The Fab 5 convened today for a second meeting about the book Lit. We met last week to choose books for the next 6 months (oh happy day!) and to talk about Lit, but since 3 of us had not yet finished, we postponed the Lit discussion until lunch this week. More on our book selection later.
Mary Karr's newest memoir, Lit, follows her descent into alcoholism, then her rescue by a God she disbelieved, resented and tenuously relied upon in the absence of any other prospects. Readers experience Karr as she was at each stage of the book--she does an excellent job of giving us a look at the workings of her heart, her head and her mouth through each part of the journey.
Her story is not a pretty one, and she hasn't whitewashed it for us now. I've read her memoir, Cherry, which deals with her adolescence, and the same could be said for it. This is a woman who has been damaged in so many ways, from early childhood on, that it's amazing she has survived to this point, let alone become a successful writer and professor.
Don't read this book if you are looking for a nice, uplifting and inspirational story that wraps up neatly. And don't read this book if you can't abide vulgar language--there is plenty of it.
Mary Karr is very honest about who she was, who she wanted to be, and how she got so far off track. She writes with darkness and sarcasm, with beauty and humor. The humor is the saving grace of it when she's writing about awful things. Such as when her recently sober mother fell off the wagon just in time to be high for Mary's rehearsal dinner. Mother looked at Mary's soon-to-be father-in-law, a WASPy moneyed New Englander, and "offered to paint Mr. Whitbread in the nude and quote fix anything you need fixed close quote." Her mother is a character beyond belief in Karr's memoirs, and a big part of both the agony and the crazy humor of her life.
Barbara brought up the story of Karr's first AA meeting, where she listens to a gentrified woman explaining how she hid her bottle of vodka in a turkey carcass in the freezer so that her family wouldn't find it. One night "she couldn't midwife the bottle out, so she just upended the whole bird, guzzling out of it. She says, And that was my moment of clarity, thinking, Other people just don't drink like this." How often do you find humor in someone's fight to be sober, humor that does not diminish the seriousness of the fight itself?
Karr's gift to the reader is her honesty, particularly about her spiritual journey. She describes her struggle with belief, describing each time that a different point of her own opposition to her own fledgling faith gave way. God reeled her in kicking and screaming. Good friends and advisers kept her moving forward in spite of her own resistance. Sonya pointed out that Karr's AA friends were never judgmental; they just spoke the truth as they saw it and didn't let her off the hook. And they pushed her to begin praying, which changed everything for her, much as she hated it.
None of us have read her first memoir, The Liar's' Club, and some of the references to her childhood made us curious. Nancy really wants to know what happened in Colorado. Sort of like the attraction one would have to a train wreck, Barbara says.
Lit is the story of a woman who found God when she didn't really want to, a sinner like the rest of us who had hit rock bottom and had no other way to go. Turned out she wanted to find him after all.
One last note--after weeding out many books we would like to read, we came up with the following list for the next 6 months:
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie
Sarah's Key by Tatiana deRosnay
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore
Won't you read with us?
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Part-Time Indian, Full-Time Fun
Oh, this was a good one. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. The title says it all. This is an autobiographical novel written by a Native American man who grew up on a reservation but went to high school at a very white town outside of the reservation. The Neland Women's Book Club faced it head on.
As a boy, Junior is a smart runt reminiscent of Owen Meany from John Irving's novel, A Prayer for Owen Meany. Intelligent, basketball-playing, stuttering, lisping, small and prone to seizures, Junior does not fit in. His best friend, Rowdy, is a big kid who is abused by his father and protective of the smaller, picked-on Junior.
During his first week of high school, one of Junior's teachers pulls him aside and tells him he MUST get off the reservation. Junior's extremely poor parents somehow scrape together the tuition to send Junior to Reardan, where he is the lone Spokane at the school.
This is a book about a young man straddling two cultures, as the title suggests. He sees the pros and cons of both sides, and the author tells truth about both cultures. The novel is full of humor and reality. Any teen who has felt like the odd man out will relate to the character. Parents will be a bit concerned about the all-too-honest treatment of a 14-year-old boy's life--the kind of vulgar humor and curiosity about sexuality that is likely the hallmark of that stage of a boy's life.
Still. This story is so full of honesty. What it is like to be left out. What it is like to have your wildest dream come true, even when there is a price to pay. And most of all, what do you do when you don't fit in at home or away? Alexie's story is at heart an immigrant story. Junior enters a strange new land. He is renamed Arnold (his given name, which no one at home has ever called him); he has to learn new ways and a new way of speaking. He has to learn the expectations and traditions of a completely new culture. At the same time, he must switch back to the reservation, a homeland loaded with its own expectations and alienation. Junior is looked at as a traitor, betraying his tribe.
This is the same sort of experience that many others experience--mission kids who switch between the "home culture" and the mission field, children of poverty who want to get higher education, or immigrants who come from poorer countries and somehow have to straddle the expectations of people back home and the realities of a whole new culture.
One part that was hard for us, as a church book club, to read was the short description of Junior's thoughts about Christianity and what it has done to Indian culture. He describes how the whites brought Christianity and intolerance; that the missionaries brought expectations of how the Indians should behave in all areas of life, which in turn made Indian culture less tolerant. Given that our denomination's mission agency was once called the Heathen Mission Board, and it originated in Native American missions, we don't have a lot of self-righteousness to stand on. We have been part of the problem in trying to make everyone look and act like white Europeans, even as we try to bring the news of all-encompassing love and forgiveness. So it behooves us to have some humility when we look at the not-so-lovely view of Christians in the book.
Thankfully this is a brief moment in the novel. Like the rest of the book, it is honest.
I ended up listening to this one on CD because all the library print versions were out. In some ways this was wonderful, as it was read by the author, and I completely enjoyed his cadence and personality. On the other hand, the actual book has great illustrations that illuminate the story, and I will probably re-skim this book just to see the illustrations.
In fact, I fully expect to buy a copy of this book in spite of the fact that I've already listened to it. I look forward to sharing it with my son. I'll also be looking for more work by Sherman Alexie.
As a boy, Junior is a smart runt reminiscent of Owen Meany from John Irving's novel, A Prayer for Owen Meany. Intelligent, basketball-playing, stuttering, lisping, small and prone to seizures, Junior does not fit in. His best friend, Rowdy, is a big kid who is abused by his father and protective of the smaller, picked-on Junior.
During his first week of high school, one of Junior's teachers pulls him aside and tells him he MUST get off the reservation. Junior's extremely poor parents somehow scrape together the tuition to send Junior to Reardan, where he is the lone Spokane at the school.
This is a book about a young man straddling two cultures, as the title suggests. He sees the pros and cons of both sides, and the author tells truth about both cultures. The novel is full of humor and reality. Any teen who has felt like the odd man out will relate to the character. Parents will be a bit concerned about the all-too-honest treatment of a 14-year-old boy's life--the kind of vulgar humor and curiosity about sexuality that is likely the hallmark of that stage of a boy's life.
Still. This story is so full of honesty. What it is like to be left out. What it is like to have your wildest dream come true, even when there is a price to pay. And most of all, what do you do when you don't fit in at home or away? Alexie's story is at heart an immigrant story. Junior enters a strange new land. He is renamed Arnold (his given name, which no one at home has ever called him); he has to learn new ways and a new way of speaking. He has to learn the expectations and traditions of a completely new culture. At the same time, he must switch back to the reservation, a homeland loaded with its own expectations and alienation. Junior is looked at as a traitor, betraying his tribe.
