American landscapes at a later date.  One can certainly begin there, superficial ( I mean that literally, not pejoratively) as it might be,  but one may always b egin at the beginning  with what meets the eye and dig deeper.  We are never more European than when we are in America, nor more American than when we are in Europe.  You may or may not include yourself and Virginia in my apercu.  I employ the royal or editorial we.

I must go now.  My martini is calling me.others.

Answered for Dr. Burgo by his private archivist”


Dear Donald
Your astute comments about our novels have been resonating around my inner bell chamber and prompt me to propose a solution to kickstart us both.  The prospect of inciting the other to be especially envious almost gets us to our writing desks, but not quite yet.  Or so it seems in this household.  So, I have come up with an incentive that will make us both position our derrieres and take up our computerized pens once and for all and get with it.  You, too, mon semable, have a novel wishing to come forth as well. 

After speaking with my brother in law M. Uddo in New Orleans, he has contacted his confreres in French law across the pond, and they in turn have privately contacted Jean-Jacques and he has, incredibly enough, agreed to these terms.  Forthwith a Competition and a Prize.  One of us Will Complete his Novel. 

Who on earth was it who ever said each person has at least one novel within them?  Found this but not the anwer to the question. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/28/opinion/think-you-have-a-book-in-you-think-again.html

The Competition: Who finishes his novel first, wins the prize.  Start date will be September 8, Feast of Our Lady’s.  Completion date open.  Definition of “novel”, a loosely or tightly linked set of characters and tales at least 20,000 words long.  Quality is of no concern. 

The Prize:  Jean-Jacques will give the winner one of his residences and a bank account in France sufficient to maintain the property until the death of the new owner. 

If this doesn’t get your skinny butt seated for a minimum of two hours a day spinning your tales and yarns into a simulacrum of a novel, then what will?  Do not make it too serious.  Parody and satire seem more your style.  A bit  autobiographical (but of course, not too revealing,) and lie through your teeth: (Art is the lie that tells the truth).

My novel, by contrast, might be a bit more moody, serious and fake serious, waffling and uncertain, satiric and reliable, not phony but not kitschy either, wandering around all over the newly avaliable literary apps and robotic programs for writing such castles in the air.  Or skinny new york skyscrapers. 

There.  We must chat on the eve of Sept 8th.  Jean-Jacques and Basile Uddo and the team of lawyers on both sides have made the appointments for a conference call on that date.  May the best bullshitter win!  The loser, of course, has the right of house-guest first on the list, three months of the year. 

-----------

tues night  May 19

wow, been a long time.  No reply from Donald, must be visiting.  Great birthday yesterday for Willow.  Lunch at Consuelo’s and walking in the mall and gouté at Crosby’s in Nashua (old style bakery).  Three videos from the kids. 

No pool and missing it.  Kathie tomorrow and day off.  Where to ? 

Alan Mann and his cabinet guy Warren showed up a minute or two before 5pm.  Measured and went over details.  Also the Azure glass tile showed up few days before from Chicago.  Ball is rolling.  We both feel much better with Alan than with the Lowe’s committee.  Glad Va came around on that.  Mortgage guy even answered the phone today and we got some things done on that. 

Weds
day off
even The Kloons just posted a video about their day off adventures--he/she got his hair cut & she/he decided it looked good after being at first a bit pissed

Indian meal in Salem.  Not much to Salem except what seems to be the original strip drive from Mass up into tax-free NH.   Chocolate at the Dancing Lion. 

post on Facebook today  May 22

Stereoscopic Summer Reading project:  20th C History by two different writers.

John Lukacs: A Short History of the Twentieth Century, 2013.
Geoffrey Blainey: A Short History of the 20th Century, 2005.

Lukacs born 1924, Hungary, American since 1950?+/-.  I took his history classes my first and second years at LaSalle University. He has published over thirty books.  I was born in 1944.

Blainey born 1930.  Australia.  Know nothing about his work.  Published over thirty-five books.  Distinguished says Wiki. 

Lukacs' book is 212 pages, no notes.  Blainey's 329 + 27 pages of notes.
I've read about ten of Lukacs' books, maybe more, but not all. 

Saturday night May 23

No Outlander tonight.  Memorial day holiday weekend.  We emptied the cabinets above the pantries and the refrigerator.  I took a nap.  Chatted with Jeff N about the bike trails he loves to ride in the woods and how well they’ve been developed over the past twenty years.  Big fat-tire bike.  Also about the kitchen remodel.  Later, after dinner, I was looking up apartment rentals in Paris.  Nothing popped up on Cambronne.  Looked for Miollis and some did.  Just found “our” place on ParisAttitude---listed as “Ecole Militaire” 65sqm  Ref 10554 2397 euros a month!  Did we pay that? 


Monday night May 25  Phone chat with Donald while we walked in the Tilton Wally’s late this afternoon.  He says he has no novel within, is too left brain, I have much more right brain at work (and by implication could write a novel).  Rue Forche ? is the private street in the 9th where J-Jacques has the apartment (in addition to the other two there).  He also owns one or two or three other houses given to him or left to him by Patrick.  He hasn’t spoken with him since December.  That surprises me but then don’t we all get to the place of talking with each friend about once a year?  Bruce is taking him to NY in July, he’ll visit Suzanne on Long Island and stay with the guy who arrives today for a visit there in SL.  Phone chat with Anne yesterday.  Kevin is bringing his black girl friend to Hickory for the next family get together.  Chris will report all to Anne.  Jennifer bringing her boyfriend, lawyer from Pennsacola, trial lawyer.  Max Taylor Milner graduated from Bard.  Rick is feeling his exhaustion again---so much for the surgery helping him with this problem.  Roy was down again to visit and hang out. 

