_Warrior Lore_ (Cumpstey): Seven Reasons to Love It.

Ian Cumpstey, Warrior Lore: Scandinavian Ballads (2014)

1.  The translated lyrics flow smoothly, with a feeling of great simplicity-- which no doubt took lots of skill and effort to cultivate!  Translator Ian Cumpstey spent eight years in Sweden, where he absorbed the language and marveled at the integration of music into daily life.

[If you'd like to hear a sample read aloud, Skadi Press has posted "Widrick Waylandsson's Fight" to Soundcloud-- and I think you'll agree that the reader's charming accent does no harm!  Oh, I'm such an American.]

2.  The lyrics themselves are front and center.  Short intros to each ballad enhanced my appreciation without overburdening me (a casual reader) with scholarly detail: Cumpstey provides a helpful summary, and then lets the ballad speak (or sing?) for itself.

3.  There's something shattering about a tale of great trauma rendered so simply and directly...!  Although as gory as Grimm's tales, many of these medieval songs evoke remarkable compassion in few words.  For example, the ballad "Hilla-Lill" tells the fate of a lady who-- by consenting to an unsuccessful elopement-- furthered the slaughter of her father, lover, and six of her brothers:

"My brother he wanted to have me killed,
My mother she wanted to have me sold.

"And so I was sold for a bell so new,
It hangs in the church of St. Mary now. 

"My mother she heard the chime of the bell,
And broken her heart into pieces fell." 

Along the same lines...

4.  Female suffering is voiced.  These songs don't posit that fairytale women will live happily ever after, Disney style.  Rather, the wives and daughters of legendary knights can-- and do-- lose all that is dear to them in a single battle; and even a lasting marriage can be far from romantic.

"Yes you took my serving girl,
And lay on the pillows of blue,
But me you've pulled me by my hair,
And cursed and beaten too,"

Elin accuses her husband from her deathbed.  She refuses to forgive him-- and who could blame her?  (Well, the Victorians.  Maybe.)

5.  Still, the women of these ballads aren't saintly.  After Cumpstey's introduction described one young lady as "playing hard to get," I had to laugh out loud-- for she'd posted her suitors' severed heads on stakes outside her home!  Yet the gentlemen callers kept right on coming.

6.  Oh yes--and there's humor, too.  Really!  For example, a crossdressing Thor nearly gives away his game by revealing a less than delicate appetite.  (I enjoyed this version of Thor's famous search for his lost hammer-- the only tale remotely familiar to me, by the way!  All else was new.)

7.  Homeschool potential.  I could imagine high school students using this work to ease into early literature, or to sample from a different cultural context.  Each ballad and its introduction read easily in one brief sitting, yet offer plenty of material for thought and discussion.

Happy Friday! Thank you for visiting, and please drop by This Ain't the Lyceum for more Quick Takes.

Disclosure:  The author/translator gifted me a Kindle copy of this work in exchange for my honest review.

Cranberry Bluff (Garner)

Deborah Garner, Cranberry Bluff (2014)

The new check-ins at adorable Cranberry Cottage B&B are more, ahem, interesting than they might seem.  Slightly batty old lady?  Honeymoon couple?  Reclusive businessman?  Author in search of a little quiet?  Think again... Plus, they're all here for pretty much the same reason; and some of them have met before (although they're pretending otherwise).

The fun of this book is the ongoing contrast between a cute, boutique-y tourist town and the almost cartoonish scale of intrigue that unfolds.  Now, less tastefully written, this could have drawn eyerolls and oh-please's-- but author Deborah Garner plays it out with a light touch that kept me smiling.  Not at the edge of my seat (low on suspense); not invested in one character's plight (it's a true ensemble cast); but happy enough to spend a few hours at this pleasant B&B, where kooky characters advance their secret missions.  Sadie Kramer was my favorite.  (And next time I'm at a B&B, I'll be wondering what all of the guests are really up to!)

