August 30, 2024 • 49 mins
Table for Two is a story told in vignettes - Evelyn Ross drifts betwen cities, going from New York City to Chicago, then to Los Angeles. With every step she takes closer to home, she treads farther away away and finds herself in a constantly spiraling dialogue betwen her past, present, and future.
Exposited in seven points of view, the chain of storeis highlights the wit and dynamic penmanship of Amor Towles to craft the multi-faceted inner dialogue that goes on within people who are drifting and hoping to arrive into themselves.
We enjoyed this read and we hope you'll enjoy this episode!
Cheers booknerds!
Exposited in seven points of view, the chain of storeis highlights the wit and dynamic penmanship of Amor Towles to craft the multi-faceted inner dialogue that goes on within people who are drifting and hoping to arrive into themselves.
We enjoyed this read and we hope you'll enjoy this episode!
Cheers booknerds!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Have a little friends and book lovers. Welcome to an
episode of two Bonnets Talking where two booknets you and
me talk well about books. I am Honey Ahmed and
me Amiga. Here is Diana. Yo, we have some new listeners,
all right, Diana, welcome to just tell everybody out there
who's new our story in a nutshell. About five years ago,
(00:35):
I asked Diana if she wanted to start a bookish
podcast with me because I find myself dissatisfied at a
book discussion. I had more things to say, and this
lovely human beings said yes, And here we are seven
seasons in, one pandemic and a couple of meat life
crisis still chugging along.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Wow, life crisis.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
I mean this podcast, this podcast was my mad life crisis.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
All right.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
I'm not that all by doing.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I mean, I don't think that we imagine that we
still be here. I'm glad we're still here. I mean
that we thought that we would exhaust our interest in
books before this, but.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Luckily not always have more things to say, Dinah.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
It's been fun because we've had all kinds of different
adventures along the way, Like when you propose that we
go to Bali and there was like a little bit
like a deer in headlights. But you know, I went
along with it, and I'm not gonna say that I
was unhappy that we did that. You know, definitely, you're
not gonna say you're unhappy the thing was with me
(01:36):
because you like, as an introvert doing things. While I'm
doing it, I'm so anxious that I'm getting it wrong.
But afterwards, I'm like, oh, I'm glad I did that.
It was a good experience. I learned something from it
and I and I always feel like at least I
did something.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
But yeah, I mean, like, to Dinah's credit, she does
follow a lot of my hair brain schemes, while Don Dina.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
And yeah, and Honey always always says, remind me when
I'm pulling you too hard and try and make you
do things to us. So well, yeah, I hope we
balance each other out, So yes, we do. Yeah. And
one of the adventures that we've had recently is that
we helped to promote the seconds of Women's Library. So
(02:20):
that was something that I think, you know, like the
first one kind of felt like, you know, it was
it was such a rush thing, but the second one
we actually really got to lean into it and really
enjoy the process of really getting to know people and
you know, really enjoying sharing books with people. And yeah,
really want to want to thank for that. We hope
all of you listening out there managed to stop by
(02:41):
at the Ease of Women's Library if you got any books,
and if you picked out like books like My Mother,
Patu Fox Wife maybe or how Kyoto Breaks Your Heart.
We've got all these on a podcast. We've spoken a
little bit about them. Maybe we've got a couple of
insights there. You could have a listening maybe something that
you'd like to pick up and you know, phill up
some time.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I mean, honestly, there's nothing like reading a book and
then talking to the author about it. I think it
really gives you some you know, dimensions and you know
the process of writing. So that's always been one of
the favorite things about our podcast. We get to meet authors,
like We've.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Been really lucky that we've managed to speak to a
lot of like really well known authors, you know, like
like Andy Ware. I know people who have no idea
about any of the other books I'm talking about, but
at the moment I say Andy Ware are like, oh
it is aggressive. Yes, and you actually managed to get
andyware on a little like I know, like they've never
heard of us, have like what the heck is your
(03:38):
podcast and why you've named it such a clunky name
idea you've had someone like that, so I guess you're
not that obscure. You're not that But also I.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Mean, right now, I think he's busy producing Project Hill
Mary Ryan Gosling, right, And we got to know it
firsthand from him that they discussed it, Ryan Gosling. When
we talked to him anyway, we always seck way too
far because me and Dinah obviously like talking. So today
we have a treat for you. We are doing a
short story collection, which we don't often do. Actually we
(04:10):
don't often do. My mother Fart Too was a short
story collection. Yeah, and this is a more Toll's Table
for two. It is a collection of six short stories
and a novella. And I google him and he looks
exactly like how I he would look. He's like, it's
a little fox with gotty shell glasses.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Well, I started with a gentleman in Moscow and it
was like this guy is so like he really leans
intoto the to the old timey kind of British style
kind of writing, and I thought that, you know that
that sounds like exactly like the Russian Masters. That's that's
what he reminded me of because she also because of
a Gentleman in Moscow, was set in Moscow at that time.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
But yeah, I guess it's Steinbacky a little bit Steinback
because Lincoln Highway reminds me a little bit of Steinback
in a way. Yeah. So most of his narratives, like
the Gentleman in this is his novels, the Lincoln Highway
Rules of Civility, right, they're usually start at a particular
time early twentieth century to mid twentieth century. And this
is the age that is very interesting, I think in
(05:11):
the Western world is the age of cinema gangsters. The
world is going through great change. We're looking at ideological warfare,
like you know, that's the time when world wars happened,
the CO War, the beginning of the CO War, and
stock market crashes, all kinds of stuff. And that is
a particular feeling that I get when I read his book,
that within the extraordinary circumstances of the world changing, the
(05:35):
human spirit will Tryum. There's a lot of that he
feels like an optimist to me when you read there's
a lot of hope in his book. Yeah, I know
in that sense.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
The first time people people started talking about a Gentleman
in Moscow in particular, I was like, I'm not interested
in this kind of book. It feels like a historical
fiction and those like you know, like like historical picture
I do, but not the kind that goes too much
into peeval and people suffering. I do not want that
(06:03):
like that. That's why I go far far back into
medieval times because it feels like it's not something that
I could have experienced, like you know, like it's it's
so far removed that whatever their pain, I mean, it's
it's it's a distant memory, right, It's not something that
you can actually relate that much too. So I resisted
it for such a long time. But then I but
(06:24):
then I gave it a chance. I picked up a
Gentleman in Moscow to listen to while you know, like
something to listen to while I was doing other stuff,
and I was so hooked by it. It's just it's
just like it made time fly because it has a
certain sense of oh timiness, That's what that's the feeling
that I get with the reading, yes, yes, and his
(06:46):
his way with words such humor, and it felt like,
you know, you could actually see that even though times
were so much harder for people, then they could still
live in as much grace, you know, as much gentility
as they could. And that's the kind of thing that
I felt like, Wow, it's not it's a rare author
that really brings that out.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
I used to got a very strong empathy for his protagonist.
You know, there's a lot of humanist qualities in.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
His book and his characters amazing.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Man.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
I love his characters.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
And they can't i mean, not beaten down by circumstances. Yes,
I think that even in his short stories, you'll find that,
you know, like people fall into hard times and yet
still you know, dressing up to go out for dinner.
That's sort of yeah, that sort of vibe.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, I think his books vibe. Reading this collection, it
feels like like he has a lot more like different
kind of characters. Like in Gentlemen in Moscow, you're basically
following this these few people who are like they're upper
class kind of people, so that there's a certain sense
of nobility about them. But here he has more common people,
(07:49):
it's certain in the US to begin with, and it's
also I don't know, there's a lot more like he.
He doesn't stick to a certain genre. He has all
these different characters from all these different walks of life.
So it's a very much different style writing, I felt.
But at the same time I could definitely see like,
you know, it's still that same strong sense of like character,
(08:10):
the same strong sense of like the empathy I guess
for his protagonist, so that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
It's interesting to know that his short stories are set
in more present time, So isn't a time where he
has been alive, as opposed to the characters in his
other books that Lincoln Highway, which I read, even Resourceability,
I believe they're all set pre nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties.
So this one is actually set more present time, and
all of them is from a little observation that he
(08:38):
did of an exchange between people, and he was saying
that what was interesting about writing this book is that
eventually he realized that most of his stories had a
conversation over like a kitchen table, and like a lot
of things are decided over a kitchen table. So hence
why he get the title Table for two.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Maybe you'd like to tell us a little bit about
the short stories here. There's six short stories.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
There are six short stories. Yeah, so the first one
is called the Line. I'm just going to tell you
very very briefly what each of the short stories are about,
and then me and Diana will probably talk about the
ones that we really like. So that's the Line, which
is about a Russian peasant with a zealous Marxist wife,
goes to live in the city and he finds a
niche for himself in lining up.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Standing inques, but.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Standing in cues because you know, during those times you
had to key for everything. You had to key for bread,
you had to keep for tickets, you had to keep
for everything. And then because he's such a personable guy
and a very simple man, he ends up standing in
cues for people and making friends and then eventually almost
running a tiny business while standing in cues for people.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
As sausages evolved into cloaks and cloaks into cash, Arena
began to recognize and not the achievement of Communism through
the transformation of her husband. For when they had lived
in the country, Arena had always considered her husband to
be a man without energy, intention, or sense, But it
had become increasingly clear that Pushkin had merely seemed that way.
