Spare | Prince Harry

"I read the article several times.  Despite the somber subtext-- something's very wrong with Prince Harry -- I marveled at its tone: larky.  My existence was just fun and games to these people.  I wasn't a human being to them.  I wasn't a fourteen-year-old boy hanging on by his fingernails.  I was a cartoon character, a glove puppet to be manipulated and mocked for fun.  So what if their fun made my already difficult days more difficult, made me a laughingstock before my schoolmates, not to mention the wider world?  So what if they were torturing a child?  All was justified because I was royal, and in their minds royal was synonymous with non-person.  Centuries ago royal men and women were considered divine; now they were insects.  What fun, to pluck their wings." (46)

"I'd often catch Teej looking in my direction, sizing me up, a curious smile on her face-- as though I were something wild that had unexpectedly wandered into their camp.  But instead of shooing me, or using me, as many would've done, she reached out and . . . petted me.  Decades of observing wildlife had given her a feel for wildness, a reverence for it as a virtue and even a basic right.  She and Mike were the first people ever to cherish whatever wildness was still inside me, whatever hadn't been lost to grief-- and paps.  They were outraged that others wanted to eliminate this last bit, that others were keen to put me into a cage." (96)

"I was also Widow Six Seven. I'd had plenty of nicknames in my life, but this was the first nickname that felt more like an alias.  I could really and truly hide behind it.  For the first time I was just a name, a random name, and a random number.  No title. And no bodyguard.  Is this what other people feel like every day? I savored the normality, wallowed in it, and also considered how far I'd journeyed to find it.  Central Afghanistan, the dead of winter,  the middle of the night, the midst of a war, while speaking to a man fifteen thousand feet above my head-- how abnormal is your life if that's the first place you ever feel normal?" (139)

"There was an energy about her, a wild joy and playfulness.  There was something in the way she smiled, the way she interacted with Violet, the way she gazed into the camera.  Confident. Free. She believed life was one grand adventure.  I could see that.  What a privilege it would be, I thought, to join her on that journey." (268)

"My emotions are complicated on this subject, naturally, but my bottomline position isn't. I'll forever support my Queen, my Commander in Chief, my Granny.  Even after she's gone.  My problem has never been with the monarchy, nor the concept of monarchy.  It's been with the press and the sick relationship that's evolved between it and the Palace.  I love my Mother Country, and I love my family, and I always will.  I just wish, at the second-darkest moment of my life, they'd both been there for me.
And I believe they'll look back one day and wish they had too."
(386)

___

"Above all my deepest and adoringest thanks to Archie and Lili, for letting Papa go off to read and think and reflect, to my mother-in-law (a.k.a. Grandma), and to my incredible wife, for too many millions of gifts and sacrifices, great and small, to ever enumerate.  Love of my life, thank you, thank you, thank you.  This book would've been impossible (logistically, physically, emotionally, spiritually) without you.  Most things would be impossible without you." (410)

A Thousand Ships | Natalie Haynes

 "War is not a sport, to be decided in a quick bout on a strip of contested land.  It is a web which stretches out to the furthest parts of the world, drawing everyone into itself." (109)

"There are so many ways of telling a war: the entire conflict can be encapsulated in just one incident.  One man's anger at the behavior of another, say.  A whole war -- all ten years of it -- might be distilled into that.  But this is the women's war, just as much as it is the men's, and the poet will look upon their pain -- the pain of the women who have always been relegated to the edges of the story, victims of men, survivors of men, slaves of men-- and he will tell it, or he will tell nothing at all.  They have waited long enough for their turn." (176)

"I want to reach down and stroke his hair, and tell hi everything will be alright.  But it wouldn't be true.  Who could say that, about a war?" (267)

"A war does not ignore half the people whose lives it touches. So why do we?" (unknown)

***

2/5 

I couldn't find five in this one. If you do read it, I hear the audiobook is lovely. I didn't really love this one, but it's my first introduction to Greek Mythology since 7th grade.  I was impressed by Ms. Haynes organization and portrayal of each of the women, though. 

