Tag Archives: literature

The Monday Book – The English Teacher by Lily King

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Guest review by Janelle Bailey, avid reader and always learning; sometimes substitute teaching, sometimes grandbabysitting, sometimes selling books

The English Teacher by Lily King

The English Teacher by Lily King

This is not a new book–it was first published in 2005)–but I came to it after first discovering Lily King and then wishing to read everything she’d written. I was not disappointed by that pursuit. King’s writing is solid, her stories holding layers of literary value, her characters thoughtfully deep and charismatic.

And it’s even been years since I read this book, but I’m still thinking about it, especially in light of some critical issues that have been developing for women these past couple of years. I often think of Vida…and also of my discussion post-reading with a great friend and fellow lover of good literature. Vida was very real to us, and she prompted a thoughtful discussion that could apply to many situations and which I think of often.

The English teacher in this novel, however, is that Vida. The book’s main character, Vida is a bit of a mess, but she wasn’t always, necessarily. It’s that during the action of this novel, she is first confronting some of her stuff, which she had been, well…stuffing…for years and years. Vida teaches English at Fayer Academy, a cozy little boarding school built in a mansion once owned by Vida’s grandfather, coincidentally. She has the third floor pretty much to herself. She’s much loved by students, named teacher of the year by then and rewarded more than once in her career, and she teaches the classics, such as Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles in ways with which any of us who’ve taught literature at all can relate, that beautiful repetition of seeing a work anew but the same, too, with a brand new group of students.

And outside of her classroom, Vida is also mom to Peter, now a freshman at Fayer…and dog mom to Walt…and she likes her wine. And she enjoys a positive, camaraderie- and history-filled, collegial relationship with many of her school colleagues, having worked there for years and living right on campus in a school-owned house.

And yet the life that Vida has been living outwardly allllll of this time has not required her to confront much of what she keeps inside…until she meets and then marries Tom.

This is a great book…thoughtful and thought-filled, well-written, characters believable and intense, and giving us access to our own stuff on the side.

I hope you have something new in the works and coming out soon, Ms. King.

Come back next Monday for another book review!

The Monday Book – Wind, Sand and Stars

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Jack gets to write today’s book review –

Wind, Sand and Stars – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

wind

Some years ago Wendy and I watched a movie called ‘Wings of Courage’ at the IMax theatre in Chattanooga. It told the story of a pioneering mail flight across the Andes from Chile to Argentina that went badly wrong. The pilot was called Guillaumet and he crashed in the mountains and had to walk over many days through the snow to reach safety. What I didn’t know was that the story was based on a chapter in this book.

As an enthusiast for anything to do with early aviation, I was delighted when Wendy handed me the book from some (pre-quarantine) thrift store outing. She thought I’d find the book interesting and she wasn’t wrong. Saint-Exupery’s writing is wonderful and the translation by Lewis Galantiere does it full justice. The author describes his own experiences as one of the early aviators opening up mail routes around the world – particularly in North Arica and South America. His descriptions of the perils of flying at low altitude and before the days of navigational equipment are amazing and nail-biting.

As I finished the chapter about Guillaumet’s experience in the Andes we watched ‘Wings of Courage’ again on line and it proved very true to Saint-Exupery’s telling of the story. When I came to the final chapter, I was once again blown away as the author described crash landing in the Sahara. He was trying for a record flight between Paris and Saigon and got lost as he was heading for a stopover at the Nile. He plowed into a hill top destroying the plane, but miraculously escaping injury along with his engineer. They struggled for days finding a way to rescue with very little food or water, almost exactly replicating the earlier Andes story, but with sand instead of snow.

The book, however, isn’t all about flying. There’s a good deal of philosophizing about the meaning of life, the relationship between people and peoples, and the futility of war.

I think the only thing that might bother anyone reading the book might be the authors views on the effect of technology on humanity. He appears to view all technological advance as completely benign but I suppose we have to allow for when the book was written.

‘Wind, Sand and Stars’ finishes with the author visiting Spain during the civil war and ruminating on the way a community can be so easily and sadly divided.

Many people know Saint-Exupery best as the author of the children’s classic The Little Prince. He flew a reconnaissance mission over the Mediterranean in 1944 from which he never returned.