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© 2022 mae sander

 

Reading John Cheever Too Late

"Her unhappiness at that moment ... was more than the unhappiness of leaving a place that seemed familiar for one that seemed strange; it was the pain of leaving the place where her accent and her looks, her worn suit and her diamond rings could still command a trace of respect; it was the pain of parting from one class and going into another, and it was doubly painful because it was a parting that would never be completed." (The Stories of John Cheever, p. 230)

"He was followed by the grand piano, the poodles, the Book-of-the-Month Club membership, and the crusty Irish maid." (p. 224). 

"She was always talking about money. It was worse than eating your peas off a knife." (p. 786) 

Class is everything in the stories I've been reading: finally, I'm getting around to reading John Cheever (1912-1982). I might have liked his writing at some time in the past, but I don't particularly like it now. His characters are amazingly vivid, but I find them predictable as well, with their concentration on upscale New York. If there's a lower-class person, he probably works as an elevator operator or a doorman in a fancy apartment building, and defines himself in relation to the rich old ladies and aspiring youngish men who ride his elevator or have him call their taxis. If there's a woman, she usually defines herself by the men she loves, especially by her husband and his aspirations, or maybe by her kids. Women in the stories who express dissatisfaction with their lives are described with condescension and disdain. 

Why did I buy the prize-winning collection of more than 60 Cheever stories (over 800 pages)? I admit it was because it was on amazon's list of VERY CHEAP books: $2.99 and no doubt cheap because it wasn't selling. Usually when I go for one of these sale books, I'm glad I did, but this time I'm not sure. How many not-very-happy but very smug couples living in elegant (but maybe declining) circumstances with a maid who lives in the basement or over the garage, old silver, ancestors, and lots of pretensions do I need to know about? Not very many. How many people for whom “the shimmer and the smell, the peculiar force of money, the promise of it, had an untoward influence on their lives.” (p. 140) How many dilemmas that are never quite resolved because they never can be, so how many stories that seem unfinished? 

Some of the stories are exceptions, For example, there are one are two somewhat paranormal stories, like  "The Enormous Radio" (p. 49) where a woman's radio broadcasts from her neighbors' apartments so she knows about marital quarrels, wife beatings, and other elements of desperation. Or the more famous one called "The Swimmer." But these have the same characters; that is, privileged Easterners who wish they were richer or happier or would prefer to live in Westchester.

Cheever at the New Yorker

Critics seem to agree that Cheever's work exemplifies -- and in fact created -- "the New Yorker story." That meant a lot in the mid-20th century. Now I feel this genre is very dated. The New Yorker could be incredibly snobby! I have admired this style for ages, but reading Cheever makes me reconsider my admiration for what's really a technical skill. Depth? Not really.

“It was ... in the fifties that ‘the New Yorker story’ emerged, quite suddenly, as a distinct literary genus. What made a story New Yorker was its carefully wrought, many-comma’d prose; its long passages of physical description, the precision and the sobriety of which created a kind of negative emotional space, a suggestion of feeling without the naming of it; its well-educated white characters, who could be found experiencing the melancholies of affluence, the doldrums of suburban marriage, or the thrill or the desolation of adultery; and, above all, its signature style of ending, which was either elegantly oblique or frustratingly coy, depending on your taste. Outside the offices of The New Yorker, its fiction editors were rumored to routinely delete the final paragraph of any story accepted for publication.” (Jonathan Franzen, "The Birth of 'The New Yorker Story," The New Yorker, October 27, 2015)

May 25, 1935. The New Yorker publishes its first John Cheever story:
"Brooklyn Rooming House."

I know that old New England Money and Protestant upbringings weren't the only thing in the New Yorker: they also published I.B.Singer's stories of the Jews of Poland before the war and in New York, the adolescent angst of J.D.Salinger, Philip Roth's stories, and many works by people of other ethnicities. But somehow Cheever defined the style, and described an ideal New York of rich sophisticates and slightly nonconformist immigrants from lesser states (say, Ohio or Illinois). 

Maybe a definition of the Cheever New York is illustrated by one character's thoughts:  “the shared apartment in the Village, the illicit relationship, the Friday-night train to a country house—was what he had imagined life in New York to be, and he was intensely happy.” (p. 122) Or by the beginning of "The Swimmer," one of his most famous stories: "It was one of those midsummer Sundays when everyone sits around saying, 'I drank too much last night.'" (p. 776). 

