April
11 , 2003
Front-Page
News
In Character
Sunday's New York Times Book Review featured
a review by Mount Holyoke English professor Christopher Benfey,
a frequent contributor to the publication, of Vietnamese American
writer Monique Truong's first novel, The Book of Salt
(Houghton Mifflin, 2003). According to Benfey, the book is
of the same genre as Valerie Martin's Mary
Reilly, a maid's view of Jekyll and Hyde (Jean Rhys's
Wide Sargasso Sea also comes to mind), being "derived
from a minor character in another well-known book." In this
case, it's the tenth chapter of The Alice B. Toklas
Cookbook, in which Toklas and Gertrude Stein hire a Vietnamese
man named Trac as a live-in cook. Truong "spins" from
what Benfey calls "this tantalizing literary footnote"
a novel told in the first person by Truong's Trac equivalent,
Binh. "The book is about exile: both Binh's aching
distance from his native Saigon and his two Mesdames' cheerful
distance from America," writes Benfey. In a novel that explores
racism and discrimination through the character of the gay Asian
cook, Benfey notes that the "looming question" is
whether Binh will accompany Stein on her 1934 lecture tour of
the United States or return to Vietnam, where his father, who
threw him out of the house when he learned Binh was gay, is dying.
Benfey praises the novel's evocation of Vietnam as being
done with "piercing yearning and authenticity," and
closes his piece by summing up the novel as "unsettling
art."
Peace during Wartime
Andrea Ayvazian, the College's dean of religious life, was
quoted in the April 3 Boston Globe on the home as a place
of refuge from the world's troubles. In "Finding Peace,"
Globe staff writer Linda Matchan reports that "a
cross section of Americans interviewed say their home, however
humble, is the single most secure and comforting place they know,
the place where they feel most grounded, most at peace. They are
drawn there now, more than ever." "We have this constant
background noise going on,'' Ayvazian told Matchan.
"For months now, we've been living with a kind of
split screen in our heads. One half is, 'I have to do my
homework, I have to get milk on my way home, I have to do this
report at work.' The other half used to be, 'There's
a war coming,' and now it's, 'There's
a war happening.' One half has to go through daily life,
and the other half is dealing with pretty serious distress. And
I see it taking its toll . . . in terms of a lot of stress-related
behaviors: people undereating, overeating, sleeping poorly."
Matchan also spoke with Michael Klare, director of the Five College
Peace and World Security Studies Program and Ayvazian's
partner, on the nature of inner peace. "Personal peace is
the feeling after a march or rally, when you feel like you've
done what you could to make the world a little safer, and you
come home and relax and gather your strength," Klare said.
Glass Houses The delights of MHC's Botanic Garden
and Talcott Greenhouse impressed writer Dr. Richard Churchill,
as he relates in "A Touch of Glass" in the spring
2003 issue of People, Places, and Plants. "A rich
and comforting horticultural ambiance greets you everywhere you
turn at this college, founded by Mary Lyon in 1837," Churchill
writes. He notes that the botanical garden, since its creation
in 1878, has been more than a place of beauty: it has supported
the College's pioneering vision of science education for
women. Ellen Shukis, director of the Botanic Garden, and Russ
Billings, greenhouse manager, showed Churchill around the greenhouse,
where he chose as his favorite room the succulent house. "Seeing
so many species growing together makes their impact all the more
impressive," he writes. In the same article, Churchill relates
his visits to greenhouses at Smith College, the University of
Vermont, and Elizabeth Park in Hartford, Connecticut.
Forty-eight Hours in Boston A weekend packed with sailing
and salsa, architecture and art, promenades and pubs. It's
the brainchild of travel writer Laura Purdom, writer/reporter
in the Office of Communications. In the April/May issue of the
Canadian fashion magazine Les Ailes, Purdom's article,
"Forty-eight Hours in Boston: A Laid-back Tour of the Historic
City," offers readers a weekend itinerary, from an early
Saturday morning cappuccino at Sorelle Bakery in historic Charlestown
to Sunday dinner at Maurizio's, a Sardinian restaurant in
Boston's Italian-flavored North End. In between the writer
directs travelers to a few celebrated landmarks, as well as out-of
the way spots from her book Secret Boston: The Unique
Guidebook to Boston's Hidden Sites, Sounds, and Tastes (2002).
The author of four travel guidebooks, Purdom taught a course in
travel writing during this year's January Term.
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