My Life in Seven Suitcases

by Gillian Grozier (KGL Publishing, 2018)

In less than fifty pages, Gillian Grozier matter-of-factly narrates her amazing life, beginning with her childhood in England during and after the Second World War and ending as her ninth decade begins in Frederick, Maryland, just twenty miles from where I sit blogging at my dining room table in Gaithersburg! In between, she manages to navigate two marriages, three children, alcoholism, and a plethora of careers that exhausted this reader. A writer, poet, journalist, and artist, Gillian has had so many jobs and careers that I lost count. She went through very tough times, but she has always landed on her feet eventually. She experienced both want and prosperity; she used the prosperity to travel to some really amazing destinations (China, Tibet, Indonesia, Turkey…). And she experienced both the sexism of the fifties and sixties and the relative liberation of the present.

The stages of her life are organized according to the luggage she used at the time–an ingenious and different way to divide up the many periods she lived through.

I am very much looking forward to meeting Gillian, both virtually and, when circumstances allow, in person.

A Hole in the Wind: A Climate Scientist’s Bicycle Journey Across the United States

by David Goodrich (Pegasus Books, 2017)

I love walking/cycling memoirs. I’ve never done any distance walking or cycling, not even one day, and I suspect that I would thoroughly hate it, but I really enjoy reading about others’ journeys, and this is just such a memoir. In 2011, recently retired climate scientist David Goodrich loaded up his touring bike with all manner of gear (clothing, food, camping equipment, laptop, tools and spare parts, water…) and set off for the Oregon coast from his Maryland home. I can’t imagine riding a bike from Gaithersburg to Rockville! But Goodrich is one serious biker.

He’s also serious about climate change, and one of his goals on the ride was to talk to people about it–something he found surprisingly difficult to do, because most people didn’t want to talk about it–perhaps because that would require acknowledging it in a way they had not done. He did do some invited talks to school groups until the school year ended, and found young people more receptive. He records the evidence of climate change he found along his journey, such as the trees killed by pine bark beetles, changing the forest from living green to dead gray… depressing. The book is a way to communicate the awful truth of what we are doing to the planet, at least to those who are willing to listen (or in this case, read).

The book is set up chronologically going westward, sort of. I say sort of because the 2011 Trans America ride was preceded by a partial ride through the fire district in 2000 and followed by a trip around Glacier National Park in 2016. Goodrich inserts anecdotes from those two rides into his account of the cross-continental ride which is the main focus of the book, which is a little confusing but ultimately doesn’t reallymatter.

He includes stories about the people he meets or reconnects with along the way, as well as encounters with dogs, truckers, hills, switchbacks, rainstorms, and the incredible wind he rode into as he crossed the Great Plains, the source of the book’s title. He recounts some of the history of the places he visits, like Stronghold Table on the Pine Ridge Reservation, where the Lakota gathered before the infamous massacre at Wounded Knee, where U.S. government troops slaughtered the indigenous people who had surrendered to them. The story of Stronghold, Wounded Knee, Sitting Bull, Short Bull, Wovoka and the Ghost Dancers, is really distressing to read. How Americans can be so smug about “all men are created equal” and “liberty and justice for all”, I don’t know.

Goodrich tends to skip lightly over the physical suffering I am sure he had to endure. He mentions sore knees, spills that resulted in scrapes and bruises, brushes with dehydration, but ultimately makes it all sound not so bad. The parts about history and climate change are sobering; the memoir of a really amazing accomplishment for someone of any age is engrossing.

P.S. If I remember correctly, I met David Goodrich about a year ago at a Climate Action Lobby Night in Annapolis. We spoke about his book, and I added it to my To Read list. I finished the book on the last day of the 2021 Climate Action Lobby Week, during which I joined climate activists from around the state to advocate for the Climate Solutions Now Act, the Consideration of Climate and Labor Act, the Transit Safety Investment Act, and a bill allowing Community Choice Energy in Montgomery County, where I live. Maybe Dave took part in the virtual lobbying this year too. Maybe we will meet up in Annapolis again next year; who knows?

Bella Poldark: A Novel of Cornwall 1818 – 1820 (Poldark Series #12)

by Winston Graham (2002)

I did it! I have read all twelve Poldark novels. I posted about the first one, Ross Poldark, almost exactly one year ago, on February 4, 2020 (Vicki and I were still watching the TV series in reruns) and have slowly read them all, interspersed with more serious fare, over the past year and throughout the pandemic lockdown.