Cheever's Protestants seem more dated and now stereotyped even than Roth's Jews. To me. Now. They are exactly the people that I DIDN’T want to be like when I grew up, whenever that was. I still don’t want to be like that if I ever do grow up. I find them annoying or boring or entitled or snobbish or grasping. Sometimes all of those. The husbands work in New York offices and join their wives in rural vacation homes each weekend of summer. Whole families drink much too much (boringly, there's an alcoholic or two in almost every story). Cheever creates men with frustrated ambitions, wives who love jewelry and want fur coats, children who are in danger from their parents’ excesses, successful single women who hook up with losers. Cheever could get you into these people's heads, but is that where you want to be? 

November 27, 1943. This issue contained Cheever's story
"Dear Lord We Thank Thee for Thy Bounty."
The cover is by artist Helen E. Hokinson.

Cheever Was Famous and Admired

March 27, 1964: Cheever on the cover of Time, when being on the cover of Time meant a lot.

Out of the huge number of stories in the volume I bought, I read around half of them. That’s enough Cheever for now. This blog post © 2022 by mae sander, with the cover images from the book and magazines.

A New-Old Mystery Novel from Japan

"Let it be a lesson to us all that even good intentions can lead to great tragedy if not executed with the utmost care."  -- Seishu Yokomizo, The Inugami Curse p. 10.

 

Seishi Yokomizo (1902–81), author of The Inugami Curse, was a famous and much-loved Japanese mystery writer, according to the biography accompanying the recently re-published novel. 

What I find highly interesting about the novel is its setting in a small rural city in Japan immediately following World War II. Two central characters are just-returning soldiers who were part of the Japanese troops in Burma, and who suffered greatly. They are shocked to find new attitudes of defeat and conciliation instead of the spirit that prevailed before: "pride and sense of responsibility had supposedly been ingrained in all Japanese people before the war." (p. 313).  I've read very little about this era, which must be very uncomfortable to remember. Interestingly, while the effects of bombardments and destruction of the war are mentioned, there is no reference whatsoever to American occupiers.

The plot  of The Inugami Curse is very involved, with an unusually large number of characters, both victims and suspects, as well as a quirky detective brought in before even the first murder occurs. Private Detective Kosuke Kindaichi is baffled by the events throughout most of the novel, but works it all out in the end. The ten members of the Inugami family — along with a few individuals from connected families — are mourning the family founder, a rich industrialist who made a fortune in silk manufacturing. The elderly Inugami leaves a puzzling and contentious will to dispose of his large industrial holdings to his very complicated family, including three daughters each by a different mistress. 

The will gives every one of them a motive to do away with at least some of their close relatives. Wow! Let the killing begin, and so it does, with plenty of suspense and torment.

An Inugami Dog Spirit (Wikipedia)

Many very Japanese details make The Inugami Curse fun to read. For example, three symbols: an ax, a chrysanthemum, and a koto (Japanese zither) represent the family and its founder's identity and become important clues in the murders. Kabuki and Noh dramas are often mentioned. And the name Inugami itself means a type of supernatural dog in Japanese folklore, suggesting the mysterious origins of the founder, who started life as a wandering orphan. This meaning looms over the increasingly accursed family. 

Beautiful descriptions of the landscape and the weather contrast with the constant sense of foreboding and the grizzly details of the murder victims; for example:

"The autumn had grown deep in this mountainous region, and a pleasant breeze swept shimmering over the azure-green surface of the lake. It was high noon, and across the way, the autumn sun glittered on the stained glass windows of the Inugamis’ European-style villa. Everything was peaceful, a moment caught in a painted landscape. Yet, as he gazed at the enormous building on the lake, Kindaichi could not help but feel a chill run up his spine." (p. 48). 

The Japanese mystery novel traditions in the twentieth century owe much to the classic traditions of English mystery stories, including those that take place in lavish country houses similar to the one in this novel. Seishi Yokomizo was one of the founders of this tradition. I was a bit surprised that one feature of British novels -- the use of food and meals as a way to advance the story and characters -- was missing here. The members of the family never eat a meal together: they are too hostile to one another. And the detective isn't big on meals either. There are only brief mentions like these, showing the indifference of the detective to food (not at all like Poirot!) --

"A car from the Inugami estate arrived not long after Furudate’s phone call, so Kindaichi wolfed down his bowl of rice and hurried outside." (p. 96).

"'Chief Tachibana, Mr. Furudate, Mr. Kindaichi, I have some food prepared for you in another room, so please help yourselves.' ... Guided by the maid, the three men retreated to another room. They had just finished eating when two detectives, soaked to the skin, came bustling in. They were two of the men who had gone to find the missing boat." (p. 122). 

