“You may not believe in magic but something very strange is happening at this very moment. Your head has dissolved into thin air and I can see the rhododendrons through your stomach. It's not that you are dead or anything dramatic like that, it is simply that you are fading away and I can't even remember your name.”
Remembering Leonora Carrington on her birthday.
Hey #NYRBbookclub friends. This pod episode is a great exploration of Leonora's biography, artwork, and novel that we read. She was an interesting woman! @vivastory
pickWhat a charming book. Intellectual, yet completely irreverent. Funny, yet melancholic. There's something wonderfully subversive about the switch that occurs midway through, where the "eccentric ravings" of a bunch of old women, discarded and largely forgotten in their retirement home, herald the start of a new world order rooted in nature and love of life. Plus Marian Leatherby is one of the most quotable MC's around ?
At times I had thought of writing poetry myself but getting words to rhyme with each other is difficult, like trying to drive a herd of turkeys and kangaroos down a crowded thoroughfare and keep them neatly together without looking in shop windows. There are so many words, and they all mean something.
I never eat meat as I think it is wrong to deprive animals of their life when they are so difficult to chew anyway.
#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl
When Carmella gave me the present of a hearing trumpet she may have foreseen some of the consequences.
pickWhimsical, weekend read. First book I've read told from the first person POV of a 92 year old. Marian Leatherby is absolutely delightful.Her life is quite rich and the adventures she has at the institute (the old folks home) to which her family consigns her are fantastical. Woven into the story (penned in the ‘60s) is cultural commentary. Psychiatry, organized religion and touchy-feely, new age mysticism get satirical treatment.
#doublespin
#weekendreads @rachelsbrittain
1. Eye of the World (given its size, I think this will be a "current read" for quite some time) and Breakfast of Champions
2. The Hearing Trumpet
3. Coffee ☕
pickI'm three weeks late but I finally finished this nutty March #NYRBbookclub selection. Any time the main character is 92 years old, things are bound to be odd. I could never have predicted just HOW odd! But I enjoyed so many of the details. A rogue nun. Postcards from Margreve. Plus who doesn't want a best friend like Carmella? No I didn't understand the ending but I can't help but love the sheer weird audacity of this book. Next level #spinsterlit
Hey, Carrington and Hearing Trumpet fans. Did you see? It‘s free. It came in today‘s NYRB email. Does anyone have the full list of the book club participants to tag? #NYRBbookclub
Happy birthday, Leonora Carrington!
This painting is called The Old Maids (1947) and it does feel like The Hearing Trumpet encapsulated in a painting 💜 #nyrbbookclub
pickIntroducing the newest #LittenKitten our new baby, Apollo!! He‘s 💯 crazy and hard to keep up with, kinda like this book! Also like this book, he is freakin hilarious, pretty weird, but also clever, adventurous, and beautiful in a unique way. I think Leonora would dig his sorta one-eyed look too. (He is recovering from eye surgery and should mend well but will likely have a bit of a badass scar which is seeming all too appropriate 😂) #NYRBBC
pickA perfect book for a rainy, chilly morning. I always love a book that transports me and, strange as it is, I loved where this one took me. Looking forward to the #NYRBBookClub discussion!
Not sure how well you can see them, but I have a bird family in my planter again this year. The babies are getting almost big enough to fly away.
pickBjörk's blurb sums it up best: "Free-flowing, spiky imagination. I love its freedom, its humour, & how it invents its own laws." Pure joyful, anarchic avant-gardism. I love that Leonora invaded the masculine domain of surrealism with abundant jaunty feminine energy. At times, this book read like a quest narrative, or a picaresque, featuring nonconformist old ladies. In spirit, it reminded me of Lolly Willowes. No one gives a hoot about the rules.
pick#NYRBBookclub I have read surrealist novels before & was familiar w/Carringtons paintings.I borrowed her short stories from the library , but it quickly turned into a DNF. I was intrigued by this fanciful tale , it‘s quite a ride !I felt the idea of the cast off elders, that the people running the place dress it up w/ religious rigors while just wanting to make the coin.I swear I must have been hallucinating the last quarter of this one.
