Rubin Reviews: Du Maurier
From The Washington Times, Sunday, January 18, 2009--
BOOKS: A popular writer gets her due
DON'T LOOK NOW: SELECTED STORIES OF DAPHNE DU MAURIER
By Daphne du Maurier, Edited and with an introduction by Patrick McGrath
New York Review of Books, $15.95, 384 pages (paper)
By Martin Rubin
Daphne du Maurier was one of the most successful and popular English writers of the 20th century: Fame and fortune came her way and she even became a Dame of the British Empire. But as far as the academy and the world of literary critics were concerned, she got no respect. As the introduction to this collection of her short stories succinctly puts it:
"During her lifetime she received comparative little critical esteem. 'I am generally dismissed with a sneer as a bestseller,' she once said, for it pained her deeply that she was not regarded as the serious writer she took herself to be." . . .
She is now, two decades after her death, becoming the beneficiary of feminist literary revisionism.
About time too! For Du Maurier really was an extraordinary writer, highly individual (perhaps belonging to no identifiable school or group of writers also contributed to her being marginalized) and powerful both in her prose style and in her choice of subjects. As befits the granddaughter of George du Maurier, whose classic Victorian novel gave us the truly iconic character Svengali, she had a flair for the dramatic and for surprise. Yet her twists are never just gimmicks. To take the most celebrated example, the fact that the Mrs. de Wynter who narrates her most famous novel, "Rebecca," has, unlike her eponymous predecessor, no first name, makes and continually underlines the fundamental dynamic of the book: The corrosive sense of inferiority that blights her life amid that overwhelming presence. It is as fine an example of novelistic technique as you will encounter anywhere. . . .
For Martin's full review, click here or visit www.washingtontimes.com.
Ivy Football Association Dinner Jan. 22
71ers AND THEIR GUESTS ARE INVITED to the 2009 Ivy Football Association Dinner, January 22 at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York.
NOTE: The dinner will be preceded by a Yale reception in the Waldorf's Louis XVI room to introduce new Head Coach Tom Williams, Stanford '93.
To view the official invitation, click here; to purchase tickets, visit www.ivyfootballassociation.org.
Walt Mintkeski holiday letter
Walt Mintkeski writes (12/19/08):
Dear Friends,
This certainly has been a year of changes for me personally, our family, and the word. I ended last year looking for employment opportunities to use my engineering skills in areas of sustainability, energy efficiency, and renewable energy. Well, now I have 2 part time jobs!
As of February, I am a Project Engineer for Energy Trust of Oregon, (ETO) which provides cash incentives for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects for customers of investor owned electric and gas utilities in Oregon. I manage the Water and Wastewater Efficiency Program and am having a great time telling my former professional colleagues that if they don’t come see me, I can’t give them money to save energy.
My other job, which actually started in November ’07, is with a small firm you probably do not recognize: Lockheed Martin. This mega corporation is actually a contractor for ETO and manages the Existing Buildings Program to improve heating, air conditioning, and lighting of existing commercial buildings. I help non-profits navigate the ETO process to complete energy efficiency projects. All together, I work less than 16 hours per week, when I want, which allows me to pursue my volunteer and recreational interests. I still serve on the boards of the Johnson Creek Watershed Council (JCWC) and the local chapter of the Oregon League of Conservation Voters (OLCV), campaign for candidates endorsed by OLCV, maintain the solar electric system for Portland’s Nature Conservancy office, and race my Laser sailboat each week.
In terms of travel this year, Vicki and I had two weeks in January on the island of AI, the first with our sons and their wives and Pat & Kathy Norton (Maureen’s parents) the April. April, we enjoyed an exciting and beautiful raft trip down the Owyhee River Canyon in SE Oregon. In July, I went on a 5 day, 50 mile backpack in Montana’s Bob Marshal Wilderness. The main reason for selecting Montana was to visit son Charlie and daughter in law Rachael in Missoula, where he is a finish carpenter and she is becoming a Montessori teacher. In August, I joined them on a 3 day, 25 mile backpack on the Pacific Crest Trail through Oregon’s Three Sisters Wilderness.
