Come Back to Sorrento

Book Description

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED as The Tenth Moon, Come Back to Sorrento is the second of Powell’s "Ohio novels" to be re-issued in paperback. Here Powell turns her attention to those certain rare souls who have the secret of finding their lives glamorous and themselves magnificent under the most humble conditions. Connie Benjamin, the village shoemaker’s wife, always wanted an operatic career. Blaine Decker, the new high school music teacher, once spent time abroad studying piano. The two are drawn together into a powerful friendship of dependence, each sustaining the other and translating the surface monotony of their lives into drama richer than reality.

Customer Reviews:

Dawn Powell at her best.......2003-01-14

Dawn Powell's "Come Back to Sorrento", was published in 1932 under the title "The Tenth Moon" to little notice from critics or from the public. But this poignant, mostly understated novel set in a drab midwestern town called Dell River is a gem.

The two main characters in the book are Connie Benjamin and Blaine Decker. When we meet Connie as a housewife in her mid-thirties, she is leading a life she finds sterile and barren with her husband Gus, a cobbler, and her two adolescent daughters. As a young woman, Connie had visions of a career as an opera singer, even though this ambition seemed to be based on little more than a commendation of her voice by a famous teacher. Connie also has a past in which she ran off with a young man named Tony who did acrobatics with a circus. Tony aboandoned her, and Connie lives with dreams of a singing career that perhaps could have been and with faded memories of Tony.

Blaine Decker comes to Dell River as the high school music teacher. He rents a small apartment above Gus Decker's shoe repair shop. Decker is a pianist by training (with small hands) who likewise has never had the artistic success of which he dreams. He spent his early years in Europe during which time he was a friend of a writer, Starr Donnell, who had written, as far as Decker knows, one novel. Powell hints throughout the novel at Decker's repressed homosexuality.

The novel explores the relationship that develops between Connie and Blaine. With their shared love of music and their broken, and probably illusory dreams, they feel stifled by the small town of Dell River. They share confidences with each other and at the same time quarrel severely with each other over their respective failures to pursue their dreams. The relationship is at bottom frustrating and unconsummated. It never becomes sexual.

There are wonderful pictures in this book of music and its capacity to bring meaning to life. The seriousness with which Powell discusses the pursuit of classical music in this work contrasts markedly with her picture of frivolous people and activities in her subsequent satirical New York novels. Powell also shows how music can be a means by which people evade their own selves and their own reality. There are also good depictions in the book of life in a small town, particularly those people who teach in High Schools, and of many secondary characters.

As do Powell's latter works, this book contrasts life in a small town with life in the cosmopolitian city, here represented by Paris more than by New York. But there is a certain inward focus to this book which is not shared by her latter satirical pictures of New York. The characters here are limited by Dell River and its environs, but their problems and discontents lie within themselves, in their lack of self-knowledge, and in their failed dreams. The book lacks the sharp cynicism of the latter novels but features instead reflectiveness and sadness.

Powell's writing style in this novel is rather flatter than in her subsequent works but it fits the atmosphere of Dell River that she conveys. There are several moments in the novel or lyricism and intensity.

This probably is not a novel that will ever enjoy wide readership. But it is rare and a treasure.

The Highest Art is Life.......2002-05-23

What a haiku evokes beyond the language, a few words summon a large panorama, Dawn Powell did in this novella. With artful simplicity, the author relates a somewhat comic and somewhat cosmic fable of two lost souls that blend unrealized dreams into reality. Powell writes with the sensitivity of an empath. In the bearly visible twitch, the eye that cannot contact, the unconscious hesitations belie the character's pretense so that the secret is just between Powell and her reader. In the far less precise language of psychiatry, this is termed the "as if" self. This deceptively simple story succeeds as myth for within the doubling up of solitary dreams, their souls sweep the cosmos.

