Top Ten Tuesday ~ Characters Whose Job I Wish I Had

"Top Ten Tuesday" is an original feature/weekly meme created on the blog "The Broke and the Bookish". This feature was created because they are particularly fond of lists at "The Broke and the Bookish".

It is now hosted by Jana from That Artsy Reader Girl.

Since I am just as fond of them as they are, I jump at the chance to share my lists with them! Have a look at their page, there are lots of other bloggers who share their lists here.

This week's topic is: Characters Whose Job I Wish I Had

(maybe not even because the job sounds fun, but maybe the co-workers are cool or the boss is hot?)

This is a topic quite close to my heart. I would have loved to be a teacher. Unfortunately, my parents didn't have the means to support me and they were too afraid to let me do it on my own since they didn't grow up in academic circles. That's one of the reason why I'm such an advocate for free education, makes it a little more equal and easier for kids growing up in families that can't help them.
However, I have helped out a lot in school when my boys were there and I even "taught" some support classes plus I taught religion at church, so I know a little bit about the job to know that it's not all fun and games.

A lot of the books I read have teachers in them. I have searched for some extraordinary stories surrounding those who chose the profession. Sometimes, they are put in a difficult position (e.g. Lamb, Nafisi, Shriver), sometimes they find great ways to teach their children something spectatular (esp. Rhue). If you are looking for more books with a teacher, go to my "Teacher" link here.

Agnes Grey
Brontë, Anne "Agnes Grey" - 1847
Lucy Snowe
Brontë, Charlotte"Villette" - 1853
Caelum Quirk
Lamb, Wally "The Hour I First Believed" - 2008
Frank McCourt
McCourt, Frank "Teacher Man. A Memoir 1949-1985" - 2005
Azar Nafisi
Nafisi, Azar "Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books" - 2003
Hannah Schneider, Gareth van Meer
Pessl, Marisha "Special Topics in Calamity Physics" - 2006
Ben Ross
Rhue, Morton "The Wave" - 1981
Dana Rocco
Shriver, Lionel "We need to talk about Kevin" - 2003
Viktor Schengeli
Ulitzkaya, Lyudmila "Imago" or "The Big Green Tent" (Russian: Zelenyi shater/Зеленый шатер) - 2010

Clara Callan
Wright, Richard B. "Clara Callan" - 2001

My hero of all these teachers is Ben Ross though some of the others have been pretty great, as well.

Brontë, Anne "Agnes Grey"

Brontë, Anne "Agnes Grey" - 1847

Anne Brontë, the youngest and lesser known of the three Brontë sisters. I have no idea why because her stories are just as great as those of her sisters. If not better. They are more down to earth, in my opinion.

There are some parallels to the story of Jane Eyre who works as a governess just as Agnes Grey does. That is probably because it was what the Brontë sisters experienced themselves. Agnes Grey is partly autobiographical, Anne Brontë added a lot of her own life here.

You can tell Anne is the daughter of a pastor, just as Jane Austen was, another parallel to a great author.

We learn about the hard life of a governess. If parents don't really want to be involved, want to discipline their children but also don't want others to discipline them but want those others to teach their children, you are always the piggy in the middle. How is the poor governess to instill the love of learning in children who are not told to follow the teacher? I know that teachers have a similar problem nowadays with parents who think their kids are little angels and little Einsteins at the same time while at the same time … well, let's not go there.

What a shame she died so young. I loved "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" as much as I loved this novel. Would have been great to be able to read more of her writings.

From the back cover:

"When her family becomes impoverished after a disastrous financial speculation, Agnes Grey determines to find work as a governess in order to contribute to their meagre income and assert her independence. But Agnes's enthusiasm is swiftly extinguished as she struggles first with the unmanageable Bloomfield children and then with the painful disdain of the haughty Murray family; the only kindness she receives comes from Mr Weston, the sober young curate. Drawing on her own experience, Anne Brontë's first novel offers a compelling personal perspective on the desperate position of unmarried, educated women for whom becoming a governess was the only respectable career open in Victorian society."

Wright, Richard B. "Clara Callan" - 2001

Wright, Richard B. "Clara Callan" - 2001

I received this book from a Canadian member of our book club. As everyone knows, my TBR pile is enormous, that's the only reason it took me so long to start this. My friend has passed away shortly afterwards, that is probably the main reason why I didn't tackle it. I am sorry I could never tell her how much I enjoyed the book. Thank you, Mary.

This is the stories of two sisters in the 1930s. One who goes to New York to become a famous radio celebrity and the other one who stays at home to be a teacher. While they have their different opinions about religion, they mostly agree about other subject, especially political matters.

While the story switches between Clara's diary and letter written between her and - mainly - her sister, it meticulously follows the chronological order. I don't mind if a book switches between the times but it is nice to read one that starts at a certain point and then carries on as time goes by.

This is not just a story about two sisters, it's about women in general at the time between the two wars, about the perception people had, about what was "done" and what wasn't? You can't but like both Clara and her sister Nora, they are both amiable people in their own way trying to find their own niche in a world that would rather see women the same as they always were, wives and mothers, housekeepers.

As an avid reader myself, I am always happy to find characters in novels that enjoy reading as much as I do. Clara Callan was such a person. She even read a lot of books that I enjoyed myself. Another reason to like her.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel. And I'm not surprised that the author received three prestigious Canadian book awards for this novel: The Giller Prize, the Trillium Book Award, and the Governor General's Award.