This is the same sort of experience that many others experience--mission kids who switch between the "home culture" and the mission field, children of poverty who want to get higher education, or immigrants who come from poorer countries and somehow have to straddle the expectations of people back home and the realities of a whole new culture.
One part that was hard for us, as a church book club, to read was the short description of Junior's thoughts about Christianity and what it has done to Indian culture. He describes how the whites brought Christianity and intolerance; that the missionaries brought expectations of how the Indians should behave in all areas of life, which in turn made Indian culture less tolerant. Given that our denomination's mission agency was once called the Heathen Mission Board, and it originated in Native American missions, we don't have a lot of self-righteousness to stand on. We have been part of the problem in trying to make everyone look and act like white Europeans, even as we try to bring the news of all-encompassing love and forgiveness. So it behooves us to have some humility when we look at the not-so-lovely view of Christians in the book.
Thankfully this is a brief moment in the novel. Like the rest of the book, it is honest.
I ended up listening to this one on CD because all the library print versions were out. In some ways this was wonderful, as it was read by the author, and I completely enjoyed his cadence and personality. On the other hand, the actual book has great illustrations that illuminate the story, and I will probably re-skim this book just to see the illustrations.
In fact, I fully expect to buy a copy of this book in spite of the fact that I've already listened to it. I look forward to sharing it with my son. I'll also be looking for more work by Sherman Alexie.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Perfect "Match" for the "Hunger Games" Fan
Mix the best friend vs. soulmate romance triangle of Twilight, the evil, controlling government of The Hunger Games, and the futuristic society of The Giver, and you've got Matched by Ally Condie. Derivative? Perhaps. In this instance, I tend to think of it like my 8th grade science fair.
See, in 7th grade, I did a nondescript science project for the science fair. I got a decent grade, but no awards. Looking around, I noticed that all of the awards went to projects having to do with plants. So. The next year, I did a project about plants. And I won the one and only trophy I have ever won in my life. Original? No. But that doesn't mean my project was a bad one. I did a good job on it. I just had a little help in the inspiration department.
Back to the book, Matched is a good book all on its own. I couldn't put it down. The writing isn't quite up to par with The Giver, but it is good. It's less lust-filled and certainly better written than Twilight (though there is plenty of longing of a more innocent variety), and it lacks the violence of The Hunger Games. The novel makes its own points, mostly having to do with freedom or a lack of it, and what keeping the status quo means for the invisible in society.
In this Society, every aspect of life is monitored. Dreams, garbage, food intake, exercise and relationships. On her 17th birthday, Cassia Reyes celebrates her Match Banquet. This is the banquet at which her future husband is revealed to her. She is shocked and happy to learn that her Match is her best friend, Xander. Soon, though she is unsettled to find that there may have been some mistake--she might have been matched with another friend, Ky. And so begins both her angst-ridden romantic life as well as her slow discovery of individual freedom.
This book could be used as a parallel for any sort of freedom-limiting society--communist China, Taliban-ruled Afghanistan or a future U.S. where the government makes too many choices for us. It could also foster conspiracy theories, if you are so inclined! Who knows but that the proposed ban on unhealthy Happy Meals in San Francisco is the first step to having our food portioned out and delivered to us in our homes?
There are a few moments where the romantic longing gets a little thick. As my late friend Amy said, on reading the classic young adult romance Seventeenth Summer, "Oh just kiss and get it over with, for goodness sake." But I'm okay with that.
Likely not for the boys, but if you have a female Hunger Games fan in your home who is at loose ends now that the trilogy is over, wrap this up, put it under the tree, and check another gift off your list. Warning: the book will leave her hanging, and it seems likely there will be a sequel! And I will be watching for it.
See, in 7th grade, I did a nondescript science project for the science fair. I got a decent grade, but no awards. Looking around, I noticed that all of the awards went to projects having to do with plants. So. The next year, I did a project about plants. And I won the one and only trophy I have ever won in my life. Original? No. But that doesn't mean my project was a bad one. I did a good job on it. I just had a little help in the inspiration department.
Back to the book, Matched is a good book all on its own. I couldn't put it down. The writing isn't quite up to par with The Giver, but it is good. It's less lust-filled and certainly better written than Twilight (though there is plenty of longing of a more innocent variety), and it lacks the violence of The Hunger Games. The novel makes its own points, mostly having to do with freedom or a lack of it, and what keeping the status quo means for the invisible in society.
In this Society, every aspect of life is monitored. Dreams, garbage, food intake, exercise and relationships. On her 17th birthday, Cassia Reyes celebrates her Match Banquet. This is the banquet at which her future husband is revealed to her. She is shocked and happy to learn that her Match is her best friend, Xander. Soon, though she is unsettled to find that there may have been some mistake--she might have been matched with another friend, Ky. And so begins both her angst-ridden romantic life as well as her slow discovery of individual freedom.
This book could be used as a parallel for any sort of freedom-limiting society--communist China, Taliban-ruled Afghanistan or a future U.S. where the government makes too many choices for us. It could also foster conspiracy theories, if you are so inclined! Who knows but that the proposed ban on unhealthy Happy Meals in San Francisco is the first step to having our food portioned out and delivered to us in our homes?
There are a few moments where the romantic longing gets a little thick. As my late friend Amy said, on reading the classic young adult romance Seventeenth Summer, "Oh just kiss and get it over with, for goodness sake." But I'm okay with that.
Likely not for the boys, but if you have a female Hunger Games fan in your home who is at loose ends now that the trilogy is over, wrap this up, put it under the tree, and check another gift off your list. Warning: the book will leave her hanging, and it seems likely there will be a sequel! And I will be watching for it.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Help! I'm Stuck in the Wrong Family
Many, many books for young people have to do with orphans or young people who have been adopted. The attraction that these plotlines hold make a lot of sense to me. What tween or teen, looking around them with newly worldly eyes, doesn't wonder how they ended up in this family? No one in the family understands them, no one makes any sense, no one "gets" them. Perhaps there is someone out there who does.
Caroline B. Cooney's newest young adult novel, Three Black Swans, fits right in. This is territory that Cooney has successfully covered before, notably in her novel The Face on the Milk Carton, in which young Janie sees a younger "missing" photo of herself on the side of a milk carton in the school lunchroom, setting off a search for the truth. I lost myself for a day or two in that story almost 20 years ago, and so I picked up Three Black Swans at the library last week.
If you think about it, orphans or adopted kids figure heavily in literary history--think Oliver Twist, Jane Eyre, Anne of Green Gables, or Harry Potter. And for Christians, the idea that we don't really belong here, that we are strangers, aliens, not of this world, is a comfort. We don't feel comfortable, things aren't right, and that's okay, because we really belong to someone else, in another relationship.
In Three Black Swans, two cousins attempt a hoax, pretending to be long-lost identical twins. It turns out that they are on to something, and when the video ends up on YouTube, it opens up a whole world of possibilities that they had not anticipated.
While this is not Newbery-award-winning material, it is an interesting plot and a well-rounded exploration of the motivations of all of the characters involved. No one is innocent, but there are ways to feel sympathy toward every character. One of the clunkier aspects: while the author intends to show an awareness of the use of technology (texting, internet, etc) and the generation gap in that area between parents and children, sometimes it feels too self-conscious.