The last in the series consists of five books. Graham is clearly trying to tie up all the loose ends with this book, but it is also different from the previous eleven novels because it is part murder mystery/thriller. There is a serial killer on the loose in 19th-century Cornwall. The first murder is that of Mary Polmesk, a maid at the Warleggan residence of Cardew; it occurs in Book One (Valentine), Chapter 9. The second, in Book Two (Agneta), is that of Agneta Treneglos, the mentally handicapped daughter of one of the Poldarks’ neighbors, who happens to be having an ill-considered affair with Valentine, who immediately comes under suspicion. Also, in Book Two, Chapter 9, Demelza is walking home at night when she hears someone following her. She calls out, but the only response is silence and the smell of cigar smoke. Not really wanting to believe herself in danger, she nevertheless runs to the mine and asks for an escort home. Then in Book Three (Maurice), Chapter 5, an attempt is made on the life of miner’s daughter Jane Heligan, who fights back and manages to escape. At this point, my suspicions centered on Captain Philip Prideaux, one of Clowance’s two suitors. Captain Prideaux is known to have killed a person during a mental breakdown following the Battle of Waterloo; he still struggles with bouts of rage. Also, like Valentine, he fits what descriptions we have of the killer. But in Book Five (Bella), we discover who the killer really is, as he terrorizes Demelza in her own parlor. No spoiler, other than that help arrives in time. So that whole plot thread is totally different from anything we have seen before in the series.

Other than the serial killer thread, we have, in Book One (Valentine): Valentine’s deteriorating marriage to Selena Pope, his sordid affair with the mentally handicapped Agneta Treneglos, and sixteen-year-old Bella’s plan to go to London to study voice, motivated by her own irrepressible love of singing and the encouragement of her boyfriend, Christopher Havergal. At a theatrical performance, Clowance sees Lord Edward Fitzmaurice, who had proposed marriage to her when she was still single; she had turned him down in favor of Stephen Carrington, but he seems to be still very interested in her.

In Book Two (Agneta), Valentine has tired of Agneta and wants to be rid of her, but she refuses to be put off, showing up at inconvenient times at Place House, where he lives with his increasingly jealous and angry wife, who takes their toddler son, Georgie to live apart. Valentine adopts a baby ape (either a gorilla or a chimpanzee; it’s never really clear to me), which he names Butto. Agneta runs away from home and is later found murdered. Meanwhile, Capt. Prideaux visits Clowance, who is grappling with ambivalent feelings about her dead husband. We find out that Christopher Havergal has a drinking problem, and Maurice Valery, conductor of a small theater in Rouen, urges Bella to go to France to sing in a brand-new opera by Mr. Rossini, The Barber of Seville.

In Book Three (Maurice), Philip Prideaux proposes marriage to Clowance, but she can’t make up her mind. George Warleggan falls into an abandoned mineshaft and almost dies; he will spend much of the remainder of the book out of action. Bella and Christopher have a falling-out over his consorting with prostitutes. He has to leave London for work, and Bella takes this opportunity to go to Rouen with Maurice, slipping out of Mrs. Pelham’s (Caroline Enys’ aunt, who has lodged her and taken care of her in London) house and falsely reassuring her parents that she will be well-chaperoned and that others in her London troupe will be with her. Bad girl!

Still, Bella’s operatic debut is a huge success in Book Four, and she lets herself be seduced by Maurice. Two days later, Ross shows up unannounced to see her perform and is suitably impressed, but takes her home when the run is over. Maurice declares to Ross that he loves Bella and would like to marry her, to which Ross replies that he encourages all of his children to choose their own partners. (I wonder: just how unusual was this at the time?) On the way, Bella’s throat begins to be sore; this turns out to be diphtheria, the dreaded disease that killed the Poldarks’ first-born child, Julia, and almost killed Demelza herself. Bella survives, but her voice (her “instrument”) appears to be permanently changed. Clowance makes her decision and weds Lord Edward Fitzmaurice, whose suit she rejected earlier in favor of Steven Carrington. Edward is such a nice person that I think every reader probably cheers for him; at the same time, we all (including Clowance) feel bad for Philip Prideaux, the loser in this case. Graham suggests that Prideaux might find happiness with Jeremy’s widow, Cuby, but does not resolve that particular issue, leaving it to the reader to decide.