Shards of memories, are picked from the realities that defeated them and together they build a palace of dignity that not only holds at bay, their individual sufferings, but becomes wide enough to bring a muted sort of redemption to others, afflicted with similar destinies.
Through music and desire, (platonic, alone) a middle aged housewife, and a odd and tattered music teacher shake off fate and taste, if briefly, what they had been denied. Woven in the tale, is the past of childhood trauma and rejection, abandonment and 'making do,' that the odd duo become nothing less than extraordinary people who choose happiness and get it. In this it is a morality tale, par excellance.
Anyone who has ever reached out of despair with a rebound of delight, who has taken an old piece of cloth and thrown it in some transforming wrap over their head, or around their waist, as Connie does, remembers that triumph, so rare, but perfect brilliant touch. Suddenly, an old dress, has color and shape, bohemians, they are beyond the ordinary in fashion and finance.

There are no authorial statements here, Powell has her own transformative power, whereby sentences do indeed show, voluminously what she composed sparingly. Her genious for showing human instincts is beyond any of her peers. Perhaps the most stunning is her instinct for understanding that ancient animal survival rule whereby we must hide our wounds and primal sufferings or risk in discovery- annihilation. There is none of the confessional self-absorption that was the legacy of the psychoanalytic fever, that was in its American childhood at the time she wrote the novel.

Anyone who has suffered and not hurt others, is rare indeed. The sublime experience between the two does not rely on inflicting pain upon others, a far more common means of elevating conditions of esteem.
The message, if I may, is in the true artistic gift that they benefitted from, but if spoken, would have broken the spell. They saw the Touilleries in an unweeded garden, the Volga in a brown shallow river, and in the unattractive, uncultured, midwestern town, they found a quaint village to delight in.

The physical conditions of life bore down upon their paradise and yet Connie and Blaine, prevailed, looking we are told through colored pains of glass, bringing the grey, unsympathetic world into prismmatic shimmering color.

It is a love poem to the artistic process that is a gift for life as much as technique with a brush or an instrument or a sentence. This contrasts effectively with her more cynical tales of the corrupted artist and the exploited audience.

A glorious book.

Simply gorgeous........1999-10-15

Only Dawn Powell could create such an intimate, sorrowful portrayal of two thwarted artists in a smug little town that doesn't recognize their intelligence. Very sad, yet gently funny as well. Dawn Powell apparently didn't think this was one of her more successful books. It always amazes me how poorly some artists judge their work for this is one of her best novels. Read it and weep.

An unforgettable read.......1999-02-02

This book has been well-summarized by the other reviewers. I can only second their recommendations and say that this book is spellbindingly written and contains two extended passages (I will leave it to other readers to find their own favorite parts)that are among the most brilliant writing I have ever encountered. Just be warned that it will break your heart. Now if only Steerforth would reissue her "Story of a Country Boy" which I just found an ancient copy of and which is just as good...

Excellent Book.......1999-01-26

This is an extremely well written book. It is the story of a housewife and the local high school Music teacher. Both of whom live in their pasts, which they have embellished to the point of unrecognition. This is what binds them together as they create their "salon". I love Dawn Powell and her real forte is creating these amazing character studies that are both hilarious and pathetic. I would highly recommend this book and any other of Dawn Powell's works

When Calls the Heart/When Comes the Spring/When Breaks the Dawn/When Hope Springs New (Canadian West 1-4)

Average customer rating:

Absolutely Marvelous
A 13 YEAR OLD READER
This book is wonderful!
What a GREAT book!
It deserves many more stars!

When Calls the Heart/When Comes the Spring/When Breaks the Dawn/When Hope Springs New (Canadian West 1-4)
Janette Oke
Manufacturer: Bristol Park Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0884861120

Customer Reviews:

Absolutely Marvelous.......2002-01-07

I am a Huge Janette Oke fan. Her books inspire me to live a faithful, Christian life...and this book just happens to be my favorite, if it's possible to have a favorite Oke book (they are all wonderful!) I encourage you to read this Saga!

