Skipping Christmas by John Grisham

This is the first novel  I have read from John Grisham and it is one of  his books which tackles a different genre and not his usual legal thriller. Having around 200 pages in medium format  it is soft, entertaining and easy to read especially for a day when you have nothing to do. The title "Skipping Christmas" discloses that the novel has to be some kind of Christmas story. And indeed it is a funny one. Luther and Nora a middle-aged american couple decides that they do not want to celebrate this Christmas also because their daughter Blair have left for South America to teach the indigenous children of Peru. And of course Luther intends to avoid the usual Christmas time spendings: no party, no Christmas tree, no more any useless gifts, no more donations, no shopping, no more any needed house decorating. Luther as an accountant used to crunching numbers estimates that he will  spare 6000 of dollars. First he plays with the thought of spending time on the sunny Carribean shores but in the end  he chooses  a Carribean cruise for the hollidays. His wife is not so entusiast about it but she gives in.
The neighborhood does not undertand and does not accept the out of ordinary decision. They mock Luther and Nora labeling the couple stingy failing to comprehend how can somebody give up Christmas. This book is also a  good example on what happens when someone gives up the herd mentality. I stop here with the depicting and if you are interested check out the novel. Skipping Christmas at Amazon. Because I have read the novel in Hungarian I included the cover of the Hungarian edition titled Elmaradt Karácsony. I still have to mention that in 2003 the book was made into a movie titled Christmas with the Kranks, you can watch online the whole movie  at youtube. I have not seen the movie so I can't comment how good or bad it is.

Ambrose Bierce Short stories

Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1914) is one of the important writers of the american literature. The main theme of his short stories  is death with the exception of only two. His stories suprise you with unexpected endings and depict supernatural topics, human weaknesses, wickedness, cruelty, fear, insanity, crime, misfortunes, civil war. Even the fate of Ambrose Bierce baffles you: he disapeared in the revolutionary Mexico of Pancho Villa. I recommend you to read Man and the snake, An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge, One Summer Night, Oil of Dog , Baptism of Dobsho and the Failure of Hope and Wandel which text is included below the trailer videos of Civil War Stories movie. The Complete Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce at Amazon.

PS – @ Erik: Tried adding this comment to your blog but for some reason it won’t let me :-( Have you come across Ambrose Bierce’s DEVIL’S DICTIONARY?
Mary Murphy http://www.stolenchild66.wordpress.com

"Yes, Devil’s Dictionary is in the public domain
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/972"

THE FAILURE OF HOPE AND WANDEL

by Ambrose Bierce

From Mr. Jabez Hope, in Chicago, to Mr. Pike Wandel, of New Orleans, December 2, 1877.

I will not bore you, my dear fellow, with a narrative of my journey from New Orleans to this polar region. It is cold in Chicago, believe me, and the Southron who comes here, as I did, without a relay of noses and ears will have reason to regret his mistaken economy in arranging his outfit.

To business. Lake Michigan is frozen stiff. Fancy, O child of a torrid clime, a sheet of anybody's ice, three hundred miles long, forty broad, and six feet thick! It sounds like a lie, Pikey dear, but your partner in the firm of Hope & Wandel, Wholesale Boots and Shoes, New Orleans, is never known to fib. My plan is to collar that ice. Wind up the present business and send on the money at once. I'll put up a warehouse as big as the Capitol at Washington, store it full and ship to your orders as the Southern market may require. I can send it in planks for skating floors, in statuettes for the mantel, in shavings for juleps, or in solution for ice cream and general purposes. It is a big thing!

I inclose a thin slip as a sample. Did you ever see such charming ice?


From Mr. Pike Wandel, of New Orleans, to Mr. Jabez Hope, in Chicago, December 24, 1877.

Your letter was so abominably defaced by blotting and blurring that it was entirely illegible. It must have come all the way by water. By the aid of chemicals and photography, however, I have made it out. But you forgot to inclose the sample of ice.

I have sold off everything (at an alarming sacrifice, I am sorry to say) and inclose draft for net amount. Shall begin to spar for orders at once. I trust everything to you--but, I say, has anybody tried to grow ice in this vicinity? There is Lake Ponchartrain, you know.


From Mr. Jabez Hope, in Chicago, to Mr. Pike Wandel, of New Orleans, February 27, 1878.

Wannie dear, it would do you good to see our new warehouse for the ice. Though made of boards, and run up rather hastily, it is as pretty as a picture, and cost a deal of money, though I pay no ground rent. It is about as big as the Capitol at Washington. Do you think it ought to have a steeple? I have it nearly filled--fifty men cutting and storing, day and night--awful cold work! By the way, the ice, which when I wrote you last was ten feet thick, is now thinner. But don't you worry; there is plenty.

Our warehouse is eight or ten miles out of town, so I am not much bothered by visitors, which is a relief. Such a giggling, sniggering lot you never saw!

It seems almost too absurdly incredible, Wannie, but do you know I believe this ice of ours gains in coldness as the warm weather comes on! I do, indeed, and you may mention the fact in the advertisements.


From Mr. Pike Wandel, of New Orleans, to Mr. Jabez Hope, in Chicago, March 7, 1878.

All goes well. I get hundreds of orders. We shall do a roaring trade as "The New Orleans and Chicago Semperfrigid Ice Company." But you have not told me whether the ice is fresh or salt. If it is fresh it won't do for cooking, and if it is salt it will spoil the mint juleps.