Everything Sad is Untrue | Daniel Nayeri

"The quick version of this story is useless. Let's agree to have a complicated conversation. If you give me your attention-- I know it's valuable-- I promise I won't waste it with some 'poor me' tale of immigrant woe. 
I don't want your pity. 

If we can just rise to the challenge of communication-- here in the parlor of your mind-- we can maybe reach across time and space and every ordinary thing to see so deep into the heart of each other that you might agree that I am like you.  

I am ugly and I speak funny. I am poor.  My clothes are used and my food smells bad.  I pick my nose.  I don't know the jokes and stories you like, or the rules to the games.  I don't know what anybody wants from me.

But like you, I was made carefully, by a God who loved what He saw.

Like you, I want a friend." (15-16)

"This is a memory that has no sound, but probably it should have my Baba's laugh, which was such a rich and resonant chortle that it fills rooms of my memory that he was not even in." (31)

"Memories are tricky things.

They can fade or fester.

You have to seal them up tight like pickles and keep out impurities like how hurt you feel when you open them.  Or they'll ferment and poison your brain." (92)

"At church potlucks they play a secret game of dumping random cans of food in casserole dishes and pretending their grandmothers gave them the recipe.  Jell-O is their favorite. Campbell's mushroom Jell-O goes on everything. So does Veveeta, which is a cheese Jell-O that only sort of hardens." (96)

"There is an American filmmaker named Orson Welles who said, 'If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story." And Doctor Hamond (Pastor, not a doctor) says, 'It'll be alright in the end, folks. If it's not alright, then it's not the end,' which means Doctor Hamond thinks the world is going to end at his birthday party." (105)

"Does writing poetry make you brave? It is a good question to ask. I think making anything is a brave thing to do.  Not like fighting brave, obviously.  But a kind that looks at a horrible situation and doesn't crumble.

Making anything assumes there's a world worth making it for.  That you'll have someplace, like a clown's pants, to hide it when people come to take it away.

I guess I'm saying making something is a hopeful thing to do.

And being hopeful in a world of pain is either brave or crazy." (121-122)

"It's always the same story but it happens a thousand different ways." (137)

"A patchwork memory is the shame of a refugee." (185)

"The legend of my mom is that she can't be stopped.  Now when you hit her.  Not when a whole country full of goons puts her in a cage.  Not even if you make her poor and try to kill her slowly in the little-by-little poison of sadness.  

And the legend is true.

I think because she fixed her eyes on something beyond the rivers of blood, to a beautiful place on the other side. 

How else would anybody do it?" (214)

"Reading is the act of listening and speaking at the same time, with someone you've never met, but love.  Even if you hate them, it's a loving thing to do.

You speak someone else's words to yourself, and hear them for the first time." (333)

***

Daniel Nayeri, you have written a book that sears to the very soul, that made me cry, laugh, and love you just as you invited me to do. I am in awe that this entire book is as welcoming and hospitable as if you had invited me into your home, as if your heart were an Iranian home itself, one which allowed me to come in and sit on your beautiful Persian rug and eat all of the best food. The entire book is an offering like that, of welcoming, warmth, and hope. And it's absolutely beautiful. Thank you for sharing and having the courage to bring the light of words to your experiences and memories. 5/5!

How High We Go in the Dark | Sequoia Nagamatsu

“In suffering, he said, we found our heart. In suffering, we found new traditions, a way forward.” (269)

"The very nature of my existence.. that I can help others in need, demands that I reinvent myself, though I still dream of my children." (281)

“I think it would be strange at this juncture for writers and readers to completely ignore what we’re going through, and I think more people are ready to articulate how we’ve already changed individually and as a society. What do we want to reclaim of a pre-COVID life? What do we never want to go back to? And perhaps most importantly, how can being pulled out of our old life give us an opportunity to reimagine a better future? … a novel like How High We Go in the Dark can be a part of those reflections.” (292)

“You told me sometimes people and places serve a purpose for a finite amount of time to help you think and grow and love and then you move on.” (248)

