Dispatch No. 7: Summer reading

Dear Jack,

Somehow summer’s just around the corner again (starts June 1, regardless of what the calendar says), and with the advent of summer come two other important things: summer vacation and summer reading. (Also picnics, peaches, fireworks, the idea of swimming.) I know some people like to reserve big, ambitious, Serious Difficult Novels for their summer reading; if they have the time and inclination, well, bully for them, sez I. But I typically don’t have either.

I think I told you how my family takes vacations—we are museum people, national parks people, lighthouse-climbing and mines-descending people. We stuff enough stuff for two trips into one. And, as an adult, the more road trips we take, the more content I am to simply stare out the window and watch the cities, towns, and countryside go by. It is endlessly fascinating—and leaves me with very little brain space for keeping track of the innumerable names in Russian novels, let along what’s actually happening with the plot.

Another strike against a summer of Serious Difficult Novels: In my corner of the Midwest, it’s simply too darn hot, as Ella Fitzgerald sings. Put me and a Russian novel together in the midst of an August heat wave and I’d be likely to sputter like a dry radiator in the middle of Death Valley. (Of course, Death Valley in January is quite pleasant, and I actually do have more brains and patience than I’m letting on here, but both of those are beside the point.) Summer reading should be refreshing, exciting, like an ice cream or a slice of cold watermelon at the end of a long day. And while you don’t want it to be so sickeningly sweet or anti-cerebral that it makes your brain rot and fall out of your skull, it also shouldn’t ask too much of you. (Or, at least, shouldn’t ask too much of me.)

I know the summer affords you SO much time for reading (that is, I sometimes wonder whether you manage to have time to eat or sleep nowadays), so I thought I’d send you some suggestions to jumpstart your list. And, since I am such an exquisitely helpful person who has such sophisticated cultural tastes, I will even throw in some film, television, and/or music/radio recommendations as well.

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June has two personalities: light, effervescent, hopeful; and smoky, moody, mysterious. It’s strawberries and cream, Pimm’s cup and Wimbledon, but also smoky jazz, deep blue velvet, and bats wheeling at dusk. It’s alluring, full of possibility—and, if we’re lucky, won’t even break 90. Here are some suggestions to set the scene.

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To read: A Damsel in Distress, by P.G. Wodehouse
To watch: A Damsel in Distress, starring Fred Astaire, Joan Fontaine, and George Burns and Gracie Allen
To listen: “A Foggy Day in London Town,” by George Gershwin; “Rhapsody in Blue,” by George Gershwin

The 1937 film adaptation of A Damsel in Distress of course does not hold a candle to P.G. Wodehouse’s novel—how could it?—but it does give Fred the chance to take a break from Ginger and instead run around England for a bit with the fabulous George and Gracie. It also introduced “A Foggy Day in London Town” to the world, for which we should all be grateful. And June wouldn’t be its blue-velvet self without Gershwin’s famous “Rhapsody,” of course; the animation sequence from Fantasia 2000 set to the piece is a particularly brilliant rendition.

Further reading: The Adventures of Sally and Jill the Reckless, both by P.G. Wodehouse

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To read: The Man in the Brown Suit, by Agatha Christie
To watch: The Lady Vanishes; The Man from U.N.C.L.E., season 1
To listen: Django Reinhardt’s gypsy jazz; Kind of Blue, by Miles Davis

The Man in the Brown Suit is one of my favorite Christie novels. It’s a mystery, yes, but not the kind she’s typically known for. In this early outing from 1924, plucky Anne Beddingfeld finds herself plunged into a series of thrilling—and dangerous—adventures on an international scale. It features more close escapes than you can shake a stick at and features not one but two delightful narrators. Don’t watch the 1980s made-for-TV-movie adaptation, though. It stars Stephanie Zimbalist (who of course is wonderful in Remington Steele), is set in the ’80s rather than the ’20s, and is chokingly awful. If you want a film with a similar vibe, watch Alfred Hitchcock’s 1938 version of The Lady Vanishes—or, for a slightly more modern take on international spy games, watch 1964’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (the first season is the only one really worth watching, and the only one in black and white). Although Django Reinhardt entered the Paris jazz scene about a decade after The Man in the Brown Suit was published, that period of his music jibes well with Christie’s story, I think. And then, what would June be without Kind of Blue?

Further reading: Destination Unknown, by Agatha Christie (also published as So Many Steps to Death)

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To read: The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, by Dorothy Gillman
To watch: Mrs. Pollifax, Spy
To listen: From All Sides, by Vince Guaraldi and Bola Sete; The Latin Side of Vince Guaraldi

Imagine you work for the CIA, and one fine, seemingly normal day, an elderly widow from New Jersey comes into your office and volunteers her services to you because she has reached the point in life where she is expendable. Yes, that would be the very Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, who quickly ends up in an equally unexpected hair-raising adventure. This 1966 book is such fun, and the 1971 film adaptation, starring the incomparable Rosalind Russel, is an equal delight. Part of the story takes place in Mexico, and Vince Guaraldi’s Latin-tinged albums make an excellent accompaniment.

Further reading: The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax and sequels, also by Dorothy Gillman

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In July it starts getting noticeably hot around here; it usually also stops raining. Things are still somewhat lush from the memory of June, but toward the middle of the month they start getting crispy—grass, sunburns, tempers. And, of course, it’s not a proper Fourth of July if you don’t end the day smelling like (and smudged with) gunpowder.

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To read: Homer Price and Centerburg Tales, by Robert McCloskey
To watch: Green Acres
To listen: “Fanfare for the Common Man,” by Aaron Copeland; American Spirit, by Mannheim Steamroller

McCloskey’s Homer Price stories are endlessly entertaining and a lovely snapshot of what life was like for small boys in a small town in the American Middle West from the middle of WWII through the early ’50s. Of course, they’re also fanciful and hilarious, with no shortage of hijinks; I can easily imagine my grandpa getting up to similar kinds of mischief. And then Green Acres, as you know, is absolutely bonkers—and absolutely fabulous. Copeland’s “Fanfare” never fails to give me chills; Mannheim Steamroller’s Fourth of July album contains spoken-word pieces that always make me cry, and comic songs by C.W. McCall that are always good for a laugh.

Further reading: “The Night the Bed Fell,” from My Life and Hard Times, by James Thurber

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To read: Fer-de-Lance, by Rex Stout
To watch: The Thin Man Goes Home
To listen: The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe, starring Sidney Greenstreet

Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe novels certainly aren’t what anyone would consider “cozy” mysteries, but neither are they (for the most part) as bleak and gritty as the famous noir works of Dashiell Hammet and Raymond Chandler. Picture something cross between a Philip Marlowe book and a Jeeves and Wooster adventure, actually, then throw in some orchids, and you’d get a fair picture of what the Wolfe stories are like. The mysteries are cunning and the plots suitably twisty, but it’s the narration of Archie Goodwin, Wolfe’s right-hand man, that gives them their irresistible charm. Some film adaptations have been made over the years, including one starring Edward Arnold as Wolfe (and Rita Hayworth, in her first outing for Columbia Pictures), but I haven’t seen any of them, so I don’t know how worth your while they’d be. I do, however, know that The Thin Man Goes Home is both a good mystery and a good laugh. Wolfe is really brought to life, however, when voiced by Sidney Greenstreet in radio’s The New Adventures; it’s a pity he never got to play the detective on screen as well.

Further reading: The League of Frightened Men, also by Rex Stout

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To read: Nothing to Report and Somewhere in England, by Carola Oman
To watch: I Know Where I’m Going! and To Be or Not to Be
To listen: Glenn Miller (including “In the Mood”)

Carola Oman’s novels Nothing to Report and Somewhere in England are funny, certainly, but not in the gut-busting manner of P.G. Wodehouse; the first takes place in the lead-up to World War II, while the second finds our characters smack in the middle of the war, doing their best to muddle through with their chins up. I Know Where I’m Going! is a British film from 1945; it’s not precisely about the war, but everything in it either happens because of or is somehow influenced by it. A headstrong girl who knows what she wants from life is prepared to marry an older man for his money … but then unexpected things happen en route to Scotland for her wedding. However will it all end? Well, watch and see.

To Be or Not to Be, on the other hand, is very much about the war—with Hamlet thrown in for good measure. Oh, but Hamlet is played by Jack Benny, in this case, and it all takes place in Poland. Benny and Carole Lombard portray Joseph and Maria Tura, national treasures of the Polish theatre who find their lives upended with the advent of the Nazi occupation. While it’s a hilarious film, it does highlight the bravery of the Polish people and the resistance movement. It’s also the last film Lombard made before her death in a plane crash on her way back from a war bond rally in her home state of Indiana. (Her husband, Clark Gable, joined the Air Force shortly thereafter.) And Glenn Miller, of course, was also in the Air Force (called the U.S. Army Air Forces then); he went missing over the English Channel in December of 1944. If you want to bawl your head off (if you do that), watch 1954’s The Glenn Miller Story, starring Jimmy Stewart as Miller and June Allyson as his wife, Helen Burger Miller. It’s one of those Hollywood biopics that isn’t necessarily worried about historical accuracy and is more concerned with provoking an emotional response in the audience. Brother, it does. If you don’t feel like feeling feelings, though, just listen to Miller’s music instead; it’s always a good time for In the Mood.

Further reading: Kate Hardy, by D.E. Stevenson

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It hasn’t rained in a month, it’s a hundred degrees in the shade, and the cicadas are blaring from sunup to long past sundown. Leather car seats will take the skin off your legs if you happen to be wearing shorts. And kids are going back to school because apparently everyone has had enough of being outside for one summer. Welcome to August in the middle of No Coast USA.