A 13 YEAR OLD READER.......2001-07-31

I LOVE JANETTE OKE'S BOOKS.THIS SERIES IS MY FAVORITE OF ALL OF HER BOOKS.I READ THIS BOOK OVER AND OVER AGIN.I ESPECIALY LIKE THAT IT'S A CHRISTIAN BOOK. ALL OF HER BOOKS ARE GREAT BUT I THINK THIS ONE IS HER BEST.

This book is wonderful!.......1999-12-14

This book really brings to life what living in Northern Canada was about in the early 1900's. I found myself thinking what it would be like in Elizabeth's shoes. She endured such hardships just to be with the man she loved. What a great lovestory! It is excellent, just like all of Jeanette Oke's other books that I have read. I can't wait until it is printed again so I can have my own copy.

What a GREAT book!.......1999-11-04

I love ever Janette Oke book I've ever read, but this is a favorite! I hope everyone who reads this liked it as much as I did!

It deserves many more stars!.......1999-10-03

This is my favorite series from Oke. I wish it was longer. I never wanted the book to end. Oke is a wonderful author, and this is a must read book.

Average customer rating:

Awesome Adventure and Love Story
An enjoyable book
Its spellbounding narration simply stole my breath away!
Amazing
This is an insight into the facade of our emotions.

Come the Dawn
Christina Skye
Manufacturer: Dell
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0440216478
Release Date: 1995-08-01

Book Description

Come The Dawn continues the story of the aristocratic Delamere family that readers were captivated by in Come The Night. This time the focus falls on India, the beautiful and headstrong sister of Come The Night's hero Luc Delamere, who falls in love with the rakish Devlyn Carlisle. They meet briefly and innocently as children, and again ten years later when, as adults, they fall deeply into a passionate affair. The Napoleonic Wars soon tear Devlyn away, but not before the two are joined in a secret wedding bond. When Devlyn is betrayed by a comrade in arms and presumed dead, India swears to continue her Iife alone, without the love that she prized above all else. Until one night a stranger with a familiar smile appears in a crowded ballroom, and India is plunged into a mystery to discover who betrayed Devlyn and to find a way to love again.

Customer Reviews:

Awesome Adventure and Love Story.......2002-10-24

In this sequel to Come the Night you will find a wonderful blend of passion and adventure as well as being reintroduced to the eccentric Delamere family.

India has returned home after a year after witnessing the horrors that accompanied the battle of Waterloo where she waited for the handsome and charming, reckless adventurer the 12th Earl of Thornwood, Devlyn Carlisle. Waiting patiently as one after another wounded soldier came back she lived in hope until she was told that someone witnessed Devlyn being cut down on the battlefield with a bayonet through his chest - a wound that no one could survive.

She had lost much more than her love, but after a year of mourning it was her grandmama that would insist she put away her mourning and attend a ball, after all she was the Delamere heiress and had a duty to marry and carry on the Delamere line. She would hide her pain and smile as if her heart were whole and not left on the battlefield of Waterloo. At the ball she looked across the floor and saw the face of the man all thought was dead - his face but a stranger who looked back.

Set in the aftermath of Waterloo, Lord Thornwood is on a mission to thwart the efforts of a band of sympathizers that are working to free Napoleon. Spies, intrigue and murder as desperate people search for Napoleon's diamonds to fund another war.

The story is bittersweet, but oh so lovely of India loving the very handsome Devlyn, Earl of Thornwood who had no memory of the love they briefly shared, or did he? Was the last mission he must undertake more dangerous than the battlefield. Would the loss, be more painful to him, to risk losing the love of the only woman that ever meant anything to him for the sake of his country? It is a story most poignant and sweet. India would not give up without a fight and found herself constantly in trouble as she sets out to solve the mystery of Lord Thornwood.