Before beginning this book blog I'd never heard the phrase "cozy mystery," but I think that this novel must epitomize it.  "Cozy" is certainly the word... Oh yes, and there's lots of food in here, too.  Mushroom-and cheese frittatas, Reuben sandwiches, chicken pot pie, cranberry scones, wine and cheese.  Read it while you're hungry!  A (brief) cookbook is appended.


I purchased this novel through Amazon during a recent $.99 sale.

Lovely Last-Minute Gifts! My Recommendations

These four items-- all of which I own-- are absolutely lovely.  You'd feel proud to gift them.  (I know, because I've done so!)

1.  Beata Zatorska and Simon Target, Rose Petal Jam: Recipes and Stories from a Summer in Poland (2011).

Such beautiful photographs, with a layout that evokes pretty scrapbooks and old-world textiles! And while this cookbook frames its (unique and plentiful) recipes with memoir, I never felt that Zatorska's anecdotes overwhelmed the material...  Last Christmas I gave this book to both my mother and my mother-in-law; and it was a hit!  My mom and I spent some time going over the recipes together, and my mother-in-law reportedly stayed up late in order to read through her copy.

One hint, though: As Rose Petal Jam offers only European measures, its recipient might need a kitchen scale.  I bought one for my mom, to accompany the book-- and I'm so glad that I did, as it allowed us to launch straight into the recipes!

2. Beata Zatorska and Simon Target, Sugared Orange: Recipes & Stories from a Winter in Poland (2013).

Companion volume to the above, this beautiful cookbook (if anything, still more beautiful!) guides you through a Christmas season in old-world Poland.  This one, too, I gave to my mom last year.  As with the previous volume, European measurements make a kitchen scale a practical companion gift.

3. Brian Yarvin, Ploughman's Lunch and the Miser's Feast: Authentic Pub Food, Restaurant Fare, and Home Cooking from Small Towns, Big Cities, and Country Vill (2012).

While I know it's sophisticated to scorn British cooking, here's a confession:  I love it.  Pub food especially. During a semester in England (in the 1990s, before everyone and their brother went abroad!), I liked nothing better than a pub lunch or supper-- bangers and mash, or toad-in-the-hole, or leek soup, etc., washed down by a pint of my favorite Caffrey's Irish Ale.

So when I saw this book in the library, I had to check it out; and then I had to buy it; and then, I had to buy it for someone else (identity undisclosed, for obvious reasons)!  If you have an American Anglophile on your list, this is the gift... (Warning:  If the person is actually British, he/she may be put off or even offended by the very American slant of the author's comments.)

4. Ewa Angeli, In Night's Still Silence: Polish Christmas Carols  (CD or MP3)

Ever since children joined our Polish-American family, I'd been looking for a good recording of koledy in English-- and at last, here it is!  Accustomed to reverent choral interpretations, I was at first unsure of the contemporary, even slightly "country" feel; but I quickly accepted this album on its own terms.  (Shouldn't carols be living things?)  

And the kids love it!  "Today in Bethlehem," "To the Stable," "Quickly on to Bethlehem," and "Lullaby Sweet Jesus" are their special favorites; and I also have a special liking for "Come Shepherds to the Stable" and "In Night's Still Silence"... It feels good to know that we're all growing more familiar with these old lovely melodies!  And because I never learned Polish, I also appreciate the English lyrics.

Happy last-minute shopping!  I'm still at it online... Same old story, right?  Best of luck.

No Such Thing as Perfect (Daltry)

Sarah Daltry, No Such Thing as Perfect (2014)

In her first semester away at college, a young woman grapples with the influence of a toxic family that has-- until now-- defined her.

And it's gripping.  Never before have I read a novel that so completely evokes those freshman feelings-- that sense of being young, insecure, and lost!  Minus the horrible parents, I've been Lily Drummond-- bookish, insecure, introverted, anxious to please, amazed that everyone else seemed to find their way so easily... The dorm is an atmosphere in itself, and the way that Lily's home life bleeds into it (those vivid flashbacks) feels authentic, seamless!  These first chapters are so well crafted.  I mean, this is really good writing!