(10:16):
Once her husband had been freed by Bolshevism from the
quasi serfdom of the old regime, he had been revealed
as a man of considerable talents, and not only did
he help wives and widows obtain their necessities, he had
virtually adopted a whole generation of orphans and turned them
into productive citizens. With a touch of moral satisfaction, Irena
(10:37):
allocated the sausages to the pantry, the cloaks to the closet,
and the cash to the bureau's bottom drawer. Then one
day in nineteen twenty six, Comrad Krakovitz, who happened to
be an under secretary in the Department of Residential Accommodations,
asked if Pushkin would wait in line for a case
of French champagne. When Pushkin succeeded, Comrade Krakovitz was loath
(10:59):
to show his appreciation by giving up a bottle. Instead,
with the stroke of a pen, he reassigned Pushkin to
a generous apartment in the Nikitsky Towers, a brand new
complex on the banks of the Muskva River. Later that night,
when Pushkin got home and explained to Arena what had happened,
Irena soberly considered the turn of events. It was a
(11:22):
common misconception, or so her thought process unfolded that communism
guaranteed an identical life for all. What communism actually guaranteed
is that, in place of lineage and luck, the state
would determine who should get what, after taking careful account
of the greater good. From this simple principle, it followed
(11:42):
that a comrade who plays a greater role in attaining
the greater good for the greater number of people should
have greater resources at his disposal. Just ask Nikolai Buckerin,
editor of Pravda and champion of the peasant, who lived
in a four room suite at the Metropol hotel. Through
this indisputable logic, Arena came to see their improved situation
(12:05):
as the natural course of events, and she now often
referred to Pushkin as comrade husband.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
And this is the thing about Amo's kind of books, right,
It has a very gradual Even his short stories have
time passing in that you know, usually short stories are
about one specific incident but actually his short stories all
have a bit of time passing through that you know,
people having different dinners. There is one of two stories
(12:37):
that I sat over at night. So for instance, Hasta
Luego is set over like twenty four hours almost. It's
about a man's stranded at the airport. He ends up
going to a hotel with a new friend and finds
himself in a situation where he has to save a stranger.
And then The Ballad of Timothy Touchet is probably one
of my favorites. It's about a young aspiring novelists finds
(12:58):
a talent in forging signey just of famous authors, and
he ends up working in a bookstore that sells first editions.
So you can kind of guess what happens in this bookstore.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
It becomes an inadvertent forger. Like, hey, it's interesting because
some people who convince themselves they're not doing the wrong
thing right, And that's that's I think that that's the
question that he raises in this in this story that's
so interesting.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
And then that's the other thing that Emo does very well.
Actually he inserts real people, He inserts real historical events
places into his stories and then just sort of like
writes around them, so you almost feel that, yeah, this
thing can definitely have taken place, you know, because of
course in the ballid Utimity to Share, you will meet
Paul Auster, who is obviously a writer that I follow.
(13:44):
And you don't get more New York than Paul Auster, really,
you know. His New York trilogy is like what I
think a lot of people have to read when they
do sort of like writing courses and stuff like that.
The Bootlegger is about a couple trying to enjoy a
night of culture culture at the Philharmon and find themselves
next to a man in a trench court recording the concert.
It's like sitting in a cinema in Malaysia and see
(14:06):
had some dude like slowly recording the show for like
really good DVDs. Yeah, that's probably so what do you do?
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Right?
Speaker 1 (14:13):
You report the man? Or does it really irritate you? You
know what I mean, because you feel that somebody is
taking advantage of the situation. I will survive. It's about
a woman who follows the stepfather one day at the
behalf of a mother who thinks he is having an affair,
but then finds him engaging in a rather unexpected pastime.
This this is a pretty cool story. It is the
(14:35):
d Domenico fragment. I think this is my favorite in
the collection. It's about a Park Avenue popper. Now, that
is a very particular, a very particular series of humanity
called the Park Avenue proper. People who once very rich,
but have followed on hard times, but still can't quite
grasp the fact that they be forty no longer thirty.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Yeah, there was a time when you could track the
evolution of power in Manhattan by dining at La Maison,
located at sixty third in Madison. Offering a serviceable execution
of continental cuisine. The restaurant welcomed real estate developers, advertising executives, financiers,
(15:19):
and the ladies who lunched. Over the years, the decor
grew a little tired, the food a little outmoded, and
those in the know moved on to brighter venue, serving
brighter fair But if La Maison was no longer the
most sought after table in town, it was not entirely
de classe a. There were still a few veterans of
(15:40):
commerce and society who, out of habit or lack of imagination,
returned for the prefixed lunch. There in the corner, for instance,
is Lawrence Lightman, a stately six foot two. Lawrence hasn't
led a publishing house in over a decade, but he
continues to wear a coat and tie, and he apparently
made enough of a name for himself that aspirants in
(16:01):
the field still make the occasional pilgrimage to his table.
Closer to the bar is Bobby Daniels, a former partner
at Morgan Stanley. Bobby was once considered a prodigy in
the field of acquisitions and divestments. In fact, this skill
came so naturally to him he acquired and divested four
different wives. He now has an office at some mahogany
(16:23):
paneled trust company, where his primary responsibilities is the hanging
of his hat in sight of the clients. And over
there at the table by the door sits Madeleine Davis
seventy if a day. Madeleine has been a widow for
at least four presidential elections, and it shows the dress
she's wearing has gone in and out of style twice
(16:43):
since she's bought it in nineteen sixty two, and she
applies her makeup with the all misplaced generosity of a rocket.
She also happens to be a particularly divine example of
the park Avenue pop though she hasn't given a dying
to charity, purchased a work of art, or read a book.
In over twenty years, when her husband was still alive,
(17:03):
the Davis's name was indelibly etched onto the mailing lists
of the cities, museums, galleries, and publishers. This proved fortuitous,
since as her income shrank, Madlin could dine at least
twice a week on cold cannapes and warm white wine
at the latest opening or reception. In fact, at some
point in the late nineteen nineties, as these quasi affairs
(17:26):
were getting more extravagant, she began carrying zip block bags
in her purse so that when no one was looking,
she could pill for enough food from the buffet to
last her the week.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
And so about Avenue Popla goes in search of an
art fragment in order to get a good commission, but
realizes perhaps there are things in life money cand buy.
And this is a very sweet story.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Actually it is. It is I would say that that's
my favorite. You know, each of them. He takes his
time to tell stories. So that's what one thing you
have to It's not it's not a snappy art form
in his hands. He he kind of like he takes
his time to come to his point. I think, and
you and and you really.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Have to relax into it.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
I think if you're you're somebody who expects a lot
of things to happen in a story, you kind of
feel like, you know, I don't know what the point
of reading this is because you know, like especially for
the first few stories, with the line especially, it ends
so abruptly, you're kind of like, what the heck, what happened?
What was the point of this? Where was it going?
(18:33):
Did I Did I lose something? And then you kind
of feel like I have to backtrack and read it
again because I'm not sure if I miss something that happened.
But I think you have to allow him to just
lead you and and give you a different perspective on things,
because because that's that's what his genius is. I feel
you have certain idea like, for example, for me, a
(18:54):
gentleman Moscow is all about what is the true meaning
of nobility? Right, So it takes this count who was
a member of the nobility. But during you know the
times when the Russian Revolution he stripped off his all
his you know, his estates and all that, and what
what does he become? What what you make of yourself
(19:15):
when you're when you're in that kind of situation, And
that means that you have to find your nobility in
different ways. And I think that for me reading a
lot of these books, it also calls back to what
it means to be the best of yourself given different circumstances.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yeah, so so I think I think, you know, like
you may find yourself questioning at times like is he
meandering for meandering's sake? Or is he just you know,
is he is it just that he is that kind
of writer who just wants to confound people maybe in
a certain way, or just just you know, like just
set scenes and then just like just pan off into.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
The means on scene kind of man. But and I hope, okay, emo,
if you ever listen to this podcast, don't take this
the wrong way. But I a strange thought occurred to
me when I was writing the notes for this is
that when I read his stories, I found it incredibly enjoyable.
But after I'm done, usually I can't quite recall what
(20:18):
happened to them, to the people in detail, So it
feels like the stories have served its purpose in the reading.
It gives you the satisfaction then allows you to move
on to something else. It has that quality to it.
And this is a compliment because you know, there's some
stories that kind of like stays and cross in your
head and then you can't sleep, and that those are
good too, But this one it almost feels that when
(20:40):
you read it, the pleasure is in the present time
of reading it, you know, I mean, and yet a
few things linger the vibe. I mean, his stories are
a vibe, you know. And if you feel that you
want to kind, as you say, fall into somebody else's
life for a while, a slice of life or window
into a life of someone that you don't you probably
will never be your friend, right like a Russian aristocrat.
(21:03):
I don't have any friends who are Russian aristocrats. The
probably a date right now, yeah, swallowed by capitalism then yeah,
then you can actually go into a window of business
life the same like what's what's the life of somebody
who's a forger of signatures? What's the life of a
Park Avenue popper. It gives you a really beautiful window
(21:23):
into their lives and then it lets you get on
your merry way.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
I mean I agree that that there's there's a quality
to his stories that it's it's more about the mood
of them. I think for me, it's like it's like
he he's very good at bringing you into people's personal perspectives,
and in certain ways, you kind of you feel like
(21:48):
you really get to understand the characters. You really get
to really know what motivates them and what drives them.
And possibly that is also a drawback that I found
because in short stories, you don't have the luxury of
spending that much time trying to get to know the character,
and then the story ends. You know, if that happens,
(22:10):
you kind of feel like I'm kind of hanging here
because I don't have enough time. But that is I
guess it's better played out in his novella, because there
is a novella that's included at the end of those
those sixt Oh.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Yes, yes, Okay, do tell everybody what the novella is about, Dina.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Okay, So this novella is called even Hollywood, and it
follows actually one of the characters from the Rules of civility.
I mean like I was reading it and then I
felt kind of a little bit lost. I think I
would have been a lot better served to have read
Rules of Sibility first, but people have said, you don't
need to, so just go ahead and read it. I
(22:48):
feel that there was some background to the character that
would have been, you know, helpful to have known before
before you actually go into this novella. But nonetheless, it
is an novella. It's about a young woman who is
on a train and she was supposed to go from
New York to Chicago, but she decided on the spur
(23:10):
of the moment to go all the way to Los Angeles.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
At one in the morning, the lobby of the Beverly
Hills Hotel had been empty for almost an hour. There
were no more guests checking in, no gilded affairs dispersing
through the doors of the bar. Drifted the tinkling of
piano keys at the hands of some weary straggler who
finally fell asleep, having made the G minor seven with
his head. While behind the desk, the night clerk, Michael,
(23:43):
stood alone. Under the circumstances, it was quite natural for
him to welcome a chance to chat so, after marveling
at the business of the season and remarking on a
handful of recent arrivals, Prentice and Michael agree that miss
Ross was a lightful young woman. But from where and
when and how did she arrive? Well, it seems she
(24:07):
arrived by taxi cab from the railway station with a
single red valise. And was she here to see old friends.