“Maybe this [letter] will be lost in a stack of your unopened mail; maybe you’ll read it and throw it away, saying it’s too late. Or maybe you’ll peek out your window and wonder about coming over and saying, Hey, me too. I’m hollow and cracked and imploding. All I do know is this: I will continue to wake up and tell my family I love them, something I never did enough when they were alive. I will go grocery shopping at midnight. I will tell strangers online that I’m sorry for their loss, and I will eventually wash the bedsheets and their clothes and be okay with a quiet home. Maybe, with help, I will wave at you when you cross the street. I will begin setting the table for one.” (218)

"By early 2020, as the COVID-19 crisis unfolded, I had been revising my novel with my agent for three-plus years, and we were preparing for submission. I had never been prouder of anything and feared my life’s work would be roundly rejected by editors. Would people still want to read a story about a plague? I’ve since come to realize that How High We Go in the Dark isn’t really about a virus at all; it’s about memory and love and resilience. It’s a book that reaches for a beating heart somewhere deep in the cosmos. And because of the ride in hate crimes and racism incidents targeting Asians amid the pandemic, I found it urgent to share stories of Asians and Asian Americans who aren’t the enemy or 'the other' but family, friends, and lovers who are just holding on like everybody else. 

Writing this novel changed me, and I hope that reading it might help inspire you (in some small way) to discover new paths for thinking about who we are, who we might be, and how we can better reach out for each other in the dark." (292)

****

4/5 I loved this book! I don't usually read science fiction, so I'm glad I have friends who help me branch out. The stories were so beautifully inter-connected. And the end just tied it all together that I still can't stop thinking about it.  I am so in agreement with the author that it is good to remember what we've changed and evolved to in our suffering, the power of love, and the resilience of the human spirit. 

The House on the Cerulean Sea | TJ Klune

 

"He couldn't believe it was only Wednesday.  And it was made worse when he realized it was actually Tuesday." (18)

"It's not fair," Linus said, staring off into nothing.  "The way some people can be.  But as long as you remember to be just and kind like I know you are, what those people think won't matter in the long run. Hate is loud, but I think you'll learn it's because it's only a few people shouting, desperate to be heard. You might not ever be able to change their minds, but so long as you remember you're not alone, you will overcome." (275-276).

"The little girl.  She wasn't scared of me.  She was nice.  She didn't care what I looked like.  That means she can make up her own mind.  Maybe that woman will tell her I'm bad.  And maybe she'll believe it.  Or maybe she won't believe it at all.  Arthur told me that in order to change the minds of many, you have to first start with the minds of a few.  She's just one person.  But so is the lady."  (268)

"..you can always judge a person by how they treat animals.  If there is cruelty, then that person should be avoided at all costs.  If there is kindness, I like to think it's the mark of a good soul." (209)

"Change always starts with the smallest of whispers.  Like-minded people building it up to a roar." (115)

The Marriage Portrait | Maggie O'Farrell

"In 1560, fifteen-year-old Lucrezia di Cosimo de/Medici left Florence to begin her married life with Alfonso II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara. 
Less than a year later, she would be dead.
The official cause of her death was given as 'putrid fever,' but it was rumoured that she had been murdered by her husband."

"Liquid was her motion, like honey dropping from a spoon. She emerged from the shadow of her cage as if she had the whole stretch of the jungle at her command, the filthy mud floor of florence rolling under her paws. No pussycat, she. She simmered, she crackled, she seethed with fire, her face astonishing in its livid symmetry. Lucrezia had never seen anything so beautiful in her life. The furnace-bright back and sides, the pale underbelly.  The marks on her fur, Lucrezia saw, were not stripes, no-- the word was insufficient for them.  They were a bold, dark lace, to adorn, to conceal; they defined her, they saved her." (36)

"Still clutching each other's hands, Lucrezia and Emilia advance into the room, Emilia holding the candle. The chamber before them is a dark cavern, in any corner of which may be waiting a monster as yet unknown to them.  The trembling circle of waxy light pushes at the blackness. Lucrezia feels, within her, the rise of what she htinks of as her spirit-- the unfettered part of of herself to which no one, not even she, has access.  It lives somewhere deep inside her, under the layers of costly palazzo clothes, mostly hibernating, as if under a covering of leaves, until called into action.  Then it might uncurl, crawl out into the light, blinking, bristling, furling its filthy fists and opening its jagged red mouth.  In this black and unfamiliar room, Lucrezia feels it, senses it stirring, raising its head, and starting to howl.  