The big news is the birth of our grandson, Toby on 6/8/08 to Tyler and Maureen in Seattle. All went well, and Vicki and I met him 9 hours after he was born. While Toby was preparing to enter the world, my 97 year old father was winding down. We put him on Hospice care in April primarily to help regulate his pain medications which were making his normally sharp mind very drowsy. He rallied for his 98th birthday party on 6/29/08 when Toby came down with his parents to meet him, and 12 other friends and relatives took him out to dinner at his favorite Chinese restaurant ( see attached photo).
The most fulfilling part of the day was having 4 generations of Mintkeskis together. Just 12 days later on 7/11/08, he passed away peacefully in his sleep, knowing that life would continue through his great-grandson. On August 10, we had a wonderful celebration of his life at Willamette View, where he lived his entire 8 years while in Portland. We chose that weekend so that Charlie and Rachael, and Tyler, Mo, and Toby could attend, with about 25 other friends, relatives, and his caregivers. We celebrated by enjoying his favorite foods and telling our favorite stories about him. I’m sure he was laughing and smiling with us. I miss his humor, our Sunday dinners at local restaurants, and his watching me from the car while I raced my sailboat on Sunday afternoons.
The other sad day in our house was October 27, when we had to put down our almost 17 year old dog, Kemper. For the first time since our return from our year in Costa Rica in 1992, we do not have her to greet us at the door when we come home.
Vicki and I have experienced great joy as well as sadness together this year as we have transitioned from parents to grandparents. She continues to paint and teach watercolors as our focus shifts form trips to my father’s apartment to visits to Toby in Seattle. Needless to say, we love being grandparents to our now 6 month old, 22 pound boy who smiles and giggles when we play with him.
So, that is our news. Vicki & I look forward to hearing from you and would love to have you visit us in Portland. ... Keep in touch, and best wishes for the Holidays.
Review: 'Mrs. Woolf and the Servants'
Washington Times, Nov. 30, 2008
MRS. WOOLF AND THE SERVANTS
By Alison Light
Bloomsbury, $30, 400 pages, illus.
REVIEWED BY MARTIN RUBIN
It is amusing that contemporary feminists who think of Virginia Woolf as their patron saint are usually shocked when they hear her recorded voice. Instead of some reflection of their own intonations, they are confronted by plummy tones that are - horror of horrors in today's cultural climate - indubitably upper-class! A small thing, but indicative of a larger phenomenon: In projecting current values onto figures from the past - after all Woolf was born a century and a quarter ago and has been dead nearly 70 years - it is easy to forget that people who live IN a certain time are apt to be OF it as well. . . . [N]ow along comes "Mrs. Woolf and the Servants," an authoritative, detailed account of the dynamic relationship between Virginia Woolf and the domestic help that was so crucial to her existence as a woman and a writer.
An English author and academic, Alison Light is clear-eyed and wise about her chosen topic. Attuned to the huge sociological changes in 20th-century Britain, she is certainly not one to judge the past solely by today's standards. She has not only done her research, but brings to her task some unique advantages: Her grandmother was in domestic service, working her way through the travails of those harsh days, and Ms. Light was brought up on first-hand accounts of what it was actually like to be a servant in Woolf's time. . . .
For Martin's full review, click here or visit www.washingtontimes.com.
Bob Shapiro Memorial Service
Bob Shapiro's memorial service at the NYC Yale Club Nov. 16 was crowded with classmates who knew him from Yale as well as those of us who met him more recently through the class lunches he co-founded and through many other Yale connections. His wife, Connie, his children, Philip and Elana, his parents, Millie and Harold Shapiro, his sisters, Nancy and Linda, along with many other family members and Bill Blumberg, a friend from Bob's junior high school days, also attended.
Scroll down to the Comments below this item to read brief excerpts from the service.
Click here for Bob's In Memoriam page including remembrances from those who spoke at the service and who wrote to Catherine Ross, Bob's Trumbull classmate, who organized the service along with Bill Primps (mc at the service), Andy Sherman, Stuart Klawans, Harry Levitt, Robbie Quinn, Priscilla Lundin, Jim Kaplan, Carla Horowitz and others. (Must be registered and logged in to view In Memoriam pages.)
NB: Check back for updates, as more will be posted as we receive them.