It's hard to say, for she had placed no phone
calls and received no visitors. On her first night, she
didn't trust two items of jewelry to the hotel safe,
a sizeable engagement ring and a diamond ear ring without
(24:28):
its pair, although, as Michael noted Soto Voce, on the
very next morning, she had taken the earring from the
safe and returned in the late afternoon with a selection
of dresses and two pairs of shoes. An excellent use
of a young woman's wherewithal, the two gentlemen agreed. Prentice
wondered out loud if she was the same Miss Ross
(24:49):
friend of a friend who lived on Gramercy Park. No,
replied Michael, turning the registration card so that Prentice could
read Ah. Prentice said, well, good night, my fine fellow,
and he ambled down the hall with a smile on
his lips. For miss Evelyn Ross, lately of Manhattan had
(25:10):
apparently resided at eighty seven East forty second Street, or
as it's more commonly known, Grand Central Terminal.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
While she's there, she changes not only the course of
her life, she changes the course of life of like
maybe three, four or five other people, a few more
than that actually, But yeah, but so just you know,
I think, I think it's just so interesting to think about,
like all these accidents of chance. Yeah, there's things that
you like, a small change that you make, the butterfly
(25:47):
effect of it, right, what happens down the road. And
it's and it's interesting in his hands because he he's
more interested in the characters and what happens to them
that he is in what just happened, you know, in
the story. But there is a very interesting story in
this one as well. It's not just the characters. So
I think as a novella, this one really hit home
(26:08):
to me because we had so much more time with
the characters, We had more time to get to know
and there's multiple characters here as well. I would say
that this one was the best of it for me. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Yeah, So basically you follow eve Evelyn Ross and she
seems to be a very self possessed young woman. Oh yes,
and I have not read Ruso Civility, but I felt
he loves this character, so I think when he finished
writing the book, because in Rules of Civility, she is
not the main character. The main character is actually a
(26:39):
person named Katie Content. But it is actually the jumping
off point for it is that at the end of
Rules of Civility, she gets a newspaper article showing her
friend Evelyn Ross with Olivia de Heveln. And of course,
Olivia de Heavelen at that time, in nineteen thirty eight
nineteen thirty nine was one of the more famous upcoming actresses.
(27:00):
She was just about to do Gone with the Wind.
And I remember, even when I was reading the novella,
without any prior knowledge of all this, I actually thought,
is this Olivia the heavyline? I mean, like when before
it was definitely you know what I mean. It's like
he somehow kind of gets it right there that you
sort of like know who he means. And for all
you know, this thing could have happened, you know, like
(27:22):
it felt very yeah, it could definitely have happened in
like the late thirties where La and Hollywood was getting
into that. You know, La La Land is when big
studios were raining. There's all these kind of like debauchery
things that are happening behind the scenes and the heyday
of Hollywood basically, yeah, and all the things that all
the machinations that go into making a movie, into making
(27:44):
a personal star, but also all the kind of like
bad stuff that happens behind the scenes, like casting couch
for instance, or peep shows.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
You know.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
So there's all these kind of things where anything kind
of goes. It's probably what they call the Gilded Age,
you know, it's not it's actually after the Gilded Age, right,
age was like twenty during yeah, like but this is
probably the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
This is Yes, it's set in the thirties, so so
I would say that this is like this is the
time when when a lot of like stars were born, right,
those are the age of the Hollywood starlets and and
just you know the golden era of TV, I suppose,
and similar film. So it's kind of like the whole
(28:28):
story is set in Hollywood. So she meets all these
characters who are in this whole Hollywood kind of milieu,
and she's got her own way of making people. Like
you were saying, she's very self possessed and she knows
like what she wants. And but I think Maxie, the
(28:48):
word here is marxixy. She I was thinking, like, yeah,
but she has so much Maxie. Yes, yes, yes, And
she's kind of like the person who has to come
in and solve everyone's problems.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
You know, I mean I want a friend like that.
Oh yes, I think everybody should have a friend wants
to be her. This is true. This is true, you know,
like finding yourself in a random situation and making it
work for yourself. You know, you know, like you can
imagine this kind of character. You throw her anywhere, you
throw her to the Antarctic, and she'll be fine. You know,
she will make friends. She would end up, you know,
(29:21):
running a small business there. So I can understand why.
You know, as a writer, you have characters that you
love and you feel that you're not done with yet.
And even he himself says that after he finished writing
Rules of Civility, he thought, hmm, that's more here, and
he wrote a series of very short shots on what
happens to Eveland, and he thought, and even then he
felt that wasn't enough. So finally, he said, he checked
(29:45):
into a Beverly Hills hotel last year and finally wrote
the story that You've deserved. So he sat down and
wrote it because I think it's been kind of like
sitting in his head.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
You can tell that he's the kind of author that
finds it very hard to write short form.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah yeah, yeah, But then but that's the thing. He
was saying that the reason why he loved writing the
short stories is that it sort of like challenges his
craft differently because it forces him to figure out different
ways of storytelling and it centers him. So I think
it's similar as maybe an actor, you do your movies,
but you also do theater. You know, you do different forms.
(30:22):
You know, you might write TV shows, but you also
write movies because it forces you to look at the
form in a different way, and then when you get
back into what you like writing, you can write it
in a more interesting way. So he himself found the
exercise really good for him.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
I don't know if you felt the way I did
reading the short stories. I felt that they were incomplete. Hmm.
I think I think I felt that he could have
developed them a lot more if he had allowed them
to all be novellas. I felt that, you know, there
were certain play ways where he just he just stops
the story, and I feel like that's I don't know,
I feel like there's things there that he's not telling you.
(30:59):
And that is a very Russian master way of doing things.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
That is a very short story technique right in a
way that you're wanting more. It leaves you one thing more.
But also there's a lot of things that happen behind
the scenes, and he allows you to figure out for.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Yourself, to fill in the blanks.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Yes, But also I think it's because he never really
writes heroes or villains. None of his characters are wholly
good or holy bad, and even his villains are kind
of lovable villains to a certain extent, of people in
circumstances that makes them do bad things, and it's almost
like when they come upon comes to them, he allows
you to look away, like it's almost that he gives
(31:36):
them some dignity in a way, you know what I mean,
Like okay, like you're gonna go to jail or you're
gonna do all this kind of stuff. But you know,
I don't have to be labored the point, I don't
have to go into great detail of their suffering that
they have for the crimes they committed, because at the
end of the day, bad things happen to good people perhaps,
or like even villains have motivations that you can understand.
I don't know, I feel that about it. It's like I.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Agree when it comes to the short stories, but not
with the novella.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
That's true because the novella.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
The novella actually has a very interesting kind of a
noir story in it.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
There's Ferry Mason, like yes, you know, yeah Mason, the
show has that same vibe, that's the.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Same era precisely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So so there's real
action that happens in the story that I would say that,
you know, like that's not something that really you could
say about even a gentleman in Moscow or in many
of these other other short stories. Yeah, but the novella,
it's actually I felt that, you know, like in terms
(32:36):
of a novella, like people would generally find a novella
to be to be something that is it's just you
don't have that much time to really develop characters. But
I felt that he really does it really well. He did.
He showcased all these different people and you really got
into their heads. You really felt that you understood the motivations.
(32:56):
And I would say that my one gripe with it
is that he does He doesn't really give you a
chance to solve the mystery for yourself or anything like that.
He just brings you along for the right. But yeah, but.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
It's very nourish, actually, is it. I feel like in
nourish in a way because a lot of it is
actually narrated.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Right, it's got troops, right, and most of the time
you're just following this intriguing detective or intriguing from fatal
on your journey. But it's actually the journey. It's not
so much the mystery to be sold usually nourish kind
of stories, it's kind of like quite obvious who the
cupit is and whatever, But it's actually that deep depraved
world that you get down and how you keep your
(33:38):
moral center. Maybe that is sort of like the vibe perhaps,
but yeah, I know what you mean. There's a lot
of telling and his stories.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Yeah, but possibly, yeah, I think I think when it
comes to like the old noir detective shows, you always
end up the detective being the hero of the piece, right,
so like it's always told from his point of view
and everything, But he does it differently here because he
allows you to go into different characters' heads and he
allows you to have different perspectives as well. And also
(34:06):
because I feel like even though Evelyn Ross is meant
to be the heroine the piece, I feel because she's
the one that opens the story and it's titled even Hollywood,
he allows other characters to have equal billing as well.
I don't feel like that she was meant to be
the center of the story, Like she doesn't make herself
(34:27):
the center story, but she doesn't have to. Even though
she doesn't make herself the centered story, without her, it
would have turned out completely differently. So she is, I guess,
more of what you would consider a female way of
handling things rather than a man who feels like, you know, okay.
For everything to happen, I need to be the one
who goes and figures out who the purpose. I need
(34:49):
to go go and be the one in the middle
of the action. I need to be the one directing
exactly what happens next. I'm the only one who knows
what's going to how to settle this problem. But in
this situation, he allows his characters to work together. You know,
they each have their own strengths that they bring to
the table. And I think that that was at the
(35:12):
end of the day, it was a really satisfying story
because I felt like, you know, he allowed more people
to work together, which is always the way that most
of these things happen. Anyway, you talk about the ace
a detective, but the ACE detective can't really be the
person who does everything. It doesn't doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
She's delegates. Well, yeah, I mean, although I do feel
that it is very much how a male writer writes
a female character that he likes a strong female character.
That's that's that thing about it. But because he writes
it so well, I don't mind. I don't mind because
when you look at it, right, I mean, Evelyn way
too cool, super cool. It's exactly the kind of woman
(35:52):
that you would love to meet, right if you you know,
I mean like she she's on top of everything, she's
one step ahead of everybody, and I'm sure that people
like that. But yes, he is very very.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Although he allows her to have a scar.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
This is true which I normally happened. And I think
perhaps maybe if we read Rules of Stibility, we've already
seen all the mistakes that she has made, or all
the bad decisions she has made, and now you are
meeting somebody who has learned her lessons.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
Right.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
You know, this is why I felt that it was
necessary to have bread that beforehand, so you could say,
I understand why she's so good at this. I understand
why she grasps the problem straight away and knows how
to handle it because she's been through the situation. But yeah,
otherwise it just be kind of she's a little bit
like a superwoman, which is yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
And you do meet her in Lincoln Highway as well,
if I'm not mistaken, because when they are actually when
they did get to La and all that, there was
a there was an incident that happened in a theater
and she sort of like was there. So he he
loves it. I don't think this is the last that
we see of her. Possibly we might we might have
more from him. Maybe, I don't know. I don't know.
