Book Report: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse

29. Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, The Mole, the Fox, and the Horse (2019) (5/28/21)

I saw mention of this book on FB. I was drawn simply by the image of the cover, and the title. And I figured a children's book or two could help me keep up with my reading challenge—I'm a little behind in May. 

The book arrived today, and I read it quickly—the calligraphed words, anyway. Though a good part of the "reading" of this book involves the beautiful illustrations, and those I will need to go back and give more time to. 

The story is simple: a boy meets a mole (who loves cake) and then a fox who has been caught in a snare but whom the mole saves by chewing through the tether, even though the fox points out, "If I wasn't caught in this snare I would kill you." But the mole is not afraid. Eventually a horse enters the picture. There is much philosophizing—about kindness and self-belief, trust and vulnerability, curiosity and love. "'I think everyone is just trying to get home,' said the mole."

The words on their own are, I daresay, platitudes, but that is easy to forgive. What makes this book beautiful is the artistry: the calligraphy and the drawings. And the unlikely friendship of four sentient beings. And cake. Here are a few pages:

Armadillos

Today on Twitter I saw a picture of an unbelievable animal: six inches long max, with paddle-claw feet, white fur, and a pale pink shell-like covering (the color from blood vessels close to the surface)—the pink fairy armadillo (Chlamyphorus truncatus):

I find armadillos fascinating anyway, but this one blew me away. It lives in a narrow swath of Argentina and spends so much time underground that it is virtually unknown scientifically.

There are 21 extant species of armadillo (and not a few extinct ones), all from the Americas. Some are described simply by the number of plates of armor on their bodies. The largest, the giant armadillo (Priodontes maximus), grows to about 60 inches in length and weighs up to 120 pounds. Flexible three-banded Tolypeutes species are the only armadillos that are able to roll up into a ball when threatened by a predator. The Aztecs called armadillos (meaning "little armored ones" in Spanish) āyōtōchtli, or "turtle-rabbits." They are relatives of sloths and anteaters—other New World animals that are just as fascinating. (Xenarthrans. Check them out online.)

Here are a few of the 21:

Nine-banded armadillo, Dasypus novemcinctus

Three-banded armadillo, Tolypeutes tricinctus, rolled up

Six-banded armadillo, Euphractus sexcinctus

Screaming hairy armadillo, Chaetophractus vellerosus

There: five genera, from pink fairy to screaming hairy, of those extant. They have a fascinating life history too, including the fact that in the genus Dasypus offspring are always identical quadruplets. 

Armadillos feed on creatures in or on the ground: grubs, insects, other invertebrates; some specialize on ants or termites. They dig and burrow. As a result, they can be pests in the garden—a little like overgrown armored gophers, I guess, though gophers also pull entire plants down into their dens. I think I'd rather have armadillos than gophers. But then I guess I'd need to move to Texas or Florida, or somewhere in South America, to find out if I really mean that . . .

Book Report: Thin Air

28. Ann Cleeves, Thin Air (2014) (5/22/21)

The sixth of Cleeves's Shetland mysteries (my report on the fifth is here). Jimmy Perez seems to be getting back on his feet after the murder (he blames himself) of his one true love, Fran Hunter. Who is a ghostly presence throughout this book. Understandably, I suppose, but I wish she'd been less so. 

This one kept me interested, and I was surprised (somewhat) by the twists at the end, which weren't utterly twisty because there was plenty of character building, or at least establishment, to lend credence. Though that said, if this had been non-genre literature, I certainly would not have been convinced by the motivations of the eventual perpetrator, or of a few of the others who played into the mystery. 

But, yes: mystery! Genre fiction! Suspension of disbelief! It's just a yarn!

Very briefly, the story is: a group of friends who'd attended Durham University come to Shetland for the "hamefarin'"—wedding celebration—of two of their comrades. The next morning, one of them, a TV producer researching ghostly happenings, is found dead. A few days later, a local hotelier, also English—a former magician—is also found dead. The spectral spirit of a girl who drowned in 1930 is seen dancing in the distance on several occasions. And  beyond that, it's difficult to summarize—a lot goes on. Needless to say, Jimmy and his cohorts figure it out. 

