The Story of Arthur Truluv, by Elizabeth Berg ~ my review

Such a sweet story ~ Arthur Moses, Maddy Harris, and Lucille Howard finding each other, taking care of each other. We all should be so blessed. Author Elizabeth Berg’s novel, The Story of Arthur Truluv, is based in the unpleasant facts that life can be cruel, some people find cruelty entertaining, and loss and longing are profoundly painful. Berg then transforms these lonely sorrows into hope.

Eighty-five-year-old Arthur Moses’ beloved wife Nola dies six months before this novel opens at her grave, with Arthur having his daily lunch with her. Maddy Harris, still painfully alone in the world after her mother’s death and father’s distance, hangs out at the cemetery to avoid her high school classmates’ contempt. Arthur and Maddy strike up a conversation. Meanwhile, Arthur’s next-door neighbor, Lucille, is distraught and depressed at losing her recently reappeared high school beau. Despite their differences, these three people extend simple kindnesses to each other. Friendships are born. Lifesaving friendships. Life-enriching friendships. Second-chance-giving friendships.

I enjoyed reading this uplifting novel. Plus, I always enjoy Elizabeth Berg’s presentation of everyday life. A bonus in The Story of Arthur Truluv happens in the symbolic cemetery. A favorite pastime of Arthur is imagining lives of buried persons from minimal facts on headstones. What he comes up with is classic Berg. For example: “When she read, she liked to be barefoot and she liked to lace her fingers through her toes.” [p. 48] Another excerpt: “Even in old age, he and his wife would load up the car with blankets and lawn chairs and go out to reserve a place in the park while the sky was still a smoky red and the birds had not yet begun to sing.” [p. 49] I very much admire Elizabeth Berg’s creative combination of her powers of observation and imagination.

My review of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility

No wonder Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility is a classic!

Sense and sensibility, represented respectively in sisters Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, carry them through romantic hopes and dashed hopes in Victorian Devonshire. They both fall in love with men they cannot have and after ups and downs, twists and turns, end up in marriages with reliable men. Their different approaches to romantic disappointment are consistent with their approaches to many other situations among family and friends. Indeed, the foibles of this Jane Austen’s novel’s cast of characters give Elinor and Marianne many opportunities to display their sense (reason) and sensibility (emotionality).

Would that today’s society had the good sense to practice Elinor Dashwood’s Victorian communication habits of courteous truth-telling and thinking the best of others. Sometimes she even has to fight to think fine motivations for foolish behavior. She must feel the fool herself while withholding judgment on such egregious acts of inconsideration. Her reason and good sense also include respecting promises and others’ decisions, even when they hurt her.

Even feelings-led, superficiality-satisfied, romantic-notioned Marianne (representing sensibility) grows to realize that character counts.

Sense and Sensibility is an epiphany enthusiast’s dream novel. Some characters, of course, remain blind, self-centered fools, but others humbly learn valuable lessons from their mistakes. Austen’s dialogue is lively. I would have liked to have known energetic Mrs. Jennings. The warmth of the Dashwood family (at least Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters) inspires. I enjoy Austen’s dry wit in this novel. Often it comes in Fanny’s outrageously convoluted, self-congratulating excuses why she cannot help Elinor and Marianne. Sometimes the humor comes in the differences between sense and sensibility, such as this scene in which Elinor and Marianne reminisce about their former home, Norland:

“Dear, dear Norland,” said Elinor, “probably looks much as it always does at this time of the year. The woods and walks thickly covered with dead leaves.”

“Oh,” cried Marianne, “with what transporting sensation have I formerly seen them fall! How have I delighted, as I walked, to see them driven in showers about me by the wind! What feelings have they, the season, the air altogether inspired! Now there is no one to regard them. They are seen only as a nuisance, swept hastily off, and driven as much as possible from the sight.”

“It is not every one,” said Elinor, “who has your passion for dead leaves.” [pages 93, 94 in my edition]