As a young teen, the thought that someone out there who looks like me, thinks like me, and was still considered beautiful and talented would have been a pretty good fantasy! This book feeds that fantasy, but it goes a step beyond it to meditate a bit on love and forgiveness. It may not be great literature, but it is worthwhile entertainment for its target audience.
Caroline B. Cooney's newest young adult novel, Three Black Swans, fits right in. This is territory that Cooney has successfully covered before, notably in her novel The Face on the Milk Carton, in which young Janie sees a younger "missing" photo of herself on the side of a milk carton in the school lunchroom, setting off a search for the truth. I lost myself for a day or two in that story almost 20 years ago, and so I picked up Three Black Swans at the library last week.
If you think about it, orphans or adopted kids figure heavily in literary history--think Oliver Twist, Jane Eyre, Anne of Green Gables, or Harry Potter. And for Christians, the idea that we don't really belong here, that we are strangers, aliens, not of this world, is a comfort. We don't feel comfortable, things aren't right, and that's okay, because we really belong to someone else, in another relationship.
In Three Black Swans, two cousins attempt a hoax, pretending to be long-lost identical twins. It turns out that they are on to something, and when the video ends up on YouTube, it opens up a whole world of possibilities that they had not anticipated.
While this is not Newbery-award-winning material, it is an interesting plot and a well-rounded exploration of the motivations of all of the characters involved. No one is innocent, but there are ways to feel sympathy toward every character. One of the clunkier aspects: while the author intends to show an awareness of the use of technology (texting, internet, etc) and the generation gap in that area between parents and children, sometimes it feels too self-conscious.
As a young teen, the thought that someone out there who looks like me, thinks like me, and was still considered beautiful and talented would have been a pretty good fantasy! This book feeds that fantasy, but it goes a step beyond it to meditate a bit on love and forgiveness. It may not be great literature, but it is worthwhile entertainment for its target audience.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
"The Cookbook Collector"--Modern Jane Austen?
The Cookbook Collector was a title too good for this book collector pass up. In spite of the fact that I don't have a strong affinity for cookbooks or cooking, I love food and books, so it seemed like a natural. Add to that great reviews on NPR and in magazines that mentioned the similarities between Allegra Goodman's newest novel and Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, and I couldn't possibly resist!
Emily and Jessamine Bach are sisters living in Berkeley, California, and they are nothing alike. Emily is the "sense," and Jessamine is the "sensibility." Emily is a dot com executive during the Silicon bubble, and Jess is a tree-saving, philosophy-loving vegan who is also attracted to Jewish mysticism. Emily is engaged to Jonathan, a bookend match to her executive life, while Jess moves from relationship to relationship. While there are similarities to Austen's novel, this book only borrows a few structures. Goodman's story is her own.
Jess, pursuing yet another degree, works at an antiquarian bookstore. The owner, George, is doing everything in his power to win a collection of cookbooks from a mysterious seller. Emily is all responsibility, running her high-powered business, putting off her marriage until just the right moment, whenever that will be.
There are many things I like about this novel. For instance, there are many allusions to poetry. How many contemporary novelists allude to T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"? (Though I suppose the question could be asked, how many people care? Well, I do.) The cookbook collection itself is intriguing--I want to run my hand over the spines of these books and explore the color plates and tissue pages inside. And George, the bookstore owner, has a house I'm dying to tour.
In my last blog entry, I said that A Reliable Wife was like a classic gothic novel, HBO style. Well, The Cookbook Collector is Jane Austen, "Modern Family" style. Rather than love and lust repressed under 19th century maiden facades and respectability, the characters of the book move toward consummation long before any actual commitments have been made. After reading so much, well, sex in A Reliable Wife, and then moving on to this novel, where characters don't bother to leave the one they are living with to start up new liaisons, I'm ready for a book with less of a moral void. I could really use another Peace Like a River right now. But that's beside the point, sort of.
The rise and fall of the dot coms is an interesting enough subject, and 9/11 figures into the story as well, though not nearly as powerfully as in my recent read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. In the end, Jessamine is my favorite character, and the portion of the book where she and George explore the cookbooks is the best. Still and all, I prefer the original--I'll stick with Jane Austen.
Emily and Jessamine Bach are sisters living in Berkeley, California, and they are nothing alike. Emily is the "sense," and Jessamine is the "sensibility." Emily is a dot com executive during the Silicon bubble, and Jess is a tree-saving, philosophy-loving vegan who is also attracted to Jewish mysticism. Emily is engaged to Jonathan, a bookend match to her executive life, while Jess moves from relationship to relationship. While there are similarities to Austen's novel, this book only borrows a few structures. Goodman's story is her own.
Jess, pursuing yet another degree, works at an antiquarian bookstore. The owner, George, is doing everything in his power to win a collection of cookbooks from a mysterious seller. Emily is all responsibility, running her high-powered business, putting off her marriage until just the right moment, whenever that will be.
There are many things I like about this novel. For instance, there are many allusions to poetry. How many contemporary novelists allude to T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"? (Though I suppose the question could be asked, how many people care? Well, I do.) The cookbook collection itself is intriguing--I want to run my hand over the spines of these books and explore the color plates and tissue pages inside. And George, the bookstore owner, has a house I'm dying to tour.
In my last blog entry, I said that A Reliable Wife was like a classic gothic novel, HBO style. Well, The Cookbook Collector is Jane Austen, "Modern Family" style. Rather than love and lust repressed under 19th century maiden facades and respectability, the characters of the book move toward consummation long before any actual commitments have been made. After reading so much, well, sex in A Reliable Wife, and then moving on to this novel, where characters don't bother to leave the one they are living with to start up new liaisons, I'm ready for a book with less of a moral void. I could really use another Peace Like a River right now. But that's beside the point, sort of.
The rise and fall of the dot coms is an interesting enough subject, and 9/11 figures into the story as well, though not nearly as powerfully as in my recent read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. In the end, Jessamine is my favorite character, and the portion of the book where she and George explore the cookbooks is the best. Still and all, I prefer the original--I'll stick with Jane Austen.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Bleak Midwinter in "A Reliable Wife"
Creepy. Depraved. Uncomfortable. Absorbing. Just a few words we came up with at the Fab 5 Book Club after reading A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick. We could only wonder what sort of man would come up with a book like this, and we decided that the man on the jacket flap was not someone we'd want to run into alone on a dark street. He has quite an imagination.
Wealthy Ralph Truitt lives in an isolated Wisconsin town in the 19th century. The town is named Truitt, after his father and his father's business. He is desperately lonely. He places an ad in several newspapers, and he makes a tentative agreement with Catherine Land, a young woman who professes to be a simple, honest woman. She is nothing of the sort.
Catherine must adjust to rural Wisconsin, where, apparently, people are killing or maiming themselves or others with alarming regularity. The winter drives them crazy, and they just go off. Barbara checked into this with a friend who lives in that area, and she said that is still true. So, the first moral of the story is, be careful where you move in Wisconsin.
Interestingly, the author says he came to this character and town because of Kohler, Wisconsin, where one of our members just took a tour of the Kohler factory. Goolrick wondered what it would be like to live in a town named after you and where most of the town is employed by your company in some way.
