Ithaka by C. P. Cavafy

I am a bit obsessed right now with the poet C P Cavafy (1863-1933).  He  was born to Greek parents but lived most of his life in Alexandria Egypt.  I first discovered him in a book of essays by the very fine writer Philip Lopate.  It's another example of how books can lead us to other books and authors we otherwise would never have heard of.  

Ithaka is Cavafy's best known poem and though it is set in ancient Greece, critics say its really about the journey through life

ITHAKA BY C. P. CAVAFY 

(Translated by Edmund Keeley)

As you set out for Ithaka

hope your road is a long one,

full of adventure, full of discovery.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:

you’ll never find things like that on your way

as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,

as long as a rare excitement

stirs your spirit and your body.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them

unless you bring them along inside your soul,

unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.

May there be many summer mornings when,

with what pleasure, what joy,

you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;

may you stop at Phoenician trading stations

to buy fine things,

mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,

sensual perfume of every kind—

as many sensual perfumes as you can;

and may you visit many Egyptian cities

to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.

Arriving there is what you’re destined for.

But don’t hurry the journey at all.

Better if it lasts for years,

so you’re old by the time you reach the island,

wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,

not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.

Without her you wouldn't have set out.

She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.

Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,

you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean"

The Last Talk With Lola Faye by Thomas H Cook

"A wave of relief passed over me. So this is why Lola Faye Gilroy had dragged herself from God knows where over to the Museum of the West on a wet December night. She'd come to make the case before me, clarify the issue Woody Gilroy had raised in his suicide note, rid herself of the guilt he'd laid at her feet, revisit all that in a talk with me, then enter her plea at the end of it: not guilty".

Lucas Paige the narrator of The Last Talk With Lola Faye (2010) has been successful in life one would think. He's a Harvard educated college professor who has published a number of history books.  All the more impressive since Lucas grew up in a small Southern town where very few of his peers went to college, let alone Harvard.

But Lucas is bitter and angry because his dream was to write great books, not the mediocrities he's been writing as he sees it.  Lucas' personal life is not going well either.  His wife Julia left him a few years back and her departing words were "Call me, Luke, when your past is in the past".  

And so at the start of The Last Talk With Lola Faye, Lucas is in St Louis at a book signing when Lola Faye walks in.  Lucas hasn't seen Lola Faye or been back to Glenville, Alabama in twenty years.  And yet here is Lola, his father's mistress.  Their affair led to Lucas' father's murder when Lola's husband found out.  Lucas is furious and in shock.   How does this woman dare to show up at his book signing after the pain she caused?  And why has she sought him out?  

Lola Faye asks if they can go somewhere to talk.  Lucas is not thrilled with this idea but he cautiously agrees.  And as the two sit down for drinks they discuss the tragic events of the night of Lucas' father's murder and what really happened.  Lucas it turns out consumed with his own ambition and desire to get out of Glenville made alot of assumptions about his parents and their marriage that turned out not to be true and led to tragic results.

All through the novel as Lucas and Lola have their talk I thought I knew what the big reveal would be, the deep secret, but then Thomas Cook would expertly draw back from where I thought the story was heading.  Publisher's Weekly gave The Last Talk With Lola Faye a starred review and I agree.  I was gripped all the way through and the ending was powerful, redemptive and a suprise I did not see coming.  If you have never read Thomas H Cook you absolutely should.  I highly recommend The Last Talk With Lola Faye.

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

The Victorian novel is a favorite genre of mine and I am pleased to say that in the past eight years I have read some of the great novels from this period.  I had yet to read Wilkie Collins however and I was torn.  He is best known for two classic novels: The Woman In White and The Moonstone.  I went with The Moonstone (1868) and I am happy with my choice.

The Moonstone begins in 1799 when a British officer Colonel John Herncastle while serving in India steals a precious yellow diamond adorning a statue of the Hindu God of the Moon.  Herncastle is a bad character who murders three of the Hindu priests guarding the yellow diamond and he takes the gem back to England.  

Fast forward and it's 1848.  John Herncastle is a an elderly spiteful man and his life has not gone well.  He has never been able to shake the rumors of what he did as a young officer in India.  He has no friends and his sister, the wealthy Lady Verinder, refuses to see him.  Herncastle is furious and writes out his will stating that after his death the yellow diamond will be given to his niece Rachel Verinder, Lady Verinder's daughter, on her 18th birthday.  Herncastle is giving the diamond to Rachel not to make amends. He knows that possessing the diamond comes with a curse and so it's his way of getting back at his family.

Herncastle dies and Rachel's eighteenth birthday arrives.  Rachel is thrilled to receive the diamond not knowing it's backstory.  But her mother and her cousin Franklin Blake do know or they suspect something and they are worried.  Also three mysterious Indian men have recently been seen walking the grounds of the Verinder estate.

On the night of Rachel's party all her friends are there including two men who are competing for Rachel's hand in marriage, her cousin Franklin Blake and her other cousin Godfrey Ablewhite.  Apparently in the 19th century you could marry your cousin.  

Rachel wears the diamond on her dress at the party.  It's a festive evening and then the next morning the diamond is missing, a detective is called in and things go downhill with alot of unhappiness for the characters involved.  The yellow diamond (the moonstone) does have a curse attached to it but not in the way I originally thought.  

It's not that people in posession of the diamond come down with a fatal illness or fall down a flight of stairs.  But rather once the diamond goes missing people start suspecting each other, tempers flare, engagements are broken off and in one tragic case a young housemaid of the Verinders with a past that included prison for theft is afraid she will be blamed and though she is not responsible it ends tragically.  

The Moonstone is told in the form of a number of first person narrators.  My favorite narrator is the butler Gabrielle Betteredge who is certain that all of life's answers can be found in the pages of his well worn copy of Robinson Crusoe.  My least favorite character and narrator was Drusilla Clack, a busy body who is constantly forcing her religious pamphlets on friends and relatives.  In fact the one complaint I have about The Moonstone is that the eight chapters narrated by Drusilla distracted from the story and should have been omitted.  Doing so would have tightened up the book in my opinion.

But otherwise I enjoyed The Moonstone.  Along with Bleak House it is considered to be one the first British Detective novels.  It is also a romance and I found The Moonstone to be a classic worthy of praise.