Well, John knew. He is always trying to get me to take jaunts out of the city on weekends but I almost always say no. And of course I knew that the ocean was only about 3 1/2 hours away (in good traffic), but near DC, I had only ever been to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware which is way too busy and commercial to feel very special to me. Plus they have those awful little planes with banners advertising things flying over the beach. So it was quite a surprise yesterday to discover a beach so beautiful so close to DC. The March weather meant that the Assateague Island National Seashore in Maryland was pretty quiet.

Assateague is famous for the wild horses that live there. They are often down by the beach, but this is the closest we got to them when they were on the bay side of the barrier island.

The road from Berlin, Maryland, the nearest town.

Berlin, MD

      
That’s right folks, 176 points for one word. My sister and her family are visiting from Arizona and this was our third game since Sunday. And the fact that the word was “cardigan” made the moment even more special. (Remember my post about the Cardigan Mafia?)

The breakdown:

14 points for the word (including one double letter score for the “D”.

I got to triple the word twice because it fell on two Triple Word Scores. (We verified this scoring with the official rules on the printed in the box.)

And then, because I used all of my seven tiles I got an additional 50 points.

Needless to say this is the highest score I have ever gotten for one word in Scrabble. Too bad the word didn’t have a “Z” or “Q” in it.

  

To quote Simon T. completely out of context: “Meh”.

I bought this memoir of Oxford because, well, c’mon, it was about Oxford and because the edition could not be cuter. Plus I have read about 3 or 4 of the other titles in this “The Writer and the City” series. I had never heard of Justin “One of the finest novelists currently at work” Cartwright. He may indeed write amazing novels but after reading this somewhat tedious memoir I am not so sure. I wonder if one could interpret that quote from the Guardian quite literally by defining the word “currently” very narrowly as the exact second the quote was written. How the Guardian writer knew that Cartwright was working at that exact moment, I don’t know.

I started off liking this memoir but then he seemed to go on about Oxford folk I had never heard of, which wouldn’t necessarily be off-putting, but he didn’t make it interesting enough for me to care. I think this might be a better read for someone who has studied at Oxford. He says next to nothing about the city of Oxford.

I have many other quibbles with this book, but I think the biggest problem happens when Cartwright goes on a bit about the Brideshead myth. I understand the reference to the wonderful Evelyn Waugh book but then Cartwright makes a fatal error. He refers to the fictional Lord Sebastian Flyte’s teddy bear as “Algernon”. Algernon?! Now anyone worth their salt knows that Sebastian’s bear’s name was Aloysius. I mean come on.

Cartwright, game over.

One more thing, why the title This Secret Garden? I mean I understand why he would want to call it that, but he didn’t think it sounded too much like another book? Was he hoping someone might confuse it with The Secret Garden?

  
In Shadows on the Rock, Willa Cather tells a story of Quebec in the 1690s. As I consider what to write about this book, three things immediately come to mind. The first is how well Cather evokes different places and different times in her novels and how she piques my interest in uniquely North American experiences that wouldn’t necessarily be of much interest to me. No surprise to regular readers of My Porch, but I get a little fixated on Western Europe and the genteel, urban Northeast of the U.S. But whether writing about the prairies, the Southwest, or the early days of French Canada, Cather not only holds my interest in these places, but also creates a real enthusiasm for them that makes me want to experience them first hand.

The second thing that comes to mind is what a great book this would make for kids. I don’t have kids so maybe I am off base. Maybe there is a theme or two that may not be appropriate for young eyes, but then again maybe not. The action centers around a young Cecile and her widowed father. The two lead a pretty happy life that put me in mind of the book Heidi. I think Shadows on the Rock is more complex and sophisticated than Heidi, but Cecile reminded me of Heidi’s joy and zest for life. Cecile and her father have the perfect relationship. Caring father and doting daughter, each taking good care of the other and so clearly happy with each other’s company.

The fact that the father and daughter rely so much on each other brings me to the third thing that jumps out at me when thinking about Shadows on the Rock. They have to rely on each other because of the long, often harsh winters, but also because of the frontier isolation of  Quebec in 1697. The book begins in October just as the last ship of the season leaves for France, cutting off the city from the rest of the world until things warm up again in the spring. Quebec’s only link to the rest of the world during the winter was via the rarely used overland connection to the English colonial port in New York which stays open throughout the year. I don’t tend to read much historical fiction so I am always a little in awe when an author manages to immerse me in another world. And, as a North American, I am also in awe of the fact that there is a North American story that is as old as the 1690s. I know intellectually that Europeans were active in North America much earlier than that, but I don’t think I ever really took onboard what that would mean in real terms. I am probably also stunted by my upbringing in the Midwest which has a history that doesn’t really get going until the 19th century. And when it comes to the East Coast, my mind doesn’t really check-in until the years leading up to the Declaration of Independence in 1776. So I guess Cather manages to chip away at my decidedly limited conception of North American history.

I am not sure if Shadows on the Rock is a good candidate to represent who Willa Cather is as a novelist, but it is a darn good read and is rather uplifting, and to a certain degree lighthearted. I think it would a be great try for someone who isn’t quite sure if Cather is their cup of tea.

   

1. My review of the Booker Prize winning Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald.

2. My Sunday Painting.

3. My post on neglected literary classics. I want to hear what you think. And I did a random draw and Claire from Paperback Reader won my extra copy of As for Me and My House by Sinclair Ross. Maybe I should send it with delivery confirmation since she only has three months from reciept of the book to read it and write a review…that was the deal Claire, no backing down. (Oh, and can you email me your address?)

4. My latest intallment of Seen on the Subway.

      

Pot with Chives, 1887 Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam