Reading a book is a miraculous and very personal experience. I began to read before I started school and, more than half a century later, the miracle has never stopped. My eyes see words, marks, aligned on a page, yet it is my brain that breathes life into them by creating vibrant mental images of what those words mean to me. The skilled writer knows how to stimulate my imagination, how to draw me into the story and drive me ever onward to find out more, to solve the mystery, to understand the characters who have sprung to life in my head. But what comes to my mind and what comes to yours, even though we are reading the same book, may be vastly different because our thoughts and creative imagination are framed and nuanced by our personal life experiences, our expectations, and what we have read and seen before, who we have met, loved, or lost. Still, good writing is good writing and, if there is a universal theme, then many can enjoy and relate to it even though the mental journeys differ.

With art and film, the ability to evoke emotion is also present and framed by what we bring to the experience through each of our individual histories—but the effects are stimulated by real images before us rather than through those of the “mind’s eye.” Later, we will incorporate these new images into our total mental collage and, perhaps, they will reincarnate in our dreams, shape shift into our imaginings. Memory and imagination create a wonderful cycle, an incredible bonus of being human. For a film to be everlasting and not just a flicker of light across the screen, entertaining for a brief moment and then passing quickly into obscurity, it must offer story, character, and image in ways that burn their way into our brains. A very few, like a brand on a steer, will sear us irrevocably, changing us or our thoughts forever.

This issue of FEAST is dedicated to the imagination, to the phenomena of “seeing” the stories we read in books and view in art and film. There are a lot of offerings this time out—a half dozen in fiction, including a mystery and an outstanding debut novel, and a couple of great choices for those who prefer nonfiction. In film, we revisit a masterpiece from the 1970s, check out a PBS DVD series on the Blues, and combine travel and film with a look at the headliners for a cutting-edge festival in Canada. There’s even a bit of food fun to round things out. One of the serious nonfiction books I review is written by a well-known US philosopher who digs deep into how the magical process of imagining can light up our lives, bring us joy and sorrow, guide or anger us. Among all of these listings, I hope you’ll find one or two suggestions that will bring you some measure of what each has brought to me. To make it easier to find what interests you, categories are shown to your left that link to each section. As always, I welcome your comments!

-- Rosemary Carstens

FICTION THAT BLEW MY HAIR BACK:

The Virgin of Small Plains, Nancy Pickard. Ballentine 2006. This is a mystery pick that hovers between the resolution of a murder and a literary tale of young love that comes to a tragic parting. Pickard writes well about the complexities of small-town living on the Kansas plains. On January 23, 1987, in the midst of a deadly blizzard, a young man searching the family pastures for newborn calves comes across the frozen, naked, bloody body of a beautiful young woman. The events that led to that murder and the discovery of who is complicit in its cover-up have repercussions that affect two decades in the lives of three families. As the teens from the eighties become the middle-aged adults of the twenty-first century, the mysterious unnamed “virgin” buried in the local cemetery brings visitors looking for miracles and, with them, a resolution to the question of who she was and who killed her.

A Thread of Grace, Mary Doria Russell. Random House 2005. A superbly written story about a young Jewish girl who, with her father and thousands of other Jewish refugees, attempts to escape the Germans by climbing over the Alps into Italy in 1943. There have been many books through the years about the Jewish refugee experience, but we seldom read about those who hid in Italy, the Italians who sheltered them at risk of their own lives, and what it was like for those who fought there in the resistance movement. The result of five years of meticulous research, Russell brings us in intimate detail the almost unimaginable hardship of those years before the Allies came in and WWII ended. If you love to learn your history through fictional characters who “live” it, this book about the Italian front will not disappoint.