Ralph and Catherine find a quiet passion for each other, but Ralph is tormented by his past and the son for whom he's been searching for a long time. And Ralph is aware that Catherine isn't the woman she professes to be. There is a lot of imagery of birds, sometimes caged, sometimes free, and we have only vague notions that this connects with the characters in the book. Sonya was annoyed that there is a red canary, because there is no such thing. Just ask her.
This book is like a classic gothic novel, after it's been turned into an HBO special. While there is a sort of redemption in the story, you have to read through so much obsessive sex and deviance to get there that the redemptive value is minimal. Still, the book grips you because you want to see what happens.
Would we recommend it to others? Not so much. Sonya would prefer to not have some images stuck in her head. Yet we all finished the book in a very timely manner, a rare occasion in this group. And the author's description in the interview at the back of Nancy's book made it sound much more profound than we had thought. Still. Pretty creepy.
If you enjoyed the V.C. Andrews books that no one could get enough of when I was in high school, the Flowers in the Attic series, you might enjoy this. I did not read them--I was too busy reading my sister's romance novels. Sonya remembers being freaked out by The Amityville Horror, and Barbara found the Harry Potter books a bit spooky. Barbara should not read The Amityville Horror.
Which led us to talk about TV shows that creeped us out. Sonya and Nancy watched a lot of X-Files, and I personally never quite recovered from Twin Peaks. My husband Brian's impression of a certain giant speaking as a small person danced on stage can still send me running for cover. And lights.
Then we talked about TV shows, in general, that we've liked--Mad About You, Northern Exposure, Frasier, and Lost. Which led to Nancy letting us in on her current favorite commercial, which features two hamsters driving a box and dressed like rappers. We are not sure if this is really a commercial or if the weird book we just read led to even stranger dreams.
As you can see, we are a literary crowd with a high level of intellectual discussion regarding books. In our defense, we are all very tired.
Wealthy Ralph Truitt lives in an isolated Wisconsin town in the 19th century. The town is named Truitt, after his father and his father's business. He is desperately lonely. He places an ad in several newspapers, and he makes a tentative agreement with Catherine Land, a young woman who professes to be a simple, honest woman. She is nothing of the sort.
Catherine must adjust to rural Wisconsin, where, apparently, people are killing or maiming themselves or others with alarming regularity. The winter drives them crazy, and they just go off. Barbara checked into this with a friend who lives in that area, and she said that is still true. So, the first moral of the story is, be careful where you move in Wisconsin.
Interestingly, the author says he came to this character and town because of Kohler, Wisconsin, where one of our members just took a tour of the Kohler factory. Goolrick wondered what it would be like to live in a town named after you and where most of the town is employed by your company in some way.
Ralph and Catherine find a quiet passion for each other, but Ralph is tormented by his past and the son for whom he's been searching for a long time. And Ralph is aware that Catherine isn't the woman she professes to be. There is a lot of imagery of birds, sometimes caged, sometimes free, and we have only vague notions that this connects with the characters in the book. Sonya was annoyed that there is a red canary, because there is no such thing. Just ask her.
This book is like a classic gothic novel, after it's been turned into an HBO special. While there is a sort of redemption in the story, you have to read through so much obsessive sex and deviance to get there that the redemptive value is minimal. Still, the book grips you because you want to see what happens.
Would we recommend it to others? Not so much. Sonya would prefer to not have some images stuck in her head. Yet we all finished the book in a very timely manner, a rare occasion in this group. And the author's description in the interview at the back of Nancy's book made it sound much more profound than we had thought. Still. Pretty creepy.
If you enjoyed the V.C. Andrews books that no one could get enough of when I was in high school, the Flowers in the Attic series, you might enjoy this. I did not read them--I was too busy reading my sister's romance novels. Sonya remembers being freaked out by The Amityville Horror, and Barbara found the Harry Potter books a bit spooky. Barbara should not read The Amityville Horror.
Which led us to talk about TV shows that creeped us out. Sonya and Nancy watched a lot of X-Files, and I personally never quite recovered from Twin Peaks. My husband Brian's impression of a certain giant speaking as a small person danced on stage can still send me running for cover. And lights.
Then we talked about TV shows, in general, that we've liked--Mad About You, Northern Exposure, Frasier, and Lost. Which led to Nancy letting us in on her current favorite commercial, which features two hamsters driving a box and dressed like rappers. We are not sure if this is really a commercial or if the weird book we just read led to even stranger dreams.
As you can see, we are a literary crowd with a high level of intellectual discussion regarding books. In our defense, we are all very tired.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
War and Humanity in "Sarajevo"
War is hell. We've heard it a million times, and we've seen in on the page or on the movie screen lots of different ways. In Steven Galloway's novel, The Cellist of Sarajevo, three people try in their own ways to survive the seige of Sarajevo. A fourth character, the cellist of the title, is based on a real person who played his cello once a day for 22 consecutive days during the seige to commemorate the deaths of 22 people who died in a bombing as they waited in line for bread.
The three main characters intersect in different ways with his fictionalized performances. While the Sarajevo of the seige was hell for the civilians trapped in the crossfire between the factions trying to take control, the civilians were still longing for the city they knew before the war.
Galloway's fiction is poetic; the images, while heartbreaking, are clear, simple and effective. But he shows us more than the war of guns and bombs. He shows us the war for humanity, the war for hearts and minds.
The Neland Women's Book Club settled in Pat's gracious living room to dig into this book. Tonight I was the not-so-fearless leader, and we had great attendance! This is good, because then I know everyone will talk a lot, and it won't depend on me.
But this book is easy to talk about anyway. The writing is gorgeous in spite of--and because of--the subject. Each of the characters is struggling, not just to survive physically, but to keep their humanity intact. The author works out, through events and thoughts and actions and conversations, who each character was, is and wants to be. What the city was, is and could be. What human beings are meant to be.
Sarajevo was a beautiful, historic, cultivated, and proudly multicultural city. In 1984 (sorry ladies, I had that wrong, it wasn't 1988), the Winter Olympics took center stage. Then, in 1992, Bosnia-Herzegovina declared its independence. Serbians were concerned that they would be marginalized, and one day Serb militants in the hills fired on demonstrators and the city came under seige. Snipers hid in the hills and picked off whoever they could. Bombs damaged or destroyed much of the city. It wasn't until 1996 that the United Nations finally got involved and helped bring an end to the seige. In the meantime, civilians were stuck, left to survive as best they could.
The characters in the book each want to be able to recover the life they had before the war, and they are each afraid that the criminals, the soldiers, the black marketeers might win. If they win, what will it mean for the beloved city? "If a city is made anew by men of questionable character, what will it be?" There are moments when each character remembers the astonishing beauty of their ordinary pre-war lives. The music of the cellist brings it back to them.
One character, Dragan, reflects on the fact that "every day the Sarajevo he thinks he remembers slips away from him a little at a time, like water cupped in the palms of his hands, and when it's gone he wonders what will be left."
Arrow, a young woman who has become a sniper for the city's defenders, realizes that she has moved from hating the actions of the "men in the hills" to hating the men themselves, and that this would be the defeat of the Sarajevo that she loves, as well as the defeat of her own soul.