In Book Five, Maurice and Christopher fight over Bella. The killer stalks Demelza, who is rescued. Valentine kidnaps his toddler son Georgie from the house where his estranged wife is living. While she is gone, Place House has become a den of gambling, drinking, and sex; Butto, now apparently full-grown and potentially dangerous, is kept under the house in a kind of cellar. In a climactic scene, Selena returns with George and a few others to demand that Valentine give Georgie back; Ross, invited by Valentine, also shows up. Butto, bored and lonely, breaks out of his prison and accidentally starts a fire. Valentine rescues Georgie and all the people in the house move to safety, but he goes back to find Butto; Ross, unsurprisingly and completely in character, follows him in to save him. One survives, but the other does not. Bella’s ruined singing career is replaced by a theatrical one, as she understudies the role of Juliet in a knock-off production of Shakespeare’s play and then ends up taking the place of Romeo, to great acclaim.

I may have gotten confused as to what happened in which book. As you can see, there was a lot going on. Kind of like a three-ring circus.

I feel both relieved and disappointed to have finally reached the end of the Poldark saga. It was educational; I learned a lot I didn’t know about life, mining, and politics in Britain in the late 18th and early19th centuries, as well as about the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, the invention of the steam engine, and much more. I followed the ups and downs, tragedies and triumphs of the Poldark family, especially Ross and Demelza, as I came to know and love them as more than just characters in a story. I cannot say whether their struggles and joys were typical of the time, but why not? Technology changes, politics changes, cultures change, but people are just people, no matter when or where they live.

The twelve Poldark novels, in order, with links to my blog posts:

1. Ross Poldark (1945)
2. Demelza (1946)
3. Jeremy Poldark (1950)
4. Warleggan (1953)
5. The Black Moon (1973)
6. The Four Swans (1976)
7. The Angry Tide (1978)
8. The Stranger from the Sea (1981)
9. The Miller’s Dance (1982)
10. The Loving Cup (1984)
11. The Twisted Sword (1990)
12. Bella Poldark (2002)

The Twisted Sword: A Novel of Cornwall, 1815 (Poldark Series #11)

by Winston Graham (1990)

The penultimate novel in the Poldark series may be the longest yet–about 1000 pages, according to my e-Reader. I finished the last two books in a marathon session yesterday, unable to tear myself away. The novel begins when Ross and his family (Demelza, Isabella-Rose, Henry/Harry and Mrs. Kemp) travel to Paris where Ross is to observe the political/military situation for the British Prime Minister. It’s a first trip out of England for everyone but Ross, and they are quite excited. They take an apartment in Paris, meet some people, and make some friends, as they await the arrival of the Enyses and of Jeremy and his bride Cuby, who plan to join them in Paris for the Easter holidays. But everything falls apart when Napoleon Bonaparte, defeated and imprisoned on Elba, an island in the Tuscan archipelago, escapes and manages to return to France, where the entire army capitulates to him without a shot being fired. Suddenly, France is not as safe as it seemed. Ross is captured while visiting a friend in the army; Demelza manages to flee Paris with the family and Mrs Kemp, traveling with Mlle de la Blache, a Royalist friend who has served as a spy for Louis XVIII and must not fall into Napoleon’s hands. She returns to London, where she sends the rest of the family home to Cornwall and waits for news of Ross.

SPOILER ALERT: Ross eventually escapes and after pausing to help Wellington defeat Napoleon at Waterloo (where expectant father Jeremy dies in his arms, a hero), he returns to Nampara, where he and Demelza grieve the loss of Jeremy. Meanwhile, Clowance and Stephen are living in Penryn. Stephen’s little shipping business is prospering, until George Warleggan, rightly suspecting that Stephen had a hand in the robbery of the stage coach two books back, decides to destroy him; but he is foiled by his wife Harriet, who is friendly with Clowance. Stephen returns to his privateering activities and manages a very successful raid in which he captures a French sloop loaded with valuable cargo, and for five minutes all his and Clowance’s dreams are back on. But Stephen is seriously injured in a riding accident, leaving Clowance a widow.

Isabella-Rose, at thirteen a very precocious young lady, becomes enamoured of Christopher Havergal, a young British nobleman whom she meets in France. He goes so far as to ask Demelza to allow Bella to be betrothed to him, which she refuses, due to Ross’s absence and Bella’s age. Havergal loses a foot at Waterloo, but I predict he will be back and not so easily deterred in the next and last novel, Bella Poldark.