From the back cover:

"It's the late 1930s and two sisters, Clara and Nora Callan, face the future with both hope and uncertainty. Clara, a 30ish schoolteacher who lives in small-town Ontario, longs for love and adventure. Nora, her flighty and very pretty younger sister, escapes to the excitement of New York, where she lands a starring role in a radio soap and becomes a minor celebrity. In a world of Depression and at a time when war clouds are gathering, the sisters struggle within the web of social expectations for young women.

Clara and Nora, sisters so different yet so inextricably linked, face the future in their own ways, discovering the joys of love, the price of infidelity, and the capacity for sorrow lurking beneath the surface of everyday experience. A brilliantly realized, deeply moving novel, Clara Callan is a masterpiece of fiction."

Lamb, Wally "Wishin' and Hopin'"

Lamb, Wally "Wishin' and Hopin': A Christmas Story" - 2009

Another one of my favourite authors, Wally Lamb. I came across this short novel (just a couple of pages too long for a novella) in my library and since I hadn't read it, yet (in fact, I hadn't even heard about it), I borrowed it. And loved it.

Such a cute story about kids growing up, their dilemmas at school and at home, their frustration with other students and their teachers, all bundled into a story about a Christmas play. Not since "The Best Christmas Pageant" by Barbara Robinson have I had such a good laugh about a Christmas story.

I was a kid myself in the sixties, so I can relate to a lot of the parts that might not sound as "normal" to contemporary children. I found it hilarious. I also liked how he gives "biographies" at the end about most of the characters so we can see what happened to them later.

Lovely story. I didn't know they made a movie out of it. This is one of the few books I read where I think I might like to watch the movie.

From the back cover:

"LBJ and Lady Bird are in the White House, Meet the Beatles is on everyone's turntable, and Felix Funicello (distant cousin of the iconic Annette!) is doing his best to navigate fifth grade - easier said than done when scary movies still give you nightmares and you bear a striking resemblance to a certain adorable cartoon boy.

Back in his beloved fictional town of Three Rivers, Connecticut, with a new cast of endearing characters, Wally Lamb takes his readers straight into the halls of St. Aloysius Gonzaga Parochial School - where Mother Filomina's word is law and goody-two-shoes Rosalie Twerski is sure to be minding everyone's business. But grammar and arithmetic move to the back burner this holiday season with the sudden arrivals of substitute teacher Madame Frechette, straight from Québec, and feisty Russian student Zhenya Kabakova. While Felix learns the meaning of French kissing, cultural misunderstanding, and tableaux vivants, Wishin' and Hopin' barrels toward one outrageous Christmas.

From the Funicello family's bus-station lunch counter to the elementary school playground (with an uproarious stop at the Pillsbury Bake-Off), Wishin' and Hopin' is a vivid slice of 1960s life, a wise and witty holiday tale that celebrates where we've been - and how far we've come."

Oates, Joyce Carol "Sexy"

Oates, Joyce Carol "Sexy" - 2005

It's always a pleasure to read another book by Joyce Carol Oates, even though most of them are not happy books about happy people. They are real books about real people.

Like here. It's fascinating how she manages again and again to get into people's brains, how to explain to us how others think, what their ideas are, their conviction. Her grasp of language is just as great as her empathies.

This is a young adult novel but can be enjoyed by adults alike. Actually, I think it should be read by any adults who have a teenager in the house, there is so much to it, so much insight that your own children will not give you. Says the mother of two boys. I know a lot of teenage boys who never talk about anything personal to their own parents and this is depicted so well in this story. The confusion going on in their heads is brought to paper but in a way that we can begin to understand their confusion and how they try to deal with it.

As most of my readers know, JCO is one of my favourite authors and this story, like all her others, is fascinating.

From the back cover:

"North Falls swim team member Darren Flynn is a guy' guy, a jock. He 'shows promise' and has integrity in the classroom - just ask his teachers. He's shy, but sexy. Just ask the girls who are drawn to him like moths to a flame.

Darren Flynn is something different to everyone he encounters, and that’s fine by him. Until something disturbing, something ambiguous happens that rocks Darren to the core, making him wonder: Who is Darren Flynn?"

Webster, Jean "Daddy Longlegs"

Webster, Jean "Daddy Longlegs" - 1912

A favourite classic book for everyone who was lucky enough to read it at the time. I must have read this first in German because I remember reading it at a time where it was impossible to get any books in English - apart from a few classics we had to read in school.

I loved the book from the beginning and have read it again and again. A wonderful story about an orphan who gets the chance to get a higher education because a rich man is willing to pay for it. His only condition is that she writes a letter to him about her life once a month.

And so we are able to read a beautiful epistolary novel with lots of wonderful letters from Judy to her benefactor about the life of an orphan who goes to school and who grows up. She has never seen this man who pays for everything in her life, only has did she see him disappear and noticed he had very long legs, so in want of his real name, she calls him "Daddy Longlegs" henceforth.

A lovely novel for anyone who likes Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Little Women and similar writings. Also a novel for readers from all ages.

Since the book is more than a hundred years old, it is free on Gutenberg.com. It has also been made into many different movies over the time.

From the back cover:

"Daddy-Long-Legs is a 1912 epistolary novel by the American writer Jean Webster. It follows the protagonist, a young girl named Jerusha "Judy" Abbott, through her college years. She writes the letters to her benefactor, a rich man whom she has never seen.

Jerusha Abbott was brought up at the John Grier Home, an old-fashioned orphanage. The children were wholly dependent on charity and had to wear other people's cast-off clothes. Jerusha's unusual first name was selected by the matron off a gravestone (she hates it and uses "Judy" instead), while her surname was selected out of the phone book. At the age of 15, she finished her education and is at loose ends, still working in the dormitories at the institution where she was brought up.

One day, after the asylum's trustees have made their monthly visit, Judy is informed by the asylum's dour matron that one of the trustees has offered to pay her way through college. He has spoken to her former teachers and thinks she has potential to become an excellent writer. He will pay her tuition and also give her a generous monthly allowance. Judy must write him a monthly letter, because he believes that letter-writing is important to the development of a writer. However, she will never know his identity; she must address the letters to Mr. John Smith, and he will never reply."

Ulitzkaya, Lyudmila "Imago" or "The Big Green Tent"

Ulitzkaya, Lyudmila "Imago" or "The Big Green Tent" (Russian: Zelenyi shater/Зеленый шатер) - 2010

I love Russian literature. This is a new, modern author I discovered when I found the book. A brilliant book. The author describes life in the Soviet Union and begins with the death of Stalin and what it meant for the people and how their lives went on after that. I don't think it's a big spoiler if I tell you that it's not getting any better.

We learn about the lives of a group of friends, three boys who have a brilliant literature teacher and how he influences the rest of their lives, how they live or don't live with the inflictions put upon them by the regime of their country. The boys come from very different backgrounds but their lives in the Soviet Union all bring them the same kind of problems. And three girls, as well, their path crosses that of the boys later in life when they are older.

All of them love reading and there are many great books they mention in the novel (list follows at the end). I think most of them are really worth reading.

Whether you like big tomes (almost 600 pages) or short stories, this is a combination of both, although the short stories are linked to each other. A brilliant writer who explains life under the KGB to outsiders, us. A great storyline, carefully described characters, even any smaller character comes to life and brings in their own tragedy.

I am always on the lookout for new writers that I love and here I have found a real gem. A story you can't put down which will stay with you forever. A brilliant fiction book that explains history in a way no non-fiction book is able to.

I read the German translation "Das grüne Zelt" (The Green Tent)

From the back cover:

"The Big Green Tent is the kind of book the term 'Russian novel' was invented for. A sweeping saga, it tells the story of three school friends who meet in Moscow in the 1950s and go on to embody the heroism, folly, compromise, and hope of the Soviet dissident experience. These three boys - an orphaned poet; a gifted, fragile pianist; and a budding photographer with a talent for collecting secrets - struggle to reach adulthood in a society where their heroes have been censored and exiled. Rich with love stories, intrigue, and a cast of dissenters and spies, The Big Green Tent offers a panoramic survey of life after Stalin and a dramatic investigation into the prospects for integrity in a society defined by the KGB. Each of the central characters seeks to transcend an oppressive regime through art, a love of Russian literature, and activism. And each of them ends up face-to-face with a secret police that is highly skilled at fomenting paranoia, division, and self-betrayal. An artist is chased into the woods, where he remains in hiding for four years; a researcher is forced to deem a patient insane, damning him to torture in a psychiatric ward; a man and his wife each become collaborators, without the other knowing. Ludmila Ulitskaya’s big yet intimate novel belongs to the tradition of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Pasternak: a work of politics, love, and belief that is a revelation of life in dark times."

She also mentions so many other books - some of which I've read, others I have put on my wishlist - and authors that are certainly worth looking at:

Aksakow, Sergei Timofejewitsch " Childhood Years of Bagrov Grandson" (Детские годы Багрова-внука/Detskie gody Bagrowa-wnuka)
Arzhak, Nikolay (real name: Yuli Markovich Danie) "Report from Moscow" (Говорит Москва)
Dostoevsky, Fyodor "Crime and Punishment"
Herzen, Alexander
Kropotkin, Pyotr "Memoirs of a Revolutionist" (Записки революционера)
Nabokov, Vladimir (called Sirin in the novel) "Glory" (Podvig)
Pasternak, Boris "Doctor Zhivago"
Tolstoy, Leo "Anna Karenina"
Tolstoy, Leo "Childhood", "Boyhood", and "Youth" (Детство, Отрочество, Юность)
Tolstoy, Leo "War and Peace"
Yerofeyev, Venedikt "Moscow-Petushki" (or Moscow to the End of the Line, Moscow Stations, and Moscow Circles) (Москва - Петушки)
Zamyatin, Yevgeny "We" (Мы/роман)

Orsenna, Erik "Grammar Is a Sweet, Gentle Song"

Orsenna, Erik "Grammar Is a Sweet, Gentle Song" (French: La grammaire est une chanson douce) - 2001

An interesting book. A different book. A grammar book. A story.

An interesting story that explains grammar not only to children but also to learners of the French language. I have no idea how the translation compares because grammar is not the same in every language and especially English misses many of the different kind of tenses the French have, for example.

Still, a beautifully written story about two kids who relearn their own language. Lots of plays with words, lots of background information. I liked this book and would recommend it to anyone interested in languages. A very creative story, written with a lot of imagination. It also has some lovely illustrations.

I read this book in the original French.