(36:59):
I I get it, I get it. There are some
characters that you really love. Okay, So before we get
into to you read this book or I don't know,
do you want to talk about some of the stories
and where his touchoff points are, because, for instance, like
the bootlegger, right, the jumping off point for that is
because in his dirties, him and his wife kind of
(37:20):
like subscribe to piano concerts and they did sit beside
a man in a trench code recording the concept, and
he was indignant about it. He was like going, oh
my god, how audacious, right, And he said he couldn't
even listen to the concert property because he was so
annoyed by this, And he said he spent the entire
(37:40):
concept fantasizing on how he's going to report this man,
but of course he didn't. So it's almost like a
wish fulfillment then. And what's nice about it is that
he's actually friends with one of the performers. And what's
nice about his books as well is that you do
feel that you learn something about the world. And it
is really a joy for bibluphile or somebody who loved
(38:01):
the arts to read his stories, because you know, he
sets them in bookstores, in concert halls, even those that
are set in people's dining rooms. Is over talking of
a you know, like a picture, and he goes into art.
So you feel that you've learned a little bit of
something of Western culture.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
If I was to get immortals in a room. But
I think if what I really wanted to ask him
about the bootleggers in particular, was that the couple they're
they're at at the concert, and then they noticed this,
the older gentleman recording, and so halfway through the show,
the husband actually gets up and he goes outside and
he complains about it.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Right, can you believe it? After discarding the first reply
that popped into my head, I opted for silence. Tommy
opted for a louder whisper. It's outrageous. This elicited a
shush from a woman seated behind us. Tommy's mouth opened
(39:01):
a shock. He looked back at the woman and then
at me that he should be shushed when he was
the one defending the laws of the United States, the
decorum of Carnegie Hall, and the intellectual property rights of
creative artists everywhere. Apparently it was too much to bear,
because he began to get up from his seat. What
are you doing, I'm getting a nusher in the middle
(39:21):
of the in the middle of the performance. Another shush
came from the woman behind us, this one with an edge.
Tommy rose with his shoulders hunched and began shuffling down
the row. Now it was he who was saying, excuse me,
excuse me, excuse me, as music lovers and the surrounding
seats communicated their own versions of exasperation, indignation, and shock.
(39:43):
When Tommy reached the end of the row, he stood
to his full height and walked up to the aisle
with the pace and posture of the righteous. At the
top was an usher, a black woman in her forties,
standing in front of the closed doors. She looked none
too pleased by Tommy's mid performance approach. Tommy ignored her
disapproval and indicated he needed to speak to her outside,
(40:05):
So the two quietly slipped into the lobby, where the
usher looked at Tommy with a furrow row. What follows
is a transcription of events based on the direct testimony
of my husband, an additional intelligence gathered over nine years
of matriach. I want to report a bootlegger, he said,
A bootlegger, the usher asked, in surprise, You mean a
(40:26):
maker of moonshine, No, a musical bootlegger. Tommy pointed at
the door. The man sitting next to me is recording
the concert, and it's not the first time I've seen
him do it. In fact, I suspect he's a serial offender.
The usher rolled her eyes.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
What I was always interested because he keeps coming back
to the wife's perspective, and the wife like saying, oh,
you know, like GNOI now why did you do that?
And the wife trying to be a moderating flunce here
and everything, And I was like, now it makes me
wonder is that because his wife was I was like, yeah,
(41:09):
that's so interesting. What is the dynamic here? What is
he trying to say?
Speaker 1 (41:13):
But I feel this tablow is something that I've seen
in New York. The blustering man and then they started
like slightly long suffering woman that he's with, slightly that
basically goes like can you not create a scene, dear?
You know we're in public, you know, but no, very indignant,
you know, that kind of like entitlement that people have
(41:33):
sometimes in certain situations, you know, like why why am
I in this situation? And stuff like that, and then
like the moderating factor of the as you say, the
partner going.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Like, you know, calm down, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I mean, I mean, like you could go on about
a lot of the very interesting touch points on a
lot of these stories. Possibly. Another one that I was
quite taken by was the de dominical fragment. Okay, so
I thought that the point in the story it's basically
(42:06):
an old painting, very valuable painting that gets divided into
fragments to be passed on to all the different.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Sounds really sacrilegious, doesn't it. It does.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
I'm like, who does that? Is that real?
Speaker 1 (42:17):
To people actually having a first section book and then
having five children and ripping it in five so as
to talk to each other so then they can read.
It's an interesting story.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Yeah, I would like to know if that actually happens,
because it would make sense. I think it does make sense,
especially when you come to a lot of these families
that go they date back generations and then they pass
things down and of course they want to be fair
to every child, and so that's what you do. But
it sounds like it sounds like sacrilege.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
I mean, like he says that the origin of the fragment,
it's from his young days because his grandparents called they
were Boston Brahmins. I just love that kind of phrase.
So they lived in a large brickhouse and they had
a grand staircase that least the second floor, and on
the opposite side of the landing there are full length
portraits dating from the nineteenth century of his grandfather's grandparents,
(43:08):
so full length portraits can imagine that, you know, like
And then when he was about ten, his grandparents sold
the house and moved into a small one that is
at least two hundred years old and consisted of the
revolutionary era in New England. This house had low ceilings,
so it means that you can't hang full length portraits.
So because of that, his grandfather very practical, cut the
(43:32):
paintings in half so you only see them midshot right.
And then he said he was sitting in his office
years later and then he was thinking, ah, what happened
to the lakes on my for bearers? So then he
imagined this west Peak kind of like Patriarch who had
a beloved of painting quartet.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Well, I mean to his side, I had to go
look it up because because he makes it sound so
real and he actually like you were saying to you
so much about you know, like the whole background of.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
The especially the whole porty of the annunciation, right, because
you wonder like, oh, actually i've seen something, you know,
when I went and look.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
It is a very common subject, is indeed.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
And the fact that they're all similar, Yes, it's almost
like this is how you prove yourself that you can
paint something, so that you have different versions, but they're
all posts similarly. It's quite interesting. I never thought about it.
Now I'm going to pay attention.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Yeah, I know, I know. I mean, like you learn
so much gosh, like you were saying before, you know,
you actually learn that there's there's value in things beyond
the money that you can get out of them. And
it's so interesting that an old man learns it from
a little child.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Indeed, indeed, you know, thinking that I'm the one that
has wisdom, and yet wisdom of children sometimes quite interesting.
What do you think, baby? Do you think that if
somebody wants to start reading Amo Toolls, should they read
a novel first or should they read his shorts stories?
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Oh? My god, I mean I think it's completely different
the short stories. Definitely, I would say that they're a
completely different animal. But yeah, but novella would give you a.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Good taste true through, although after that you probably want
to read Rules of Civility. I mean, I would say
a good start would be A Gentleman in Moscow right now,
it's already a TV series starring Iwan McGregor, and he
plays the title character wonderfully, the Gentleman because actually that's
what it is, right, A Gentleman in Moscow is like,
what does it mean to be a gentleman? Yes, because
(45:31):
that is literally his occupation. Like there's a part I
was watching the show because I've I've read the book
quite some time ago where they say that what's your occupation?
He's like, going, a gentleman does not have an occupation?
And he looked just mildy, mister f by his question.
But that is literally what he is. He's a gentleman,
And what does it mean to be a gentleman?
Speaker 2 (45:52):
Yeah, that's something that is I guess you know that's
something we encounter much anymore in this day and time.
I'm sure sure there are people many people out there
who are you know, able to be unemployed and just
you know, like just survive just like that, like just
because because they are royal family people, although I know
(46:15):
plenty of royalty who work, so yeah, I mean, I
mean this is his whole idea, what what a gentleman
is and what does a gentleman do? And what makes
a gentleman? I think that is a question that that
is very interesting and and I think he answered it beautifully.
He really did. It was it was. It wasn't just
that he talked about this this person's life. He also
(46:38):
the way he wrote about it, and you know, his
his terms of phrase, his the way that he know
like his gentle humor, his he's he's actually very loving
descriptions of the people.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
Right, there's a lot of empathy for even even the
unpopular people, you know, like you feel that at the
end of the day you can understand and and again,
these are living in very extraordinary circumstances, and you wonder
if we ever get into disort of circumstances, would we
have that much grace. So there's a lot of grace
that he gives his characters. Don't You don't feel anxious
reading his books. You feel that you're in good hands
(47:14):
and that you're going to learn about somebody's life. You're
going to enjoy the story. And yeah, and maybe that's
what a good book and a good short story should
do for you.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
So yeah, read this book guys if you feel like
like a short story, if you don't want to commit
yourself to like a novel. Yeah. But it's very very
easy to read his stuff. His pro style is very easy,
easy to read. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
I would say he's worth the longer read. He definitely
is that. There are many books that you kind of
feel like while you're reading them, you're kind of like
just rushing through it just because you want to know
what happens next.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
But for these books.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
You're not there for the for to know what happens
at the end. You know, you're there for the journey
because you're enjoying the way he's telling it. And that's
that's the mark of a real storyteller, somebody who lets
you enjoy the journey rather than just you.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
Know, like the destiny indeed indeed, and then you learn
some history as well. Oh yes, yeah, okay, right, thanks
for listening. That's our show today. Wow. Yes, we hope
you enjoyed our show, and as usually, can follow us
on IG at tbn D Books. That's where we are
mostly two booknest Stocking on Facebook and tbnt pot on
x step for decoration. You can also reach us at
(48:29):
booknet Stocking at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2 (48:32):
We will leave you with a quote from Tarles's third book,
The Lincoln Highway. Okay, So would it have been wonderful thought,
Wollie if everybody's life was like a piece in a
jigsaw puzzle, that no one person's life would ever be
an inconvenience to anyone else's. It would just fit snugly
in its very own, especially designed spot, and in so
(48:52):
doing would enable the whole intric picture to become complete.
That's lovely.
Speaker 1 (48:59):
Thank you so much, you complete my book picture.