The Inugami Curse, also called The Inugami Clan, was  originally published serially in Japan in around 1950, published in book form in 1972, and translated into English in 2007 or maybe earlier. It's also been made into a film (IMDB link), and Detective Kosuke Kindaichi -- who appears in many other novels by Seishi Yokomizo -- has been in a variety of TV shows in Japan. For a detailed book review see this post at Pretty Sinister Books: https://prettysinister.blogspot.com/2011/11/inugami-clan-seishi-yokomizo.html 

Getting our Cooking Groove Back

Cooking Less Meat Again

After three weeks of travel, and not cooking much, I have been back home for a week. Truthfully, for the last few days on the road, I was eating quite a bit of real junk food, including several McDonald's hamburgers. So it feels good to get back to my ongoing experiments cooking with less meat -- or no meat.

Jamaican Curried Tofu

Tofu is really an unfamiliar food for me, and it's taken quite a few experiments to find ways that we might enjoy it. My approach is to view it as a food in itself, not as an imitation of meat, because it's nothing like meat. This week, I tried a recipe for a Jamaican curry using tofu, and it was not bad at all. I was inspired by a blog called From the Comfort of My Bowl, written by Jhanelle Golding, a native of Jamaica who now lives in the US. I was inspired by a recipe called Vegan Jamaican Curry Tofu (Traditional Recipe!) 

The ingredient prep -- I didn't use the Scotch Bonnet pepper, which would have
been true Jamaican, because it would be too hot for us.

I added a few snow peas to the original recipe.

The final dish: tofu, vegetables, and brown rice. Quite enjoyable!

Mushroom Pancakes, Broccolini, and Gochujang Sauce

What's new here is a box of gochujang paste that I found in the supermarket Asian section. I was inspired by several recipes for a gochujang dipping sauce, as well as for some recipes for Korean pancakes. Since I was using up sourdough discard for the batter, I prepared  my normal savory pancake recipe and added lots of green onion and a few mushroom slices for each pancake. I stir-fried broccolini as the vegetable for dipping -- and we also dipped the pancakes. And I improvised a cucumber salad.

Ingredients for dipping sauce:

2 tablespoons gochujang Korean red chili pepper paste

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

1 tablespoon agave nectar

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1/2 teaspoon sesame seeds

Vegetables: broccolini, chopped green onions, mushrooms.

Mushroom pancakes, stir-fried broccolini, gochujang sauce, and cucumber salad.

Spaghetti Squash with Lemon-Olive Sauce

I don't remember ever cooking spaghetti squash before. Several food writers mentioned that this vegetable may look like spaghetti, but the texture and the taste are not in fact like pasta. I was warned! So I tried to find a recipe that would highlight the squashiness. My source recipe was from Food and Wine Magazine. Using an immersion blender, I emulsified lemon juice, oil, lemon zest, chopped green olives, and scallions, as the recipe suggested. I added some parsley as well. In addition to the garnishes of toasted almonds and feta cheese, I used some sunflower seeds (for part of the almonds) and additional lemon zest and parsley. We enjoyed the resulting dish.

The sauce, the nuts and seeds, the lemon zest and parsley, and the feta cheese.

Spaghetti squash roasting in the oven. The recipe says to boil the squash.
I think boiling squash halves sounds dangerous -- and not as tasty.

Squash: just out of the oven and spooned out of the skin.

The finished dish with a glass of white wine to share with the bloggers at Elizabeth’s weekly blog get together.

Mother's Day by Len: Tortilla Española

I'm not the only cook in the house! For Mother's Day, Len made me a Spanish potato omelet: Tortilla Española. He found a recipe that used lots of onions and lots of olive oil, so it was really delicious.

He flipped the tortilla and slid it back in the pan,
just as it should be done.

Of course we had some wine with the tortilla.

blog post © 2022 mae sander

 

Happy Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day. Thinking of the mothers in my family.

Six generations of women:

My Great-Grandmother, in a painting by my mother.
She's mending a stocking. (Date: late 1920s)

My Grandmother. (Date: around 1940)

My Mother in 1927, from a party to celebrate her high school graduation.
The little plane celebrates the biggest event of that year: Lindbergh’s flight.

.

A newspaper photo of me (right) and my daughter at an
event about Women’s Rights in the early 1970s.
Totally relevant, alas, because the rights we were fighting for  
back then are now being taken away once again
by evil judges who were illegitimately installed in office.

2022: My Granddaughters on one of their last days of college for the year.
My thoughts are for their future. Happy Mother's Day!

Blog post © 2022 mae sander.