From the back cover:

"At the heart of its message is an impassioned plea for the magic and power of words. Jeanne, the tough-minded ten-year-old narrator, and Thomas, fourteen, are traveling to America on an ocean liner to visit their mother when a violent storm sinks their ship and tosses them up on an island. They are unhurt, but the shock of the experience leaves them without the ability to speak. Taken into the care of Monsieur Henri, an elderly islander, Jeanne and Thomas discover that the island is unlike any place they've ever been. There is the Word Market, where Monsieur Henri visits the Poets' and Song-Writers' Corner to see if they have any rhymes for sweet and mom. At town hall, pairs of words are married by the mayor. And Jeanne sneaks off to the Vocabulary of Love Shop, where a woman whose husband has left her wants to buy "a word that will make him understand how hurt I am, a mighty word that will make him ashamed." A celebration of language in all its forms, Grammar Is a Sweet, Gentle Song will delight confirmed word-lovers and inspire the uninitiated with the pleasures of the spoken and written word."

Brontë, Charlotte "Villette"

Brontë, Charlotte "Villette" - 1853

I really loved this novel. As a fan of Jane Austen and someone who read all her novels and pamphlets, I am always on the lookout for more literature like hers. I think the Brontë sisters belong to the next best thing. I had not read "Villette" before and might not have come across it if I hadn't read "Becoming Jane Eyre" by Sheila Kohler)

It might be a little hard if you don't speak French because a lot of the conversations are held in French but there is a translation in the back of the book (at least in my edition but I would hope it's in all of them) and it's totally worth going through it anyway.

The novel is not just about a young girl who lost her family and has to look after herself, not easy at a time where the only decent way for women to keep alive is to get married. But Lucy is not someone who gives up easily, who gives in to her despair. She goes abroad and hopes to find something. And she gets rewarded for her courage. Her life still isn't easy but at least she knows she will not starve. And she finds some wonderful friends who stand by her.

The writing is very well done, the characters described perfectly. Apparently, Charlotte Brontë used a lot of material from her own life, so this can be seen as an autobiographical rendering of her own life in Brussels. This makes the story even more interesting.

There is only one question that gets no answer. Why is Lucy not telling anything about her family, her background? We don't learn anything about her before she turns up and is already in position where she needs to fend for herself.

There is not a lot more I can say about the book without spoiling the story for new readers. If you have read Villette and would like to talk about it, please, let me know.

If you liked "Jane Eyre", you will like this novel, as well. I will certainly read Charlotte Brontë's other novels.

From the back cover:

"Based on Charlotte Brontë's personal experience as a teacher in Brussels, Villette is a moving tale of repressed feelings and subjection to cruel circumstance and position, borne with heroic fortitude.

Rising above the frustrations of confinement within a rigid social order, it is also a story of a woman's right to love and be loved."

Or: "With neither friends nor family, Lucy Snowe sets sail from England to find employment in a girls' boarding school in the small town of Villette.

There she struggles to retain her self-possession in the face of unruly pupils, an initially suspicious headmaster and her own complex feelings, first for the school's English doctor and then for the dictatorial professor Paul Emmanuel. Drawing on her own deeply unhappy experiences as a governess in Brussels, Charlotte Brontë's last and most autobiographical novel is a powerfully moving study of isolation and the pain of unrequited love, narrated by a heroine determined to preserve an independent spirit in the face of adverse circumstances."

Nafisi, Azar "Reading Lolita in Tehran"

Nafisi, Azar "Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books" - 2003 

A beautifully written memoir about a dark time. It is not just a book about different books and a class discussing them, it is a precise account of a country turning from modern times into the past, taking away the human rights of half of their population, something that happens all over this world.

We can learn about Azar Nafisi's life as a professor/teacher before the revolution, her life during the Iran/Iraq war and also about the different cultures of the East and the West.

We also get to know all the students, she introduces them to us, their character and their troubles. I would have like to meet all of them.

I have not read even half of the books she discussed with her students but I can say about those that I have read that she did a great job with her descriptions and the discussions they brought in that country far away both in time and distance from the classic books. I will certainly put quite a few of those listed on my wish list.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"In Iran in the late 90s, Azar Nafisi and seven young women – her former students – gathered at her house every Thursday to discuss forbidden works of Western literature. Shy and uncomfortable at first, they soon began to open up, not only about the novels they were reading but also about their own dreams and disappointments. Their personal stories intertwine with those they are reading – Pride and Prejudice, The Great Gatsby, and Lolita – in this rare glimpse of women's lives in revolutionary Iran. A work of great passion and beauty, it is an uplifting account of quiet resistance in the face of repression."

And here is a list of all the books the author discussed with her students:

al-Radi, Nuha "Baghdad Diaries"
Atwood, Margaret "The Blind Assassin"
Austen, Jane "Emma", "Mansfield Park", "Pride and Prejudice" 
Bellow, Soul "The Dean's December" and "More Die of Heartbreak"
Brontë, Emily "Wuthering Heights"
Carroll, Lewis "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"
Conrad, Joseph "Under Western Eyes"
Fielding, Henry "Shamela" and "Tom Jones"
Fitzgerald, F. Scott "The Great Gatsby" 
Flaubert, Gustave "Madame Bovary"
Frank, Anne "The Diary of Anne Frank" 
James, Henry "The Ambassadors, "Daisy Miller" and "Washington Square
Kafka, Franz "In the Penal Colony" and "The Trial"
Melville, Herman "The Confidence-Man"
Nabokov, Vladimir "Lolita", "Invitation to a Beheading" and "Pnin" 
Orne Jewett, Sarah "The Country of the Pointed Firs"
Pezeshkzad, Iraj "My Uncle Napoleon"
Ravitch, Diane "The Language Police"
Salamon, Julie "The Net of Dreams"
Satrapi, Marjae "Persepolis"
Scheherazade "A Thousand and One Nights"
Sebald, W.G. "The Emigrants"
Shields, Carol "The Stone Diaries"
Skvorecky, Josef "The Engineer of Human Souls"
Spark, Muriel "Loitering with Intent" and "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie"
Svevo, Italo "Confessions"
Taylor, Katherine Kressman "Address Unknown"
Taylor, Peter "A Summons to Memphis"
Twain, Mark "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"
Tyler, Anne "Back When We Were Grownups" and "St. Maybe"
Vargas Llosa, Mario "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter" 