Music71
Our website developer, Tyler Gore, sent this email last week; I thought classmates might enjoy it. July 31, 1971 was after our graduation day, but just barely . . . .---Katherine Hyde (BK 71)
[Tyler wrote:] Was googling Yale71, just to see if it came up. (It didn't -- except for AYA -- which is how it should be... we deliberately suppressed Google's bots from cataloging the site.)
Anyway, these 1971 Yale Bowl concert links came up, and thought you might find interesting, and might even find interesting for your classmates.
http://deadlistening.blogspot.com/2008/02/1971-july-31-yale-bowl.html
http://www.guitars101.com/forums/f90/yes-yale-bowl-1971-flac-78097.html
Review: Smyrna 1922
How the trading hub was destroyed
Washington Times---Sunday, November 2, 2008
PARADISE LOST:
SMYRNA 1922
By Giles Milton; Basic Books, $27.95, 426 pages, illus.
REVIEWED BY MARTIN RUBIN
On Wednesday, Sept. 13, 1922, the ancient city of Smyrna (now Izmir) on the Aegean Sea, which had long been a prosperous cosmopolitan trading hub, was a charnel house. Caught up in a 10-year cycle of war which had seen Greece and Turkey fighting for control of the region, the largely Greek city (its Hellenic population of more than 300,000 much larger then than Athens') had been sacked by the Turkish forces under Mustafa Kemal, later known as Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern post-Ottoman Turkey.
Scenes of almost unimaginable brutality and horror ensued: Untold rapes and cruel assaults - limbs, noses and ears hacked off -and murders by scimitar, bayonet and club. Not content with mayhem on this scale, the invaders scattered gasoline throughout the city and set it alight. Desperate to escape the inferno, much of the city's populace streamed down to the harbor, a scene that must have merited the term indescribable if ever one did. But Giles Milton, a British writer, has managed the difficult task of harrowing the hell that Smyrna must have been 86 years ago . . . .
For Martin's full review, click here or visit www.washingtontimes.com.
Rubin Review: 'The Northern Clemency'
Britain as It Was, Even in Thatcher's Day
By Martin Rubin--Wall Street Journal Nov. 14, 2008
The Northern Clemency
By Philip Hensher
(Knopf, 597 pages, $26.95)
Anyone who thinks that the English novel has, to paraphrase Wordsworth, forfeited its "ancient English dower" -- i.e., lost its ability to inhabit sprawling, meaty tomes, as in the days of yore -- might want to take note of "The Northern Clemency." For Philip Hensher has produced a work of fiction that is the antithesis of so many fashionable contemporary novels, with their elliptical ironies and screenplay-ready dialogue. "The Northern Clemency" is a richly textured, closely observed saga -- beginning in 1974 and continuing into the 1990s -- of two British families in the Yorkshire city of Sheffield. Mr. Hensher provides plenty of action, but he embeds it in the atmosphere and rhythms of quotidian existence. There is an aspect of social history to the novel that reminds one of Mrs. Gaskell or even Dickens. . . .
To read Martin's full review, click here or visit www.wsj.com.
Tailgate at Yale Bowl Nov. 15!
Dave Vogel writes (Nov. 11):
Tailgate for the Princeton game Nov. 15:
Meet fellow 71ers before the noon kickoff in lot D Special for beer/wine/soda/munchies. Our small tent will be near the students and just off Central Avenue, entry from north of Bowl, lot is just north of the Yale Polo Armory.
I am going to try to get some signs to identify the spot, but it is not in the tent area where the high cost tents are.
Call my cell (203-687-7995) if you have trouble finding us. SEE YOU THERE!
Click thumbnail below for map:
RSVP for Bob Shapiro Memorial Nov. 16
Andy Sherman asks anyone planning to attend the Nov. 16 memorial service for Bob Shapiro at the NYC Yale Club to do two things:
1) RSVP soonest (reply form is below) if you haven't already, and
2) Let Catherine Ross (cjross27[at]gmail.com) know you're coming, so Catherine can get an accurate headcount for the service.
Details and reply form:
Yale Class of 1971 - Bob Shapiro Memorial Service
Sunday, November 16, 2008 - Yale Club of New York City