India and Devlyn are a great couple and the addition of so many new and familiar secondary characters make this a wonderful fast-paced adventure. The three children that are Devlyn's wards are simply sweet and their dialogs add some levity to this adventure and mystery. One of the children, Alexis, should definitely have her own story. And what can be said of the Duchess of Cranford other than we really need to see her story (hint, hint Ms. Skye). Wonderful story, characters you can become involved with and want to hear more from! I really hated to see it end!

An enjoyable book.......2000-03-15

Although I much preferred the first book of this series "Come the Night". This book was quite good too. In fact I found myself enjoying it at times. What annoyed me about it though was that I found it confusing at times - due to double identities etc and i was not sure who was who (whether it was Devlyn or his double) and the love story in this book was not up to Ms Skye's usual standard I think. The fact also that the two main characters were married even before the beginning of book also decreased my enjoyment of it considerably. And I'm still not sure whether Devlyn had really lost his memory or not.

But all in all this is definetly a worthwile book to read and also quite enjoyable.

Its spellbounding narration simply stole my breath away!.......1998-10-29

This is my first time reading Christina Skye's novels and I loved every page of her story telling! Which is the reason why I'm at this site now - scanning for a list of her other books!

I am amazed by the way she weaves romance together with adventure so successfully, that I didn't feel the urge to skip pages. In fact, the plot is refreshingly exciting, and I know it's ironic to say it, but hey, this is one romantic story! What I mean to say is, there are so many romance books out there, and some plots are overly stale. I just love the way Ms Skye brings us thru the story, falling in love with the characters, and actually trying to understand and gasp at what love is about. She deserves 5 Stars, NO LESS!!!

Amazing.......1998-04-03

I loved it. It is a stunning novel, one that transports the reader into the lives of Dev and India, while they are transported into the readers' hearts. I finished it in 2 hours.

This is an insight into the facade of our emotions........1998-02-10

Ms. Skye has a way of making you feel as though you are right there with the charactors during the entire story.
I hated to put this one down.
I finished it in 3 hours.

Book Description

A critical rethinking of theories of national imagination, The Dawn That Never Comes offers the most detailed reading to date in English of one of modern Japan's most influential poets and novelists, Shimazaki Toson (1872--1943). It also reveals how Toson's works influenced the production of a fluid, shifting form of national imagination that has characterized twentieth-century Japan.

Analyzing Toson's major works, Michael K. Bourdaghs demonstrates that the construction of national imagination requires a complex interweaving of varied -- and sometimes contradictory -- figures for imagining the national community. Many scholars have shown, for example, that modern hygiene has functioned in nationalist thought as a method of excluding foreign others as diseased. This study explores the multiple images of illness appearing in Toson's fiction to demonstrate that hygiene employs more than one model of pathology, and it reveals how this multiplicity functioned to produce the combinations of exclusion and assimilation required to sustain a sense of national community.

Others have argued that nationalism is inherently ambivalent and self-contradictory; Bourdaghs shows more concretely both how this is so and why it is necessary and provides, in the process, a new way of thinking about national imagination. Individual chapters take up such issues as modern medicine and the discourses of national health; ideologies of the family and its representation in modern literary works; the gendering of the canon of national literature; and the multiple forms of space and time that narratives of national history require.

Customer Reviews:

The Shimazaki Toson Study That Finally Arrives.......2007-02-21

It's almost a commonplace in the field of Japanese literature to say that a certain novelist is understudied. Shimazaki Toson certainly qualifies for this perfunctory lament, though in his case the neglect seems especially unwarranted, almost inversely proportional to his renown and canonical status in Japan. So a full length study of this novelist and his major works like Michael Bourdaghs' "The Dawn That Never Comes" is certainly welcome.