Joyce, James "Ulysses"

Joyce, James "Ulysses" - 1922 

I loved the writing but the story was quite overwhelming despite reading "The Odyssey" first which everyone recommends and I would, too. Having a lot of explanations helped but if you generally don't like classics very much, I wouldn't start with this one.

Still, this is the most difficult book I have ever read. It is hard to follow the stream of consciousness, actually it is hard to follow the stream at all. A lot of books are easier once you get into them, not this one. I had the feeling with every chapter it got more confusing.

As in "Odyssey" we have three parts: The Telemachiad, The Odyssey and The Nostos (Coming Home). In the Telemachiad, you can still follow the teacher Stephen Dedalus in his classroom and understand what he is trying to teach. Then all, of a sudden, the story changes and you encounter the protagonist of the story, Leopold Bloom. We are supposed to follow him around for the day. And follow we do but we don't always have an idea where this is guiding us. Starting at the breakfast table, we attend a funeral, go to a restaurant and end up in the middle of a play.

The best example why we need punctuation is the last paragraph where Bloom's wife Molly tells us her thoughts about her life in general and her marriage to Leopold in particular. Over forty pages and no punctuation. At all. No comma. No full stop. No paragraph.  You can't even take a break.

However, the longer I distance myself from this novel, the more it makes sense and the bigger an impact does it have on me. I am glad I read it.

If you still are in doubt, consider this quote by William Faulkner:
"You should approach Joyce's Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith."

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.
 
From the back cover:

"For Joyce, literature 'is the eternal affirmation of the spirit of man'. Written between 1914 and 1921, Ulysses has survived bowdlerization, legal action and bitter controversy. An undisputed modernist classic, its ceaseless verbal inventiveness and astonishing wide-ranging allusions confirms its standing as an imperishable monument to the human condition. Declan Kiberd says in his introduction that Ulysses is 'an endlessly open book of utopian epiphanies. It holds a mirror up to the colonial capital that was Dublin on 16 June 1904, but it also offers redemptive glimpses of a future world which might be made over in terms of those utopian moments.'"

Shriver, Lionel "We need to talk about Kevin"

Shriver, Lionel "We need to talk about Kevin" - 2003

What is going through the mind of a mass murderer? What is going through the mind of his mother? This book is trying to answer that question.

Eva is writing letters. Letters trying to explain to her husband how she never got close to their son. An interesting approach to the problem.

Being the mother of two sons myself, it was very hard for me to read this book and, yet, I couldn't put it down. Personally, I never met a child like that. I can hardly believe they exist. And, if he was really, how come she didn't get any help at all, nobody noticed that she couldn't do it on her own?

The marriage between the two seemed doomed from the beginning. And we all know that it is the worst idea to have a child in such a circumstance. A child, any child, will change the life of their parents, and they need to stick together in order to get through this. Even an uncomplicated child has sleepless nights, even the slowest child will try to "train" their parents and if they don't have a common rule, the child notices that straight away and will play the two against each other.

I don't think it's Eva's fault that her son turned out the way he turned out. I also don't think it's the father's fault but if he had been a little more understanding, things might have gone a different way. Of course, he probably sees it completely different and we would learn more if he had been able to tell his part of the story, as well.

Anyway, Lionel Shriver managed to get under the skin of both the mother and the son. I can't believe she has no children of her own, she described everything so well.

Even though the book itself was a shocker already, the end is even more shocking. I won't spoil it here for anyone who hasn't read the book, yet, but I did not think this was going to happen. And, yet, despite everything that has happened, it is very hopeful that Eva visits Kevin in prison and even wants him to come back to her after he has done his sentence.

Definitely a book everyone should read.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"The gripping international bestseller about motherhood gone awry 

Eva never really wanted to be a mother - and certainly not the mother of the unlovable boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a much-adored teacher who tried to befriend him, all two days before his sixteenth birthday. Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with marriage, career, family, parenthood, and Kevin’s horrific rampage in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklin. Uneasy with the sacrifices and social demotion of motherhood from the start, Eva fears that her alarming dislike for her own son may be responsible for driving him so nihilistically off the rails."

McCourt, Frank "Teacher Man"

McCourt, Frank "Teacher Man. A Memoir 1949-1985" - 2005

Frank McCourt's third (and last) account of his interesting life. This time, he is telling us about his thirty years as a high school teacher in New York. He taught in poor and rich areas, he's seen it all. He tells us about some special students and his everyday life trying to teach them to learn English well and to learn enough about themselves to go out into this world.

I believe Frank McCourt must have been a great teacher. He tried a lot of different approaches, he didn't play the games the students try to play with all of their teachers, he saw through them but he also let them see through him. That is the part I admire the most, he opened himself up to the students, he wasn't just the guy who came in to ask questions, he was also the guy who told them about his childhood, his struggles to get where he was. He gave them hope that they could achieve their dreams one day, no matter where they came from.