This seige happened in our lifetimes. Most of us were well into adulthood while it was going on. Yet none of us had much recollection of the events or the reasons for what happened. In one interview with Galloway, the interviewer mentions that there is little English-language literature about Sarajevo. The author says "There were some people outraged, but most people thought of it as just tribal, too complicated, and just washed their hands of it as a result." He went on to say "One of the things that really bugs me lately is that in lots of 'books of the year' lists that are out [for 2008, when the book was published]...they put The Cellist of Sarajevo in historical fiction, while there are plenty of books listed in the contemporary fiction sections that take place in the eighties! How is it that a mere ten years ago becomes 'historical'?"
While this book opened our eyes to what happened in Sarajevo, it also explores what happens in any war, when neighbors turn on neighbors and anger turns into hatred and murder. We like to think that can't happen in a "melting pot" like the United States, but we wonder if it is possible that there are factions within Grand Rapids with that sort of division. Recently, a play called "Lines" in a local theater explored "the experience of race" in this city. Someone in our group rightly pointed out that we really have no idea how our own little society is perceived by others.
Then it was time to eat, of course. Food is always an important part of any Neland gathering. Just ask the Fun Committee. Yes, we really have a Fun Committee. We are Christian Reformed; we like things to be planned in advance, and we need to know when it is time to have fun, so we must have committees for these things. That way we can be sure there will be good food available at any event. It's how we do things, and we like it that way.
Thanks for another good night, ladies!
The three main characters intersect in different ways with his fictionalized performances. While the Sarajevo of the seige was hell for the civilians trapped in the crossfire between the factions trying to take control, the civilians were still longing for the city they knew before the war.
Galloway's fiction is poetic; the images, while heartbreaking, are clear, simple and effective. But he shows us more than the war of guns and bombs. He shows us the war for humanity, the war for hearts and minds.
The Neland Women's Book Club settled in Pat's gracious living room to dig into this book. Tonight I was the not-so-fearless leader, and we had great attendance! This is good, because then I know everyone will talk a lot, and it won't depend on me.
But this book is easy to talk about anyway. The writing is gorgeous in spite of--and because of--the subject. Each of the characters is struggling, not just to survive physically, but to keep their humanity intact. The author works out, through events and thoughts and actions and conversations, who each character was, is and wants to be. What the city was, is and could be. What human beings are meant to be.
Sarajevo was a beautiful, historic, cultivated, and proudly multicultural city. In 1984 (sorry ladies, I had that wrong, it wasn't 1988), the Winter Olympics took center stage. Then, in 1992, Bosnia-Herzegovina declared its independence. Serbians were concerned that they would be marginalized, and one day Serb militants in the hills fired on demonstrators and the city came under seige. Snipers hid in the hills and picked off whoever they could. Bombs damaged or destroyed much of the city. It wasn't until 1996 that the United Nations finally got involved and helped bring an end to the seige. In the meantime, civilians were stuck, left to survive as best they could.
The characters in the book each want to be able to recover the life they had before the war, and they are each afraid that the criminals, the soldiers, the black marketeers might win. If they win, what will it mean for the beloved city? "If a city is made anew by men of questionable character, what will it be?" There are moments when each character remembers the astonishing beauty of their ordinary pre-war lives. The music of the cellist brings it back to them.
One character, Dragan, reflects on the fact that "every day the Sarajevo he thinks he remembers slips away from him a little at a time, like water cupped in the palms of his hands, and when it's gone he wonders what will be left."
Arrow, a young woman who has become a sniper for the city's defenders, realizes that she has moved from hating the actions of the "men in the hills" to hating the men themselves, and that this would be the defeat of the Sarajevo that she loves, as well as the defeat of her own soul.
This seige happened in our lifetimes. Most of us were well into adulthood while it was going on. Yet none of us had much recollection of the events or the reasons for what happened. In one interview with Galloway, the interviewer mentions that there is little English-language literature about Sarajevo. The author says "There were some people outraged, but most people thought of it as just tribal, too complicated, and just washed their hands of it as a result." He went on to say "One of the things that really bugs me lately is that in lots of 'books of the year' lists that are out [for 2008, when the book was published]...they put The Cellist of Sarajevo in historical fiction, while there are plenty of books listed in the contemporary fiction sections that take place in the eighties! How is it that a mere ten years ago becomes 'historical'?"
While this book opened our eyes to what happened in Sarajevo, it also explores what happens in any war, when neighbors turn on neighbors and anger turns into hatred and murder. We like to think that can't happen in a "melting pot" like the United States, but we wonder if it is possible that there are factions within Grand Rapids with that sort of division. Recently, a play called "Lines" in a local theater explored "the experience of race" in this city. Someone in our group rightly pointed out that we really have no idea how our own little society is perceived by others.
Then it was time to eat, of course. Food is always an important part of any Neland gathering. Just ask the Fun Committee. Yes, we really have a Fun Committee. We are Christian Reformed; we like things to be planned in advance, and we need to know when it is time to have fun, so we must have committees for these things. That way we can be sure there will be good food available at any event. It's how we do things, and we like it that way.
Thanks for another good night, ladies!
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Navigating "The Social Network"
Yes, I know this is supposed to be a book blog. However, I've been reading book club books, and I don't want to report on them until after those book clubs meet! I'm also one third of the way through The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman, so hopefully I'll be able to tell you a bit about that one soon, too.
In the meantime, I'll tell you about The Social Network. This is the movie about Mark Zuckerberg, who started Facebook. Facebook has become an important part of my daily communications, so how could I pass up this one?
The Social Network is basically about a brilliant programmer who put together his coding skills, some other people's ideas, with some of his own masterful touches to come up with a social networking site that has become commonplace worldwide. The site is, theoretically, intended to bring people together. I'll say in my experience that this has been true sometimes. It's been a good way to get to know a little more about people who have just joined my church, for example. Yet we have all seen how internet activity can also bring people low through bullying or hateful words and deeds.
Facebook, and similar sites, have also changed the definition of "friend." Yes, Facebook has turned the word into a verb, as in "He friended me on Facebook." But if you are judging your success in relationships by the number of friends you have on the site, then your definition of friend may be lacking. In this movie, the people who call each other "friend" are usually friends on the most superficial levels--hookups, roommates, business partners. Each assumes that they know the other person and what that person is capable of. The movie points out that you can know someone's skills, relationship status, interests, and work history without ever really knowing the character of the person.
Zuckerberg, as portrayed, could possibly have Aspergers or something similar, and what he has in technical knowledge, he lacks in ability to follow social cues. I have no idea how accurate this portrayal is, so I go forward on the basis of a character, not the real guy. Thus, the Zuckerberg character who creates a new way to friend people has few friends of his own. He's a would-be social climber with no social prospects.
One small detail, which I can only assume to be a well-used product placement, gave a good clue to the character's wishes. When he is a lowly, broke Harvard student, his wealthy friend and roommate Eduardo is frequently shown wearing a North Face jacket. Later in the movie, when Facebook has exploded and the investors are lining up at the door, Zuckerberg is still alone, but he's wearing his own North Face jacket. It's as if he has begun to acquire the trappings of the social circle he wants to penetrate, but is still unable to be a part of it.
The divisions between people are enhanced throughout the movie. Characters don't go all the way into a room or a building, and when they do they aren't seated with the group or they get up and walk away. They are shown alone, looking longingly at groups of people. Often they are looking through glass walls.