But while most of Toson's major novels are treated at length in this book, this is not a general survey but an in-depth consideration informed by postmodern critical theory and concerned with a particular unifying issue (as the subtitle gives away): the intricate relation of Toson's works (seemingly apolitical at first glance) with articulations of nationhood and nationalism prevalent in Japan during his time. I don't necessarily share the author's apparent assumption that the most important thing about literature is its supposed politics, and the incessant invocations of canonized "Theory Saints" (Foucault, Derrida, Bhabha, Deleuze & Guattari, and so on) became rather tiresome and repetitive to say nothing of superfluous (except for Benedict Anderson, whose inclusion makes perfect sense). Still, I found the author's arguments and discussions extremely interesting overall, and he presents his case with a clarity and coherence rare for studies subscribing to his chosen methodology. Some of his interpretations seem far-fetched, some seem surprisingly convincing, but none are boring.

As for far-fetched, the worst offender is in chapter two, where we get utterly bizarre pronouncements largely to the effect that germs don't really cause disease, that modern improvements in hygiene were all ideological instruments concocted by national governments to hegemonically control the populace (even the Red Cross comes off looking a bit sinister, ridiculously). Stuff that on a private blog would be laughed off as the most crackpot of conspiracy theories somehow acquires an aura of legitimacy when published by a university press, but that really doesn't make it less unscientific and absurd. In the end some of the author's potentially intriguing insights on Toson's masterpiece "The Broken Commandment" are pretty much sabotaged by this silliness.

Frankly, if not for my compunction about always finishing a book I've started, I would have just tossed the book aside at this early point, and then I'd have missed out on the compelling tour-de-force that is chapter three. Toson's the "Family" is often critically praised or blamed (depending on the critic) for being unconcerned with society at large and oblivious to political considerations, exclusively focused as it is on the little world of the family. Bourdaghs then details the many contemporary debates on the family during the Meiji period and demonstrates conclusively how all sides concerned understood this debate to be an explicitly political one--this in turn casts radical new light on the novel in question, and one can readily see how in some ways it is indeed a rather blatant (though not completely unambiguous) political statement of sorts. Such a delightfully counterintuitive, eye-opening interpretation managed to make up for the prior Sokal-Hoax silliness quite well, and the rest of the book is closer in quality to chapter three than two, generally speaking.

As this suggests, too, the author pays a lot of attention to the various critical receptions of Toson's novels in Japan and is incredibly sensitive to how these may change and shift over time, often in tandem with key historical transformations. And of how earlier takes on a novel may tell us something important we might otherwise have missed. Some of the analysis is quite simply superb. It's quite clear that he's done extensive, careful research in this regard, and many of the most fascinating and (from my perspective) useful parts of the book were here. Indeed, much of this will stick in my mind long after the umpteenth citation of Deleuze & Guattari has thankfully faded from memory. Overall I would highly recommend this book to anyone seriously interested in modern Japanese literature.

Shores of Promise/Dream Spinner/When Comes the Dawn/The Sure Promise (Inspirational Romance Reader Historical Collection #2)

Average customer rating:

This is the Greatest of the series
Historical novels
Couldn't put it down

Shores of Promise/Dream Spinner/When Comes the Dawn/The Sure Promise (Inspirational Romance Reader Historical Collection #2)
Kate Blackwell , Sally Laity , Brenda Bancroft , and Joann A. Grote
Manufacturer: Barbour Publishing, Incorporated
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1557489521

Book Description

The past lives on in these four full-length inspirational romances: 'When Comes the Dawn,' by Brenda Bancroft; 'Shores of Promise,' by Kate Blackwell; 'The Sure Promise,' by JoAnn Grote; and 'Dream Spinner,' by Sally Laity. Let these romance stories from the past touch your heart today!

Customer Reviews:

This is the Greatest of the series.......2002-06-21

I've read this book several times it was the first of the Collection that i read. My Grandmother sent it to me for my 16th birthday. i didn't read it for a while because i thought it looked corny. well i eventually started reading it, and once i started i couldn't put it down. i read the whole thing in 2 days. Then i started it over again. I have now read most of the collection. This book was i must say my favorite. My second favorite was The Historical Collection part 2. After that it would be Texas.

Historical novels.......2000-01-05

I wasn't sure if I would actually enjoy a historical novel. However, I loved this novel! All of the stories captured my attention, except for the last. However, you might enjoy it!