Speaker 3 (49:01):
I know.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
That's so nice of you to say, But then that's
the kind of nice thing that honey says.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
All well, you know I do aspire to be a
writer of some note at some point. All right, thank
you for listening everybody, and have a fantastic we can
hear bye bye. By this we're produced by Stephanie. I'll
put other jigs up. Sorry, Stephanie, you're my other jigs
as well. Also like a shout out to our producer Stephanie.
(49:27):
This show is edited by her and myself, Bye, m.
Have a little friends and book lovers. Welcome to an
episode of two Bonnets Talking where two booknets you and
me talk well about books. I am Honey Ahmed and
me Amiga. Here is Diana. Yo, we have some new listeners,
all right, Diana, welcome to just tell everybody out there
who's new our story in a nutshell. About five years ago,
(00:35):
I asked Diana if she wanted to start a bookish
podcast with me because I find myself dissatisfied at a
book discussion. I had more things to say, and this
lovely human beings said yes, And here we are seven
seasons in, one pandemic and a couple of meat life
crisis still chugging along.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Wow, life crisis.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
I mean this podcast, this podcast was my mad life crisis.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
All right.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
I'm not that all by doing.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I mean, I don't think that we imagine that we
still be here. I'm glad we're still here. I mean
that we thought that we would exhaust our interest in
books before this, but.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Luckily not always have more things to say, Dinah.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
It's been fun because we've had all kinds of different
adventures along the way, Like when you propose that we
go to Bali and there was like a little bit
like a deer in headlights. But you know, I went
along with it, and I'm not gonna say that I
was unhappy that we did that. You know, definitely, you're
not gonna say you're unhappy the thing was with me
(01:36):
because you like, as an introvert doing things. While I'm
doing it, I'm so anxious that I'm getting it wrong.
But afterwards, I'm like, oh, I'm glad I did that.
It was a good experience. I learned something from it
and I and I always feel like at least I
did something.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
But yeah, I mean, like, to Dinah's credit, she does
follow a lot of my hair brain schemes, while Don Dina.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
And yeah, and Honey always always says, remind me when
I'm pulling you too hard and try and make you
do things to us. So well, yeah, I hope we
balance each other out, So yes, we do. Yeah. And
one of the adventures that we've had recently is that
we helped to promote the seconds of Women's Library. So
(02:20):
that was something that I think, you know, like the
first one kind of felt like, you know, it was
it was such a rush thing, but the second one
we actually really got to lean into it and really
enjoy the process of really getting to know people and
you know, really enjoying sharing books with people. And yeah,
really want to want to thank for that. We hope
all of you listening out there managed to stop by
(02:41):
at the Ease of Women's Library if you got any books,
and if you picked out like books like My Mother,
Patu Fox Wife maybe or how Kyoto Breaks Your Heart.
We've got all these on a podcast. We've spoken a
little bit about them. Maybe we've got a couple of
insights there. You could have a listening maybe something that
you'd like to pick up and you know, phill up
some time.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I mean, honestly, there's nothing like reading a book and
then talking to the author about it. I think it
really gives you some you know, dimensions and you know
the process of writing. So that's always been one of
the favorite things about our podcast. We get to meet authors,
like We've.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Been really lucky that we've managed to speak to a
lot of like really well known authors, you know, like
like Andy Ware. I know people who have no idea
about any of the other books I'm talking about, but
at the moment I say Andy Ware are like, oh
it is aggressive. Yes, and you actually managed to get
andyware on a little like I know, like they've never
heard of us, have like what the heck is your
(03:38):
podcast and why you've named it such a clunky name
idea you've had someone like that, so I guess you're
not that obscure. You're not that But also I.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Mean, right now, I think he's busy producing Project Hill
Mary Ryan Gosling, right, And we got to know it
firsthand from him that they discussed it, Ryan Gosling. When
we talked to him anyway, we always seck way too
far because me and Dinah obviously like talking. So today
we have a treat for you. We are doing a
short story collection, which we don't often do. Actually we
(04:10):
don't often do. My mother Fart Too was a short
story collection. Yeah, and this is a more Toll's Table
for two. It is a collection of six short stories
and a novella. And I google him and he looks
exactly like how I he would look. He's like, it's
a little fox with gotty shell glasses.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Well, I started with a gentleman in Moscow and it
was like this guy is so like he really leans
intoto the to the old timey kind of British style
kind of writing, and I thought that, you know that
that sounds like exactly like the Russian Masters. That's that's
what he reminded me of because she also because of
a Gentleman in Moscow, was set in Moscow at that time.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
But yeah, I guess it's Steinbacky a little bit Steinback
because Lincoln Highway reminds me a little bit of Steinback
in a way. Yeah. So most of his narratives, like
the Gentleman in this is his novels, the Lincoln Highway
Rules of Civility, right, they're usually start at a particular
time early twentieth century to mid twentieth century. And this
is the age that is very interesting, I think in
(05:11):
the Western world is the age of cinema gangsters. The
world is going through great change. We're looking at ideological warfare,
like you know, that's the time when world wars happened,
the CO War, the beginning of the CO War, and
stock market crashes, all kinds of stuff. And that is
a particular feeling that I get when I read his book,
that within the extraordinary circumstances of the world changing, the
(05:35):
human spirit will Tryum. There's a lot of that he
feels like an optimist to me when you read there's
a lot of hope in his book. Yeah, I know
in that sense.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
The first time people people started talking about a Gentleman
in Moscow in particular, I was like, I'm not interested
in this kind of book. It feels like a historical
fiction and those like you know, like like historical picture
I do, but not the kind that goes too much
into peeval and people suffering. I do not want that
(06:03):
like that. That's why I go far far back into
medieval times because it feels like it's not something that
I could have experienced, like you know, like it's it's
so far removed that whatever their pain, I mean, it's
it's it's a distant memory, right, It's not something that
you can actually relate that much too. So I resisted
it for such a long time. But then I but
(06:24):
then I gave it a chance. I picked up a
Gentleman in Moscow to listen to while you know, like
something to listen to while I was doing other stuff,
and I was so hooked by it. It's just it's
just like it made time fly because it has a
certain sense of oh timiness, That's what that's the feeling
that I get with the reading, yes, yes, and his
(06:46):
his way with words such humor, and it felt like,
you know, you could actually see that even though times
were so much harder for people, then they could still
live in as much grace, you know, as much gentility
as they could. And that's the kind of thing that
I felt like, Wow, it's not it's a rare author
that really brings that out.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
I used to got a very strong empathy for his protagonist.
You know, there's a lot of humanist qualities in.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
His book and his characters amazing.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Man.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
I love his characters.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
And they can't i mean, not beaten down by circumstances. Yes,
I think that even in his short stories, you'll find that,
you know, like people fall into hard times and yet
still you know, dressing up to go out for dinner.
That's sort of yeah, that sort of vibe.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, I think his books vibe. Reading this collection, it
feels like like he has a lot more like different
kind of characters. Like in Gentlemen in Moscow, you're basically
following this these few people who are like they're upper
class kind of people, so that there's a certain sense
of nobility about them. But here he has more common people,
(07:49):
it's certain in the US to begin with, and it's
also I don't know, there's a lot more like he.
He doesn't stick to a certain genre. He has all
these different characters from all these different walks of life.
So it's a very much different style writing, I felt.
But at the same time I could definitely see like,
you know, it's still that same strong sense of like character,
(08:10):
the same strong sense of like the empathy I guess
for his protagonist, so that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
It's interesting to know that his short stories are set
in more present time, So isn't a time where he
has been alive, as opposed to the characters in his
other books that Lincoln Highway, which I read, even Resourceability,
I believe they're all set pre nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties.
So this one is actually set more present time, and
all of them is from a little observation that he
(08:38):
did of an exchange between people, and he was saying
that what was interesting about writing this book is that
eventually he realized that most of his stories had a
conversation over like a kitchen table, and like a lot
of things are decided over a kitchen table. So hence
why he get the title Table for two.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Maybe you'd like to tell us a little bit about
the short stories here. There's six short stories.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
There are six short stories. Yeah, so the first one
is called the Line. I'm just going to tell you
very very briefly what each of the short stories are about,
and then me and Diana will probably talk about the
ones that we really like. So that's the Line, which
is about a Russian peasant with a zealous Marxist wife,
goes to live in the city and he finds a
niche for himself in lining up.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Standing inques, but.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Standing in cues because you know, during those times you
had to key for everything. You had to key for bread,
you had to keep for tickets, you had to keep
for everything. And then because he's such a personable guy
and a very simple man, he ends up standing in
cues for people and making friends and then eventually almost
running a tiny business while standing in cues for people.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
As sausages evolved into cloaks and cloaks into cash, Arena
began to recognize and not the achievement of Communism through
the transformation of her husband. For when they had lived
in the country, Arena had always considered her husband to
be a man without energy, intention, or sense, But it
had become increasingly clear that Pushkin had merely seemed that way.
(10:16):
Once her husband had been freed by Bolshevism from the
quasi serfdom of the old regime, he had been revealed
as a man of considerable talents, and not only did
he help wives and widows obtain their necessities, he had
virtually adopted a whole generation of orphans and turned them
into productive citizens. With a touch of moral satisfaction, Irena
(10:37):
allocated the sausages to the pantry, the cloaks to the closet,
and the cash to the bureau's bottom drawer. Then one
day in nineteen twenty six, Comrad Krakovitz, who happened to
be an under secretary in the Department of Residential Accommodations,
asked if Pushkin would wait in line for a case
of French champagne. When Pushkin succeeded, Comrade Krakovitz was loath
(10:59):
to show his appreciation by giving up a bottle. Instead,
with the stroke of a pen, he reassigned Pushkin to
a generous apartment in the Nikitsky Towers, a brand new
complex on the banks of the Muskva River. Later that night,
when Pushkin got home and explained to Arena what had happened,
Irena soberly considered the turn of events. It was a
(11:22):
common misconception, or so her thought process unfolded that communism
guaranteed an identical life for all. What communism actually guaranteed
is that, in place of lineage and luck, the state
would determine who should get what, after taking careful account
of the greater good. From this simple principle, it followed
(11:42):
that a comrade who plays a greater role in attaining
the greater good for the greater number of people should
have greater resources at his disposal. Just ask Nikolai Buckerin,
editor of Pravda and champion of the peasant, who lived
in a four room suite at the Metropol hotel. Through
this indisputable logic, Arena came to see their improved situation
(12:05):
as the natural course of events, and she now often
referred to Pushkin as comrade husband.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
And this is the thing about Amo's kind of books, right,
It has a very gradual Even his short stories have
time passing in that you know, usually short stories are
about one specific incident but actually his short stories all
have a bit of time passing through that you know,
people having different dinners. There is one of two stories
(12:37):
that I sat over at night. So for instance, Hasta
Luego is set over like twenty four hours almost. It's
about a man's stranded at the airport. He ends up
going to a hotel with a new friend and finds
himself in a situation where he has to save a stranger.