She lifts her chin, seizes the candle from Emilia and thrusts it out at arm's length.  She is not afraid, no, she is not.  A beast-- muscled and brave-- lives within her.  She tells herself this over the cantering of her heart.  Let the gouls that hover in the corners of the room see what they are dealing with: she is the fifth child of the ruler of Tuscany; she has touched the fur of a tigress; she has scaled a mountain range to be here. Take that, darkness." (128)

"Lucrezia does what she always does in situations such as this.  She did not grow up with four older siblings, who continually put her down, kept her in her place, excluded, teased and belittled her, and learn nothing. The dynamic he is hoping to create is as familiar to her as the shape of her own fingernails.  She is expert at dodging such invisible blows.  

'How are you, cousin?' She murmurs. She will not raise her voice to him any louder than this; if he wishes to hear her, let him bend down from his saddle.  'I see you have been successful in your hunt.'" (157)

"Her smile and suppressed hilarity have vanished, as if they never existed; there is no danger now that she might laugh.  She stands before her furious husband in the posture of a penitent.  She pictures herself from the outside: a girl with her shoulders slumped, her head lowered, hands upturned.  No one would think she was anything other than apologetic and remorseful, filled with regret for her misdemeanour.  Only she knows that within, just under her chilled skin, something quite other is taking place: flames, vibrant and consoling, lick at her insides, a fire kindles, cracks and smoulders, throwing out smoke that infiltrates every corner of her, every fingernail, every inch of her limbs.  Her hair surrounds her-- all he can see of her is the top of her head.  He must believe she is listening to his lecture, to his chiding, but no.  She is stoking this conflagration, letting it blaze, encouraging it to sear every inside space.  He will never know, will never reach this part of her, no matter how violently he grips her arm or seizes her wrists." (214)

___________

3.5/5 This book is masterfully written.  It was a bit slow which the only reason why I did not give it 5 stars, and yet, I also love that part about it, as it is a reflection of woman's lives in those times, which were oppressive and slow. I love that O'Farrell gives a voice and a fire to this woman, honoring not only her but all of the forgotten women who were "required to do as she has done, to be uprooted from her family and her place of birth and bedded down in another, where she must learn to thrive and reproduce and speak little and do less and stay in her rooms and cut off her hair and avoid excitement and eschew stimulation and submit to whatever nightly carresses come her way." (312) Reading the Author's note was fascinating at the end, and seeing how all the threads of truth from various lives in history were so well weaved into this historical fiction. I love that O'Farrell brings these forgotten human beings to life in such a poetic unraveling.

The Hand That First Held Mine | Maggie O'Farrell

1- Through it, he sees something incredible. .. She looks, Ted sees, like she used to. ..
He loves that look. He's missed it.  It was what made him realise what had to happen, what he must do. After a while, he began to see Elina reminded him of nothing so much as one of those balloons children have -- the bright ones, filled with helium, that bob and tug at the end of their string.  One moment of inattention and off they go, skywards, away, never to be seen again.  He saw that Elina had lived everywhere, all over the world, that she arrived and left and moved on.  That secret thing she had, what she did up there in the attic when no one was looking, with her paints and her turpentine and her canvases -- she only needed that, she didn't lack anything else, any anchor, any gravity.  And he saw that if he didn't take hold of her, if he didn't tether her down, if he didn't bind her to him, she would be off again.  And so he did it.  He laid hold of her and he held on tight, he sometimes pictures this as him tying the string of a balloon to his writs and getting on with his life while it floats there, just above his head. He has been holding on tight ever since.  (130)

