Dewey Decimal Doesn't Live Here

I'm not one who makes resolutions at the start of a new year.  In the past I never kept them, which is disheartening.  It is far better to make a resolution that will last for only the day.  If it works out, it can be extended to the next day and then the next.  If it doesn't work out no harm has been done since the resolution evaporated at midnight anyway, unless it was revived.  This year I made a decision, however, and that is far more liberating than a firm pledge.  I want to read from my own library this year rather than buy anything new.  This decision came about as I tried to get organized.  I may fall off the wagon as the year rolls forward, but how bad can that be?

So, on to the organizational effort:  I've been slowly adding my library to Goodreads.  Slowly because it takes a considerable amount of time to pull them out, one by one, note the ISBN numbers, dust them and put them back on the shelf.  Climbing up and down the step ladder is great exercise, which is a bonus, and I figure it counts as my daily "work out" plan.  Who knew reading was so healthily cardio-vascular?  I'm up to 222 entries; there are hundreds more to go, so it will be a long term project and I fully expect my thighs and tush to look splendid by summer.

This library project reacquainted me with books I never knew I had.  More correctly, at one time I knew I had but had forgotten I did.  And what marvelous books are living here!  I do believe that if I was cast away on a deserted island, or up on a mountain top in Tibet, with no contact with the outside world and without much knowledge of it, I could cover my education quite well if these books were with me.  There are certainly a few clunkers and some pulpy fiction; but, they could only work to make me a nicely rounded human being.

I managed to hang on to a great many of my school books - from kindergarten on.  So, I imagine if I was dropped on that island or mountain top as a child who knew the alphabet, I would be able to start with the reading primers and eventually work my way through a degree in history or English lit, or, for some reason...botany.  I only recall taking several biology classes in high school and none in college, so I am not certain why I have so many books that cover photosynthesis, geotropism and Gregor Mendel.  I suspect some of these were the result of my newly gained interest in gardening when I moved to the Southeast; others must have belonged to my children.  I would be able to learn German, Spanish and Latin...and psychoanalyze myself, taking notes in Gregg Shorthand, seeing as I have volumes 1 and 2 of "The Diamond Jubilee Series"!  I can actually still read some of the squiggles that make up shorthand.  Unfortunately, if I wanted to learn Greek I would be out of luck, but I would be able to discover Why The Greeks Matter and that John Adams thought it was sacrilege that his son, John Quincy, was not reading Demosthenes at school.  I do not believe I have anything by Demosthenes, but I haven't been up and down all the bookshelves yet, so there may be some surprises in store.

What I have found so far, not surprisingly, is I have a great many books about history - ancient, European, American, Russian, modern...but I was very surprised to see that I have so many by or about Presidents, politics and First Ladies.  de Tocqueville once observed that there is hardly a political question in the United States which does not, sooner or later, turn into a judicial one.  So, naturally, a girl needs a compendium that contains everything she would want to know about the Supreme Court and its decisions.  Oh, and also a compendium on skin care, diet and an figuring out what hair style looks best with her face shape.  That is a very important reference work as well.  Sherlock Holmes, inspecting my bookshelves, would deduce that I was avidly interested in the Civil War.  He would be correct - as always.  He might also be embarrassed to learn that I was deeply smitten with him and have followed his every sleuthing moment...repeatedly and without boredom...to the dog-eared detriment of The Complete Adventures of himself.  Of course, considering his ego he may find such adoration "elementary."

There are volumes of mystery, murder, mayhem, ghostly tales, spies and the Classics.   Christie and Sayers and Poe and Wilkie Collins - they stand around with their cocktails and canapes and get along quite well, carrying on some very interesting conversations about poison.  Gertrude Stein is, as usual, talking about herself and boring everyone within earshot.  Sylvia Plath just looks morose.  I think it's because she can't smoke in the house.  Ron Weasley is trying to find a Horcrux and Sigmond Freud is just trying to find himself - a total couch potato if there ever was one.    Sweet ole' Bill gossips about what an honorable man Brutus was, but would bury Caesar in a heartbeat rather than praise him - and we all know it.  He is a sloppy drinker and spilled red wine on my carpet.  "Bill, shouting 'out damn spot' does not work, trust me."  Someone, hand him the Woolite.

There aren't many volumes of poetry, but the ones that hang out here are good ones.  I admit, they need more friends.