Into the Woods

 

As we were walking out of the woods an angry Canada Goose swooped down near us. We tried to discourage it, but eventually it actually swooped right into me! It’s feathers were a bit wet. A strange sensation. Unfortunately no photos. We think it was making a nest very near the path in the Botanical Garden.

Blog post and all photos © 2022 mae sander.

"Birds: Spiritual Messengers of the Skies"

"Birds are cherished among many cultures worldwide. The presence and well-being of birds reflects the health of the environment; they share every ecosystem with us, playing the role of hunter and prey, pollinators, scavengers, and dispersers of seeds. Feeding the spirit, they signify strength, courage and freedom. As our companions—birds inspire us to think beyond our own confinement and limitations. With some 10,000 species of birds in the world, they are among the best adapted animals on Earth, dating back to the time of the dinosaurs."

(source: New Mexico Audubon Society) 

Birds are beautiful, and I love to see them in the woods and fields where they live. Our trip west during most of last month mainly was a birding trip, though we always try to add in some art. Our trip to the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe was a double bonus because the Center for New Mexico Archaeology, which is part of the museum, featured the role of birds in native art and culture. The two photos above show some of the bird pottery that was in this very enlightening exhibit.

"This yearlong exhibit, 'Birds: Spiritual Messengers of the Skies' discusses the importance of birds to Native American culture both in the past and present, including the importance of birds as a resource for tools, feathers and food. The study of birds in archaeology is also included in this exhibit." (source: New Mexico Audubon Society) 

I was fascinated by many of the facts presented in the exhibition, which had many examples of historic art works that included bird imagery. Real birds such as ducks, hummingbirds, owls, and songbirds are depicted in both prehistoric and contemporary pottery designs, as well as legendary birds like the thunderbird. I learned that the tribes of the region, prior to European contact, kept two domesticated birds: turkeys, which were native to most of Central and North America, and macaws, which were native to areas much further south, but were traded among all the tribes of the region. I think the second image above shows two macaws.

While we were in Santa Fe, we visited our favorite Indian art store, Andrea Fisher Fine Pottery. I found many bird-themed pots on the Andrea Fisher website, and on other commercial websites selling Indian pottery. Other Indian art forms, such as jewelry and weavings, also depict birds, but I've selected some images that show specific birds that we also enjoyed seeing during our birding expeditions.

A roadrunner on a pot by Seferina Bell of the Zia Pueblo.

Maybe an Eagle by Glendora Daubs of the Jemez Pueblo (1983).

An owl family by Loren Wallowing Bull of the Jemez Pueblo (2022).

Three quail by Carolyn Concho of Acoma Pueblo (2022)

A turkey by Sofia Medina and Lois Medina, Zia Pueblo (2022).

From the 1980s: a hummingbird by Dolorita Pino of the Zia Pueblo (source).

Potters at the Zia Pueblo produced bird-themed jars as early as 1820.
This one is from around 1870. (source)

Thunderbird pot, artist not named, Hopi Pueblo.

The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Santa Fe. (source)

Blog post © 2022 mae sander, 

images as credited.

Home Again!

We are back home in Ann Arbor after our 3-week road trip. I’m happy with these little
storytellers that I bought at our favorite Indian Art store in Santa Fe.
The artist is Mary Lucero from the Jemez Pueblo.

New magnets for the fridge!

Blossoming season is getting started here.

Our at-home breakfast drinks: coffee and juice, shared with Elizabeth’s blog party.

 Photos © 2022 mae sander.

End of the Road

Just in time for the end of our trip west: a google doodle celebrating Route 66. 

April 30, 1926, was the date when "US 66" was proposed as the ID for the developing route from Chicago to Los Angeles. "The iconic highway," says Google, was "known for its retro diners, quirky motels, eclectic art installations and extraordinary landscapes." 

Google says: "Today's video—set to the classic music track 'Route 66' by Bobby Troup—celebrates the cultural significance of one of America’s first national highways, and how it became a symbol of a changing nation."

This week we drove along the New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Missouri parts of the route. Of course we took the wide and speedy modern Interstates that replaced old Route 66 by the mid-1980s. On previous trips west, we've driven virtually the entire route of the old "Mother Highway." 

The old Chain of Rocks bridge near St. Louis, replaced in 1970 by the more modern bridge that we 
crossed when driving on Highway 270 into Illinois. (Image: Wikipedia)

Saturday morning, we drove from St. Louis across the Mississippi River at a location called "Chain of Rocks," which was in fact on the original Route 66, and which I remember well from my childhood in St. Louis. Although the quirky diners and motels are pretty much a thing of the past, the landscapes are just as extraordinary as ever!