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A review by jonscott9
The Yellow Leaves: A Miscellany by Frederick Buechner
4.0
Well, a miscellany here about this 120-page book:
First, the title is a Shakespeare reference. Second, this is just a tender collection from the Pulitzer nominee now 82. From the two-'graph intro: "A story, some reminisces, a handful of poems about my family, a scene from a novel--they are the yellow leaves that hang upon these boughs that are not so bare and ruined but that they still dream from time to time of the sweet birds' return."
It might all seem cluttered from anyone else. Somehow "The Beek" makes it work. In part that's because Buechner's stuff is really to be sipped like a fine scotch. Also, he's funny as ever. He harks back to how he and a friend summoned Emily Dickinson on a makeshift Ouija board. Unintentionally funny is some of his stately, archaic language, as when he refers in 2-3 instances to [b:certain women|419594|Certain Women|Madeleine L'Engle|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174585340s/419594.jpg|1866] as "handsome" (what, handsome like Sigourney Weaver is handsome? love it).
"Presidents I Have Known" finds Fred riffing on run-ins with FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower. About FDR, at FB's age 8: "Each of them had hold of him under one of his arms, and I could see that if they let go of him, he would crumple to the ground...He was the most important man in the Mayflower Hotel. He was the most important man in the world. But I could see with my own eyes that if he didn't have those two men to help, he would be helpless."
That's one thing kills me about Buechner, my favorite living author: He's been around the block to know and rub shoulders with some impressive people, including Maya Angelou (friend), John Irving (student and friend), and the poet James Merrill (classmate and chum). About C. S. Lewis, who took meals at the same place, while living in London: "To my great regret I never made any effort to meet him or to hear him lecture because at that point in my life I knew nothing about him except, dimly, his name." And for goodness sake, Buechner writes a poem about family who were on the Titanic.
To note, the slave-time story behind "The Laughter Barrel," title of a piece about Ms. Angelou, is brief and plain and triumphant.
Some of his most convincing stuff comes in "Fathers and Teachers." Buechner's own father committed suicide when he was 10, and he came to respect a good many men, especially in academia, in his life. Take this eulogy for his French teacher: "My prayer for [Mr. Woods:] all these years later is that as he makes his way through the Elysian Fields he may somehow run into those handsome boys he had pictures of in his living room all those years ago, and that he may be able at last to embrace them without guilt or shame."
Yea, no one I know does compassion like Frederick Buechner.
His words about the novelist William Maxwell are those I'd shine on Buechner himself:
"It is a scandal that so few people even know his name let alone that he was one of the greatest, most human, wisest American writers of the twentieth century."
^ Indeed, if but one person checks him out due to this post, I'll have done my duty.
"Our Last Drive Together" about his late mother, "Kaki," is heartrending, especially if you've read some of his other work about her, this woman who fought late into life against age's effects on her flawless face. "I am the last rose of summer," he says from behind her eyes in one poem. Check your pulse if this stuff doesn't stir you. Sad day when the years caught up to her face.
The clip from a novel never finished, "Gertrude Conover Remembers," makes you yearn for that tome. "I married him...It was more of a beautiful friendship than a romance." The last bit of that, about eyes meeting in a mirror, is simply devastating.
The only thing out of place here is a short review of Dickens's Christmas Carol.
The family poems at the end are wonderful where I went in a bit apprehensive. Those about Aunt Doozie, Uncle George, and Mattie Poor are particularly striking. So is "The Cousins," maddening, really. (Must write to him in Vermont to inquire about it; he wrote back to my last note!)
And the man's last piece, a 50th reunion address to his Class of '43, is a fitting final word, if indeed it is final. As with most things he writes, it is in the best way subtly staggering. I took 10 minutes to read the last page, so fearful that it was a wrap. When it was over I sat silently some minutes more and saw faintest tear alight on my lower lid. Truly good grief.
When he finally goes -- and we all go, even Kaki -- I just may disappear for a time.
First, the title is a Shakespeare reference. Second, this is just a tender collection from the Pulitzer nominee now 82. From the two-'graph intro: "A story, some reminisces, a handful of poems about my family, a scene from a novel--they are the yellow leaves that hang upon these boughs that are not so bare and ruined but that they still dream from time to time of the sweet birds' return."
It might all seem cluttered from anyone else. Somehow "The Beek" makes it work. In part that's because Buechner's stuff is really to be sipped like a fine scotch. Also, he's funny as ever. He harks back to how he and a friend summoned Emily Dickinson on a makeshift Ouija board. Unintentionally funny is some of his stately, archaic language, as when he refers in 2-3 instances to [b:certain women|419594|Certain Women|Madeleine L'Engle|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174585340s/419594.jpg|1866] as "handsome" (what, handsome like Sigourney Weaver is handsome? love it).
"Presidents I Have Known" finds Fred riffing on run-ins with FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower. About FDR, at FB's age 8: "Each of them had hold of him under one of his arms, and I could see that if they let go of him, he would crumple to the ground...He was the most important man in the Mayflower Hotel. He was the most important man in the world. But I could see with my own eyes that if he didn't have those two men to help, he would be helpless."
That's one thing kills me about Buechner, my favorite living author: He's been around the block to know and rub shoulders with some impressive people, including Maya Angelou (friend), John Irving (student and friend), and the poet James Merrill (classmate and chum). About C. S. Lewis, who took meals at the same place, while living in London: "To my great regret I never made any effort to meet him or to hear him lecture because at that point in my life I knew nothing about him except, dimly, his name." And for goodness sake, Buechner writes a poem about family who were on the Titanic.
To note, the slave-time story behind "The Laughter Barrel," title of a piece about Ms. Angelou, is brief and plain and triumphant.
Some of his most convincing stuff comes in "Fathers and Teachers." Buechner's own father committed suicide when he was 10, and he came to respect a good many men, especially in academia, in his life. Take this eulogy for his French teacher: "My prayer for [Mr. Woods:] all these years later is that as he makes his way through the Elysian Fields he may somehow run into those handsome boys he had pictures of in his living room all those years ago, and that he may be able at last to embrace them without guilt or shame."
Yea, no one I know does compassion like Frederick Buechner.
His words about the novelist William Maxwell are those I'd shine on Buechner himself:
"It is a scandal that so few people even know his name let alone that he was one of the greatest, most human, wisest American writers of the twentieth century."
^ Indeed, if but one person checks him out due to this post, I'll have done my duty.
"Our Last Drive Together" about his late mother, "Kaki," is heartrending, especially if you've read some of his other work about her, this woman who fought late into life against age's effects on her flawless face. "I am the last rose of summer," he says from behind her eyes in one poem. Check your pulse if this stuff doesn't stir you. Sad day when the years caught up to her face.
The clip from a novel never finished, "Gertrude Conover Remembers," makes you yearn for that tome. "I married him...It was more of a beautiful friendship than a romance." The last bit of that, about eyes meeting in a mirror, is simply devastating.
The only thing out of place here is a short review of Dickens's Christmas Carol.
The family poems at the end are wonderful where I went in a bit apprehensive. Those about Aunt Doozie, Uncle George, and Mattie Poor are particularly striking. So is "The Cousins," maddening, really. (Must write to him in Vermont to inquire about it; he wrote back to my last note!)
And the man's last piece, a 50th reunion address to his Class of '43, is a fitting final word, if indeed it is final. As with most things he writes, it is in the best way subtly staggering. I took 10 minutes to read the last page, so fearful that it was a wrap. When it was over I sat silently some minutes more and saw faintest tear alight on my lower lid. Truly good grief.
When he finally goes -- and we all go, even Kaki -- I just may disappear for a time.