And then The Ballad of Timothy Touchet is probably one
of my favorites. It's about a young aspiring novelists finds
(12:58):
a talent in forging signey just of famous authors, and
he ends up working in a bookstore that sells first editions.
So you can kind of guess what happens in this bookstore.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
It becomes an inadvertent forger. Like, hey, it's interesting because
some people who convince themselves they're not doing the wrong
thing right, And that's that's I think that that's the
question that he raises in this in this story that's
so interesting.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
And then that's the other thing that Emo does very well.
Actually he inserts real people, He inserts real historical events
places into his stories and then just sort of like
writes around them, so you almost feel that, yeah, this
thing can definitely have taken place, you know, because of
course in the ballid Utimity to Share, you will meet
Paul Auster, who is obviously a writer that I follow.
(13:44):
And you don't get more New York than Paul Auster, really,
you know. His New York trilogy is like what I
think a lot of people have to read when they
do sort of like writing courses and stuff like that.
The Bootlegger is about a couple trying to enjoy a
night of culture culture at the Philharmon and find themselves
next to a man in a trench court recording the concert.
It's like sitting in a cinema in Malaysia and see
(14:06):
had some dude like slowly recording the show for like
really good DVDs. Yeah, that's probably so what do you do?
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Right?
Speaker 1 (14:13):
You report the man? Or does it really irritate you? You
know what I mean, because you feel that somebody is
taking advantage of the situation. I will survive. It's about
a woman who follows the stepfather one day at the
behalf of a mother who thinks he is having an affair,
but then finds him engaging in a rather unexpected pastime.
This this is a pretty cool story. It is the
(14:35):
d Domenico fragment. I think this is my favorite in
the collection. It's about a Park Avenue popper. Now, that
is a very particular, a very particular series of humanity
called the Park Avenue proper. People who once very rich,
but have followed on hard times, but still can't quite
grasp the fact that they be forty no longer thirty.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Yeah, there was a time when you could track the
evolution of power in Manhattan by dining at La Maison,
located at sixty third in Madison. Offering a serviceable execution
of continental cuisine. The restaurant welcomed real estate developers, advertising executives, financiers,
(15:19):
and the ladies who lunched. Over the years, the decor
grew a little tired, the food a little outmoded, and
those in the know moved on to brighter venue, serving
brighter fair But if La Maison was no longer the
most sought after table in town, it was not entirely
de classe a. There were still a few veterans of
(15:40):
commerce and society who, out of habit or lack of imagination,
returned for the prefixed lunch. There in the corner, for instance,
is Lawrence Lightman, a stately six foot two. Lawrence hasn't
led a publishing house in over a decade, but he
continues to wear a coat and tie, and he apparently
made enough of a name for himself that aspirants in
(16:01):
the field still make the occasional pilgrimage to his table.
Closer to the bar is Bobby Daniels, a former partner
at Morgan Stanley. Bobby was once considered a prodigy in
the field of acquisitions and divestments. In fact, this skill
came so naturally to him he acquired and divested four
different wives. He now has an office at some mahogany
(16:23):
paneled trust company, where his primary responsibilities is the hanging
of his hat in sight of the clients. And over
there at the table by the door sits Madeleine Davis
seventy if a day. Madeleine has been a widow for
at least four presidential elections, and it shows the dress
she's wearing has gone in and out of style twice
(16:43):
since she's bought it in nineteen sixty two, and she
applies her makeup with the all misplaced generosity of a rocket.
She also happens to be a particularly divine example of
the park Avenue pop though she hasn't given a dying
to charity, purchased a work of art, or read a book.
In over twenty years, when her husband was still alive,
(17:03):
the Davis's name was indelibly etched onto the mailing lists
of the cities, museums, galleries, and publishers. This proved fortuitous,
since as her income shrank, Madlin could dine at least
twice a week on cold cannapes and warm white wine
at the latest opening or reception. In fact, at some
point in the late nineteen nineties, as these quasi affairs
(17:26):
were getting more extravagant, she began carrying zip block bags
in her purse so that when no one was looking,
she could pill for enough food from the buffet to
last her the week.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
And so about Avenue Popla goes in search of an
art fragment in order to get a good commission, but
realizes perhaps there are things in life money cand buy.
And this is a very sweet story.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Actually it is. It is I would say that that's
my favorite. You know, each of them. He takes his
time to tell stories. So that's what one thing you
have to It's not it's not a snappy art form
in his hands. He he kind of like he takes
his time to come to his point. I think, and
you and and you really.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Have to relax into it.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
I think if you're you're somebody who expects a lot
of things to happen in a story, you kind of
feel like, you know, I don't know what the point
of reading this is because you know, like especially for
the first few stories, with the line especially, it ends
so abruptly, you're kind of like, what the heck, what happened?
What was the point of this? Where was it going?
(18:33):
Did I Did I lose something? And then you kind
of feel like I have to backtrack and read it
again because I'm not sure if I miss something that happened.
But I think you have to allow him to just
lead you and and give you a different perspective on things,
because because that's that's what his genius is. I feel
you have certain idea like, for example, for me, a
(18:54):
gentleman Moscow is all about what is the true meaning
of nobility? Right, So it takes this count who was
a member of the nobility. But during you know the
times when the Russian Revolution he stripped off his all
his you know, his estates and all that, and what
what does he become? What what you make of yourself
(19:15):
when you're when you're in that kind of situation, And
that means that you have to find your nobility in
different ways. And I think that for me reading a
lot of these books, it also calls back to what
it means to be the best of yourself given different circumstances.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yeah, so so I think I think, you know, like
you may find yourself questioning at times like is he
meandering for meandering's sake? Or is he just you know,
is he is it just that he is that kind
of writer who just wants to confound people maybe in
a certain way, or just just you know, like just
set scenes and then just like just pan off into.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
The means on scene kind of man. But and I hope, okay, emo,
if you ever listen to this podcast, don't take this
the wrong way. But I a strange thought occurred to
me when I was writing the notes for this is
that when I read his stories, I found it incredibly enjoyable.
But after I'm done, usually I can't quite recall what
(20:18):
happened to them, to the people in detail, So it
feels like the stories have served its purpose in the reading.
It gives you the satisfaction then allows you to move
on to something else. It has that quality to it.
And this is a compliment because you know, there's some
stories that kind of like stays and cross in your
head and then you can't sleep, and that those are
good too, But this one it almost feels that when
(20:40):
you read it, the pleasure is in the present time
of reading it, you know, I mean, and yet a
few things linger the vibe. I mean, his stories are
a vibe, you know. And if you feel that you
want to kind, as you say, fall into somebody else's
life for a while, a slice of life or window
into a life of someone that you don't you probably
will never be your friend, right like a Russian aristocrat.
(21:03):
I don't have any friends who are Russian aristocrats. The
probably a date right now, yeah, swallowed by capitalism then yeah,
then you can actually go into a window of business
life the same like what's what's the life of somebody
who's a forger of signatures? What's the life of a
Park Avenue popper. It gives you a really beautiful window
(21:23):
into their lives and then it lets you get on
your merry way.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
I mean I agree that that there's there's a quality
to his stories that it's it's more about the mood
of them. I think for me, it's like it's like
he he's very good at bringing you into people's personal perspectives,
and in certain ways, you kind of you feel like
(21:48):
you really get to understand the characters. You really get
to really know what motivates them and what drives them.
And possibly that is also a drawback that I found
because in short stories, you don't have the luxury of
spending that much time trying to get to know the character,
and then the story ends. You know, if that happens,
(22:10):
you kind of feel like I'm kind of hanging here
because I don't have enough time. But that is I
guess it's better played out in his novella, because there
is a novella that's included at the end of those
those sixt Oh.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Yes, yes, Okay, do tell everybody what the novella is about, Dina.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Okay, So this novella is called even Hollywood, and it
follows actually one of the characters from the Rules of civility.
I mean like I was reading it and then I
felt kind of a little bit lost. I think I
would have been a lot better served to have read
Rules of Sibility first, but people have said, you don't
need to, so just go ahead and read it. I
(22:48):
feel that there was some background to the character that
would have been, you know, helpful to have known before
before you actually go into this novella. But nonetheless, it
is an novella. It's about a young woman who is
on a train and she was supposed to go from
New York to Chicago, but she decided on the spur
(23:10):
of the moment to go all the way to Los Angeles.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
At one in the morning, the lobby of the Beverly
Hills Hotel had been empty for almost an hour. There
were no more guests checking in, no gilded affairs dispersing
through the doors of the bar. Drifted the tinkling of
piano keys at the hands of some weary straggler who
finally fell asleep, having made the G minor seven with
his head. While behind the desk, the night clerk, Michael,
(23:43):
stood alone. Under the circumstances, it was quite natural for
him to welcome a chance to chat so, after marveling
at the business of the season and remarking on a
handful of recent arrivals, Prentice and Michael agree that miss
Ross was a lightful young woman. But from where and
when and how did she arrive? Well, it seems she
(24:07):
arrived by taxi cab from the railway station with a
single red valise. And was she here to see old friends.
