Rumors of Delirium

I’m going to Sicily for a week to see championship fencing. In my carry-on bag are the following titles:

• Peter Robb: Midnight in Sicily
• Leonard Sciascia: The Day of the Owl
• Giuseppe Di Lampedusa: The Leopard

The Robb title is nonfiction, about the history of the Mafia on the island, literature and art as well. I read a similar book of his on Brazil (A Death in Brazil), which was riveting. Sciascia is a heralded crime novelist, also dealing with the Mafia. For light reading, I’m packing Lampedusa’s classic, The Leopard, about Sicilian life and aristocracy during the Risorgimento, the unification of Italy during the mid-nineteenth century.

My fiction group met last week for some chat on our summer travels, critiquing our manuscripts, and sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly about careers and writing.

We got to talking about my trip to Ireland and Finland, Bruce’s upcoming trip to Italy, and Dina’s cruise to Alaska, where she traveled close to a glacier which had big chunks falling in a cascade. Disturbing, first-hand evidence of global warming.

Among the good writing news is that Jeannine’s new book, Anne Hutchinson’s Way, just out from FSG will be named one of the”Top Ten Religion Books for Youth” in the October 1, 2007, issue of Booklist. Plus a great review from Kirkus, which calls it a “complex story of faith and freedom with clarity and strength.”

Way to go Jeannine!

Here are two books I’ve read recently. One is from sub-Saharan Africa, the other from northern Africa. They differ in tone and style, but both are highly entertaining:

Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi Wa’Thiong’O

This tale has elements of folklore, politics, and satire–African magic realism. The trickster meets the dictator. Corruption galore. And a real heart–a human, touching story at the core.

The Yacoubian Building by al Aswany

Grade: A+

Multiple stories about people at all levels of society, male and female, rich and poor, gay and straight, living in the same Cairo apartment building, are woven together in this masterfully plotted novel of contemporary Egypt. The characters are vivid, the pace energetic. Though the book is short, it paints a portrait of Islamic society confronting the West with depth and subtlety. The plot builds to a satisfying climax and conclusion. The style is realistic and straight-forward, with irony provided by contrasting viewpoints of the inter-related characters.

There’s an essay in me somewhere about books about Africa by non-Africans vs. books by Africans. Hope to write it soon.

The title of the blog comes from Emily Dickinson’s poem that begins:

A SOMETHING in a summer’s day,
As slow her flambeaux burn away,
Which solemnizes me.
A something in a summer’s noon,—
An azure depth, a wordless tune,
Transcending ecstasy.

The line is:

Or bees, that thought the summer’s name
Some rumor of delirium

Heat and delirium are themes that attract me and that I will return to from time to time.