Ann Anderson Evans

TOO BUSY FOR DATING?

In Beloved, Toni Morrison articulated my condition before I started to date again: …way past the Change of Life, desire in them had suddenly become enormous, greedy, more savage than when they were fifteen, and…it embarrassed them and made them sad; secretly they longed to die—to be quit of it… I didn’t “long to die,”Continue reading “TOO BUSY FOR DATING?”

When You Start to Date Again, Find Someone to Talk About It With

Starting to date at sixty, after two divorces, might prove humiliating or catastrophic. If I failed, which I would certainly do, over and over, I wanted to do it privately, but not necessarily alone. Unless I changed myself, the odds were that I would end up struggling through another unfulfilling relationship. I would have toContinue reading “When You Start to Date Again, Find Someone to Talk About It With”

Scenes from France

Living in France was lovely, at least for ten days. I spoke French, ate and shopped French, and drove French. We ate foie gras, elaborate desserts, fried foods, butter, fragrant cheese; for breakfast we had croissants, and the occasional pastry. And we each lost two pounds. Terry says, “You know that book, WhyContinue reading “Scenes from France”

REVIEW: THE NOISE OF TIME, by Julian Barnes

I love the slyness, insider insinuations, hints, the elegance and sophistication of Barnes’s writing in The Noise of Time. He begins with a surreal scene in a train station going toward Moscow. We don’t know who is on the train platform; the character is “he” for twenty pages of panic, degradation, fear, memory, black humor,Continue reading “REVIEW: THE NOISE OF TIME, by Julian Barnes”

BOOK REVIEW: The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula LeGuin

THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS did not take me far from the mirror. ANIMAL FARM, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, THE ROAD, and 1984 took me into more frightening and uncomfortable worlds, and they happened close to home.

Beyond Grammar: Pesky pronouns – they

A man I know has his knickers in a twist over pronouns. He is concerned that people will be fined for using the wrong pronoun, and his nephew goes so far as to say that “political correctness,” as exemplified in a discussion about pronouns, is a “cancer on society.” It’s all balled up with freedomContinue reading “Beyond Grammar: Pesky pronouns – they”

BOOK REVIEW: STARTING WITH GOOD-BYE

Lisa Romeo’s new memoir, STARTING WITH GOOD-BYE, is an Everywoman’s tale. My father was not like her father, but her story is mine, and will resonate with all women who realize too late that their father would have been, if they had ever been able to talk to each other without bickering, their best advisor,Continue reading “BOOK REVIEW: STARTING WITH GOOD-BYE”

Beyond Grammar: Grammar and Meaning

Grammatical correctness and meaning are two separate functions, and they don’t always coexist. Noam Chomsky devised a sentence with perfect grammar and no meaning: Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. It is also possible to devise a sentence which a listener or reader can understand though it is grammatically incorrect. Another reason why he dislikes lotsContinue reading “Beyond Grammar: Grammar and Meaning”

BOOK REVIEW: WALDEN

Walden, by Henry David Thoreau, is an iconic Yankee manifesto. I am a Yankee, yet I had never read it. I opened it expecting a clarification of our American spirit, like reading Walt Whitman. As a memoirist, I found a similarity between his book and my own; man/woman goes into unfamiliar territory with the express intentionContinue reading “BOOK REVIEW: WALDEN”

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