The Past By Tessa Hadley

“In order for love to survive, 

you had to close yourself off to a certain extent.” 

The Book
The Past is the story of a family, a past, and an old cottage of childhood memories.  A family gathers at the cottage of their youth to decide whether or not to sell and the all too-familiar family dynamics begin to surface as they always do.

The book begins in the present as the Crane family - four adult siblings, along with their various children, almost-children and romantic baggage meet at a quant English cottage once belonging to their grandmother.  The home now lays in disarray, repairs are needed and it has become quite clear that simple upkeep will be expensive.

Harriet, the oldest and a tried and true introvert prefers to be alone.  She dreads socializing and retreats quite often on solitary walks.  Alice, the nostalgic and dramatic sibling, arrives with the son of her recent ex-boyfriend.  Kasim is a 20-year old student who like most at that age are moody and think they know everything.  The youngest sibling, Fran comes with her two children - both under 10 after failing to convince her carefree musician husband to join her.  Roland, the only brother brings his most recent wife, Pilar and his 16-year-old daughter, Molly.

As so often happens, the siblings quickly fall into their old patterns of camaraderie and both good and bad tensions begin to surface.  Conflicts and intrigue arise; Molly and Kasim become interested in one another, Ivy and Arthur find dark secrets hidden in a secret cottage near the property and Harriet finds herself infatuated with her brother's wife, Pilar.  Fran remains the sensible one, keeping everything running mechanically and everyone pleasant.

Halfway through the novel, we are swept away to the past.  The reader is taken to the siblings' childhoods, when their mother Jill temporarily brought them to this same house to visit her parents.  Jill died of cancer when they children were still young and their father suffered a nervous breakdown and moved to France after she passed away.  The four Crane siblings helped raise one another, and from this point it becomes clear that the dynamics at play were largely ingrained by this shared wound.  Throughout, it is clear that the Cranes are wounded from the scars of their past, but incredibly loving and loyal to one another above all else.  
 
My Thoughts
Beautiful.  Tessa Hadley's continues to astound me.  The Past is no different.  All too often (in my opinion), familial stories are often tried and blah.  There are characters, but no substance.   It is clear from the beginning that Tessa knows her characters in and out and the threads that bind them flow seamlessly throughout the novel.  Her rich descriptions of family are exceptional, as is her astute understanding of the complexities of family life.

Valentine's? How about Galentine's!?

There will be lots of posts about love, relationships and romance in the next few days. You will be bombarded with ads displaying hearts, chocolates, all the things your loved one needs and wants.  And trust me when I say, I LOVE love!  I think that you should treat your significant others with kindness, support and kisses everyday of the year and increase that by 1000x as February 14th comes around the corner. 

I just like the lesser known holiday - Galentine's Day ALOT too!!!!

Galentine's Day?! - 
You maybe asking yourself, what in the world is that?   

Galentine's Day is a day for ladies celebrating ladies.  You can all thank Leslie Knope for this fancy celebration.  It's the day when you get to drop the beau or boo and grab your best gal pals.  Then you get to shower them all with glitter and sweets and warm fuzzies - ya know, you get to tell them how wonderful they are and remind them they are the greatest women in the world?!?!  It doesn't matter that sometimes you fight like cats and dogs and others you drive each other crazy.  No measly disagreement or difference matters on Galentine's Day. 

  The books below are my picks for Galentine's Day.  Each and every one showcase female friendships that are compassionate, supportive and consistent.  They prove that ladies celebrating ladies doesn't have to happen only once a year. 

Friendship by Emily Gould

The story of best friends, Bev and Amy.   Friends for years, the two face a crossroads at the age of 30.  A novel with a deep understanding of what it means to be in a long term friend relationship, it showcases the bad with the good.

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

Attachments, according to the reviews is a love story. And it is. It’s a love story between Beth and Lincoln, IT security guy and movie review gal. But, it is also the story of a genuine friendship between two women who work in The Courier newsroom, Beth and Jennifer. They talk about what’s going on in each other’s lives. They talk about what scares them. They talk about anything, and that’s what originally gets them noticed. 

The Group by Mary McCarthy

Mary McCarthy’s most celebrated novel follows the lives of eight Vassar graduates, known simply to their classmates as “the group”  from graduation throughout their lives as adults. Time passes, some friends grow apart and some become entangled in one another's lives.  When one of them passes away, they all come back together again to mourn her loss.  Regardless of where life took them all, it is clear that to be a member of their "group" is to be loyal and supportive. 

Ghost World by Daniel Clowes

No one would argue that your teenage years are the most difficult.  Best friends Enid and Becky face them head on in this cult classic graphic novel, Ghost World.  From growing up to growing apart, this novel is likely to rip at your heartstrings or keep you laughing as you recall your own experience of finding yourself as a moody, overzealous and stubborn teen.    

Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante

My Brilliant Friend

The Story of a New Name

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

The Story of the Lost Child

The entirety of the Neapolitan Novel series is a beautiful story about two friends, Elena and Lila.  The books are a conscientious portrayal of two women  living in Italy and a touching reflection on the nature of true friendship.

Five Things

The Book: The Core of the Sun by Johanna Sinisalo

The Core of the Sun mixes two main themes.  The first focuses on the slow decline of individual freedom in the guise of promoting social good.  Think Prohibition or the War on Drugs.  The second addresses a male-dominated society that seeks control of women through creating distinctive categories for them. The Eusistocratic Republic of Finland has created a world where women are deemed as either an eloi or a morlock.  Eloi have one purpose - sex or procreation.  Intelligent and educated women are relegated to being labeled Morlocks and as such are condemned to menial labor and sterilized.  Vanna, the main character is a Morlock living in disguise as an Eloi to ensure the maximum amount of "freedom" in this new world.  The story follows her as she navigates her "freedom".      

Gossamer Dress in Blush

Crazy Gringa Hot Sauce

NARS Audacious Lipstick in Grace

Carnivorous Plants Print

Tocca Bianca Eau de Parfum 

**I'm certain most readers have been there.  You're reading and suddenly the movie version of the story begins to play in your head.  Please tell me I'm not alone in this.  My Five Things series is an ode to that.  Each week, I choose a book and select five items I could easily see being in the movie version.  Enjoy!

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

"There we were, doctor and patient, in a relationship that sometimes carries a magisterial air 
and other times, like now, was no more, and no less, than two people huddled together, as one faces the abyss.  

Doctors, it turns out, need hope, too."


When Breath Becomes Air is the profound memoir of Paul Kalanithi, a young neurosurgeon who is diagnosed with terminal cancer.  Paul has based his life and his career as a neurosurgeon on being present with patients and their families as they are diagnosed with the unthinkable and guiding them on the path they find themselves on following.  In When Breath Becomes Air, we see the transformation that occurs as Paul is diagnosed with cancer and creates his own path as the life he has planned for disappears from reach.
 




The first half of the memoir focuses on his time as a young man choosing his path in life.  We learn early on that he has a love of literature.  As a student at Stanford, Paul Kalanithi wrote his thesis on Walt Whitman.  Whitman, like Paul was interested in understanding "the physiological-spiritual man."  The answers he finds in literature are not enough.  He needs more.  It is then that he sits down with an advisor and finds his true passion.  He decides to pursue medicine, specifically neurosurgery.  He is engaged and fascinated by the brain and again the question he originally sought in literature surfaces, "what makes life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay?"  It is evident immediately that Paul has a true calling, his heart and soul are invested in perfecting his craft.  




And then life halts.  At the healm of his career, Paul is diagnosed with cancer.  His wife, family and doctor serve as rock solid support as he navigates a life that swiftly changes direction.  Paul describes the process of transforming from doctor to patient.  Through Paul's own experience facing death and those of the stories he tells of patients, we see a man who is not afraid of living nor of the inevitable, death.
 




As doctor and patient, Paul saw cancer from every perspective.  Never have I experienced writing in which the narrator so eloquently writes about facing death as life swirls around him and does so with such vigor for living.

This one is a must read.  Paul's perseverance in the midst of everything is inspiring.

Books at the Oscars

 Movie: The Revenant

Based on the Book: The Revenant

"The year is 1823, and the trappers of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company live a brutal frontier life. Hugh Glass is among the company’s finest men, an experienced frontiersman and an expert tracker. But when a scouting mission puts him face-to-face with a grizzly bear, he is viciously mauled and not expected to survive. Two company men are dispatched to stay behind and tend to Glass before he dies. When the men abandon him instead, Glass is driven to survive by one desire: revenge. With shocking grit and determination, Glass sets out, crawling at first, across hundreds of miles of uncharted American frontier. Based on a true story, The Revenant is a remarkable tale of obsession, the human will stretched to its limits, and the lengths that one man will go to for retribution."
-Amazon
 

Nominated For:

Best Picture

Actor in a Leading Role

Actor in a Supporting Role

Cinematography

Costume Design

Directing

Film Editing

Makeup and Hairstyling

Production Design

Sound Editing

Sound Mixing

Visual Effects

Movie: The Martian

Based on the Book: The Martian

"Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.

Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there.

After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.

Chances are, though, he won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old "human error" are much more likely to kill him first.