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To read: Red Harvest, by Dashiell Hammet; “Red Wind,” by Raymond Chandler
To watch: Key Largo, starring Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, and Lauren Bacall
To listen: The Red Wind; “They’re Red Hot”

Red Harvest follows the adventures of Hammet’s Continental Op while investigating a series of murders in a gang-infested Montana mining town. The events were apparently inspired by a real-life labor dispute in Butte, Montana, in 1920; I first encountered the novel at the Silver Bow County Courthouse in Butte when my parents and I were there on a family trip. (We also hunt up long-lost relatives and visit graveyards on vacation; I forgot to mention that.) Red Harvest is an intriguing read, with a twisty-turny plot and a narrator who may or may not be reliable. Raymond Chandler’s short story “Red Wind,” on the other hand, takes place in L.A. amidst a Santa Ana windstorm—and, as Chandler’s detective Philip Marlowe says, during a Santa Ana, “anything can happen.” And it does. The story is collected in Trouble Is My Business but was also twice adapted for the radio adventures of Philip Marlowe, once with Van Heflin, and once with Gerald Mohr (who is my firm favorite).

Key Largo, of course, takes place on the extreme other end of the country, in the Florida Keys, where Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall try to hold off Edward G. Robinson’s passel of gangsters. Things quickly get intense—and then just get more so. (Make sure to watch it with a piece of key lime pie to cool you off; I don’t think rum would do the trick.) “They’re Red Hot,” meanwhile, is a humorous Delta blues song by Robert Johnson that references Mississippi’s unique style of hot tamales, among other things. Hugh Laurie also performed a lively version on his jazz album Let Them Talk, if you prefer your blues English-style.

Further watching: Bullitt, starring Steve McQueen

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To read: “Good Country People,” “The Life You Save Might Be Your Own,” “The River,” “Greenleaf,” and “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” by Flannery O’Connor
To watch: Sullivan’s Travels, starring Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake
To listen: Put Your Needle Down; You Don’t Own Me Anymore, both by The Secret Sisters

Folks often don’t know quite what to do with Flannery O’Connor. Are we supposed to laugh, cry, grimace, squirm? They’re sometimes all appropriate reactions. Some people immediately love her writing, while others hate it; some feel just plain unsettled. I think it’s O’Connor’s clarity of sight that people find upsetting, ultimately—she sees plainly the unvarnished terror of the human soul and the strange beauty of redeeming grace and is unafraid of telling the truth, with all its humor and horror. I always forget how truly funny “A Good Man” is, for example, until one reaches a certain point in the narrative. (The first time I read it, though, I got nightmares; it’s certainly not a charming piece about a lack of romantic options, in case that’s what you were expecting, too.)

Sullivan’s Travels, in contrast, is quite a bit more obviously funny. The 1941 film features Joel McCrea as a director of comedy films and Veronica Lake (with her face mostly visible!) as an aspiring actress and goes from slapstick to slightly saccharine to nightmarish before arriving at … the ending, which I will not spoil for you. It’s worth watching. The Secret Sisters aren’t from the ’40s or ’50s, of course (they’re a year older and a year younger than I am), but these two albums of theirs sound like they could be. They also have a distinctly Southern gothic, unsettling tinge to them. Don’t listen with the lights out.

Further reading: We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson

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To read: Parnassus on Wheels and The Haunted Bookshop, by Christopher Morley
To watch: The Shop Around the Corner; You’ve Got Mail
To listen: Chet, by Chet Baker

Parnassus on Wheels is most properly an autumn book, it’s true, but as my mental autumn is usually in full force by mid-August, I think this counts as a good transition read. Plus, it’s truly delightful at any time of year. It follows the adventures of Helen McGill, who, at the tender age of 39, spontaneously embarks on a set of adventures that will change her life—and the way she thinks about books. Parnassus was published in 1917; The Haunted Bookshop followed in 1919 and is the type of post-WWI espionage tale that makes me want to open a secondhand bookshop that allows in-store pipe smoking. The Shop Around the Corner itself is not explicitly about books, but as it directly inspired You’ve Got Mail, which is, I think it counts. Plus, it stars Jimmy Stewart; how could you say no to him? (If you want a more books-related film, though, there’s always the made-for-TV version of 84, Charing Cross Road, with Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins.) Chet Baker’s jazz is easy on the ears, and his eponymous album Chet is a soothing place to land amid the blazing heat.

Further reading: 84, Charing Cross Road; The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street; Q’s Legacy, all by Helene Hanff

If you somehow manage to read all of those and need more suggestions, well, let me know; I’m nothing if not full of opinions.

How’s the view from where you are?

Yrs,
Meli

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