I've been getting into mysteries lately—they make for good page-turner entertainment, especially when I'm working (i.e., reading for a living). Sometimes I'm satisfied, sometimes less so. I've lately wondered whether some of that "satisfaction" depends on what else I'm reading in my life. If I'm seeking a mystery as a "something, anything" antidote to duty, am I less accepting? If I just have the time to kick back and read a yarn, am I easier to please?

Lately, too, my husband and I have been watching various old TV comedies in the evening: Moone Boy, 30 Rock, Dharma and Greg. We enjoy them all, but we also notice that we laugh more with one of them, and wonder why. Is it simply better writing? A different sensibility? More sympathetic characterization? Setting the viewer up for a punchline vs. telling a story? Something about the situations that really resonates with us, coming from where we do? 

Probably the latter: we are not Irish; we don't live in NYC and work in TV; but we do understand class differences and pragmatism vs. idealism. Dharma and Greg really gets us laughing. It's salutary.

I don't know, but wondering about that got me thinking about mysteries and just what makes them work. There are of course numerous lists on the internet of, for example, "The 10 Essential Elements of a Good Mystery Story" or, more pithily, "The Five Essential Elements of a Mystery." Let's see how they compare. Pithy first:

1. Characters
2. Setting
3. Plot
4. Problem
5. Solution

Those, seriously, should be obvious (though of course the article goes into depth). Let's see the expansion:

1. A strong hook
2. An atmospheric setting
3. A crime
4. A sleuth
5. A villain
6. Narrative momentum
7. A trail of clues
8. Foreshadowing
9. Red Herrings
10. A satisfying ending

Okay. A bit better.

Here's another set of advice that seems more useful, for both a reader and, especially, a writer:

1. Read other mysteries often
2. Know every detail of the crime
3. Open with intrigue
4. Construct convincing characters
5. Make a list of suspects
6. Lean into your locations
7. Let the reader play along
8. Misdirect your reader
9. Rewrite and rewrite some more

The more I read mysteries, and the more I think about constructing them, the more impressed I am that people even try. Haven't all of the crimes been committed, all the motivations played out, all the revenges enacted? 

And yet still, I will no doubt continue to nitpick as I continue to find solace in mystery page-turners. Like in this one: Just who did the phone call come from on page 334? (Yes, we find out eventually.) And why were Polly's thoughts about Duncan so calm at the start of the book, considering what we learn, toward the end, that Caroline had told her on the ferry ride to Unst? And why was young Grace so attached to that period piece of an outfit anyway? Why, moreover, did Jimmy have to fly to London—was it simply to give the reader a change of scene? Couldn't he have done all that over the phone? (Maybe. Maybe not as effectively, though.)

Anyway, yeah: another book done. That's what counts. And I do like Jimmy Perez. I'll be happy to read the last two of the series. (Assuming we're at the end.)

Antony Gormley, sculptor

In the book I just finished reading, the sixth of Ann Cleeves's Shetland mysteries (and which I will comment on shortly), there is a mention of a British sculptor that intrigued me enough to look him up. The passage in question takes place near the end of the book, when the chief inspector is searching for a missing woman, on a beach. In the foggy near distance, she hears sobbing, and sees a spectral figure.

Then, like a curtain rising, the mist ahead of her cleared and she saw the figure clearly, still some way off to the north of her and on the part of the beach that was closest to the Meoness community hall. The water had already come up to the figure's calves. Willow was reminded of a series of sculptures that she and her mother had visited on a beach in Merseyside. Antony Gormley's cast-iron figures, which had been moulded from his own body, planted in the sand and covered twice a day by the tide. Each of them had seemed entirely lonely as the water covered them, and Willow had watched, fascinated, as they disappeared a little at a time under the sea.

Here are the sculptures alluded to here, a project titled Another Place, installed on Crosby Beach near Liverpool:

"Gormley’s most iconic work," according to this article from HERO, "is the 20m high Corten steel Angel of the North in Gateshead, completed in 1998 as a monument to post-industrial Britain. It is so popular it has become an emblem for the UK, featuring in the new British passports or greeting visitors at Heathrow on giant posters."

Here are some more of his pieces (the first entry being a video narrated by Gormley himself):

Here is a story to go with this 2020 piece

I would include links to articles about him, but they are so numerous that I will just suggest: if you want to read more about him, including seeing various lists of his 5, 10, 11, etc. "most iconic" creations, just Google him. I'm shocked I'd never heard of him before, he's so famous.