But Mark isn't ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?"
-Amazon
 

Nominated For: 

Best Picture

Actor in a Leading Role

Production Design

Sound Editing 

Sound Mixing

Visual Effects

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

Movie: Brooklyn

Based on the Book: Brooklyn

"Eilis finds work in a department store on Fulton Street, and when she least expects it, finds love. Tony, who loves the Dodgers and his big Italian family, slowly wins her over with patient charm. But just as Eilis begins to fall in love, devastating news from Ireland threatens the promise of her future."
-Amazon
 

Nominated For:

Best Picture

Actress in a Leading Role

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

Movie: Room

Based on the Book: Room

"To five-year-old-Jack, Room is the world. . . . It's where he was born, it's where he and his Ma eat and sleep and play and learn. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma it's the prison where she has been held for seven years. Through her fierce love for her son, she has created a life for him in this eleven-by-eleven-foot space. But with Jack's curiosity building alongside her own desperation, she knows that Room cannot contain either much longer.

Room is a tale at once shocking, riveting, exhilarating--a story of unconquerable love in harrowing circumstances, and of the diamond-hard bond between a mother and her child."
-Amazon
 

Nominated For:

Best Picture

Actress in a Leading Role

Directing

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

Movie: The Big Short

Based on the Book: The Big Short

"The real story of the crash began in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesn't shine and the SEC doesn't dare, or bother, to tread: the bond and real estate derivative markets where geeks invent impenetrable securities to profit from the misery of lower--and middle--class Americans who can't pay their debts. The smart people who understood what was or might be happening were paralyzed by hope and fear; in any case, they weren't talking."
-Amazon

Nominated For:

Best Picture

Actor in a Supporting Role

Directing

Film Editing

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

Movie: Carol

Based on the Book: The Price of Salt

"A chance encounter between two lonely women leads to a passionate romance in this lesbian cult classic. Therese, a struggling young sales clerk, and Carol, a homemaker in the midst of a bitter divorce, abandon their oppressive daily routines for the freedom of the open road, where their love can blossom. But their newly discovered bliss is shattered when Carol is forced to choose between her child and her lover."
-Amazon

Nominated For:

Actress in a Leading Role

Actress in a Supporting Role

Cinematography

Costume Design

Music (Original Score)

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

Five Things

The Book: American Housewife: Stories by Helen Ellis

Helen Ellis and her collection of short stories of American housewives is refreshing and razor-sharp.  Don't be fooled by the sweet faces.  The women lurking here aren't timid.  They feel everything from disenchantment to anger to hysteria.  The women Helen has created are vivacious and authentic, and I for one would be honored to sit in on their bookclub.

Bliss Drops Earrings

Cool Lilac Cardigan

Loly In the Sky Ballet Flats
Photo Credit: Random Acts of Pastel

Tonight or Never Bra

Females Are Strong As Hell Hoop Art

*I'm certain most readers have been there.  You're reading and suddenly the movie version of the story begins to play in your head.  Please tell me I'm not alone in this.  My Five Things series is an ode to that.  Each week, I choose a book and select five items I could easily see being in the movie version.  Enjoy!

The Crossroads of Should and Must by Elle Luna

 “If you want to live the fullness of your life—if you want to be free—you must understand, first, why you are not free, what keeps you from being free. ” 

The Crossroads of Should and Must: Find and Follow Your Passion stemmed from an honest essay Elle Luna published April 8, 2014 describing her personal journey navigating her own crossroads of Should and Must.  

In it, Elle Luna states:

"Should is how other people want us to live our lives.  It's all of the expectations that others layer upon us.  Sometimes, Shoulds are small, seemingly innocuous, and easily accommodates.  "You should listen to that song," for example.  At other times, Shoulds are highly influential systems of thought that pressure and, at their most destructive, coerce us to live our lives differently."

"When we choose Should, we're choosing to live our life for someone or something other than ourselves."

"Must is different.  Must is who we are, what we believe, and what we do when we are alone with our truest, most authentic self.  It's that which calls to us most deeply.  It's our convictions, our passions, our deepest held urges and desires - unavoidable, undeniable, and inexplicable.  Unlike Should, Must doesn't accept compromises."

"Choosing Must is the greatest thing we can do with our lives."

Elle Luna describes ways in which we can all identify our true passions through self-reflection.  

She also goes on to distinguish between a job ("something typically done from 9 to 5 for pay"), a career ("a system of advancements and promotions over time where rewards are used to optimize behavior"), and a calling ("something that we feel compelled to do regardless of fame or fortune").  

She recalls the momentous time in her own life when she realized which she had as a young professional working at a fast paced startup.  She notes that she was challenged, but not fulfilled.  She goes on to explain her slow transition from one to another and her ultimate leap of faith in chasing her calling above all else.

Lastly, Luna recalls with detail the Fear that exists when we decide to take a leap of faith and follow the path of Must rather than a life of Should.  She vividly illustrates her own experience and how she overcame her own uncertainties in order to live the life she dreamed of.

Everyday we decide how we want to live.  We can continue to live as we are, or we can decide to take a new path - a path that may be frightening and unknown but has the potential to lead to a much more fulfilling destination.  

With Elle Luna's words, those who choose their Must quickly see they are not alone.  
In fact, they are in very good company.