There are books on sailing, knitting, sewing, and home decorating, but not about sailing while knitting.  Now that would be one interesting book!  There are volumes that teach the techniques of watercolor painting and how to make decorative gift boxes and objets d'art using dried herbs.  And then, of course, there are the cookbooks.  I never met one I didn't love.  At the public library Big Book Sales, my internal GPS guides me directly to the table where they sit in all their plump and promising splendor.  Assuming I could find the proper ingredients on my island or mountain, I could cook the world.  I even have a book on The Story Of Cutlery (a prize find at a book sale and probably the only one still in existence...for good reason, I'm afraid).

I've also joined a self-imposed "2013 Reading Challenge" at Goodreads.  Sixty books in one year.  Unfortunately, even though we are only in mid-January, Goodreads informs me I am already "two books behind."  Not encouraging news.  The first book I've selected from my library is John Adams, by David McCullough.  I believe it won the Pulitzer Prize, but I must have purchased it before the award was announced because the dust jacket does not bear the Pulitzer logo that later editions do.  In any event, it has been sitting patiently for over a decade, waiting for some attention which I am happily giving it.  I am currently a third of the way through and am mesmerized by every sentence.  (At over 700 pages, I wonder if I should count it as two?  It's a thought, but I imagine it would be cheating.)

So on and on it goes.  Up the ladder, down the ladder.  Dust, note, replace.  Eventually I would love to have the books themselves truly organized in some efficient and meaningful way - as they are in a well-kept library.  Little chance of that in the near future.  As it is, they rub elbows with the oddest neighbors.  But personality conflicts aside, the community remains peaceful...and I'm working those glutes.

And So This Is Christmas

We say a melancholy goodbye to another Christmas.  Although I seldom admit it - and in fact make a rather large deal of being a bit of a humbug - in reality I do love it.  At least, I love the true meaning and idea surrounding Christmas.

I did, in fact, get the tree assembled.  It took staying up until the wee hours of the morning.  I finally dragged myself to bed and dreamed of sugar plums - or perhaps it was clementine vodka.  In any event, the next evening I took a picture of it.  As I looked through the lens, I realized something was dreadfully wrong.  One of us was tilting.  I was fairly certain it wasn't me.

Miraculously I had my cell phone in my pocket and was able to call 911.  Not literally, of course, but my paramedic son did arrive just in the nick of time as the entire monstrous elephant of a tree collapsed.  He was able to mitigate the damage by catching it on the way down.  I should have taken a picture of the wreckage (but I fear I'm not photogenic) - and of the tree with lights dangling and branches missing and ornaments scattered across the landscape.  At first I cried, and then we started to laugh.

The next morning, with the tree once again secured in its base (Charlie hammered it together and I still don't know whether I will be able to get it disassembled - I am fearful I might have to live with it up all year) I began again.  After all, Christmas is a season of hope.  Some of the lights were in such a tangle it was hopeless to try to make them right.  It would be less "glow-y" the second time around.   But that is a very small thing.

Christmas is not about twinkling lights,

Or Prancer and Dancer and Donder and Blitzen...

Or faux snowflakes...

It isn't about Christmas crackers and party hats, or whistles and riddles...

It is about wonder...

It's about laughter and joy...

And traditions...

It is about remembering in prayer...

But most of all, Christmas is all about love...

Which, I believe, is the best birthday present we could possibly give that sweet, small infant.

I hope your own holiday, whether you celebrate Christmas or something else or nothing at all, was filled with magic.  Mine was.

My Best Books for 2012

Every year I make Christmas an exhausting chore and every year I tell myself, "This is the last year I'll do that."  About a decade ago, already mid-December, the stockings were on the mantle, the twinkle lights were outside, Christmas cards were taped to the fridge, but still no tree…and no one in the family seemed to notice or care enough to find a perfect one - or even a not so perfect one.  I found myself at Walmart one day standing beneath a gigantic artificial tree which was on display as a holiday decoration.  It towered above the other trees that were being offered for sale.  I had been disgruntled, but looking at that tree made me feel happy.  I wanted that tree.  I was determined I would have that tree.  Tree lust took over.  I asked, haggled, and begged for that tree.  I tried reason, "Please, sir, Walmart is in the business of selling trees and I want to buy that one!"  The manager seemed unmoved.  "Ma'am, that tree is a floor display.  How about that one?  Or this one?"  Perhaps it was something in my sad eyes, or perhaps it was because I suggested I would chain myself to the tree until he relented, but after staring at me for a few seconds, he called a stock person over and told him to dismantle it and find a box "somewhere" that would be large enough for it.  Oh, joy!  It's mine.  It is truly mine!  Triumphant I pulled an oversize floor trolley cradling my tree out to the parking lot.  It was only then that I remembered I drove a very small car.  While love can, and often does, last forever, lust is a fleeting thing.  The romance had already begun to wear thin. 