Romantic relationships in the film are the opposite of intimate, based on superficial sexuality or self-centered egotism. The party-hungry lifestyle of just about every character in the movie made me want to go home and lock my children in their rooms until they are 30 (and I wouldn't let them see this movie). No one seemed all that admirable. Even the intelligence failed miserably as each one of them made stupid mistakes at some point in time.
I'm not sure what this movie is saying about society in general, other than to point out dramatically that what passes for a social network can often be no more than a spider's web in which you turn out to be the ensnared fly.
By the way, did I say that I liked this movie? I did. I couldn't quite imagine how the story would translate into a movie, but it does. Justin Timberlake plays a sleazy Sean Parker very well, and I can't help but like the awkward character of Zuckerberg as played by Jesse Eisenberg. While I don't admire any of them, it's hard to hate any of them either. Except Sean Parker. Sorry Justin.
In the meantime, I'll tell you about The Social Network. This is the movie about Mark Zuckerberg, who started Facebook. Facebook has become an important part of my daily communications, so how could I pass up this one?
The Social Network is basically about a brilliant programmer who put together his coding skills, some other people's ideas, with some of his own masterful touches to come up with a social networking site that has become commonplace worldwide. The site is, theoretically, intended to bring people together. I'll say in my experience that this has been true sometimes. It's been a good way to get to know a little more about people who have just joined my church, for example. Yet we have all seen how internet activity can also bring people low through bullying or hateful words and deeds.
Facebook, and similar sites, have also changed the definition of "friend." Yes, Facebook has turned the word into a verb, as in "He friended me on Facebook." But if you are judging your success in relationships by the number of friends you have on the site, then your definition of friend may be lacking. In this movie, the people who call each other "friend" are usually friends on the most superficial levels--hookups, roommates, business partners. Each assumes that they know the other person and what that person is capable of. The movie points out that you can know someone's skills, relationship status, interests, and work history without ever really knowing the character of the person.
Zuckerberg, as portrayed, could possibly have Aspergers or something similar, and what he has in technical knowledge, he lacks in ability to follow social cues. I have no idea how accurate this portrayal is, so I go forward on the basis of a character, not the real guy. Thus, the Zuckerberg character who creates a new way to friend people has few friends of his own. He's a would-be social climber with no social prospects.
One small detail, which I can only assume to be a well-used product placement, gave a good clue to the character's wishes. When he is a lowly, broke Harvard student, his wealthy friend and roommate Eduardo is frequently shown wearing a North Face jacket. Later in the movie, when Facebook has exploded and the investors are lining up at the door, Zuckerberg is still alone, but he's wearing his own North Face jacket. It's as if he has begun to acquire the trappings of the social circle he wants to penetrate, but is still unable to be a part of it.
The divisions between people are enhanced throughout the movie. Characters don't go all the way into a room or a building, and when they do they aren't seated with the group or they get up and walk away. They are shown alone, looking longingly at groups of people. Often they are looking through glass walls.
Romantic relationships in the film are the opposite of intimate, based on superficial sexuality or self-centered egotism. The party-hungry lifestyle of just about every character in the movie made me want to go home and lock my children in their rooms until they are 30 (and I wouldn't let them see this movie). No one seemed all that admirable. Even the intelligence failed miserably as each one of them made stupid mistakes at some point in time.
I'm not sure what this movie is saying about society in general, other than to point out dramatically that what passes for a social network can often be no more than a spider's web in which you turn out to be the ensnared fly.
By the way, did I say that I liked this movie? I did. I couldn't quite imagine how the story would translate into a movie, but it does. Justin Timberlake plays a sleazy Sean Parker very well, and I can't help but like the awkward character of Zuckerberg as played by Jesse Eisenberg. While I don't admire any of them, it's hard to hate any of them either. Except Sean Parker. Sorry Justin.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Get Out There and "Get Low"
Novels hold many attractions for me, including a good story and great characters. The same is true for movies--I love to lose myself in a good movie, and going out afterward to discuss it with our movie group makes the experience even better. My husband and I have been in an ever-changing movie group, organized through our church, for the last ten years. We've seen some great movies and some real turkeys, but almost any movie is improved by good food and friends.
Our movie choices are determined not only by intense research and lots of email back and forth, but first and foremost by which ones are at the cheap theater. And they have to be showing early enough that we have time to go out afterward and get some of our harder-working members to bed on time.
Recently our group went to see Get Low, a quiet, powerful movie about forgiveness and redemption that came out last year but just made its way to Grand Rapids this fall. Robert Duvall stars as Felix Bush, a hermit who decides he wants to plan his funeral. To occur while he is still living.
The movie is based on a true life story. Felix "Bush" Breazeale lived in Tennessee, and on June 26, 1938 he held his own funeral, with 8,000-12,000 people in attendance. The event attracted curious visitors from all over the country, and it turned Felix into a celebrity for a time. He apparently lived five years past his funeral.
The Felix Bush of the film is a man who has been living with a secret for 40 years, and he feels it is time to "get low"--time to make peace with his past. Robert Duvall plays the lead role--gruff, loner Felix--with understated power, and he has a great supporting cast. Bill Murray is wonderful, funny as ever, as the undertaker who is afraid he will go out of business due to a lamentable lack of deaths in town. He's a salesman and possibly a con man, and he's developing a worrying sense of compassion. His charmingly upstanding assistant is Buddy (Lucas Black), a young man with a wife and a baby, who struggles to balance his need to make a living with his concern about taking advantage of a sad, lonely old man. A graceful Sissy Spacek plays Mattie, a woman from Felix's early life.
The town has developed plenty of stories, true and otherwise, over the years of Felix' self-imposed exile. They are all curious about him and this funeral for their own reasons.
Bill Cobbs is outstanding as Charlie Jackson, a preacher in another town. Felix confided in Charlie years ago, but ignored Charlie's wise counsel. Now Felix wants Charlie to speak at the funeral party.
This movie has a lot to say about the need to confess and be forgiven. Felix would much rather punish himself and earn his own redemption, but it's just not working out for him. When he questions Charlie about his wish to do things his own way, Charlie informs him that "free will is not what it's cracked up to be."
Ponderous and beautiful, the film has more to offer than a great cast. A witty, warm script, gorgeous use of light, and a fittingly lovely soundtrack (including "Lay My Burden Down" by Alison Krauss) add to the power of the story. There are slow moments, but they give you space to consider. It may be time for you, too, to Get Low.
Our movie choices are determined not only by intense research and lots of email back and forth, but first and foremost by which ones are at the cheap theater. And they have to be showing early enough that we have time to go out afterward and get some of our harder-working members to bed on time.
Recently our group went to see Get Low, a quiet, powerful movie about forgiveness and redemption that came out last year but just made its way to Grand Rapids this fall. Robert Duvall stars as Felix Bush, a hermit who decides he wants to plan his funeral. To occur while he is still living.
The movie is based on a true life story. Felix "Bush" Breazeale lived in Tennessee, and on June 26, 1938 he held his own funeral, with 8,000-12,000 people in attendance. The event attracted curious visitors from all over the country, and it turned Felix into a celebrity for a time. He apparently lived five years past his funeral.
