My garden has been full of surprises this year. We moved into our new house in November when the garden was settling in for winter, all bare branches and withered plants, the beds choked with leaves. We had no idea what would emerge in spring.
First came the daffodils, several different varieties, popping up in random spots all over the yard. “She loved flowers but she just stuck them anywhere,” said a neighbor darkly about the previous owner. Well, perhaps that adds to the charm. Certainly to the surprises.
Next came the clumps of grape hyacinth and candytuft painting a blue and white palette across the side yard.
Dear Readers: I was SCOOPED by The Washington Post! I had almost finished writing this when I opened the paper one morning and saw an article on the front page of the Metro section about the carillon tower in Baker Park, Frederick. Quite a coincidence! But I wrote mostly about Belgium so I just decided not to go on at length about the Frederick tower and refer you to the Post instead. It is a great article, though it omits the Belgian connection.
Bells in the Ghent Belfry
In 1626 Francesco Belli, traveling with Italian Ambassador Giorgio, wrote home from Flanders:
The bells in these countries serve for music; their timbre is so sweet and their harmony so complete that they express and include all the notes of the voice.
Two hundred and fifty years later Robert Louis Stevenson and a friend traveled through Belgium by canoe following the rivers and canals from town to town. In his account of the journey, An Inland Voyage, he recalled their starting point in Antwerp:
On the other side of the valley a group of red roofs and a belfry showed among the foliage; thence some inspired bell ringer made the afternoon musical on a chime of bells. There was something very sweet and taking in the air he played and we thought we had never heard bells speak so intelligently or sing so melodiously as these.
These are just two of the awed travelers who recorded their impressions of Flemish bell towers in diaries, letters, memoirs, and travel books from medieval times to our own day. One dubbed the region “The Land of Singing Towers,” another described journeying through Belgium as following “a chain of melody.”
Last summer I fell down a rabbit hole into the topsy-turvy world of Unreal Estate. It would be more accurate to say I jumped down the rabbit hole. It was sudden and impulsive but it had been a long time coming. And, appropriately for a librarian, it all happened because of a bookcase. Let me explain.
My daughter is a nurse who works with the elderly. She has seen her share of falls or sudden illness crushing a senior’s quality of life. A three storied house with steep stairs was no place for us as we aged she insisted, and we resisted. Every now and again she would send me a listing for a house for sale in Foxfield Village, a senior community near her home in Middletown. It would be perfect, she claimed, single level living and so near the grandchildren.
Quite an inducement. But there was always something wrong with the house. One seemed quite nice on the inside but the yard was a blank expanse of lawn, front and back. Not a twig or a leaf of any kind to be seen. How could I leave my garden full of flowering trees and shrubs and perennials for this sad bleak plot? There was always something. We had upgraded to stainless appliances, how could we go back to old white ones? My younger self would be appalled at my design snobbery. But I admit to it. We don’t always become better people as we age.
Then one Thursday last August she sent a listing that seemed to check all the boxes. Small but pretty garden, stainless appliances, and a glass enclosed porch, perfect for my heat and insect intolerance. There was just one problem. The open plan living space didn’t seem to have a wall long enough for my bookcase. I pored over the photos in search of an angle that would show a wall. None appeared. This was a nonnegotiable.
My bookcase made a successful transition to my new house
FICTION
Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagan. How could I resist a book billed as the Dickens of contemporary London? It did not disappoint. The city itself is a main character and according to the Guardian “The London that emerges from its 600-odd pages resembles a vast, rotting carcass picked over by carrion.” That doesn’t sound very appealing, but the book is constantly entertaining and mordantly witty. The central character is middle aged writer and academic Campbell Flynn who rose from humble beginnings to celebrity, but whose life is now spiraling out of control. Around him swirls a cast of characters high and low, from aristocrats to human traffickers, working class students to Russian oligarchs. We can’t help but root for the hapless Campbell as he is snared in a plot of corruption and scandal he can’t escape. The usual suspects of the English class system and hypocritical politicians get a merciless drubbing.
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner. Like Birnam Wood, on my favorites list last year, Creation Lake is about a radical environmental group, this time in rural France near a cave where Neanderthal remains were discovered. But unlike the gardening collective of that novel, Le Moulin plans violence. An American spy-for-hire, a woman using the undercover name Sadie, infiltrates the group. Kushner successfully combines the suspenseful plot of a thriller with a serious novel of ideas. Sadie becomes fascinated with letters from Bruno, a legendary activist who inspired the founders of Le Moulin. He believes that Neanderthals had a superior way of life, in harmony with nature, and that Homo Sapiens has gone tragically astray. Is Sadie’s mission to disrupt Le Moulin’s violent plans or to entrap them by urging them on? Where do her true loyalties lie? This novel was deservedly short-listed for the Booker Prize.
The Dispatches have been on hiatus from late summer into winter as I downsized to senior living and hurtled down a rabbit-holeinto the topsy-turvy world of Unreal Estate.More on that before long. But I was dragged out of my hibernation by a need to sublimate the horror of November and dread for 2025 . The result is another in my rewrites of The Night Before Christmas.
’Tis the night before Christmas When all through D.C. The Deep State is worrying How to save democracy.
While down in Mar-a-Lago Trump’s transition team Plots Revenge and Retribution On all who’ve been mean.
Just after New Year in 1984 a freak ice storm at evening rush hour paralyzed traffic in Montgomery County. Within seconds the wet roads froze into slick ice skating rinks. Nothing could move for hours. Into this chaos stepped the usual first responders, but also, perhaps surprisingly, librarians. All across the County stranded motorists sought refuge in those most welcoming of places, the public libraries.