For example-- one among many passages that I highlighted:

"I want to ask him to stay on the phone, but I know he's probably trying to set up his room.  He's probably hungry, too, and I should get back to my pizza.  I feel the ache of needing to speak clutching at my throat, but I swallow the words and hold them back.  'I will,' I say.  'Say hi to Jon, okay?' 

"I will.  Love you,' he says, but he hangs up before I can tell him that I love him, too."

I could swear I've had that very conversation.  (Or rather, non-conversation?)

Where this book slips a little?  Where it decides to become a romance, shifting the focus away from Lily and onto a guy named Jack.  In my opinion, too much emphasis is placed on Jack's (excessively) traumatic backstory and on various characters persuading Lily to "take a chance" on him.   But mostly, Lily needs to "take a chance" on herself-- and Jack is at his best when influencing Lily to make peace with brokenness, both his and hers. The comfort and acceptance that she feels with Jack, with Alana (also troubled), and with other imperfect college friends is the real point here; the slightly gimmicky romantic parts feel (to me) a bit forced, less natural and organic than the exploration of Lily's psychology.

The space invested in kind-of sort-of being a romance could have been used in other ways.  I would have liked to observe more of Lily's day-to-day emotional mesh with Jack, Alana, and other new friends of varied backgrounds; I would have liked to be right there as she finds her feet on the newspaper staff and (as is hinted) in the theater.  I would have liked her relationship with Jack to unfold slowly as her self esteem grows.  I would like to sense that all of these things supported her ultimate decisions regarding home and family.

Or maybe I just wanted a longer story-- say, a whole term rather than one semester! Perhaps a sequel to this book...?

Regardless, I highly recommend No Such Thing as Perfect to moms with daughters! Lily's narrative evokes some painful and important aspects of being a teenage girl-- things that I definitely want to keep in mind as my own little girls grow up.


[Disclosure:  I received a free copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.]

A Place to Stand (Farrell)

Meg Farrell, A Place to Stand (2014)

The first half is shattering...!  It's unique for a romance to explore messy, conflict-ridden grief-- and the heroine's strong first-person voice is extremely likable.  The novel's overall structure, too, has a certain elegance, with parallel events and motifs (I think particularly of the recurring word "b-tch," more significant than it seems!) adding complexity... I'm not trying to be pretentious here; I really mean it!  Literary value.

Once love interest Cade fully enters the storyline, however, he sinks so much that makes it different and compelling. To be honest, the guy reminds me of an immature Edward Cullen (unbelievably handsome stalker); and the heroine essentially jumps straight from one co-dependent relationship into another. Does she really find "a place to stand," as characters observe near the end?  I would argue, no.

However, this novel-- the first half especially-- shows that author Meg Farrell has talent.  I'd really encourage her to move beyond the romance genre... A Place to Stand could have been amazing had it continued the themes of grief, betrayal, and forgiveness in a more realistic way.

Our Book-a-Day Advent Calendar

Ok, ok, "Quick Takes" is supposed to be a list of seven, but-- I'm bending rules here, because I really want to talk about my Advent calendar.  So, twenty-five Quick Takes...? Hey, at least it's a list, right?

A list of twenty-five books, wrapped and numbered... One for each day.

Inspired by Catholic blogger Elizabeth Foss, I did this for the first time last year, when my children were nearly 2 and nearly 3 years old.  Some books were hits, others not so much-- but a year can do a great deal, and I've been mom long enough to know that even last month's "meh" can be this month's obsession. We'll see what they make of the collection this time around....!

Its spine is several of Foss' selections (I'll buy pretty much anything that she recommends!), rounded out with other Christmas books that we were lucky enough to receive.  And I'd be so happy if you would comment with your suggestions, too!  I'd love to hear what your young children are reading this season...  For example, can anyone recommend a book for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe?  It's an embarrassing gap in my current plan!