The Felix Bush of the film is a man who has been living with a secret for 40 years, and he feels it is time to "get low"--time to make peace with his past. Robert Duvall plays the lead role--gruff, loner Felix--with understated power, and he has a great supporting cast. Bill Murray is wonderful, funny as ever, as the undertaker who is afraid he will go out of business due to a lamentable lack of deaths in town. He's a salesman and possibly a con man, and he's developing a worrying sense of compassion. His charmingly upstanding assistant is Buddy (Lucas Black), a young man with a wife and a baby, who struggles to balance his need to make a living with his concern about taking advantage of a sad, lonely old man. A graceful Sissy Spacek plays Mattie, a woman from Felix's early life.
The town has developed plenty of stories, true and otherwise, over the years of Felix' self-imposed exile. They are all curious about him and this funeral for their own reasons.
Bill Cobbs is outstanding as Charlie Jackson, a preacher in another town. Felix confided in Charlie years ago, but ignored Charlie's wise counsel. Now Felix wants Charlie to speak at the funeral party.
This movie has a lot to say about the need to confess and be forgiven. Felix would much rather punish himself and earn his own redemption, but it's just not working out for him. When he questions Charlie about his wish to do things his own way, Charlie informs him that "free will is not what it's cracked up to be."
Ponderous and beautiful, the film has more to offer than a great cast. A witty, warm script, gorgeous use of light, and a fittingly lovely soundtrack (including "Lay My Burden Down" by Alison Krauss) add to the power of the story. There are slow moments, but they give you space to consider. It may be time for you, too, to Get Low.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Cross Cultural Non-Communication
The latest Fab 5 meeting began with a trip report. One of us had gone to her hometown of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and she regaled us with tales of mysterious Wisconsin food staples such as cheese curds and visits to exotic places like Goesse’s, the Meat Market and Clem’s Wagon Wheel. She also got a tour of the Kohler factory, a tour guided by one Elmer VanderWeele, brother to the famous Calvin College English professor, Steve.
While this may seem like a strange way to start a book discussion, it was oddly fitting. This month’s book was The Thing around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Adichie is a Nigerian author who now divides her time between the United States and Nigeria. The Thing Around Your Neck is a collection of short stories, and each one reveals some level of homesickness for what was and for what should be. Adichie does an excellent job of illuminating the tension of living somewhere between two cultures.
Sonya pointed out that, while Adichie is a good writer, the stories often end too abruptly. You’re left feeling as though the story isn’t finished, just ended. Also, she noted that the men in the stories do not come off well, particularly the Nigerian men. I agree, but it seems as though each story explores the way one person is silenced or repressed, someone who needs to speak (or face) the truth. Some of these characters are a woman in an arranged marriage, a young man who is beginning to see what corruption of justice leads to, and a girl who has played a hand in her brother's death. Some struggle with their sexuality. All of her narrators or main characters are women, and in Nigeria like many societies, men have power and so are the most likely candidates to oppress. So it is partly the themes of the book that lead to negative images of men.
Sonya did enjoy some of Adichie's insights, including a story where a Nigerian woman is a nanny for a young boy in America. She observes that "American parenting was a juggling of anxieties, and that it came with having too much food: a sated belly gave Amercians time to worry that their child might have a rare disease that they had just read about, made them think they had the right to protect their child from disappointment and want and failure." She also skewers the food culture of this country, when a young woman in a newly arrange marriage accompanies her husband to an American mall. "We ate the pizza sitting at a small round table in what he called a 'food court.' A sea of people sitting around circular tables, hunched over paper plates of greasy food...There was something humiliatingly public, something lacking in dignity, about this place, this open space of too many tables and too much food."
Made us wonder what she'd think of the former tradition at the denominational building where all of us work. Once a week, someone get a bunch of donuts and set them up in the breakroom for anyone who wanted to pay 50 cents. What a great idea. Extra calories for a bunch of us who already spend too much time sitting at desks , with the added bonus that when someone “forgot” to pay the denomination could foot the bill for the demise of the health that they pay to care for. Hmm. I think we know why that one fizzled out. But back to the book.
Adichie examines the strange brew that has come to be the culture of Nigeria—corruption, inequity, oppression—due to many factors such as colonialism, tribalism and religious differences. In my favorite story of the book, a Hausa Muslim woman and a young Igbo woman who'd been raised Catholic hide together in an abandoned storefront as a riot goes on in the market. The very human contact that these two women have as they wait for a safe exit belies the angry mob outside the door, and it gives a glimpse into the complicated nature of such disputes. All of these difficulties have formed a society where the only way to get what you need from the government, the police, the bank, or the merchant is to have some power. And power is abused wherever it is found, not just in Nigeria and not just in Africa.
The even stranger brew comes when you throw in Western society. Take a Nigerian woman and plant her in a home that her husband has prepared in the United States. She must somehow navigate her own culture shock, the man she married who may not be who she thought, the expectations of neighbors, and a bond with a home country that slowly becomes less her own. Where does she belong? Who does she belong with?
Beyond the societal issues, Adichie takes a close look at bonds between parent and child, husband and wife, brother and sister. She is a keen observer of human nature and the way we relate to each other. It’s hard to imagine the matriarchal grandmother in the book who puts all of her hopes and dreams into one grandson, belittling the rest. Especially after hearing Barbara detail a day spent with her grandchild—watching out the window for trucks, playing with toys, watching the little one sleep in her bed. When does power enter a relationship, and when does it begin to change it? Barbara's obvious infatuation with her grandchild makes the tension that can come in a family seem impossible.
We topped off our meaty discussion with some meat pies, hummus and flatbread. I would have loved to make some Nigerian food like jollof rice or pounded yam with egusi soup, but that's a lot of work, and as much as I love these ladies, I don’t love them enough for that right now. So we settled for another food that I ate in Nigeria, since it is a country rife with excellent Lebanese food due to all the Lebanese expats there.
And if you want to hear me wax nostalgic for Nigeria, where I spent exactly one out of my 41 and 23/24 years, just ask me. One kind of character that shows up on much of what I've read of Adichie's work is the American or Brit who is overly fascinated with African culture, or who seems to claim it as their own, even after a short experience there. I try hard not to take that personally.
While the rest of my book club now thinks Nigeria doesn’t sound so great, reading these stories oddly makes me want to jump on the next plane. Readers had the same mixed reaction when the Neland Women read one of my favorite books, also by Adichie, called Purple Hibiscus. I’ve decided that Adichie can describe the smells and sounds so well that if you’ve been there, it brings back all of the good things, even though she doesn’t always tell about the good things.
And the good things are not always so easy to explain—even describing them might leave others thinking they don’t sound so good. When I worked for Christian Reformed World Missions, our communications director shared with me two and fast rules about video presentations. First, none should end with a shot of a sunset--cliche, cliche, cliche. Second, no missionary should title their video presentation "Land of Contrasts," because that can be said about any country. But you can understand the impulse. Whenever you visit a new country, you are struck by the contrasts you wouldn't notice in your own. And Adichie's book seems intent on introducing us to the contrasts within both Nigeria and America and between the two of them.
While this may seem like a strange way to start a book discussion, it was oddly fitting. This month’s book was The Thing around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Adichie is a Nigerian author who now divides her time between the United States and Nigeria. The Thing Around Your Neck is a collection of short stories, and each one reveals some level of homesickness for what was and for what should be. Adichie does an excellent job of illuminating the tension of living somewhere between two cultures.