Recently the retired librarians email group featured a thread of memories of that long ago night. I remember it well. At the Gaithersburg Library drivers abandoned their cars on Montgomery Village Avenue and precariously picked their way across the ice into the library. We didn’t close. We were trapped for hours. My small children were home with my mother so at one point I tried to leave. I didn’t get far from the back door when I could go no further. I was on my hands and knees and then stranded on a tiny ice-free oasis, unable to get to my car or return inside. I was stuck there for about an hour, freezing cold and feeling rather ridiculous. Eventually a police officer drove up and rescued me, helping me back into the library. Everyone was shocked to see me, thinking I was home long before. It wasn’t till about 1:00 in the morning that we were finally able to leave.
The next day, inspired by the story of the Andes plane crash survivors who resorted to cannibalism, I wrote a satirical account of the icy night that was published in The County Express newspaper on January 4th.
Marvelous is my word. The word most often used by her contemporaries in the 17th century was mad. Mad Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, was a marvel of contradictions. Painfully shy yet hungry for fame, barely educated yet a prolific author whose complete works fill twenty volumes, given to fits of melancholy yet possessed of a supreme self-confidence.
My ambition is not only to be Empress, but Authoress of a whole world.
She published poetry, fiction, plays, and essays on philosophy, science, and government. One of the most notorious and colorful characters of her day, she was renowned for her satirical wit and eccentric dress. In an age when women revealed a great deal of bosom Margaret went further. Attending the theatre in 1667 she wore a dress so low-cut that “her breasts were all laid out to view” according to one breathless report, with “scarlet trimmed nipples.” Among her favorite accessories were nipple tassels and black velvet philosopher’s hats. She “took delight in singularity” wrote an admirer. Samuel Pepys mentions her in his famous diary:
The whole story of this lady is a romance and all she do is romantic… her dress so antik.
By happenstance this month I watched a Flemish TV series about a family in World War I and read a book by a Flemish author who discovered his house was occupied by an SS officer in World War II. Both were set in Ghent, my mother’s home town, where I spent many happy childhood times and have visited often throughout my life. Both offered a fuller context to the stories passed down to me about my own family’s experiences in the World Wars.
I watched the ten episodes of In Vlaamse Velden on PBS Passport, in Flemish with English subtitles. It was lovely to hear Flemish, a language that surrounded me in my childhood. I felt good when I was able to pick up familiar words and expressions, even some entire sentences, but I did need the subtitles. The series tells the story of Dr. Boesman, a gynecologist, his wife Virginie, sons Vincent and Guillaume, and daughter Marie. Each experiences the war in a different way, illustrating the complex and divided loyalties of the Flemish people during German occupation.
Dr. Boesman believes the Germans will win and that he may at last gain a professorship at the University of Ghent, till now denied to Flemish speakers. The class divide between Flemish and French speaking Belgians is exploited by the Germans who claim a cultural kinship with the Flemish Independence movement. The language divide also compromises the effectiveness of the Belgian Army. The officer class are French-speaking while most of the enlisted men are Flemish and cannot understand their orders. Vincent Boesman plays a crucial role in his unit, translating for the officers and winning promotion. A scene where Vincent’s unit travels towards the front on bicycles underscores the inadequacy of the Belgian forces. Meanwhile free-spirited younger brother Guillaume deserts the army, but is captured by the French and pressed into service. His war experiences will profoundly change him.
I used to love watching Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood when my children were small. So calm, so soothing, so… well, neighborly. Sometimes I even watched when the children weren’t around. A restful oasis in a stressful day. In Mr. Rogers’ world all the neighbors were nice and friendly and helpful. Ever ready with a kind word or a helping hand. None of them yelled “get off my lawn!” If only it were so.
Today Mr. Rogers is a sweet memory. If you spend any time on the Nextdoor app, which purports to bring neighbors together, you will find yourself in a dark dystopian world where every teenager in a hoodie is a potential carjacker, every delivery man a potential home invader, and every dog walker intent on spreading dog poop over your lawn. Fear and loathing stalk the posts on Nextdoor, the comment threads a cesspool of complaints, anger, stereotypes, and often outright racism. An occasional lone voice bleats for civility.
Here is my annual list of favorite books in three categories – Fiction, Nonfiction, and Mystery/Suspense. I managed to whittle it down to five favorites in each category. But I’m adding a mention of best sellers and big name books I enjoyed that didn’t quite make it into my final five. And there’s a bonus category for the Weirdest Book I read all year. I hope you find something here to enjoy in 2024.
FICTION
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton. I had never heard of radical gardening collectives before reading this novel set in New Zealand. Instead of disruptive acts of protest they plant vegetable gardens on any unused piece of land they can find. When a remote valley is cut off by a landslide Birnham Wood’s leader Mira sees opportunity on an abandoned farm. But don’t expect a bucolic rural idyll; this situation morphs into a page-turning thriller with a fierce moral vision. An eccentric American billionaire helicopters in claiming he intends to build a survivalist bunker on the farm. Then there’s the clueless businessman who owns the property and an idealistic investigative reporter determined to make his name by finding out what’s really going on. Who can Mira trust as the situation becomes more threatening and volatile? There are plenty of revelations, betrayals, and twists as the plot hurtles to a dramatic conclusion. Gardening has never been so apocalyptic!
Dispatches From the Former New World 