I still have that blasted tree and anticipate dragging it down the stairs in its two coffin-sized Tupperware bins tonight.  After fighting with the stand and the branches and then the lights, it will look beautiful, I am quite sure.  It always does.  I still wonder why I do it after promising myself I would not.  I guess it wouldn't seem like Christmas without some craziness.

There will be very little time for reading in the next two weeks, but after the holiday frenzy settles down, I'll open that can of Hubs Virginia Peanuts that I know I will get for Christmas and make a new reading list.  Winding down another year, I am happy that work went well, my children are happy, and Shorty has not burned the house down yet, but I have not remotely reached my reading goals.  I often wonder if setting some arbitrary goal is a good thing for reading…or for weight loss - keeping in mind the can of Hubs.  Aren't there enough pressures placed upon our persons?  Why would we want to import more?  So I say "Goal, Schmoal."  Anyway, there were a few gems in the year and these were my favorites in no particular order:

The Garden of Evening Mists, Tan Twan Eng

The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro

Defending Jacob, William Landay

The Fallen Angel, Daniel Silva

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce

The Sea Hawk, Rafael Sabatini

And the worst thing I read this year was, it pains me to say, The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James. 

Now, it's off to the attic to cart down Christmas.  The chaos will come whether I'm ready or not, so I might as well strap it on.

I Spy - Really I Do

I have a colleague I've already told you about.  He's the one with the booming voice and voracious reading appetite; the one who insisted I read Defending Jacob.  I have no idea why, in the past, I haven't had more faith in his ability to pick out a really thumping good read.  It could be because he has a particular penchant for legal thrillers (John Grisham, Scott Turow, Steve Martini - you know the type) and I would rather bang my head against a wall than read about lawyers working hard at being thrilling.  However, doubt is sinking in on the validity of my initial assessment.  I may have to begin referring to him as "He Whose Taste Shall Not Be Questioned," because I must admit he has put me onto something.  About a month ago he handed me Fallen Angel by Daniel Silva and I started it with some trepidation, which quickly flew out the window.  Apparently, for years Silva has been writing thrillers centered around an Israeli spy/assassin-turned-Master Art Restorer named Gabriel Allon, and Mr. Allon has been on some pretty darn exciting adventures without me, until recently that is.   Suddenly, I love spy novels!  Who knew?  Thank you, oh great and powerful "He Whose Taste Shall Not Be Questioned."

As a veteran of The Big Book Sale at the library (I recently attended my fifth), I now approach the madness with a Three Point Plan.

First:  I go with one and only one canvas bag that will hold approximately 10 books.  I could bring two or three or more bags, but in the heat of the chase one never considers how difficult it will be to carry 60 lbs. of books to the car and then into the house, especially when confronted by so many possibilities, each of which costs only $1.  At that price there is a tendency to over-indulge and then, as with any over-indulgence, suffer the consequences of bad judgment.

Second:  No aimless wandering.  No being pushed along with the tide.  Exhibiting determination, my first stop will be under the sign that says "Cookbooks."   After that it's on to "Fiction."  My "one bag rule" served me well this last go-round since the cookbook I jumped on was a Cooks Illustrated Best Cookbook that weighed in at over 1000 pages and was larger than a lectern-sized copy of the St. James Bible would have been, leaving little room in the canvas bag for much else.  But since I was equipped with the third part of my plan, I was unperturbed.

The third was "look for books by a specific author," which on this expedition was Daniel Silva, specifically the series starring Gabriel Allon.  I was able to find one, The Messenger, which was in excellent shape.   A copy of Moscow Rules was also there, but was in terrible shape, so it got left behind.   I was still able to satisfactorily top off the bag with other authors, but those two books were my great "finds."  Several days later, The Defector - which I have yet to read -  and The Rembrandt Affair - which was spectacular - were on the super bargain table at Barnes & Noble.  Bliss!  I am convinced I've gone mad.  It's a bit like being 12 years old again and discovering Nancy Drew, but with more chases through snow-bound birch forests and things blowing up.