Tuesday
The hospital staff in Athens is calling Bob “Sponge” after Sponge Bob Square Pants. 

We will discharge your wife in two days and fly you both back home.  A doctor will be on the plane with you.  You can choose which hospital you want to send her to in your region.  Perhaps Dartmouth Hitchcock or UMass General or another hospital in Boston.  She will be there for two or three more weeks and then after that she will go to a residence program in physical therapy for three or four months.  The young doctor spoke to me from behind his desk, which was on a raised dias in his large office in the Hôpital Lariboisier, Paris.  Virginia had experienced her first seizure a week ago.  Who on earth was going to pay for all of this?  Boggle! What alien worlds we lived in.  Well, I said, marveling to myself at how good his English was and wondering how I would frame my dismay.  We want to complete our visit to Paris for another week and then after that we go to Spain for two weeks where Virginia is due to give a graduate seminar at the University of Santiago Compostela.  The doctor looked at his desk for a while and then he said quietly.  As to the payments, I don’t know.  I’m sure your arrangements will be able to cover them.  And, pause, while Spain has made great progress in many areas over the past few years, I would not, pause, go there for any medical treatment.  It was my turn to sit silently for a while, my mind spinning in pretty much total disbelief.  I needed to call my son and his wife and have them come back with me the next day and speak French and explain things as we saw them and as we saw what he proposed as entirely impossible.  Not to say off the mark about Virginia’s actual state of health at the moment, which was fully recovered I thought from the seizure.  She was bored and anxious to get back to our beautiful rented apartment at the foot of Montmartre, with views up to Sacre Coeur and from the other side out over the whole of the city. 

Tuesday afternoon  May 26  Super hot and humid now.  Slept late, until 7:30 but still just took a nap.  Took Zyrtec last night.  Did it help my hand, the squito sting?  Hard to say.  Paula came today.  Unusual for a Tuesday.  She broke her arm about two weeks ago.  In a small splint now.  What to do with a day off tomorrow?  Super hot, up to 91. 

Prompted to write the above by Nancy’s posts about their adventures in the hospital in Athens. 

day off Wednesday  Udupi restaurant in Nashua next to Costo.  Felt family-run, pleasant feel, little grocery next door.  Back-lot little mall of shops directly across from Barmarkian’s and the big mall.  Then the car wash, the “new” starbucks, reading Knausgaard, barnes&noble and home. 

May 29  So far it is Sleep-In Friday  8:45 and Willow snoozing.  I just finished shower.  Gorgeous out and cooler after the thunderstorms.
Grass peeking up through the straw too all over the lawn.  Maybe I don’t have to water any more?  This feels like it should be Memorial Day weekend.  Years past it was. 


Sunday May 31

In Bookforum an excellent review by Prudence Peiffer of a biography of Agnes Martin. Discussing Martin’s love life she notes two relationships with women, perhaps others.  “Martin denied being a lesbian, though.  She was an isolationist, refusing to be attached to anyone or any cause; sometimes she even refused a signifying pronoun altogether, referring to individual women with the distant “they.” 

Reading in Calasso about tedium and boredom in Baudelaire, Chopin and Delacroix.  That was Madame Azur.  Next chapter has the marvelous title “The Dream of the Brothel-Museum.” Wow, the 19th Century was awesome.

Last night we were turned-off and maybe even embarassed by the sadistic sexual violence of the finale of Outlander on Starz.  Male rape scene played as strongly as ever seen on tv before.  Just read a piece in Variety about it and even the showrunner said he had to stop when they were doing the editing and cutting.  The author was there and involved, she insisted the confession scene be kept.  Variety for May 30.  I guess I’ll fall back on my Deleuze essay once more:  sadists speak to sadists, need each other, and masochists masochists and never the twain shall meet.   This Outlander show has all the either-or’s and sadistic slants that, ultimately, always drive me crazy.  So does “Grace and Frankie” which was completed afterwards.  Not so funny and somewhat irritating, especially Waterhouse’s character’s responses to the fact that Frankie and Sol sleep together one more time.  That doesn’t seem nearly that terrible as so many other tales about newly divorced people testify.  The question about Outlander is why Galbaldon made the rape such a strong item in the story---but perhaps it is essential and even brilliant within the parameters of the woman’s romance genre.  Just looked up Ron Moore and he seems to have long list of credentials on Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica etc etc--macho-geeky sci-fi guy.  Was he right for this production? 

Jennifer Bertrand on her blog complained about how the whole book trivializes rape.  Commenter Kiko Lohr
December 21, 2014 at 11:02 pm

Yep. This sums up my take on the story as well. I haven’t even finished it, but the continual presence of rape as a plot device and as titillation is making me extremely uncomfortable, and I came online to read some reviews and see if it gets better. I’m glad I came to this page, because I would have been very upset if I’d read further. Thank you.

Like
Reply   

    Jennifer Bertrand
    December 21, 2014 at 11:24 pm

    I completely understand and I’m glad the article helped. I did the same as you, except after finishing the novel, and was surprised by how many reviews gloss over this content.

-------------

Galbaldon herself is a scientist, biologist, by training.  So I guess doing romance fiction for sci-geeks is what gives her the license to use rape as cheap plot device and titillating emotional power machinery. 

really rainy day today.  Steady, cool.  Seasonal at last.  Feels sort of good.  Willow burrowed in to working on a paper on V-I and pilgrimage. 

Galbaldon is Catholic, Va says.  So there’s all the sadistic crucifixion imagery.  Plus I think she’s got some Mexican/Hispanic thread in there too. 

Monday  first day of June.  I was going to have a project of loading all the journal months onto the other Chromenos blogger site for posterity.  Haven’t done that yet.  Might get to it my birthday month, eh. ?