The Lilac Girls

One of my FB friends suggested I read The Lilac Girls, a novel by Martha Hall Kelly, published in 2017. The recommendation came because I had read another novel about the concentration camps during WWII.  I am not particularly drawn to stories of The Holocaust, but I have found some of the narratives compelling. This is the story of three women brought together by Ravensbruck, a notorious concentration camp for women during WWII. It is the debut novel by Kelly, but it is a well-written, powerful story based in history, a story that is so compelling for the author that she is writing a prequel to the story that takes place during WWI.

The narrative is divided into segments by character, Kasia, Herta, and Caroline, so there are individual segments about one character, and then another character, and then a third.  This technique is used throughout the novel and allows the reader to build a relationship with each of the primary characters.  The narratives begin in 1939 and end in 1959, long after World War II ends, but the story has not.  It is important to read the entire narrative to understand the full circle of the events, which continue into the United States with the character Caroline,  a wealthy patron of the arts and former actress, who establishes a relationship with one survivor of Ravensbruck concentration camp and is able to arrange circumstances to bring full closure to one aspect of the imprisonment experience.


This is a heavy book to read and it takes commitment to read from cover to cover. The story of the women called Rabbits by the Germans, is horrific and hard to experience.  There are no human rights for the women held captive, but the human spirit dominates and allows them to help one another in the worst of all possible situations.

Catch and Kill

Ronan Farrow has a famous family name, but his claim to fame is being a meticulous researcher in search of serious stories.  In this book, he reveals that he does the research, but the narrative itself is not very interesting. Reading Catch and Kill is sort of like going through someone's work folder of miscellaneous facts, people, places, and things.  Several times I was tempted to just put it down and forget it, but I was determined to see it through to the end--and it took every ounce of my determination to do that.

Yes, there's a lot of fact-checking, and double-checking, and then going back and making sure everything is correct.  He wants the reader to know that he didn't make up anything for the book to sell better, but I think it would sell better if it were half the length it ends up to be.  Endless accounts of who you met/talked to, what was said, how it was fact-checked, and where it fit into the narrative is simply tedious.  The reader needs the Cliff's Notes, not the Encyclopedia Britannica version of events.

Was Harvey Weinstein a predator? Yes. Did Matt Lauer sexually abuse women? Yes. Did other men mentioned also engage in inappropriate behavior with women? Yes. Does Ronan Farrow have the research to back up all these allegations? Yes.

End of story.

Hwy 62 Open Studio Art Tours

In the Hi-Desert area of Morongo Valley, Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree and Twentynine Palms, there is an annual Open Studio Art Tours, most often held in October.  This year’s event is huge:  over 200 presenters and about 125 stops along the way.  I have friends who are artists, so I asked one of them if she wanted to join me for this year’s tour.  It took us almost an hour to whittle down the presenters and places to stop and see, and then Patty developed our touring plan so we could go in the most direct routes to see the artists we had selected from the catalog.

What a wonderful time we had.  Seeing the art in the artist’s studios is unique; each stop along the way creates its own environment for the artwork the artist has chosen to display.  We saw many different kinds of art, including photography, painting in all media, textiles, sculptures, assemblages, crochet, metalwork, ink, ceramics – well, it was all on display.  One of my favorites were art pieces made by inserting tiny nails into the canvas to make the design and also to create light and dark shadows.  I don’t remember who the artist is, but the finished pieces are stunning.

We traveled on some true desert roads out into the middle of nowhere, the setting of which was perfect for an artist.  One residence perched on the side of a rock formation and featured a sculptor who uses huge pieces of rock media for his work.  I wondered how a crane could get down the rural mountain road to either deliver a new piece of rock or pick up a finished work of art.

I bought some little things to take with me to China, to show Y’s family what “desert” means, including some crocheted cacti and some greeting cards with original paintings on them.

One of the most interesting displays is a workshop where the woman makes all kinds art pieces from castings.  She has a statue of David, with the original mold made from the actual statue of David in Europe.  Her grandfather opened the shop and, back in the day, worked for the movie studios. When one of the movie companies wanted a statue of David,  the grandfather went to Europe and was granted permission to make the mold. Needless to say, it’s one of the prized possessions of the current artist.

I could go on and on about what’s offered and how interesting it is to go into the working studios of all these artists, but it’s an event that is best enjoyed in person.  It’s fun to go out into the middle of nowhere and find these hidden studios nestled among all the sand and rocks.  It really gives the art character to see it in that setting, especially since so many of the artists are inspired by the nature around them.


There’s one more weekend, so if you are within driving distance, I highly recommend taking a piece of the self-guided tour.  Or, plan for next Fall.  For more information, you can go online to www.yucca-valley.org, or to www.Visit29.org to Art Cruise the 29 Palms area every 1^st Saturday.  There are many art installations and artists living in the Hi-Desert area, so feel free to explore the internet to find something that catches your eye.

Cilka

Cilka is 16 years old when she first enters Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in 1942. Cilka’s Journey is a novel written by Heather Morris, the author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, and it is the story of a young girl who all too soon becomes the victim of a corrupt political system that brutally incarcerated dissidents, as well as individuals whose ethnicity set them apart from the political system.

Cilka survives by doing whatever it takes to overcome her situation and circumstances. She is forced to prostitute herself in order to survive, a fact that is used against her by fellow detainees who are jealous of Cilka’s good looks and quick mind. Cilka survives, but her story could have ended much differently.

This is not an easy book to read because of the horrific experiences of the Gulags and what human beings were subjected to by the government of the USSR. According to Morris’s endnotes, “from 1929 until Stalin’s death in 1953, in excess of 18 million people passed through the Gulag system and they were from many countries, occupations, and faiths. Nobel Prize-winning author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was both a victim of the Gulag and a chronicler of the forced labor camps which are known as the Gulag Archipelago.” The Gulags were located in the most remote parts of the USSR and the living conditions were brutal.  Cilka survives and, surprisingly, thrives in the environment into which she has been thrust, including living in Vorkuta’s prison camps, the most brutal of all the Gulags.

Cilka’s story is hard to put down.  Her strength as an individual is amazing, and she shares that strength with other women who may not have otherwise survived their ordeal.  Cilka is a natural leader, very smart, and quite clever at turning adversity to her advantage. I recommend this book to any woman who wonders how she would survive the worst that life has to offer. We never know our strength until it is tested, and this novel is the ultimate test of not just mental fortitude, but physical ability to deal with the harshest of environments and survive.

Judy, the Movie

Rene Zellwegger is over the top in Judy, the story of the last act of Judy Garland’s life. This movie is really difficult to watch, but you can’t look away from the screen as the last couple of years of the actress’s life come to fruition. She had a difficult life, which is portrayed in flashbacks, as well as in present scenes.  Her marriages and children are included, as well as her difficulty with both substance and alcohol abuse, and the decline of her career is heartfelt.  The actress, Rene, does all the singing in the movie and she’s amazing, and particularly so in the final song of the film. I highly recommend this movie, but with the caveat that it is difficult to watch Judy Garland’s life implode.