This whole phenomena fits in with my recently stated desire to read out of my comfort zone.  Which, come to think of it, is a rather ridiculous notion since spy novels have now become part of that comfort zone.   Most of us have to do a certain amount of professional reading that can border on the tedious and turgid...nothing so exciting as exposing a billionaire art collector and noted philanthropist who is covertly selling nuclear warheads to Iran.  If that doesn't give one shivers, what could?  An added benefit:  I've learned a few things about Rembrandt van Rijn and Titian and Caravaggio I didn't know before.  I admit, it doesn't hurt that Allon has deep green eyes and is very handsome...a little like a non-womanizing James Bond.  Former President Bill Clinton has said that Gabriel Allon was his "favorite character in literature."  Not too surprising, I guess.  Well, I'm afraid I can't go that far, but I'll hitch along for the ride.   

Portrait Of A Spy is on the menu for my commute this week, and although it may look as though I am a middle-aged woman with dry skin and sensible shoes driving to and from work, in actuality I am Grad The Avenger, who is working hand-in-hand with Gabriel Allon to foil a global terrorist mastermind before he can follow through with his plot to leave a  "trail of innocent blood." Gives me positive shivers, but I think we'll win in the end.   I'm sure I can also be of immeasurable help while Allon The Master Art Restorer restores a Titian or two.  "Hey, Gabe, you missed a spot..right there on Actaeon's left thumb."  Oh, I know, I know.  It all sounds a little Walter Middy-like, doesn't it?   It's just the kind of stuff one gets sucked into, and then...before you know it....Tapokita, tapokita, tapokita...

Goodbye Old Pal...My Old Pal

Newsweek will cease to produce a printed copy of the magazine in a couple of months.  Although it has changed radically over the years, I remember when it was a serious and (at least seemingly) non-biased reporter of the news.  But it was much more than that.  It was a snapshot of our lives.  I was an early, and probably precocious, subscriber as a teenager in the 1960s.  Happily, a few of the magazines survived by hiding at the bottom of a trunk, stowaways on my travels from this place to that.

This issue is from December 27, 1965.  President Kennedy had been assassinated 2 years earlier, but space exploration, a legacy of his Presidency, was still alive.  Sadly, things have changed and we have apparently abandoned our great dreams of exploring space.  But in 1965 the first space rendezvous between Gemini 6, commanded by Wally Shira,  and Gemini 7, with a crew of Frank Borman and James Lovell, had successfully been accomplished.  "We did it!!" was the exclamation.  At that time it was the longest manned flight, 330 hours 35 minutes and the first formation flight in space.    

We were still fighting in Vietnam, and the issue covered how families at home were coping with Christmas.  They spotlighted individual service men:  The Adviser, The Staff Sergeant, The Jet Pilot, The Marine Gunner, The Medic, and The Infantry Colonel and how they were celebrating Christmas in the fields of battle, mirrored by the brave efforts of the people who loved them to keep some semblance of normalcy in an abnormal world...determined to save Christmas.

 Airlines were still glamorous.  Braniff International (if anyone still remembers it) announced "the End of the Plain Plane" with cuisine by Alexander Girard of La Fonda Del Sol in New York, and "hostess" and pilot uniforms designed by Pucci.

 When it came to speculation about the future of our health in 2015, there were predictions that nurses would be replaced by robots in hospitals.  That "would be among the least remarkable development" by 2015.  A dicey prediction, obviously.  However, the science of robotics in general has made great strides in the past 50 years.  Additionally the oracle predicted life span would likely be extended beyond 100 years, molecular genetic engineering would insure that babies are born to stay healthy, and we would be able to grow new limbs and organs - presumably in the laboratory, although the article doesn't specify.   However, the report sets forth a probability that might cancel out all these benefits:  the outbreak of a major war before 2000.   Considering humankind, that was an unhappy but not unpredictable prediction.

 Somerset Maugham had died the week before the publication of this issue of Newsweek, and the magazine did a splendid article about his life.  "When my obituary at last appears in The Times, and they say, 'What?  I thought he died years ago!' my ghost will gently chuckle."  Maugham lived gracefully and well, it went on to state.  "I had no intention of living on a crust in a garret if I could help it," he once said.  Maugham admitted to being something of a misogynist, and many of his distaff characters did come in for rough treatment.  He was a gentle man at heart, but apparently remained convinced that life was essentially meaningless.  That view is certainly reflected in the works with which I am familiar, but this article convinced me to adore him nevertheless.

There was a glowing review of Flannery O'Connor's posthumous collection of short stories, Everything That Rises Must Converge (named after one of the short stories in the collection).  I believe this article may have been my first introduction to O'Connor.  I know we did not study her work in high school.  Unbeknownst to me in 1965, I would one day make my home in the city of her birth, a city where she is revered and loved.   I re-read this beautiful, compelling, dark, and disturbing short story this summer.  Powerful story, powerful woman, powerful writer, powerful review.  What more is there to say?