After "Angela's Ashes" and "'Tis", you just have to read this one, it makes a complete life.

From the back cover:

"A third memoir from the author of the huge international bestsellers Angela’s Ashes and ‘Tis. In Teacher Man, Frank McCourt details his illustrious, amusing, and sometimes rather bumpy long years as an English teacher in the public high schools of New York City…

Frank McCourt arrived in New York as a young, impoverished and idealistic Irish boy – but one who crucially had an American passport, having been born in Brooklyn. He didn't know what he wanted except to stop being hungry and to better himself. On the subway he watched students carrying books. He saw how they read and underlined and wrote things in the margin and he liked the look of this very much. He joined the New York Public Library and every night when he came back from his hotel work he would sit up reading the great novels.

Building his confidence and his determination, he talked his way into NYU and gained a literature degree and so began a teaching career that was to last 30 years, working in New York's public high schools. Frank estimates that he probably taught 12,000 children during this time and it is on this relationship between teacher and student that he reflects in ‘Teacher Man’, the third in his series of memoirs.

The New York high school is a restless, noisy and unpredictable place and Frank believes that it was his attempts to control and cajole these thousands of children into learning and achieving something for themselves that turned him into a writer. At least once a day someone would put up their hand and shout 'Mr. McCourt, Mr. McCourt, tell us about Ireland, tell us about how poor you were …' Through sharing his own life with these kids he learnt the power of narrative storytelling, and out of the invaluable experience of holding 12,000 people's attention came ‘Angela's Ashes’.

Frank McCourt was a legend in such schools as Stuyvesant High School - long before he became the figure he is now he would receive letters from former students telling him how much his teaching influenced and inspired them – and now in ‘Teacher Man’ he shares his reminiscences of those 30 years and reveals how they led to his own success with ‘Angela's Ashes’ and ‘'Tis’."

Brijs, Stefan "The Angel Maker"

Brijs, Stefan "The Angel Maker" (Dutch/Flemish: De engelenmaker) - 2005

A story about a doctor who clones lives a very private life with his children in a remote village in the German speaking part of Belgium. As the story unfolds, we get to know his secret.

We had chosen the book because there are only a few Dutch books translated into English. We had different feelings about the story. It was gripping, a thriller, thought-provoking.

We learned about Asperger syndrome, autism and how inmates of asylums used to be treated. And about cloning.

It was interesting to see the contrast between modern science and narrow-mindedness. The book was easy to read but had so many layers. There was a lot of symbolism, the trinity appeared again and again.

The author did a great research, a lot of information and facts seemed correct.

Some really enjoyed the book, others found it disturbing and depressing, even horrific, disgusting, took some of us way past our comfort zone. It is very gothic-like.

The small town mentality was disturbing. We found that they are the same everywhere.

There was nobody in the whole novel we could relate to, even the children were portrayed so inhuman, we could only feel empathy for the school teacher.

We like to say that "science is value free", that there can be no limits, it's discovery for the sake of discovery. What do we do with the discoveries, someone will use it who doesn't have the inhibitions. The quote "Medicine has allowed us to die more slowly." was mentioned.

You know from the first sentence, this is not going to end well. He leaves a lot of questions open.

I didn't care much for the title, in German, an angel maker is someone who performs an unsafe illegal abortion, However, as a subject, this was just as bad. I hadn't looked forward to the book and didn't care for it much. I also didn't like the (original) cover picture or the one of the artist. The former reminded me of a fried egg gone bad, the latter made me think the author was writing about himself.

Still, we had a very interesting discussion about a sensitive subject.

We discussed this in our international book club in November 2012.

From the back cover:

"A literary page-turner about one man’s macabre ambition to create life - and secure immortality

The village of Wolfheim is a quiet little place until the geneticist Dr. Victor Hoppe returns after an absence of nearly twenty years. The doctor brings with him his infant children - three identical boys all sharing a disturbing disfigurement. He keeps them hidden away until Charlotte, the woman who is hired to care for them, begins to suspect that the triplets - and the good doctor - aren’t quite what they seem. As the villagers become increasingly suspicious, the story of Dr. Hoppe’s past begins to unfold, and the shocking secrets that he has been keeping are revealed. A chilling story that explores the ethical limits of science and religion, The Angel Maker is a haunting tale in the tradition of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Frankenstein. Brought to life by internationally bestselling author Stefan Brijs, this eerie tale promises to get under readers’ skin."

Haruf, Kent "Plainsong"

Haruf, Kent "Plainsong" - 1999

The story of a father raising his teenager sons alone in a small town. Another farm is run by two unmarried brothers. And then there's a pregnant teenage girl. That's the set-up for this story that has been written in a wonderful way, the author manages to tell it as if it had happened to his own family, in his own community. Quite an emotional story with a lot of details. I really liked it.

There is a sequel, "Eventide", which is on my wishlist.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"A heartstrong story of family and romance, tribulation and tenacity, set on the High Plains east of Denver.

In the small town of Holt, Colorado, a high school teacher is confronted with raising his two boys alone after their mother retreats first to the bedroom, then altogether. A teenage girl—her father long since disappeared, her mother unwilling to have her in the house—is pregnant, alone herself, with nowhere to go. And out in the country, two brothers, elderly bachelors, work the family homestead, the only world they've ever known.