Digging to America, Anne Tyler. Knopf 2006. Tyler excels at stories about families. This one touches on some important contemporary issues: marriage between people from very different cultures, immigration, adoption by a multicultural family of children of yet other cultures, issues of adoption in general, death, loss, love, and relationships. In other words, just the stuff of ordinary, everyday lives told with deceiving simplicity. In Digging to America, two couples each adopt a little girl from Korea—both the people in one couple were born and raised in the United States, the other is a marriage between an American and an Iranian immigrant. Tyler thoroughly researched Iranian culture and delved deeply to discover immigrants’ feelings when confronted with certain US attitudes, their sense of loss of their own culture as it is watered down through the years, and their inability to reconnect with a childhood era that no longer exists. This is a tender, revealing story of changing times and mores—a window onto other ways of living and thinking skillfully portrayed by a fine writer.

Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen. Algonquin 2006. Jacob Jankowsky says, “I’m ninety—or ninety-three—one or the other.” He is living in a nursing home and struggling with the daily loss of dignity that entails. Then the circus comes to town, triggering memories of traveling with the circus as a young veterinarian. Beautifully written, the circus itself becomes a classic character—and a cruel one in many ways. It is a world where class distinctions arise, love fails and also blooms, friendship with strange bedfellows occurs, and, woven through all of the human trauma are the animals—the orangutan, Rosie the elephant, the horses, and a fiercely loyal terrier named Queenie. A well-researched topic presented as an entertaining and lovely story.

Philosophy Made Simple, Robert Hellenga. Little, Brown 2006. I love the stories Hellenga creates! The Sixteen Pleasures and The Fall of the Sparrow were wonderful tales and this one also clears the bar. Known for his skillful writing and good research, each of Hellenga’s books has more than a bit of discussion about how ordinary human beings deal with life’s complexities, their own anomalies, death, love, and all the emotions and driving forces in between. Each has a touch of Italy somewhere in the story, more than a touch of lost love and grief—but each also grapples with the notion of redemption, forgiveness of one’s self and others, and the possibility of new and unexpected ways to love in an ever-changing world.

Here’s the story: Rudy Harrington, a widow with grown daughters, spontaneously leaves Chicago after purchasing an avocado grove in Texas, where he knows no one. He carries with him as his guide a small volume given to him by his daughters titled “Philosophy Made Simple.” With Plato, Aristotle, Schopenhauer, and Sartre to lead the way, he jumps head first into his new life where such events as one daughter’s Hindu wedding, a painting elephant named Norma Jean, an unexpected health problem, and an encounter with an extraordinary woman from India all present challenges for even the greatest of philosophers.

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, Kim Edwards. Penguin 2005. With her debut novel, Edwards knocks our socks off. The story opens on a winter’s night in 1964 when a blizzard forces Dr. David Henry to deliver his own twins—a perfect, healthy son, and a Down’s syndrome daughter. The decision he makes that evening marks the turning point of his life and affects all that will follow as he instructs his nurse Caroline to take his daughter away. Rather than place the baby in an institution, Caroline runs away to live anonymously in another city and raise the girl, Phoebe. Edwards does a brilliant job of crafting the effects of this one night’s events on all of its principle characters. As Sena Jeter Naslund (Ahab’s Wife) says, “Mesmerizing.”

JUST THE CAPTIVATING FACTS - RECOMMENDED NONFICTION:

History repeats itself? A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City, Anonymous. Henry Holt 2000. For eight weeks in 1945, as Berlin fell to the Russian army, a young journalist, alone in the city, kept a daily record of her and her neighbors’ experiences, determined to describe the common lot for millions. This book was published in an abridged version after WWII ended, in German, and has now been translated and is available in its complete version in English. It is shocking and contemporary in its application to any wartime and reveals much about the atrocities and lawlessness military occupations can create and condone—or look away from. Very thought provoking.