(I apologize: the sculptures I've shown here all have names, but I'm too lazy to document them.)
 

Orkney and Shetland

I am reading the sixth in Ann Cleeves's eight-book Shetland series, and it is making me nostalgic for those northern islands, which I visited on a photo tour eleven years ago. I thought I'd post a few photos that I took—and actually curated. Though I know I have a bunch more photos . . . somewhere. (That is pretty much the story of my life. "It's here somewhere!" should be engraved on my headstone.) (Click on the images to see them large.)

Gairsay Sound, May 24: Arrived at Woodwick House on
Mainland, Orkney Island, this afternoon.
This is the view from the water. I love it that
the shore is littered with oystercatchers—very recognizable
by their bright orange beaks and pink legs, though their coloration
is different from the ones at home (here they've added
white to the all-black makeup of the California species).
It's cool--low 50s—and windy here, and every so often
a squall sheds a few drops of rain. I'll be dressing
in all my layers—including rain layers—the next couple of weeks,
I expect.

Bluebells at Woodwick House

Ring of Brodgar, 5,000 years old

Waukmill Bay

Kirkwall kirkyard

Kirkwall colour

Skara Brae, a 5,000-year-old community, discovered in
the 1800s when a big storm blew the topsoil away

We watched this swan family over a couple of days.
There were apparently predators in the neighborhood...

Midhowe broch: On Rousay, Orkney Islands, dating from ca. the birth of Christ.
A broch is round (always) and may have been a fortification or simply
a "manor house" (very primitive). This one we were allowed to
clamber all over, which made it perhaps more entertaining than educational.

A selkie, eyeing us as we eyed it back

A Rousay croft, last inhabited in the 1880s

Unst (Shetland) bus shelter, an installation art creation
that is mentioned in the book—and there is also a geocache here!

Unst bus shelter in situ

Lerwick, Shetland: Kitty dreaming of mackerel and puffins

Lerwick dockside

Lerwick reflections

Hoswick, Shetland: we were all captivated by... pigs? Yes we were!

A drizzly evening in Stromness, Orkney, but I was happy to
pose for my friend Meg, who took this photo

I would love to go back to Orkney and Shetland and explore on my own. When I was there with my fellow photographers, we were driven everywhere, and as a result I have very little idea of just where-all we actually went. I do remember loving these wild, relatively empty islands, though. My kind of place.

Glass art: plants and sea creatures

The other day I was introduced to a collection, housed at Harvard, of glass flowers—otherwise known as the Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants. As the website puts it, "This unique collection was made by Leopold (1822–1895) and Rudolf Blaschka (1857–1939), a father and son team of Czech glass artists. Over fifty years, from 1886 through 1936, the Blaschkas produced 4,300 glass models that represent 780 plant species." Here are a few of those creations (click on the images to see them large):

But as if that isn't amazing enough, the Blaschkas also did sea life! For example:

Here is a video from the Corning Museum of Glass on the duo:

And here's a long one on the sea creatures, but it's weirdly fascinating:

Such artistry. Just incredible.

This is what got me here—a poem by wonderful Mark Doty:

The Ware Collection of Glass Flowers and Fruit, Harvard Museum

Strange paradise, complete with worms,
monument of an obsessive will to fix forms;
every apricot or yellow spot's seen so closely,
in these blown blooms and fruit, that exactitude

is not quite imitation. Leaf and root,
the sweet flag's flaring bud already,
at the tip, blackened: it's hard to remember
these were ballooned and shaped by breath.

They're lovely because they seem
to decay: blue spots on bluer plums,
mold tarring a striped rose. I don't want to admire
the glassblower's academic replica,

his copies correct only to a single sense.
And why did a god so invested in permanence
choose so fragile a medium, the last material
he might expect to last? Better prose

to tell the forms of things, or illustration.
Though there's something seductive in this impossibility:
transparent color telling the live mottle peach,
the blush or tint of crag, englobed,

gorgeous, edible. How else match that flush?
He's built a perfection out of hunger,
fused layer upon layer, swirled until
what can't be tasted, won't yield,

almost satisfies, an art
mouthed to the shape of how soft things are,
how good, before they disappear.

(NB: After reading this poem the other day, Mark explained that he later learned that these creations were not mouth-blown, but were molded. But he'd written the poem, and so there it is, for all time.)