From these unsettled lives emerges a vision of life, and of the town and landscape that bind them together - their fates somehow overcoming the powerful circumstances of place and station, their confusion, curiosity, dignity and humor intact and resonant. As the milieu widens to embrace fully four generations, Kent Haruf displays an emotional and aesthetic authority to rival the past masters of a classic American tradition.

Utterly true to the rhythms and patterns of life, Plainsong is a novel to care about, believe in, and learn from."

Pessl, Marisha "Special Topics in Calamity Physics"

Pessl, Marisha "Special Topics in Calamity Physics" - 2006

A modern book about teenagers. Granted, not the usual ones but there is a lot of usual stuff going on, the problems of growing up, of being in between childhood and adulthood, of not belonging anywhere, of trying to find a place in this world.

The teenager Blue moves constantly with her father, a college teacher, she finds a group of friends and a teacher who really cares about her. But somehow things still go wrong. A gripping tale about an extraordinary girl.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"Special Topics in Calamity Physics is a darkly hilarious coming-of-age novel and a richly plotted suspense tale told through the distinctive voice of its heroine, Blue van Meer. After a childhood moving from one academic outpost to another with her father (a man prone to aphorisms and meteoric affairs), Blue is clever, deadpan, and possessed of a vast lexicon of literary, political, philosophical, and scientific knowledge - and is quite the cineaste to boot. In her final year of high school at the elite (and unusual) St. Gallway School in Stockton, North Carolina, Blue falls in with a charismatic group of friends and their captivating teacher, Hannah Schneider. But when the drowning of one of Hannah's friends and the shocking death of Hannah herself lead to a confluence of mysteries, Blue is left to make sense of it all with only her gimlet-eyed instincts and cultural references to guide - or misguide - her."

McCourt, Frank "'Tis: A Memoir"

McCourt, Frank "'Tis: A Memoir" - 1999

What happens after "Angela's Ashes"? Frank McCourt leaves Ireland and goes back to the States. We all know that he became a teacher and then wrote his book but haven't heard anything from the time in between.

This can be learned in Frank McCourt's second book, just as well written as the first one, also not always a happy time, after all, he is a poor immigrant with no education. And the road to a successful life is strewn with a lot of stones, stumble stones as well as stepping stones. That the author ends up successfully, is due more to some guardian angels as to his own good choice of the right kind of stones. But he is always confident, and I think that made him the man he was in the end.

I liked this book just as much as his first one and his third one "Teacher Man".

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"Frank McCourt continues his life story in the brilliant, bestselling sequel to the million-selling 'Angela's Ashes' .

'Angela's Ashes' was a publishing phenomenon. Frank McCourt's critically-acclaimed, lyrical memoir of his Limerick childhood won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics' Circle Award, the Royal Society of Literature Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award amongst others, and rapidly became a word-of-mouth bestseller topping all charts worldwide for over two years. It left readers and critics alike eager to hear more about Frank McCourt's incredible, poignant life. ''Tis' is the story of Frank's American journey from impoverished immigrant with rotten teeth, infected eyes and no formal education to brilliant raconteur and schoolteacher. Saved first by a straying priest, then by the Democratic party, then by the United States Army, then by New York University – which admitted him on a trial basis though he had no high school diploma – Frank had the same vulnerable but invincible spirit at nineteen that he had at eight and still has today. And ''Tis' is a tale of survival as vivid, harrowing, and hilarious as Angela's Ashes. Yet again, it is through the power of storytelling that Frank finds a life for himself. 'It is only the best storyteller who can so beguile his readers that he leaves them wanting more when he’s done. McCourt proves himself one of the very best' (Newsweek). 'With ‘'Tis', McCourt blesses his readers with another chapter of his story, but as it closes, they will want still more."

Jelinek, Elfriede "The Piano Teacher"

Jelinek, Elfriede "The Piano Teacher" (German: Die Klavierspielerin) - 1988

Elfriede Jelinek received the Nobel Prize for her "musical flow of voices .... "Granted, her language is extraordinary, I loved the way she describes thoughts, actions, objects.

This is a novel about a musician, her mother, her love life. The main subject of the novel is definitely the mother-daughter relationship. I only read afterwards that the novel has a very autobiographic background. I try to read as little about the background of a piece as possible, as often they give away the end and the whole joy of reading the book personally. I think this was good in this case.

I could have strangled the mother, for example, how you can imprison a child in your life, unbelievable. I didn't care much for the sexual desires of the piano player, her voyeuristic and masochistic escapades which turned the book into a bad pornographic piece, at least that's what I imagine bad pornographic pieces to be like, don't have a lot of experience with that kind of literature.

I love reading Nobel prize winners' novels, they usually are chosen for a good reason. Most of them, I couldn't wait to read the next piece. Will I want to read another book by Elfriede Jelinek? Probably not.

And don't forget, I read the original, no translator messed up my perception.

From the back cover:

"Erika Kohut teaches piano at the Vienna Conservatory by day. But by night she trawls the porn shows of Vienna while her mother, whom she loves and hates in equal measure, waits up for her.

Into this emotional pressure-cooker bounds music student and ladies' man, Walter Klemmer. With Walter as her student, Erika spirals out of control, consumed by the ecstasy of self-destruction.

First published in 1983, The Piano Teacher is the masterpiece of Elfriede Jelinek, Austria's most famous writer. Now a feature film directed by Michael Haneke, The Piano Teacher won three major prizes at the Cannes 2001 Festival including best actor for Benoit Magimel and best actress for Isabelle Huppert."