 A Patch Of Blue starring Sydney Poitier and Elizabeth Hartman was panned, for good reason if I remember correctly...and of course...

...it would not be 1965 without a red Mustang convertible.

Henry Charles Dickens, 87 years old and the last surviving grandchild of Charles Dickens, and his wife Fanny hosted a Christmas feast for 16 members of the family; Frank Sinatra, as he turned 50, announced he expected to "swing for 50 more,"  (I wish it had been 100 more, Ol' Blue Eyes), Brigitte Bardot, in her usual brilliance, declared she wanted "to be myself.  Lady Bird Johnson prepared to entertain Prime Minister Harold Wilson even as White House chef Rene Verdon gave notice he would be leaving his post.  Hired to please the Continental palate of Jacqueline Kennedy, the French-born chef found LBJ's penchant for barbecue, spoon bread and fried chicken just...well...shall we say, too much to swallow.

I haven't subscribed to Newsweek for decades.  But I feel a certain affection for it...for what it used to be.  I can't help but feel a bit sad.  Like when you know the goodbye is final.  Like the day you graduate from college and pack up your dorm room, a dull ache starting in your chest and making a lump in your throat.  Like driving away away for the last time...into your life and whatever it holds.

The Garden Of Evening Mists

I don't even know where to begin.  This second novel by Tan Twan Eng has made it to the Man Booker Prize short list - I believe deservedly - so I guess I can start there.  And yet, books that earn prizes often do not resonate with me.  But...oh, what splendid writing you'll find in this garden of mist.

The sky was streaked with the carnage of sunset when we came out to the yard at the back of the prison.  Hideyoshi stopped and turned his face upward, breathing in the light from the first stars of the evening.  The guards pushed him up a flight of steps to the hanging platform and positioned him beneath the noose.  They looped the rope around his neck and tightened it.  He stumbled but regained his balance.  One of the guards held up a blindfold.  Hideyhoshi shook his head.  A Buddhist monk, appointed to conduct the rites for these executions, began to pray, thumbing the string of beads twined around his fingers as line after line of prayers unreeled from his throat.  The droning washed over me.  Hideyoshi and I looked at one another until the trapdoor cracked open and he dropped into an abyss only he could see.    

 Page after page of controlled emotion, without ever being over-written:

Drawing back his right sleeve with his left hand, Aritomo picked up the teapot and filled his cup almost to the brim.  He put the teapot down in the exact spot from where he had lifted it and pivoted on his knees to face the mountains to the east.  He remained in that position for what seemed like a long time.  Then, like a flower drooping to touch the earth, he brought his head low to the floor.  Straightening his body a moment later, he held the cup in his hands and touched it to his forehead.  I left him there, giving one last farewell to the man he had once known, a man who had already traveled past the mountains and journeyed beyond the mists and the clouds.

A painting could not produce an image with any better clarity.  It isn't very often that I find myself speechless over a novel.   And so here I sit, fingers on the keyboard, not knowing what to say.

I was planning on jumping into a Margery Allingham mystery after finishing The Garden Of Evening Mists, but instead I went to the library and actually found a copy of A Gift Of Rain, Eng's first novel.  I could not believe my luck.  But I don't  think I'll begin it just yet.  I want to think about Aritomo, the gardener to the last emperor of Japan, and Teoh Yun Ling, the Chinese girl who survived a Japanese prison camp.  I think I'll linger awhile in Yugiri, the garden Aritomo created.  I can only hope there is such a place somewhere.  Listen to the last words in the book:

The lotus flowers are opening in the first rays of the sun.  Tomorrow's rain lies on the horizon, but high up in the sky something pale and small is descending, growing in size as it falls.  I watch the heron circle the pond, a leaf spiraling down to the water, setting off silent ripples across the garden.    

I can only hope there is.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

I was hoarding my birthday money...well, half of it, anyway.  It came in the form of two American Express gift cards.  One of them I gave away (it was a good cause).  The other one I held on to for quite a while.  I savored how I'd spend it.  I knew it was probably going to be spent at Barnes & Noble, but on what?  There were several cookbooks I wanted, so maybe one on Chinese cooking...or Thai?  Or maybe an armful of paperbacks?  Or a new writing instrument.  Stationery perhaps.  I spent several lunch hours making mental notes and picking things up and turning them over.  It wouldn't do to simply jump in and grab the first shiny object.  I took my time. My birthday only comes once a year, after all.  I reasoned there might - probably would - be a long, dry season before another gift card came my way.   Yes, I realize it's just money...but a gift card, to be spent anywhere on anything, has a special glow to it, don't you agree?  A special promise...a possibility.  And, of course, it brings free stuff.