Clapton’s Guitar: Watching Wayne Henderson Build the Perfect Instrument, Allen St. John. Free Press 2006. I could not put this down! I’ve often thought certain, well-used inanimate objects, like musical instruments, could tell us some amazing stories if they only had a voice: Van Cliburn’s or Ray Charles’s piano, Miles Davis’s trumpet, Eric Clapton’s guitar. Imagine the tales! Musicians form intimate relationships with their instruments; they pour their souls into them and, with the best, their souls are reincarnated and rise into the air as music that makes our hearts soar. Bestselling author Allen St. John takes us on a personal journey to watch retired rural mail carrier Wayne Henderson, one of the world’s greatest guitar builders, make such an instrument. Henderson employs experience, creativity, and more than a little down-home ingenuity—and there’s a 10-year waiting list for his heirloom acoustic guitars. St. John writes with poetry and passion, but also with a clear eye about the process—part magic, part music, huge helping of craftsmanship in a world where friendship, laughter, old-time music, and homemade lemon pies and barbeque count for more than who has the big bucks. This book is special if you care about music and craftsmanship. A great gift idea.

A BIT MORE BRAINBUSTING, BUT INTRIGUING:

Mindsight: Image, Dream, and Meaning, Colin McGinn. Harvard University Press 2004. Ever wonder about imagination—where it comes from, where in the brain it “lives,” how the images that come to us in daydreams and night dreams differ from those we see with our eyes rather than our minds? In this book, Colin McGinn, professor of philosophy at Rutgers University and the author of some sixteen books, digs deep to discover possible answers. McGinn is considered one of America’s greatest contemporary philosophers. Now, I don’t know about you, but I often think of philosophers as all those dead old boys from another era, probably hanging out in togas in a little, out-of-the-way bar in east Rome or Athens, swapping exaggerations. Not so for McGinn. There’s a lot buzzing around in that powerful brain of his and he is rare in his ability to express it somewhat simply for the rest of us who ponder these topics in between martinis. How I’d like to “see” what images dance around in this guy’s head!

If you like the discussion in Mindsight, MGinn has a newer book out titled The Power of Movies (Pantheon 2005) where he focuses with enthusiasm and intelligence on how movies work on our minds, how screen images seem to capture us in the same way that dreams do—and how all of that can lead to greater self-awareness and understanding. Admittedly, both of these books are tough sledding, requiring some heavy mental lifting—but if you’re up for it, they are guaranteed to build a few new synapses.

COMING UP AND NOT TO BE MISSED:

Finn, Jon Clinch. Random House 2007. Debut novel. The very dark story of Huckleberry Finn’s father.

Art in America, Ron McLarty. Viking (probably 2007). If you loved Memory of Running, you will love this author’s new book about a down-and-out playwright who gets a second chance at success and love.

Village Of Painters. On Sunday afternoon, October 29, 2006, the Museum of International Folk Art (MOIFA), on museum hill in Santa Fe, New Mexico, will open a unique and exceptional exhibition of handpainted, narrative scrolls from West Bengal, India. The exhibit will continue through April 19, 2007.

The artists who create these works have a long history in the Bengali region and traditionally have wandered from village to village singing their own compositions as they unraveled painted scrolls on two main themes: the sacred and the profane. Frank J. Korom, professor of religion and anthropology at Boston University and a research associate for MOIFA, has spent many years conducting research in South Asia. Always attracted to the work of the scroll painters, in recent years he has seen their themes develop to include world events such as 9/11 and the tsunami. It is Korom’s dedication and persistence that has brought this exhibition to the United States to allow us a rare look at an artistic evolution into the global economy. For more information, see www.moifa.org or call 505-476-1200.

Accompanying the exhibition is a beautiful volume titled Village of Painters (Museum of New Mexico Press 2006). Filled with stunning photographs of scrolls and artists taken by Paul J. Smutko, senior collections manager for MOIFA, and written by Frank Korom, this book reveals how sacred art spills over into mainstream culture to become more accessible and collectible. It’s fascinating. For more information, or to purchase, see www.mnmpress.org—or pick up a copy at the museum when you visit!