pickNot having much experience with surrealist literature, I sort of expected this one to be super weird from the get-go. So an eccentric but pretty conventional beginning was a nice surprise and by the time the real off kilter kicked off, I was already all in. I'm sure they I didn't totally get it, but I very much enjoyed it. #nyrbbookclub
so-soOne of the most strangest novels I‘ve ever read. Impossible to sum up. I have to admit it lost me more times than it had me gripped but I‘m glad I read the afterword as it did make me see the book in a better light, and made me appreciate the originality and ideas within it. #nyrbbookclub ⭐️⭐️
pickThere's a kind of older novel about mental institutions that muses over who is more 'insane', the residents or the doctors. This novel began in a similar vein, but morphed into something that might have been written by Umberto Eco on hallucinogenics. I liked seeing the fantastic imagery from her canvasses come to life and how the bizarre events are observed with a deadpan humor, even if I was mystified by the ultra-weird, apocalyptic ending.
so-so2⭐️ 🤨 What have I just read? The start of the novel was quite promising. It‘s witty and funny; and I was looking forward to finding out more about this cute grandma heading to the house for senile old ladies. And then it switched gear to weird surrealism - a bird with six great wings, a trip down to hell, etc 😓 Surrealism and I have never been best buddies, so yeah... this is not for me
pickThis book was delightful & then rather suddenly turned into a confusing phantasmagorical experience. I loved following the MC, 92 years of age, who had no teeth and a big hearing trumpet. She is relegated to an old folks home by her daughter-in-law. Rebellion, an apocalypse, & a journey to Lapland are just part of this story. I would love to think I‘ll have the gumption the character had at that age and a friend as reliable. #Vermont #NYRBbookclub
pickThis is a wild tale about an eccentric old lady living in an eccentric home for the elderly with a bunch of eccentric people. Marian with her hearing trumpet is hilarious, as are her best friend Carmella and the winking Abbess. I could have spend hours with them but suddenly there was the apocalypse!
I am aware of Carrington‘s love for absurdity and surrealism but personally I preferred the first half of the book. #NYRBBookClub
This book just took a jump into the truly weird. Don‘t want to be a spoiler, but WTF??? #NYRBBookclub
“I am never lonely, Galahad. Or rather I never suffer from loneliness. I suffer much from the idea that my loneliness might be taken away from me by a lot of mercilessly well-meaning people...”
#NYRBBookClub
Not sure how to feel about how much I‘m relating to Marian. 🤨 This book is endlessly quotable!
#NYRBBookClub
The illustrations in this book are as hilarious as the story itself 🤣
It‘s that time again!
Time to pour a glass of wine and start this month‘s #NYRBBookClub book. 🍷
Grateful that @sarahbarnes lent me her copy of The Hearing Trumpet for #nyrbbookclub. Best of all, it gave us an excuse to meet up for a little visit (with 😷 on).
@vivastory
I am enjoying this book so much and knew nothing about the author, Leonora Carrington. Goodness! The Wikipedia information was a surprise. Sometimes I wonder how after all these years I have missed so much info about so many interesting people. #NYRBbookclub
Found the #audiobook for our current #NYRBBookClub read on Hoopla and it is outstanding. What a wild, weird, hysterical ride this is!
I have laughed out loud three times in the span of reading the first five pages. #NYRBBookClub
“Indeed I do have a short grey beard which conventional people would find repulsive. Personally I find it rather gallant.”
#WindsOfMarch Day 4: Here is my #MarchTBR including our #NYRBBookClub - three of my self-selected novels are perfect for our upcoming quarterly theme on refugees, migrants, exiles - and our annual theme to decolonize our libraries. :)
#LovePrevails Day 28: #ItHadToBeYou lemon macarons and our #NYRBBookClub pick for the month of March.
My copy arrived today. It smells soooooo good 🤪
Hey, @suvata @HOTPock3tt and @Bits ☺️
Getting ahead of myself, but I‘m super excited to read some magical realism with you all for #LMPBC round 11, so can you help me pick my book?
Do any of these look interesting to you? Any you‘ve already read or definitely wouldn‘t want to?
pickWell this was odd and incredibly fun for me.
Old ladies, werewolves, immoral nuns, the holy grail, cats, murder and a nuclear winter.
The author is a surrealist artist and this is important because if you want something tightly plotted then you will hate this!
But if you want a book full of dream logic, imagery and can just go with the flow then this is delightful. Lots of lines made me smirk and no it didn‘t make full sense but I loved it.
“Why should they want to hide anything from me?” I asked, thinking about Carmella‘s incurable passion for drama. “ I don‘t give them any trouble and they almost never see me.”
“You never know,” said Carmella. ”People under seventy and over seven are very unreliable if they are not cats. You can‘t be too careful...” (p. 8; Marian and her best friend, Carmella; both in their 70s)
#catsoflitsy #Olivia (named after Fringe agent, Olivia Dunham)
The Hearing Trumpet | 
