Site Fidelity by Claire Boyles

 

I have been counting lately. It is just that time of life for me. I have written 28 reviews for Colorado Review since 2015. Reading a book for review provides many gifts: it is gives me the opportunity to learn about topics I would often not normally engage, to focus on the author as architect of their vision and how they flesh it out, and myself as a writer, trying to stay open to new visions and styles. It is a real gift. Here is review 29 of Site Fidelity!

The Reviled Tongue: New York English

 

You Talkin' To Me?: The Unruly History of New York English by E.J. White tells the very informative and entertaining tale of how New York English developed.  White explains that with its non-rhotic characteristics (relating to or denoting a dialect of English in which r is pronounced in prevocalic position only, common in eastern New England, New York City, and Britain) New York English went from the prestige American accent, to one of the most reviled, even by New Yorkers themselves.  Confession: I spent years eliminating my metro New York accent.

As this is an American story, the ‘downfall’ of the accent involves class, race, and the marginalization of immigrants, with a heavy does of Antisemitism.  White has written an important book that should be widely read.

Magic 8

 

I'm very happy that Change Seven Magazine has published my story "Magic 8." This is my 25th published story!  When you write, it is difficult to get editors (who have never met you) and judge the work only from the work.  This has always been the case with me; I am not part of any literary scene.  So with every publication of a piece of fiction I feel grateful and surprised.  

You Must Live This

 

Living Realization: A Simple, Plain-English Guide to Non-Duality by Scott Kiloby is indeed in plain English, yet still, the concepts discussed here are difficult to grasp.  That is because so many discussions of how to live within a framework of nonduality move beyond words.  Any words we use are dualistic by design and definition.  So, this book must be read, perhaps re-read, and ultimately, we must find a way to ‘experience’ what it says, or tries to say.  We have to use language to surmount language.

The Cloudy & Impervious

 

The Falcon and the Snowman: A True Story of Friendship and Espionage, by Robert Lindsey, tells the tale of two friends from upper middle class white backgrounds who underachieve, sell and do drugs, and ultimately sell pass secret information to the Soviets for money.  The true life characters here are strange.  This is especially the case with Chris, who seems to have everything, and gets involved in espionage for reasons the author can never fully explain.  He is a mystery, and interesting young man, but there is little that is appealing to him.  Reading this book, we wonder if we should care about these self-centered and opaque people. Why read on?

Supremely Flat

 

Night of the Republic: Poems by Alan Shapiro, have a certain appeal.  The late night occurrences and events in America, in laundromats, supermarkets, motels.  This is a good idea, but I found Shapiro’s language a uninspiring.  The register is not engaging, and the work is flat.  The carry-through of concept to execution is lacking. 

On Networks and Being Alone

 

I was constantly struck while reading Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found by Cheryl Strayed of how much the author would have benefited from a network of friends.  Strayed herself realizes this, and asks why her mother did not have a core group of close female friends who would “swoop” in when she was sick and then dead, offering help, meals, a shoulder? 

Her mother never invested in such connections, but relied on family, which in the case of Cheryl and her mother was completely inadequate.  Strayed’s mother held the family together, and when she died it fell apart.   My wife has such female friends ready to “swoop” in if disaster strikes.  For many of the women I know, these networks are not only social outlets but almost life insurance.  They know if disaster strikes, help will arrive.  Strayed did not have this.  In many ways this thoughtful and well-written memoir is the result of not having such insurance. 

Transfers & Vivid Prose

 

In Forgotten Land: Journeys Among the Ghosts of East Prussia by Max Egremont, the author visits, in a literal and historical sense, the long tongue of land captured by the Teutonic Knights in Slavic lands to the east.  East Prussia was absorbed by other countries after the war, and its German residents killed, sent to Soviet camps, or forced to flee to West or East Germany.

This fascinating work details the history of this complex land, where rulers changed with rapidity, and Slavic and German people rubbed elbows for centuries.  It would all end in the transfer of East Prussians from 1945-1948 – thousands, hundreds of thousands, sent away with very little.  Like the other large population transfers or exchanges in the twentieth century (India and Pakistan) the suffering was immense.

Egremont is fair is his presentation, detailed, and writes in vivid prose.

Remote: Finding Home in the Bitterroots

Remote: Finding Home in the Bitterroots, by DJ Lee, starts with a well-used premise in this kind of memoir: I will explore my family history and physical place in the world, and better understand myself, and ultimately, everything.

Lee takes this route but is very honest about the limitations of this pursuit.  She wants to understand her grandmother's complex life, her mother's emotional detachment, and her own yearnings, all against the backdrop of their family connection to the Bitteroot Mountains.  

She does in fact learn a great deal about the traumas inflicted on women (in the wilderness) that are passed down from mother to daughter.  Grandmother, mother, and author are both uplifted and scarred by life in the Bitteroots.

Ultimately Lee is a sophisticated enough thinker and a skilled enough writer to know that we can never understand a person in total no matter how many journals she reads or trails she hikes.  Mystery remains in the heart of all of us.