In my review of fifty years of food and film, someone suggested I take a look at a scene about beer and T-bones in Francis Cuppola’s 1979 APOCALYPSE NOW. I didn’t see this film when it came out—the Vietnam War was a painful topic for many of my generation, we were only four years past the last flight out of Saigon, and I didn’t feel up to dealing with the violence I was sure would be portrayed. Even today, in the midst of another senseless war, the topic is not a pleasant one—but this film is a masterpiece! Scenes such as the attack on a village early on highlight the insane chaos of raw war—searing, scorching hellfire, damnation, and blood lust. No one’s in charge, everything is out of control. The soundtrack is perfect. It has a driving, manic dissonance that is flawlessly married to the imagery and story—if someone made a movie about a modern day Dante trekking through hell, this is the music he’d be playing on his I-pod!

Probably partly because of the available technology of the day, this film is more similar to a theater production than the war flicks we see now. There is a terrible beauty to it—the burning villages, the fog and smoke obscuring and revealing intermittently, the double exposures and measured fade-ins and fade-outs—all lend a dreamlike (or nightmarelike) quality to scenes, as the viewer experiences the slowly infiltrating loss of sanity among the characters. As Captain Ben Willard (Martin Sheen) puts it, “It smelled like slow death in there—malaria, nightmares. This was the end of the river alright.”

APOCALYPSE NOW features Marlon Brando as Colonel Walter Kurz, Robert Duvall as Lt. Colonel Bill Kilgore, Martin Sheen as Captain Benjamin Willard, and glimpses of Dennis Hopper and Harrison Ford among other now-familiar faces.

Extra Notes: I watched the longer, director’s cut, titled APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX. There is some controversy about whether the uncut version is worse or better than the film as originally released. There’s a documentary out this year titled Heard Any Good Movies Lately?: The Sound Design of Apocalypse Now that relates how a team of film and sound editors, designers, technicians, and artists under the direction of Coppola worked for nearly two years to create the film’s astounding soundtrack using the then brand new six-channel stereo surround format.

Speaking of talented, creative US men in film, I want to also highly recommend a PBS series executive produced by Martin Scorsese, the legendary filmmaker, called MARTIN SCORSESE PRESENTS: THE BLUES: A MUSICAL JOURNEY (2002). The series consists of seven feature-length films that capture the essence of the blues while exploring how this art form so deeply influenced music and people the world over. It’s a chance to view some rare video footage, interviews, and unforgettable performances by some of the greatest musicians in blues history. It would make a great gift for anyone who loves music. Available for rent from Netflix (www.netflix.com).

As co-author with Chef Leslie Shipman of SUSTAINING THOUGHT: Thirty Years of Cookery at the School of American Research (SAR 2006), I thought I’d entice you with one of its recipes—a chocoholic’s dream-come-true that looks elegant and tastes incredible!

Karen’s Kahlua Cake – serves 12–15

1 package chocolate cake mix
1 4-ounce instant chocolate pudding mix
4 eggs
2 cups sour cream
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup Kahlua* liqueur
6 ounces chocolate chips
powdered sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 350°F. Prepare bunt pan by greasing and flouring the insides. Set aside. Mix first 6 ingredients together, blending well. Fold in chocolate chips and pour into bunt pan. Tap pan gently on counter to remove air pockets. Bake for 60 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool on rack for 10 minutes. Invert pan and remove cake, placing on serving platter. Dust with powdered sugar and cool completely. Dust each slice with powdered sugar again before serving.

*I was out of Kahlua when I made this, so used Amaretto—equally delicious! I also suggest experimenting with a dash of red chile powder—shades of the film Chocolát.