1. Who Is Coming to Our House?  (Slate and Wolff)

2. A New Coat for Anna (Ziefert and Lobel)

3.  Christmas in the Big Woods (Wilder and Graef)

4. The Nutcracker (Balducci and Lanza; Little Golden Book)

5. [Feast of St. Nicholas]  The Baker's Dozen: A Saint Nicholas Tale (Shepard and Edelson)

6. The Snowy Day (Keats)

7. Strega Nona's Gift (de Paola)

8. [Immaculate Conception] The Story of Christmas (Brundage)

9. The Little Tin Soldier

10. The Birds of Bethlehem (de Paola)

11. The Mitten (Brett)

12. [Our Lady of Guadalupe]  The Legend of the Christmas Rose (Hooks and Williams)

13. [Feast of St. Lucy] Lucia Morning in Sweden (Rydaker)

14. Bob and 6 More Christmas Stories (Boynton)

15.  Christmas in the Manger (Buck and Bond)

16. Baboushka and the Three Kings (Robbins and Sidjakov)

17. The Little Fir Tree (Brown and LaMarche)

18. The Perfect Tree, and Favorite Christmas Carols (Bivens)

19. Merry Christmas, Strega Nona (de Paola)

20. All for the Newborn Baby (Root and Bayley)

21.  The Snow Queen (Anderson and Cavendish)

22.  The Friendly Beasts (de Paola)

23. The First Night (Hennessy, Johnson, and Fancher)

24. The Night Before Christmas (Moore and Birmingham)

25. Good King Wenceslas (Cavendish)

[Images: Open Library Covers]

Happy Friday!  Thank you for visiting, and please check out This Ain't the Lyceum for more Quick Takes!

The Forgotten Sister: Mary Bennet's Pride and Prejudice

Jennifer Paynter, The Forgotten Sister: Mary Bennet's Pride and Prejudice (January 2014)

You've heard the expression "the 'fun' in dysfunctional"?  That's Pride and Prejudice, wherein Lizzy and Jane are two level-headed, good-hearted girls who keep their calm (and sanity) while surrounded by fools.  Thank God for a sense of humor, right?

Not from Mary Bennet's perspective.  Relating the same events (and much more) in her first-person voice, The Forgotten Sister portrays a family that suffers deeply from Mr. Bennet's favoritism of his second daughter Elizabeth and contemptuous treatment of Kitty, Lydia, and especially Mary.  In this story Lizzy's sparkling wit-- encouraged by her father-- comes off as conceited and hurtful, although flashes of self-awareness redeem her character.  (A surprising backstory also adds complexity to her love/hate relationship with Darcy.) And Mr. Bennet's sarcasm absolutely wounds.

But it's Mary who makes this book.  While P&P dismisses her as a weak-minded prig, The Forgotten Sister interprets Mary as a survivor-- of depression, childhood abuse, and a dysfunctional family dynamic-- who dares to choose an unconventional future.  Every bit as intelligent as Elizabeth (and endowed with the same "fine eyes"), Mary's awe of her father nevertheless reduces her to hiding her own voice behind quotations and platitudes.  That embarrassing performance at the Netherfield ball becomes a pivotal moment, surprisingly rich and bittersweet; and her personal growth and ultimate leap of faith had me cheering!

This book's entire concept is so intriguing that I only wish that the author could have told us more about Bennet family psychology.  For example, how did Lizzy process her romance with Darcy in light of the posited backstory?  Does Lydia have any depth?  As it is, the book drags in places-- particularly during the events of Pride and Prejudice-- although it shines when interpreting the sisters' childhoods and lives post-P&P.

All in all, I don't think that this interpretation entirely "convinces"me:  It's definitely not what Jane Austen was getting at, and it doesn't "fit into" or complete the classic work with any staggering neatness. Pride and Prejudice fans, however, shouldn't miss it.  Originality (will I ever view Mary, Elizabeth, or Mr. Bennet in quite the same light??) and above-average writing make this one worth reading.  

....And I'll add that The Forgotten Sister slips in allusions to the 1995 BBC miniseries, starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle.  If you've watched that version as often as I have, you'll know them when you see them!