Is it as cold in the middle as the outside cuts are?


From Mr. Jebez Hope, from Chicago, to Mr. Pike Wandel, of New Orleans, April 3, 1878.

Navigation on the Lakes is now open, and ships are thick as ducks. I'm afloat, en route for Buffalo, with the assets of the New Orleans and Chicago Semperfrigid Ice Company in my vest pocket. We are busted out, my poor Pikey--we are to fortune and to fame unknown. Arrange a meeting of the creditors and don't attend.

Last night a schooner from Milwaukee was smashed into match-wood on an enormous mass of floating ice--the first berg ever seen in these waters. It is described by the survivors as being about as big as the Capital at Washington. One-half of that iceberg belongs to you, Pikey.

The melancholy fact is, I built our warehouse on an unfavorable site, about a mile out from the shore (on the ice, you understand), and when the thaw came--O my God, Wannie, it was the saddest thing you ever saw in all your life! You will be so glad to know I was not in it at the time.

What a ridiculous question you ask me. My poor partner, you don't seem to know very much about the ice business.

Train to Trieste by Domnica Radulescu

Train to Trieste  book was bought by my girlfriend in this August during our visit in Budapest.
She liked very much the book so I also read it. I found it rather mediocre but not bad at all.
I give it 3 stars out of 5.  I am also aware that a novel written in English about the life of a Romanian immigrant discussing also the life under the communism is a daunting task and not appealing to the general public. Stereotypes, preconceived ideas or even trivial facts (probably for the reader with any Romanian background) can be found in abundance in the book. Probably they are meant to make more understandable the Romanian milieu of the novel for the non-Romanian reader. But some are funny, strange, ludicrous, misplaced or even seem false when they are mentioned : unique word dor , the 14 Dacian words, oaie word, the italian senza la valigia is almost in Romanian for her and so one. Maybe reading with Hungarian background a book written by a Romanian mind  can explain it as we humans are in a natural way subjective beings.

Train to Trieste is the first novel of Domnica Radulescu who is born in Romania and lives in US since 1983, she is a professor of women studies and of Neolatin languages at Washington and Lee university in Lexington of Virginia state. The novel is narrated in the first person by Mona the main character, she remembers harsh times from communist Romania since she was 17 years old, her love for Mihai, her immigration to Italy and US and her life in the new world.
She presents the life of communist Romania a country which was run like a police state where every day life was poisoned by informers who intruded personal life, where food shortages, lack of necessities, inhuman treatments were part of existence. In the beginning of the novel we see Mona fall in love with Mihai, her deceased girlfriend's, Mariana's lover. From start her infatuation is poisoned by suspicion: she fears that Mihai has something to do with her death also later on she suspects him to be an informer of state security. Yet she continues to love him never questioning him whether he is an informer.
In Mona's case we can see what level can take the distrust, suspicion and the love can easily turn to hatred. She does not confine with him his intent of immigration, she fears that he might inform state security regarding the activity of her parents (his father is a fervent anti-communist who takes part in a conspiracy group), in fact she perceives him as an informant.
This lack of communication and even trust towards Mihai is evident. Mihai is living in Braşov while Mona is in Bucharest where she studies and she has to make travels mostly in vacations to keep up the relationship between them. When Mihai questions their relationship pointing out that they are living in two different worlds she answers with anger, hatred, hitting and spitting calling him by names an informer.

I would say that their relationship mostly a holiday type one, I would say Mona uses him to fulfill her sexual needs and fantasies without the need to confront him with her suspicion. This lack of communication is evident. Later on when her  husband Tom (whom she marries in US not out of love as she admits) tells her that they should learn to communicate she finds it preposterous. In time his marriage with Tom becomes a wreckage, she cheats him and has an affair with the Serb Jovan. The fruit of this relationship is a child. For a period it seems that the newborn will mend her marriage as Tom accepts the child as his own after the storm settles between them. But when she has a child from Tom she breaks up the marriage, yet Mona describes Tom as a man good for being a husband.

The narrative is linear from the events in Romania to the immigration to Italy  with the help of the Serbian Biljana, and the lucky travel to Trieste with an yellow Italian  Fiat run by Mario. Instead of taking the train to Trieste from Yugoslavia she takes the lucky hitchhike with the Fiat. She stays in Trieste with Mario's family who help her and are very hospitable. Here she learns that Italy does not need immigrants and is better for her to apply for USA. They find work for her at friends, at a family in Rome until she is accepted and sponsored by USA.
She asks herself sarcastically what would the Italian family do with the household without the popping up Romanian immigrants. She is sponsored by an American family, she gets to the states where she starts a new life first getting rid of the bigot religious family who sponsored her, founds job in a shop, studies at the university, marries  Tom, help his parents to immigrate to US, becomes a teacher for immigrants, has two sons. In US reaches her the news of Romanian revolution. Her relatives tell her that Mihai was shot in the revolution and he is dead, but when she visits her home country in her forties she finds out that it's just a rumor also the fact that practically Mihai was not an informer. Mihai is alive. The novel ends with her visit to her former lover who lives in the remote countryside with her hope in their future.

I uploaded the cover of the Hungarian edition titled A trieszti gyors. You can check out  Train to Trieste (Vintage) at Amazon.
If you are interested in other stories about communist Romania and about the escapes of immigrants visit the Escape ebook's site of Ernest Ionescu.