Elfriede Jelinek received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2004 "for her musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power".

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.

Hamilton, Jane "A Map of the World"

Hamilton, Jane "A Map of the World" - 1994

"Happiness is an Illusion, Pain is Reality" - Alice Goodwin, the main character of this novel, receives this as her fortune cookie when visiting a Chinese restaurant with her husband. She doesn't think this sounds like a reality but is reminded of it shortly afterwards when her life changes so much, nothing will ever be the same again.

This story has so many themes, it is gripping from the first page, gets more and more interesting, you feel for every single person. A very sad story, a tragic story, one about loss and betrayal, death, desperation, parenthood, partnership, marriage, endless, endless topics wrapped into one big story, told in a fascinating way.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"One unremarkable June morning, Alice Goodwin is, as usual, trying to keep in check both her temper and her tendency to blame herself for her family's shortcomings. When the Goodwins took over the last dairy farm in the small Midwestern town of Prairie Center, they envisioned their home a self-made paradise. But these days, as Alice is all too aware, her elder daughter Emma is prone to inexplicable fits of rage, her husband Howard distrusts her maternal competence, and Prairie Center's tight-knit suburban community shows no signs of warming to 'those hippies who think they can run a farm.'

A loner by nature, Alice is torn between a yearning for solitude coupled with a deep need to be at the center of a perfect family. On this particular day, Emma has started the morning with a violent tantrum, her little sister Claire is eating pennies, and it is Alice's turn to watch her neighbor's two small girls as well as her own. She absentmindedly steals a minute alone that quickly becomes ten: time enough for a devastating accident to occur. Her neighbor's daughter Lizzy drowns in the farm's pond, and Alice - whose own volatility and unmasked directness keep her on the outskirts of acceptance - becomes the perfect scapegoat. At the same time, a seemingly trivial incident from Alice's past resurfaces and takes on gigantic proportions, leading the Goodwins far from Lizzy's death into a maze of guilt and doubt culminating in a harrowing court trial and the family's shattering downfall."

I definitely want to read Laura Hamilton's second book "The Book of Ruth", don't know why it took me so long to read this one.

Rowlatt, Bee & Witwit, May "Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad"

Rowlatt, Bee & Witwit, May "Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad. The True Story of an Unlikely Friendship" - 2010

Two very different women form a friendship via e-mail, a young British journalist, mother of three little girls and a middle-aged Iraqi woman who is desperately trying to leave her country during the war.

Our book club thought that both title and the cover picture were misleading, we had expected something different. They didn't talk about Jane Austen much and we imagined May, the woman from Iraq, very different than the lady in the cover. Bee, the British woman, was hard to warm up to, we felt a disconnection between her and May to whom she talked like to a child. Everything seemed to be a lot about appearance, Bee wasn't realistic, it seemed a like a game to her. We felt she only got the book deal because of May who is a much better writer. The second half was definitely better when she seemed to realize a little more what this was all about. We were glad that May was able to get out.

On the other hand, you also have to admire Bee's action. Eve though there's really nothing remarkable about her, she used her connections to make a huge difference in someone's life, for their benefit. She could have just been sympathetic and gone on with all her work, charity meetings, etc. and never really given May's situation more thought. Do hungry people get fed from rhetoric?

We talked about asylum seekers, how being in an endless situation can lead to depression.

We asked ourselves whether Bee redeemed herself by writing about her personal problems. We also wondered whether May and Ali are still together as we couldn't see Ali coping with life in Britain. Another subject that came up was the war and why are we there and why not.

We also talked about democracy and whether you can really bring it to a country. I found a few good links with democracy quotes, if you'd like to check them out, there are hundreds on each one of them: The Quote Garden and Better World Quotes.

My favourite: "You cannot bring democracy to a country by attacking it." ~ Akbar Ganji. Although, I also really love the one my son told me when he saw me looking for them: "Fighting for peace is like screaming for silence!" (N.N.)

We discussed this in our book club in September 2011.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"A London mum and Iraqi teacher should have nothing in common. Yet now, despite their differences, they're the firmest of friends . . . Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad by Bee Rowlatt and May Witwit is a touching and poignant portrait of an unlikely friendship.

Would you brave gun-toting militias for a cut and blow dry?

May's a tough-talking, hard-smoking, lecturer in English. She's also an Iraqi from a Sunni-Shi'ite background living in Baghdad, dodging bullets before breakfast, bargaining for high heels in bombed-out bazaars and battling through blockades to reach her class of Jane Austen-studying girls. Bee, on the other hand, is a London mum of three, busy fighting off PTA meetings and chicken pox, dealing with dead cats and generally juggling work and family while squabbling with her globe-trotting husband over the socks he leaves lying around the house.

They should have nothing in common.

But when a simple email brings them together, they discover a friendship that overcomes all their differences of culture, religion and age. Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad is the story of two women who share laughter and tears, and swap their confidences, dreams and fears. And, between the grenades, the gossip, the jokes and the secrets, they also hatch an ingenious plan to help May escape the bombings of Baghdad . . .

Bee Rowlatt is a former show-girl turned BBC World Service journalist. A mother of three and would-be do-gooder, she can find keeping her career going while caring for her three daughters (and husband) pretty tough, even in leafy North London.

May Witwit is an Iraqi expert in Chaucer and sender of emails depicting kittens in fancy dress. She is prepared to face every hazard imaginable to make that all-important hairdresser's appointment."