It's hard to say, for she had placed no phone
calls and received no visitors. On her first night, she
didn't trust two items of jewelry to the hotel safe,
a sizeable engagement ring and a diamond ear ring without
(24:28):
its pair, although, as Michael noted Soto Voce, on the
very next morning, she had taken the earring from the
safe and returned in the late afternoon with a selection
of dresses and two pairs of shoes. An excellent use
of a young woman's wherewithal, the two gentlemen agreed. Prentice
wondered out loud if she was the same Miss Ross
(24:49):
friend of a friend who lived on Gramercy Park. No,
replied Michael, turning the registration card so that Prentice could
read Ah. Prentice said, well, good night, my fine fellow,
and he ambled down the hall with a smile on
his lips. For miss Evelyn Ross, lately of Manhattan had
(25:10):
apparently resided at eighty seven East forty second Street, or
as it's more commonly known, Grand Central Terminal.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
While she's there, she changes not only the course of
her life, she changes the course of life of like
maybe three, four or five other people, a few more
than that actually, But yeah, but so just you know,
I think, I think it's just so interesting to think about,
like all these accidents of chance. Yeah, there's things that
you like, a small change that you make, the butterfly
(25:47):
effect of it, right, what happens down the road. And
it's and it's interesting in his hands because he he's
more interested in the characters and what happens to them
that he is in what just happened, you know, in
the story. But there is a very interesting story in
this one as well. It's not just the characters. So
I think as a novella, this one really hit home
(26:08):
to me because we had so much more time with
the characters, We had more time to get to know
and there's multiple characters here as well. I would say
that this one was the best of it for me. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Yeah, So basically you follow eve Evelyn Ross and she
seems to be a very self possessed young woman. Oh yes,
and I have not read Ruso Civility, but I felt
he loves this character, so I think when he finished
writing the book, because in Rules of Civility, she is
not the main character. The main character is actually a
(26:39):
person named Katie Content. But it is actually the jumping
off point for it is that at the end of
Rules of Civility, she gets a newspaper article showing her
friend Evelyn Ross with Olivia de Heveln. And of course,
Olivia de Heavelen at that time, in nineteen thirty eight
nineteen thirty nine was one of the more famous upcoming actresses.
(27:00):
She was just about to do Gone with the Wind.
And I remember, even when I was reading the novella,
without any prior knowledge of all this, I actually thought,
is this Olivia the heavyline? I mean, like when before
it was definitely you know what I mean. It's like
he somehow kind of gets it right there that you
sort of like know who he means. And for all
you know, this thing could have happened, you know, like
(27:22):
it felt very yeah, it could definitely have happened in
like the late thirties where La and Hollywood was getting
into that. You know, La La Land is when big
studios were raining. There's all these kind of like debauchery
things that are happening behind the scenes and the heyday
of Hollywood basically, yeah, and all the things that all
the machinations that go into making a movie, into making
(27:44):
a personal star, but also all the kind of like
bad stuff that happens behind the scenes, like casting couch
for instance, or peep shows.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
You know.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
So there's all these kind of things where anything kind
of goes. It's probably what they call the Gilded Age,
you know, it's not it's actually after the Gilded Age, right,
age was like twenty during yeah, like but this is
probably the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
This is Yes, it's set in the thirties, so so
I would say that this is like this is the
time when when a lot of like stars were born, right,
those are the age of the Hollywood starlets and and
just you know the golden era of TV, I suppose,
and similar film. So it's kind of like the whole
(28:28):
story is set in Hollywood. So she meets all these
characters who are in this whole Hollywood kind of milieu,
and she's got her own way of making people. Like
you were saying, she's very self possessed and she knows
like what she wants. And but I think Maxie, the
(28:48):
word here is marxixy. She I was thinking, like, yeah,
but she has so much Maxie. Yes, yes, yes, And
she's kind of like the person who has to come
in and solve everyone's problems.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
You know, I mean I want a friend like that.
Oh yes, I think everybody should have a friend wants
to be her. This is true. This is true, you know,
like finding yourself in a random situation and making it
work for yourself. You know, you know, like you can
imagine this kind of character. You throw her anywhere, you
throw her to the Antarctic, and she'll be fine. You know,
she will make friends. She would end up, you know,
(29:21):
running a small business there. So I can understand why.
You know, as a writer, you have characters that you
love and you feel that you're not done with yet.
And even he himself says that after he finished writing
Rules of Civility, he thought, hmm, that's more here, and
he wrote a series of very short shots on what
happens to Eveland, and he thought, and even then he
felt that wasn't enough. So finally, he said, he checked
(29:45):
into a Beverly Hills hotel last year and finally wrote
the story that You've deserved. So he sat down and
wrote it because I think it's been kind of like
sitting in his head.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
You can tell that he's the kind of author that
finds it very hard to write short form.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah yeah, yeah, But then but that's the thing. He
was saying that the reason why he loved writing the
short stories is that it sort of like challenges his
craft differently because it forces him to figure out different
ways of storytelling and it centers him. So I think
it's similar as maybe an actor, you do your movies,
but you also do theater. You know, you do different forms.
(30:22):
You know, you might write TV shows, but you also
write movies because it forces you to look at the
form in a different way, and then when you get
back into what you like writing, you can write it
in a more interesting way. So he himself found the
exercise really good for him.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
I don't know if you felt the way I did
reading the short stories. I felt that they were incomplete. Hmm.
I think I think I felt that he could have
developed them a lot more if he had allowed them
to all be novellas. I felt that, you know, there
were certain play ways where he just he just stops
the story, and I feel like that's I don't know,
I feel like there's things there that he's not telling you.
(30:59):
And that is a very Russian master way of doing things.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
That is a very short story technique right in a
way that you're wanting more. It leaves you one thing more.
But also there's a lot of things that happen behind
the scenes, and he allows you to figure out for.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Yourself, to fill in the blanks.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Yes, But also I think it's because he never really
writes heroes or villains. None of his characters are wholly
good or holy bad, and even his villains are kind
of lovable villains to a certain extent, of people in
circumstances that makes them do bad things, and it's almost
like when they come upon comes to them, he allows
you to look away, like it's almost that he gives
(31:36):
them some dignity in a way, you know what I mean,
Like okay, like you're gonna go to jail or you're
gonna do all this kind of stuff. But you know,
I don't have to be labored the point, I don't
have to go into great detail of their suffering that
they have for the crimes they committed, because at the
end of the day, bad things happen to good people perhaps,
or like even villains have motivations that you can understand.
I don't know, I feel that about it. It's like I.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Agree when it comes to the short stories, but not
with the novella.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
That's true because the novella.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
The novella actually has a very interesting kind of a
noir story in it.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
There's Ferry Mason, like yes, you know, yeah Mason, the
show has that same vibe, that's the.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Same era precisely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So so there's real
action that happens in the story that I would say that,
you know, like that's not something that really you could
say about even a gentleman in Moscow or in many
of these other other short stories. Yeah, but the novella,
it's actually I felt that, you know, like in terms
(32:36):
of a novella, like people would generally find a novella
to be to be something that is it's just you
don't have that much time to really develop characters. But
I felt that he really does it really well. He did.
He showcased all these different people and you really got
into their heads. You really felt that you understood the motivations.
(32:56):
And I would say that my one gripe with it
is that he does He doesn't really give you a
chance to solve the mystery for yourself or anything like that.
He just brings you along for the right. But yeah, but.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
It's very nourish, actually, is it. I feel like in
nourish in a way because a lot of it is
actually narrated.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Right, it's got troops, right, and most of the time
you're just following this intriguing detective or intriguing from fatal
on your journey. But it's actually the journey. It's not
so much the mystery to be sold usually nourish kind
of stories, it's kind of like quite obvious who the
cupit is and whatever, But it's actually that deep depraved
world that you get down and how you keep your
(33:38):
moral center. Maybe that is sort of like the vibe perhaps,
but yeah, I know what you mean. There's a lot
of telling and his stories.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Yeah, but possibly, yeah, I think I think when it
comes to like the old noir detective shows, you always
end up the detective being the hero of the piece, right,
so like it's always told from his point of view
and everything, But he does it differently here because he
allows you to go into different characters' heads and he
allows you to have different perspectives as well. And also
(34:06):
because I feel like even though Evelyn Ross is meant
to be the heroine the piece, I feel because she's
the one that opens the story and it's titled even Hollywood,
he allows other characters to have equal billing as well.
I don't feel like that she was meant to be
the center of the story, Like she doesn't make herself
(34:27):
the center story, but she doesn't have to. Even though
she doesn't make herself the centered story, without her, it
would have turned out completely differently. So she is, I guess,
more of what you would consider a female way of
handling things rather than a man who feels like, you know, okay.
For everything to happen, I need to be the one
who goes and figures out who the purpose. I need
(34:49):
to go go and be the one in the middle
of the action. I need to be the one directing
exactly what happens next. I'm the only one who knows
what's going to how to settle this problem. But in
this situation, he allows his characters to work together. You know,
they each have their own strengths that they bring to
the table. And I think that that was at the
(35:12):
end of the day, it was a really satisfying story
because I felt like, you know, he allowed more people
to work together, which is always the way that most
of these things happen. Anyway, you talk about the ace
a detective, but the ACE detective can't really be the
person who does everything. It doesn't doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
She's delegates. Well, yeah, I mean, although I do feel
that it is very much how a male writer writes
a female character that he likes a strong female character.
That's that's that thing about it. But because he writes
it so well, I don't mind. I don't mind because
when you look at it, right, I mean, Evelyn way
too cool, super cool. It's exactly the kind of woman
(35:52):
that you would love to meet, right if you you know,
I mean like she she's on top of everything, she's
one step ahead of everybody, and I'm sure that people
like that. But yes, he is very very.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Although he allows her to have a scar.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
This is true which I normally happened. And I think
perhaps maybe if we read Rules of Stibility, we've already
seen all the mistakes that she has made, or all
the bad decisions she has made, and now you are
meeting somebody who has learned her lessons.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
Right.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
You know, this is why I felt that it was
necessary to have bread that beforehand, so you could say,
I understand why she's so good at this. I understand
why she grasps the problem straight away and knows how
to handle it because she's been through the situation. But yeah,
otherwise it just be kind of she's a little bit
like a superwoman, which is yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
And you do meet her in Lincoln Highway as well,
if I'm not mistaken, because when they are actually when
they did get to La and all that, there was
a there was an incident that happened in a theater
and she sort of like was there. So he he
loves it. I don't think this is the last that
we see of her. Possibly we might we might have
more from him. Maybe, I don't know. I don't know.
