Quiet Desperation

I'm struggling a bit to recall how I found out about Dorothy Edwards.  Most likely it was through an Amazon recommendation, though I don't think I have been browsing anything lately that would have triggered this.  At any rate, I was surprised at the parallels between her and Katherine Mansfield (connections to the Bloomsbury group and dying much too young), though I suspect Virginia would have seen Mansfield as much more of a true rival.  Indeed, the way that Edwards sort of fell out with the group, and with David Garnett in particular, led to her suicide in 1934.  She had published Rhapsody, a collection of short stories, and Winter Sonata, a novel about a young man who struggles with his feelings towards a beautiful young woman in the village where he lives.  It's not really giving that much away to say there is not a happy ending in sight in the novel.  (I haven't read through the short stories yet.)

I don't remember all the details of Carr's A Month in the Country.  I vaguely remember the plot running on similar lines but being very different tonally.  Nonetheless, given that A Month in the Country is quite short, I think I will slip it into my list of very short books I am reading on the side.

For that matter, I have only read long chunks of Walden, but not the whole thing.  (This links back to the title of the post: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”)  Perhaps in the late summer and autumn, I will finally tackle reading all of Walden.  The edition I have also has some excerpts from The Maine Woods and Cape Cod, and I'll probably read those as well.  I actually have the full texts in a LOA volume of Thoreau's writings, but honestly, I think that will have to wait for some other year.

For the book club at work, we are reading one of my suggestions - Tim O'Brien's America Fantastica, which is a darkly comic road trip through Trump's America.  (This is set during the first Trump term and has quite a lot to say about greed and corruption.)

I'm kind of reskimming it now, though I don't know if I will definitely get through the whole thing.  I may need to borrow a copy from the library if that is possible.  (After checking, this definitely doesn't appear to be a problem...)  Here is a good summary though it and the interview with O'Brien have some significant spoilers, which I am trying to avoid.  At the time, I saw lots of parallels with Rushdie's Quichotte, and those are definitely still there.  But the slightly manic road tripping (with a spunky female sidekick) also recalls Tibor Fischer's The Thought Gang.  I'm trying hard not to endlessly reread books I've already read (though sometimes I do read them faster the second time around), but I remember really enjoying The Thought Gang, and I probably ought to read it again one of these days.

I did just reread Gide's The Vatican Cellars.  While it was fine, I didn't think it was quite as amusing this time around.  The criminal gang was sufficiently interesting, but Lafcadio is a bit of a drag, and I couldn't really get behind his motiveless crime this time around.  But it does set me up to read a couple of short Gide novels this year.

Anyway, to round out books that I might reread in the next couple of years.  I am definitely considering Murdoch's Under the Net, even though I don't know where my copy is.  I did plan on reading other Murdoch, though it might not be until 2026, so there isn't a huge hurry.  It looks like I read it for the first time in 2014.

I don't think I am going to reread Hoban's Turtle Diary in 2025, though there is a chance I might tackle it in 2026.  I read this back in 2019.  I don't have any specific novels I would pair it with, though it does make me think of del Toro's The Shape of Water.

On top of my work book club, I just found out that The Fox seems to be partnering with Great Escape Books (over on Kingston) to do a book club meeting on Kobo Abe's The Woman in the Dunes on May 9 with the actual film screening the following week at the Fox.  This is awfully tempting, but I am not sure I will be able to fit it in.

Just to recap, I have about 100 pages to go in Winter Sonata, and I should wrap this up tomorrow (or rather the next day I take transit).  I have two more chapters (roughly 150 pages left) in Soseki's I am a Cat (which honestly I am not enjoying all that much).  I'll probably go ahead and intersperse I am a Cat with Dawn Powell's Sunday, Monday and Always and Joy Williams's State of Grace as I wrap this up.  After that, I probably need to switch exclusively to O'Brien's America Fantastica, and then decide if I am going to read Abe's The Woman in the Dunes.  I think after this it is The Leopard and some other short story collections and maybe A Month in the Country.

Speaking of quiet desperation, I think I'll put in another hour or so on the ground work to do my US taxes and then go to bed.  Unfortunately, because of a pension distribution (a long story), I likely will owe US taxes, or at least I might before I claim the foreign tax credit, but I need to have the Canadian taxes completely done before I know what that credit would be worth.  It's definitely annoying.  I was on track to have the US taxes done in time, but think it would be a real push to have the Canadian taxes also done by the 15th.  I mean Musk is destroying the IRS, and Trump imagines replacing taxes with tariffs, but neither of these (quite horrible) events will happen in time to prevent me from needing to file my own taxes.  Sigh...
 

Edit: I just found out I don't even have a copy of The Woman in the Dunes.  I was sure I did, but instead I have The Ruined Map (which is probably the book I remembered wanting to read) and The Ark Sakura.  Weird.  (Maybe I do have a copy in storage in the basement, but I suspect not.)  TPL has this as an e-book, but only one reference copy.  Fortunately, there are a few copies kicking around at Robarts if I decide to tackle this after all.