On one of these reconnaissance missions, I came across a table with new titles at 20% off.  Hilary Mantel's new one, Bring Up The Bodies, was there.  It had a nice heft to it and I quickly calculated that there were lots of pages per dollar making it a pretty good investment.  But I am already on the waiting list at the library for that title.  I'm number 13, of course, but nevertheless I figure if I'm patient my day will come...let's see...January 2014 maybe?  But that's without renewals.  Considering its length, I can probably count on lots of renewals.  January 2014 might even be optimistic since the book is "on order."  So, they don't even have it yet, which means the first person on the list isn't reading it yet.  Considering that, I guess I should stop being angry at how slow he or she is reading.  There were only two copies ordered for the entire library system.    

Also on the table was a colorful display of The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry, a first novel by Rachel Joyce.  The price was right because, with 20% off, I could still get a packet of magnetic book markers with my gift money.  I took both books to a comfy chair and started to read Harold Fry and within five minutes I knew I couldn't leave Barnes & Noble without it.  Triumphant, I presented the book and a set of eight Celtic bookmarks to the clerk.  (NB:  the bookmarks are yet another wonderful invention I did not invent.  The list of great ideas that weren't mine continues to grow.  The bookmarks clip over the page marking the exact line where you should begin again.  And they don't fall off and land between the seat cushions in the car when you are stopped at a red light and think you can sneak in an extra minute or two, or are running for the front door in the rain juggling an umbrella, a book, four bags of groceries, a purse and a briefcase, or when you trip on a crack in the sidewalk and, like a remake of "Goofy Goes Skiing,"  go air borne while trying to hold down your skirt but loosing the book you're carrying which then lands 10 feet away into the mud.  Even then, the bookmarks stick.  I've tested this theory personally, so I can sign an affidavit attesting to it.  They obediently sit where they are placed...even in hurricane force winds.  Okay...I have not actually tested them in hurricane force winds but I do have faith in their tenacity.  It isn't beyond the scope of possibility that I could have invented them, though, considering that when I was 8 years old I "invented" panty hose...I didn't act on that light-bulb moment regretfully;  I was probably too young to get the patent anyway.  I'll leave that story for another time.)

Harold Fry has retired from a brewery.  He lives a quiet and sad life in a small English village with his wife Maureen, who suffers through a constant irritation with him and everything he does.  One day, included in the "quotidian minutiae" (don't you love that phrase) of the morning mail a letter arrives from Queenie Hennessy, a woman with whom Harold worked at the brewery.  He hadn't seen nor had he thought of her in over twenty years.   They had been friendly acquaintances, but nothing more.  She is dying of cancer in a nursing home in Berwick-upon-Tweed, she explains, and is writing to say good-bye.  

Harold writes a quick and unsentimental reply and heads off to the nearest mail box wearing his light coat and a pair of yachting shoes.   He passes the first mail box, and then the second, but he continues to walk.   As long as he walks, Queenie will live, and so his odyssey to reach Berwick-Upon-Tweed begins.  

The writing is beautiful and thought provoking:

He remembered his father in the nursing home, and his mother's suitcase by the door.  And now here was a woman who twenty years ago had proved herself a friend.  Was this how it went?  That just at the moment when he wanted to do something, it was too late?  That all the pieces of a life must eventually be surrendered, as if in truth they amounted to nothing?

Along the way, Harold encounters challenges and characters, each of which help unlock memories and free a spirit long squelched, and the reader walks along with him cheering for him to succeed.  Early on in my reading of the novel I wrote in my book journal ("Why walk?  Why doesn't he take the quickest way to get there?)  But, of course, the question was soon answered:

In walking, he freed the past that he had spent twenty years seeking to avoid, and now it chattered and played through his head with a wild energy that was his own.  He no longer saw distance in terms of miles.  He measured it with his remembering.

This novel is on the long list for the Man Booker Prize, something I did not know when I picked it up at the book store.  I am not surprised.  I can say with great satisfaction that my birthday money was well spent; I simply loved it.  In reading this novel I was reminded that whatever the destination upon which we set our course, it is the journey itself that really counts...and I never lost my place.