. . . Spring 2002
 |
|
Suggested
Reading: Books by U-M faculty and graduates, and works published by the
University
of Michigan Press.
Michigan Today cannot review or acknowledge
all books received. |
The
Passionate Papers of Fiona Pilgrim
by
John Rubadeau, Lecturer III, U-M English department, Xlibris
Corporation, 2001, paperback $19.54, hardback $29.69.
How else could an insurance agent trapped in Centreville, Indiana,
deserted by his wife and deep in debt attempt to rescue himself but
by writing a romance novel? Joe Leonard, the neophyte romance novelist
in John Rubadeau's comic novel, The Passionate Papers of Fiona Pilgrim,
transforms himself into the eponymous "Fiona" and offers up
the first chapter of his novel, Tempestuous Summer--the Hottest Season,
to the world's most successful penner of passionate prose, June Featherstone.
The doyenne of what Leonard, in letters to a friend calls "revolting
romances," takes an interest in "Fiona" and offers lavish
praise and detailed advice.
Rubadeau's novel alternates chapters from the novel-in-progress, whose
hero shows some troubling dastardly tendencies, with letters of increasing
affection between "Fiona" and June. Will June find out "Fiona"
is a Joe? Will June's nanny languish forever in the Tower of London
for striking the Queen, or will she marry the Archbishop of Canterbury?
Will these star-crossed lovers find happiness? Hint--it's a romance
novel.--Linda Robinson Walker. (Editor's note: the reviewer has published
two romance novels, My Lady's Deception and Thief of Love.)
GERMAN
WOMEN FOR EMPIRE, 1884-1945
By Lora
Wildenthal '94 PhD, Duke University Press, 2001, $19.95 paper.
 |
|
At the height of the "Woman Question" era, when nations
across Europe were debating the appropriate status of women, Germany experienced
an interesting social phenomenon: German women were throwing themselves
with increased fervor behind their country's growing empire in Africa,
Asia and the Pacific.
Wildenthal chronicles this movement, with all its ambiguities, as
an example of nationalist colonialism as well as early feminism. She
tells the story of a disenfranchised group-German women were excluded
from universities until 1908 and from the right to vote until 1918-trying
to win a place in its country's national history, and all the while
subjugating other women: the female colonial subjects. The German women's
colonialist movement, Wildenthal finds, is interesting because of its
implications for the study of colonialism. Perhaps more so, it is important
because it did not end with the setting of the imperial age, but continued
influencing nationalist and racial attitudes all the way into the Nazi
era.—Shiri Revital Bilik '02.
The
Following are Web bonuses, not in the printed edition.
COLD
WATER, DRY STONE: NEW MUSIC WITH TRADITIONAL ROOTS
By Evan
Chambers '93 PhD, performed by Quorum sextet with soprano Jennifer
Goltz, Albany Records, $15.99.
| |
 |
There is a big difference between the haunting and
the spooky. Haunting sticks with you; spooky disappears in a flash. Haunting
offers beauty; spooky a brief thrill. If you prefer the haunting, you'll
enjoy this CD and play it many times. Chambers, an associate professor
of composition at the U-M School
of Music, is forthright in putting the term "new music" right in the
CD title. Yes, "new music" is a label that frightens many lovers of classical
music. Similarly, many fans of "world" or "folk" music steer clear of
music carrying the equally slippery "classical" designation. Chambers
may hope to overcome any partisans' hesitancy with the explanation that
his new music has "traditional roots." In any event, he presents a music
that stands firmly in both camps.
Chambers travels widely with his fiddle and tape recorder, and his
compositions evoke the cultures in which his musical roots grow: Ireland,
Albania, Appalachia, Scotland, England and suburban America's mediating
geography. But he transforms his source material into an intense personal
idiom that conveys the feelings of unfortunate romance, wanderlust,
family memories and other archetypal experiences that underlie folk
expression. Chambers's music is not an anthropological exercise, however.
Far from it. He is the director of the School of Music's Electronic
Music Studios, which means this is a CD that is recorded, edited,
mixed and mastered to be a CD. As a result, no one can hear this music
and wonder if it might sound even better in person or on an LP or tape:
Be satisfied, be pleased, to know that it can't.—JW.
This
Issue's Index | This
Issue's Front Page | CURRENT
Michigan Today
|