For martini lovers, here’s an opinionated recipe from Luis Bunuel, creator of surrealist films, who dearly loved his gin martini (quoted from his book My Last Sigh [1983, translated by Alfred A. Knopf Inc.]):

To provoke, or sustain, a reverie in a bar, you have to drink English gin, especially in the form of a martini . . . Like all cocktails, the martini, composed essentially of gin and a few drops of Noilly Prat, seems to have been an American invention. Connoisseurs who like their martinis very dry suggest simply allowing a ray of sunlight to shine through a bottle of Noilly Prat before it hits the bottle of gin. At a certain period in America it was said that the making of a dry martini should resemble the Immaculate Conception, for, as Saint Thomas Aquinas once noted, the generative powers of the Holy Ghost pierced the virgin’s hymen “like a ray of sunlight through a window—leaving it unbroken.”

Another crucial recommendation is that the ice be so cold and hard that it won’t melt, since nothing’s worse than a watery martini. For those who are still with me, let me give you my personal recipe, the fruit of long experimentation and guaranteed to produce perfect results. The day before your guests arrive, put all the ingredients—glasses, gin, and shaker—in the refrigerator. Use a thermometer to make sure the ice is about twenty degrees below zero (centigrade). Don’t take anything out until your friends arrive; then pour a few drops of Noilly Prat and half a demitasse spoon of Angostura bitters over the ice. Shake it, then pour it out, leaving only the ice, which retains a faint taste of both. Then pour straight gin over the ice, shake it again, and serve.

Heat: An Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany, Bill Buford. Knopf 2006. I have to admit I didn’t finish this one. I like narratives about food that are equal parts story and recipes/food. This is more like a memoir. It will fascinate anyone who craves the real nitty gritty back story about top restaurants or has entertained a fantasy about training in a top professional kitchen. Buford’s kitchen adventures in Mario Batali’s three-star New York restaurant, Babbo, tell you perhaps more than you ever wanted to know about the creativity, egocentric antics, and somewhat revolting economics of restaurants that create buzz in the food world. From the New York cuisine scene, Buford takes us to Italy and England as he digs into the details of Batali’s life and rise to success, and includes his own adventures along the way. While it wasn’t my plate of ravioli, many foodies will love this book!

MONTREAL, QUEBEC. October 18–28, 2006. If you love film and the European lifestyle, then a trip to Montreal to sample the many offerings of the 35th New Cinema film festival would make a great choice for getting away this fall. Last issue, I wrote about the multicultural experiences of playing and dining in this delightful city—without the heavy bite of the euro. Montréal is only 40 miles from the US border, and Air Canada offers daily nonstop flights from many US cities (www.aircanada.com). This issue, I want to introduce one of its unique celebrations: Festival du Nouveau Cinéma (FNC). FNC is developing an international reputation for the quality of its diverse programming, its cutting edge selections and their originality and innovation, particularly in the fields of independent cinema and digital creation. For more information call 514-282-0004 or go to (www.nouveaucinema.ca). Here’s a mini-tour of three of this year’s headliners:

The Boss of It All by Lars von Trier. This film will be making its North American premiere. The acclaimed Danish director, usually known for the seriousness of his films, takes a run at comedy. The owner of a technology company decides to sell the firm. The hitch is that when he founded the company, he invented a fictitious president to hide behind when it was time to announce difficult decisions. Now potential buyers want to negotiate with the nonexistent “president”—so the owner hires a struggling actor to play the part.

The Wind that Shakes the Barley by Ken Loach, is a Palme d’Or winner from the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, The film takes us back to Ireland in the 1920s, where peasants are taking up arms against the feared Black and Tans, the British paramilitary troops sent by the thousands to quell the Irish independence movement.

Volver by Pedro Almodovar. Another Cannes 2006 award winner, Pedro Almodovar (who earned best screenplay honors), will also be featured in a special presentation. Volver follows three generations of women as they survive turmoil, fire, madness, superstition and even death thanks to goodness, a few lies, and unlimited vitality. The film stars Penélope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Dueñas, Chus Lampreave, Yohana Cobo and Blanca Portillo, who shared the award for best actress at Cannes.