2- When she leaves the house on these mornings, she senses a thread that runs between her and her son, and as she walks away through the streets she is aware of it unspooling, bit by bit.  By the end of the day, she feels utterly unravelled, almost mad with desire to be back with him, and she urges the Tube train to rattle faster through the tunnels, to speed over the rails, to get her back to her child as quickly as possible.  It takes her a while, once she's there again with him, to wind herself back to rightness, to get the thread back to where it ought to be-- a length of no more than a couple of feet or so feels best.  (237)

3- The women we become after children

We change shape, we buy low-heeled shoes, we cut off our long hair.  We begin to carry in our bags half-eaten rusks, a small tractor, a shred of beloved fabric, a plastic doll.  We lose muscle tone, sleep, reason, perspective.  Our hearts begin to live outside our bodies.  They breathe, they tat, they crawl and -- look! -- they walk, they begin to speak to us.  We learn that we must sometimes walk an inch at a time, to stop and examine every stick, every stone, every squashed tin along the way. We get used to not getting where we were going.  We learn to darn, perhaps to cook, to patch the knees of dungarees.  We get used to living with a love that suffuses us, suffocates us, blinds us, controls us.  We live.  We contemplate our bodies, our stretched skin, those threads of silver around our brows, our strangely enlarged feet.  We learn to look less in the mirror.  We put our dry-clean-only clothes in the back of the wardrobe.  Eventually, we throw them away.  We school ourselves to stop saying "shit" and "damn" and learn to say 'my goodness' and 'heavens above'.  We give up smoking, we colour our hair, we search the vistas of parks, swimming pools, libraries, cafes for others of our kind.  We know each other by our pushchairs, our sleepless gazes, the beakers we carry.  We learn how to cool a fever, ease a cough, the four indicators of meningitis, that one must sometimes push a swing for two hours.  We buy biscuit cutters, washable paints, aprons, plastic bowls.  We no longer tolerate delayed buses, fighting in the street, smoking in restaurants, sex after midnight, inconsistency, laziness, being cold.  We contemplate younger women as they pass us in the street, with their cigarettes, their makeup, their tight-seamed dresses, their tiny handbags, their smooth, washed hair, and we turn away, we put down our heads, we keep on pushing the pram up the hill.  (241)

4- So here he was, on his hands and knees, saving her studio from being engulfed by the garden.  He wants to give her a surprise. He wants her to be happy. He wants the baby to sleep for more than three hours at a stretch.  He wants to have if not his old life then some kind of life, not this constant lurching from one day to the next.  He wants Elina not to have huge dark circles under here eyes all the time, for her not to have that tense, bitten-lip look she's developed recently.  He wants the house to stop smelling of sh*t.  He wants there to be a time when he washing-machine isn't on.  He wants her to stop getting upset with him when it slips his mind to take the laundry out of the machine, to hang the laundry, to fold the laundry, to buy more nappies, to make the dinner, to clear away the dinner.  (244)

5- The shock of motherhood, for Lexie, is not the sleeplessness, the troughs of exhaustion, the shrinkage of life, how your existence becomes limited to the streets around where you live, but the onslaught of domestic tasks: the washing and the drying.  Performing these makes her almost weep with furious boredom and she more than once hurls an armful of laundry at the wall.  She eyes other mothers on the street and they look so poised, so together, with their handbags hooked over the pram handles and their neatly embroidered sheets tucked in around their babies with hospital corners.  But what about the washing, she wants to say, don't you loath the drying and the folding? (236)

___

3/5 Maggie O'Farrell takes my breath away with her painting of these strong female protagonists.  It is masterful how she weaves the stories of each character together, and her descriptions almost transport you right to the very street or very moment she's describing in such an artful way. This one was a bit of a slower start for me, but I couldn't put it down during the second half of the book. I felt seen in motherhood. I did predict the ending, but it made the unraveling no less fun!