Couldn't put it down.......1999-06-16

This is a wonderful collection of stories. They each have a great plot with a little twist just to keep you reading. These types of books are escpecially good if you only have short times to read (has 4 stories).

Joy Comes With Dawn: Reflections on Scripture and Life

Average customer rating:

Such a rewarding read!

Joy Comes With Dawn: Reflections on Scripture and Life
Abbot Joseph Homick
Manufacturer: The Monks of Mt Tabor
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 1424321786
Release Date: 2006-11-21

Book Description

"At night there are tears, but joy comes with dawn" (Psalm 30:6). In a sense, this psalm verse captures the essence of our earthly pilgrimage to the Kingdom of Heaven. We experience darkness and light, sorrow and joy, but we are convinced by the promises of God that joy and light will have the last word. Joy Comes With Dawn is a collection of reflections on the Bible and on many aspects of the spiritual life. Abbot Joseph takes his Christianity seriously (though not without a touch of humor) and tries to open the reader's awareness to the presence of God and his call to the everlasting joy of the Kingdom of Heaven. The author progresses through the "night" of struggle, sin, and suffering to the "dawn" of gratitude, hope, and praise, and to the joy that only the grace of God can give. This book contains a wealth of material for meditation and for practical application to the Christian life.

"Abbot Joseph reminds us that `all creation is meant to sing.' In this profound, beautifully written and winsome series of meditations, he leads the way to that song, like the bird he describes that wakes the dawn. A true voice from the desert, this book will lead you to an oasis of the heart that only a desert dweller could know, and which Fr. Joseph graciously shares with us. His words, full of love of the Lord and His world, pulse with the music of God." --Raymond Gawronski, SJ, author, Word and Silence and A Closer Walk with Christ.

Customer Reviews:

Such a rewarding read!.......2006-12-12

I thoroughly enjoyed Joy Comes with Dawn. Abbot Joseph is full of so many insights about the intricate beauties of spiritual life and the importance of building a relationship with God. Rest assured it is not a series of dry, academic or hackneyed sermons. These are personal mediations that will touch the hearts and minds of anyone searching for more meaning out of life or comfort in a complicatd world. The insights are in keeping with the Catholic tradition, but they give a fresh expression to the faith. Abbot Joseph digs deep and finds much fresh treasure in the mines of Christian tradition.

The style of the book is lively and engaging...it's actually humorous in parts! But in no way does the occassional levity take away from the thought-provoking subject material or the sacredness of the text. The message is definitely serious -- eternal salvation is all or nothing! -- yet the touches of humor give us glimpses of the universal struggles we all share along the Christian journey. Best of all, the book builds toward a conclusion that resonates with hope and joy.

I loved the brief mediations, which help readers digest the material at their own pace. The book can be used for daily meditations or as a Bible study (although it's not a systematic commentary). Bottom line...the book helps make timeless truths accessible for today's Christians, without compromising the message with passing trends. It's not "cheap grace"...but the real thing!

After The Break of Dawn: Joy comes in The Morning

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After The Break of Dawn: Joy comes in The Morning
Sharron A. Miller
Manufacturer: AuthorHouse
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1418429104

Anatomy Acts: How We Come to Know Ourselves

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Anatomy Acts: How We Come to Know Ourselves

Manufacturer: Birlinn Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1841584711

Average customer rating:

Before the Dawn Comes

Manufacturer: Poetry Guild
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 1888680180

Product Description

The collected works of Before the Dawn Comes consist of a wide range of sounds and styles: free verse, traditional verse, narrative, lyric, dramatic, avant-garde and even experimental.

Beneath His Shield (Come Gentle the Dawn and Paladin's Woman)

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Beneath His Shield (Come Gentle the Dawn and Paladin's Woman)
Lindsay McKenna and Beverly Barton
Manufacturer: Silhouette
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OX6J2G

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