Culture Watch
SPRING AND FALL
by Nicholas Delbanco, © 2006
Published by Warner Books/Hachette Book Group USA
Hardback; 286 pp
Nicholas Delbanco, author of the novel Spring and Fall, has written many fiction and nonfiction books. He has also edited collections of the works of other writers, and is the Robert Frost Distinguished University Professor of English Language and Literature at U. Michigan. In view of the foregoing, readers may come to Spring and Fall expecting more than competence in the execution of a good yarn. They will not be disappointed.
The story involves the late-life romance of a pair of former lovers. In 1962, when Lawrence was a senior at Harvard, he met Hermia, a Radcliffe student. Their affair was intense but doomed by their youth and disparate interests.
The book opens in 2004, when we find Lawrence on a Mediterranean cruise ship, where (o wonder of wonders) he spots Hermia, also a passenger. This coincidence requires a bit of a stretch on the part of the reader. One can’t help feeling that the author needn’t have gone to such improbable lengths to bring the two together again, but then, it’s his tale, and the cruise ship serves his purpose neatly.
We then follow their separate stories from 1962 to the present, in flashback. Each married (Lawrence more than once) and had children (three for him, one for Hermia). At the time of the story, however, both are fortuitously single.
From time to time, each has remembered the old affair, and wondered whatever became of the other. At one point, Hermia admits to having Googled Lawrence, although beyond that, she did nothing to pursue her interest in him.
In lesser hands, the story could lend itself to sentimentality of a kind which, to an older reader, might seem condescending. Delbanco works hard not to fall into that trap. His characters are fully rounded, credible individuals with back-stories that are multidimensional and interesting. That said, the book does dance perilously close to the edge of soap opera, and the upbeat ending does not come as a surprise. There’s nothing wrong with that, if the groundwork has been as carefully laid as it has here.
If you want a sweet escape and some fun re-living the decades from 1962 to the present, you’ll like this book.
—JS
And Consider This
HIDDEN KITCHENS
by Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva, ©2005
Published by Rodale; Hardback: 265 pp.
Fans of NPR’s Morning Edition may recognize the names of these authors, known on their radio segments as The Kitchen Sisters. When they first decided to write Hidden Kitchens, they asked their listeners all across the country to call in and share information about local food traditions, community bonding through food, hot tips, and in fact anything food-related that needed, in their words, to be “documented before it disappeared.”
The results are piled together in this interesting little book. It covers matters historic (The Houston Chile Queens) and current (NASCAR kitchenettes in the racing pits), and several foods that qualify on both counts, like Kentucky Burgoo or Sweet Cucumber Pickles made the old-fashioned way.
At the end of each segment are recipes related to the preceding story, and an odd and tantalizing lot they are: things like Czechoslovakian Moon Cookies, or Sicilian Poached Eggs, or Cranberry-Glazed Cornish Hens with Wild Rice, the latter at the end of a long chapter on Native American cultivation and harvesting of wild rich in Minnesota.
This book is an episodic delight. It’s too much information to take in at one sitting, but if you dip into it one piece at a time, it is high in entertainment value, as well as being informative for those of us who enjoy kitchen talk and action.
—JS
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