(36:59):
I I get it, I get it. There are some
characters that you really love. Okay, So before we get
into to you read this book or I don't know,
do you want to talk about some of the stories
and where his touchoff points are, because, for instance, like
the bootlegger, right, the jumping off point for that is
because in his dirties, him and his wife kind of
(37:20):
like subscribe to piano concerts and they did sit beside
a man in a trench code recording the concept, and
he was indignant about it. He was like going, oh
my god, how audacious, right, And he said he couldn't
even listen to the concert property because he was so
annoyed by this, And he said he spent the entire
(37:40):
concept fantasizing on how he's going to report this man,
but of course he didn't. So it's almost like a
wish fulfillment then. And what's nice about it is that
he's actually friends with one of the performers. And what's
nice about his books as well is that you do
feel that you learn something about the world. And it
is really a joy for bibluphile or somebody who loved
(38:01):
the arts to read his stories, because you know, he
sets them in bookstores, in concert halls, even those that
are set in people's dining rooms. Is over talking of
a you know, like a picture, and he goes into art.
So you feel that you've learned a little bit of
something of Western culture.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
If I was to get immortals in a room. But
I think if what I really wanted to ask him
about the bootleggers in particular, was that the couple they're
they're at at the concert, and then they noticed this,
the older gentleman recording, and so halfway through the show,
the husband actually gets up and he goes outside and
he complains about it.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Right, can you believe it? After discarding the first reply
that popped into my head, I opted for silence. Tommy
opted for a louder whisper. It's outrageous. This elicited a
shush from a woman seated behind us. Tommy's mouth opened
(39:01):
a shock. He looked back at the woman and then
at me that he should be shushed when he was
the one defending the laws of the United States, the
decorum of Carnegie Hall, and the intellectual property rights of
creative artists everywhere. Apparently it was too much to bear,
because he began to get up from his seat. What
are you doing, I'm getting a nusher in the middle
(39:21):
of the in the middle of the performance. Another shush
came from the woman behind us, this one with an edge.
Tommy rose with his shoulders hunched and began shuffling down
the row. Now it was he who was saying, excuse me,
excuse me, excuse me, as music lovers and the surrounding
seats communicated their own versions of exasperation, indignation, and shock.
(39:43):
When Tommy reached the end of the row, he stood
to his full height and walked up to the aisle
with the pace and posture of the righteous. At the
top was an usher, a black woman in her forties,
standing in front of the closed doors. She looked none
too pleased by Tommy's mid performance approach. Tommy ignored her
disapproval and indicated he needed to speak to her outside,
(40:05):
So the two quietly slipped into the lobby, where the
usher looked at Tommy with a furrow row. What follows
is a transcription of events based on the direct testimony
of my husband, an additional intelligence gathered over nine years
of matriach. I want to report a bootlegger, he said,
A bootlegger, the usher asked, in surprise, You mean a
(40:26):
maker of moonshine, No, a musical bootlegger. Tommy pointed at
the door. The man sitting next to me is recording
the concert, and it's not the first time I've seen
him do it. In fact, I suspect he's a serial offender.
The usher rolled her eyes.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
What I was always interested because he keeps coming back
to the wife's perspective, and the wife like saying, oh,
you know, like GNOI now why did you do that?
And the wife trying to be a moderating flunce here
and everything, And I was like, now it makes me
wonder is that because his wife was I was like, yeah,
(41:09):
that's so interesting. What is the dynamic here? What is
he trying to say?
Speaker 1 (41:13):
But I feel this tablow is something that I've seen
in New York. The blustering man and then they started
like slightly long suffering woman that he's with, slightly that
basically goes like can you not create a scene, dear?
You know we're in public, you know, but no, very indignant,
you know, that kind of like entitlement that people have
(41:33):
sometimes in certain situations, you know, like why why am
I in this situation? And stuff like that, and then
like the moderating factor of the as you say, the
partner going.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Like, you know, calm down, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I mean, I mean, like you could go on about
a lot of the very interesting touch points on a
lot of these stories. Possibly. Another one that I was
quite taken by was the de dominical fragment. Okay, so
I thought that the point in the story it's basically
(42:06):
an old painting, very valuable painting that gets divided into
fragments to be passed on to all the different.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Sounds really sacrilegious, doesn't it. It does.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
I'm like, who does that? Is that real?
Speaker 1 (42:17):
To people actually having a first section book and then
having five children and ripping it in five so as
to talk to each other so then they can read.
It's an interesting story.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Yeah, I would like to know if that actually happens,
because it would make sense. I think it does make sense,
especially when you come to a lot of these families
that go they date back generations and then they pass
things down and of course they want to be fair
to every child, and so that's what you do. But
it sounds like it sounds like sacrilege.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
I mean, like he says that the origin of the fragment,
it's from his young days because his grandparents called they
were Boston Brahmins. I just love that kind of phrase.
So they lived in a large brickhouse and they had
a grand staircase that least the second floor, and on
the opposite side of the landing there are full length
portraits dating from the nineteenth century of his grandfather's grandparents,
(43:08):
so full length portraits can imagine that, you know, like
And then when he was about ten, his grandparents sold
the house and moved into a small one that is
at least two hundred years old and consisted of the
revolutionary era in New England. This house had low ceilings,
so it means that you can't hang full length portraits.
So because of that, his grandfather very practical, cut the
(43:32):
paintings in half so you only see them midshot right.
And then he said he was sitting in his office
years later and then he was thinking, ah, what happened
to the lakes on my for bearers? So then he
imagined this west Peak kind of like Patriarch who had
a beloved of painting quartet.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Well, I mean to his side, I had to go
look it up because because he makes it sound so
real and he actually like you were saying to you
so much about you know, like the whole background of.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
The especially the whole porty of the annunciation, right, because
you wonder like, oh, actually i've seen something, you know,
when I went and look.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
It is a very common subject, is indeed.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
And the fact that they're all similar, Yes, it's almost
like this is how you prove yourself that you can
paint something, so that you have different versions, but they're
all posts similarly. It's quite interesting. I never thought about it.
Now I'm going to pay attention.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Yeah, I know, I know. I mean, like you learn
so much gosh, like you were saying before, you know,
you actually learn that there's there's value in things beyond
the money that you can get out of them. And
it's so interesting that an old man learns it from
a little child.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Indeed, indeed, you know, thinking that I'm the one that
has wisdom, and yet wisdom of children sometimes quite interesting.
What do you think, baby? Do you think that if
somebody wants to start reading Amo Toolls, should they read
a novel first or should they read his shorts stories?
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Oh? My god, I mean I think it's completely different
the short stories. Definitely, I would say that they're a
completely different animal. But yeah, but novella would give you a.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Good taste true through, although after that you probably want
to read Rules of Civility. I mean, I would say
a good start would be A Gentleman in Moscow right now,
it's already a TV series starring Iwan McGregor, and he
plays the title character wonderfully, the Gentleman because actually that's
what it is, right, A Gentleman in Moscow is like,
what does it mean to be a gentleman? Yes, because
(45:31):
that is literally his occupation. Like there's a part I
was watching the show because I've I've read the book
quite some time ago where they say that what's your occupation?
He's like, going, a gentleman does not have an occupation?
And he looked just mildy, mister f by his question.
But that is literally what he is. He's a gentleman,
And what does it mean to be a gentleman?
Speaker 2 (45:52):
Yeah, that's something that is I guess you know that's
something we encounter much anymore in this day and time.
I'm sure sure there are people many people out there
who are you know, able to be unemployed and just
you know, like just survive just like that, like just
because because they are royal family people, although I know
(46:15):
plenty of royalty who work, so yeah, I mean, I
mean this is his whole idea, what what a gentleman
is and what does a gentleman do? And what makes
a gentleman? I think that is a question that that
is very interesting and and I think he answered it beautifully.
He really did. It was it was. It wasn't just
that he talked about this this person's life. He also
(46:38):
the way he wrote about it, and you know, his
his terms of phrase, his the way that he know
like his gentle humor, his he's he's actually very loving
descriptions of the people.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
Right, there's a lot of empathy for even even the
unpopular people, you know, like you feel that at the
end of the day you can understand and and again,
these are living in very extraordinary circumstances, and you wonder
if we ever get into disort of circumstances, would we
have that much grace. So there's a lot of grace
that he gives his characters. Don't You don't feel anxious
reading his books. You feel that you're in good hands
(47:14):
and that you're going to learn about somebody's life. You're
going to enjoy the story. And yeah, and maybe that's
what a good book and a good short story should
do for you.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
So yeah, read this book guys if you feel like
like a short story, if you don't want to commit
yourself to like a novel. Yeah. But it's very very
easy to read his stuff. His pro style is very easy,
easy to read. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
I would say he's worth the longer read. He definitely
is that. There are many books that you kind of
feel like while you're reading them, you're kind of like
just rushing through it just because you want to know
what happens next.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
But for these books.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
You're not there for the for to know what happens
at the end. You know, you're there for the journey
because you're enjoying the way he's telling it. And that's
that's the mark of a real storyteller, somebody who lets
you enjoy the journey rather than just you.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
Know, like the destiny indeed indeed, and then you learn
some history as well. Oh yes, yeah, okay, right, thanks
for listening. That's our show today. Wow. Yes, we hope
you enjoyed our show, and as usually, can follow us
on IG at tbn D Books. That's where we are
mostly two booknest Stocking on Facebook and tbnt pot on
x step for decoration. You can also reach us at
(48:29):
booknet Stocking at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2 (48:32):
We will leave you with a quote from Tarles's third book,
The Lincoln Highway. Okay, So would it have been wonderful thought,
Wollie if everybody's life was like a piece in a
jigsaw puzzle, that no one person's life would ever be
an inconvenience to anyone else's. It would just fit snugly
in its very own, especially designed spot, and in so
(48:52):
doing would enable the whole intric picture to become complete.
That's lovely.
Speaker 1 (48:59):
Thank you so much, you complete my book picture.
Speaker 3 (49:01):
I know.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
That's so nice of you to say, But then that's
the kind of nice thing that honey says.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
All well, you know I do aspire to be a
writer of some note at some point. All right, thank
you for listening everybody, and have a fantastic we can
hear bye bye. By this we're produced by Stephanie. I'll
put other jigs up. Sorry, Stephanie, you're my other jigs
as well. Also like a shout out to our producer Stephanie.
(49:27):
This show is edited by her and myself, Bye, m.
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