Sonya pointed out that, while Adichie is a good writer, the stories often end too abruptly. You’re left feeling as though the story isn’t finished, just ended. Also, she noted that the men in the stories do not come off well, particularly the Nigerian men. I agree, but it seems as though each story explores the way one person is silenced or repressed, someone who needs to speak (or face) the truth. Some of these characters are a woman in an arranged marriage, a young man who is beginning to see what corruption of justice leads to, and a girl who has played a hand in her brother's death. Some struggle with their sexuality. All of her narrators or main characters are women, and in Nigeria like many societies, men have power and so are the most likely candidates to oppress. So it is partly the themes of the book that lead to negative images of men.
Sonya did enjoy some of Adichie's insights, including a story where a Nigerian woman is a nanny for a young boy in America. She observes that "American parenting was a juggling of anxieties, and that it came with having too much food: a sated belly gave Amercians time to worry that their child might have a rare disease that they had just read about, made them think they had the right to protect their child from disappointment and want and failure." She also skewers the food culture of this country, when a young woman in a newly arrange marriage accompanies her husband to an American mall. "We ate the pizza sitting at a small round table in what he called a 'food court.' A sea of people sitting around circular tables, hunched over paper plates of greasy food...There was something humiliatingly public, something lacking in dignity, about this place, this open space of too many tables and too much food."
Made us wonder what she'd think of the former tradition at the denominational building where all of us work. Once a week, someone get a bunch of donuts and set them up in the breakroom for anyone who wanted to pay 50 cents. What a great idea. Extra calories for a bunch of us who already spend too much time sitting at desks , with the added bonus that when someone “forgot” to pay the denomination could foot the bill for the demise of the health that they pay to care for. Hmm. I think we know why that one fizzled out. But back to the book.
Adichie examines the strange brew that has come to be the culture of Nigeria—corruption, inequity, oppression—due to many factors such as colonialism, tribalism and religious differences. In my favorite story of the book, a Hausa Muslim woman and a young Igbo woman who'd been raised Catholic hide together in an abandoned storefront as a riot goes on in the market. The very human contact that these two women have as they wait for a safe exit belies the angry mob outside the door, and it gives a glimpse into the complicated nature of such disputes. All of these difficulties have formed a society where the only way to get what you need from the government, the police, the bank, or the merchant is to have some power. And power is abused wherever it is found, not just in Nigeria and not just in Africa.
The even stranger brew comes when you throw in Western society. Take a Nigerian woman and plant her in a home that her husband has prepared in the United States. She must somehow navigate her own culture shock, the man she married who may not be who she thought, the expectations of neighbors, and a bond with a home country that slowly becomes less her own. Where does she belong? Who does she belong with?
Beyond the societal issues, Adichie takes a close look at bonds between parent and child, husband and wife, brother and sister. She is a keen observer of human nature and the way we relate to each other. It’s hard to imagine the matriarchal grandmother in the book who puts all of her hopes and dreams into one grandson, belittling the rest. Especially after hearing Barbara detail a day spent with her grandchild—watching out the window for trucks, playing with toys, watching the little one sleep in her bed. When does power enter a relationship, and when does it begin to change it? Barbara's obvious infatuation with her grandchild makes the tension that can come in a family seem impossible.
We topped off our meaty discussion with some meat pies, hummus and flatbread. I would have loved to make some Nigerian food like jollof rice or pounded yam with egusi soup, but that's a lot of work, and as much as I love these ladies, I don’t love them enough for that right now. So we settled for another food that I ate in Nigeria, since it is a country rife with excellent Lebanese food due to all the Lebanese expats there.
And if you want to hear me wax nostalgic for Nigeria, where I spent exactly one out of my 41 and 23/24 years, just ask me. One kind of character that shows up on much of what I've read of Adichie's work is the American or Brit who is overly fascinated with African culture, or who seems to claim it as their own, even after a short experience there. I try hard not to take that personally.
While the rest of my book club now thinks Nigeria doesn’t sound so great, reading these stories oddly makes me want to jump on the next plane. Readers had the same mixed reaction when the Neland Women read one of my favorite books, also by Adichie, called Purple Hibiscus. I’ve decided that Adichie can describe the smells and sounds so well that if you’ve been there, it brings back all of the good things, even though she doesn’t always tell about the good things.
And the good things are not always so easy to explain—even describing them might leave others thinking they don’t sound so good. When I worked for Christian Reformed World Missions, our communications director shared with me two and fast rules about video presentations. First, none should end with a shot of a sunset--cliche, cliche, cliche. Second, no missionary should title their video presentation "Land of Contrasts," because that can be said about any country. But you can understand the impulse. Whenever you visit a new country, you are struck by the contrasts you wouldn't notice in your own. And Adichie's book seems intent on introducing us to the contrasts within both Nigeria and America and between the two of them.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Extremely Odd and Incredibly Good
Last week the Neland Women's Book Club gathered together to discuss Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. I've waited until now to report on it because I wanted to finish it first.
In Foer's novel, young Oskar is mourning the loss of his father, who died in the September 11 attack in New York. He has found a key in his father's closet, and he sets off, searching New York, to find the lock that it opens. The novel incorporates several narratives, as well as unusual design elements such as pages with only a few words, and photos of Stephen Hawking, fingerprints, gemstones and other images that give insight into the main characters more than they illustrate the story.
The overall response to the novel was positive, though there was a feeling of disappointment from some regarding the way the quest ends.
Karen, our enthusiastic leader, started us off with some biographical information about the author. Then she opened the discussion by asking "What do you think this novel is about?" The fact that this question got a few different answers is indicative of the odd nature of the story. Don't read it if you like a story that moves from point A to B to C all the way to Z. This one starts at point A (sort of) then has more of a G, F, B, J, D style.
And so, what did we think the book was about? Here's what we came up with: It was about a boy working out his grief, Aspergers syndrome or autism, post traumatic stress syndrome, and missed communication. And of course, 9/11.
Now that I've finished the book, I can tell you that I absolutely loved it. I love the way the weird characters and strange narrative weave together to give you a picture of love and sadness and loss. This sad little boy is brilliant, funny, awkward and utterly honest. It's surreal--you have to be willing to suspend disbelief on several occasions--but if you can do it, you'll be rewarded.
The broken, hurting people in the book love each other fiercely, even against their wills sometimes. But none of them tell each other how they really feel. They keep secrets, and they keep quiet. At one point, the grandfather is going through customs with a pile of suitcases, and he tells the customs officer that he has nothing to declare. "'That's a lot of suitcases for someone with nothing to declare,' he said, I nodded, knowing that people with nothing to declare carry the most..." This line is only a small portion of the sentence, which should also show you that Foer plays fast and loose with the commas.
In spite of the comma issues, Foer is a gifted writer who brings the reader into the emotions and experiences of the characters. He gives several images of people who have put away emotions with physical items. Oskar hides a phone with messages from his father recorded on it from the day of his death. He wraps it up in a scarf, puts that inside a grocery bag, inside a box, inside another box and under a pile in his closet. Another boy ends a long relationship with his female best friend next door when she says "I love you" into the can on her side of the string between their houses. The boy breaks the string, puts a cover on the can and "put her love for him on a shelf in his closet."
There are so many lovely, odd, heartbreaking moments. The grandparents, who lost everything in the allied bombings on Dresden, found each other in America but could never share their grief. They lived in self-imposed silences--he refusing to speak, she refusing to see--unable to visit the reality of the past and therefore turning the present into a fiction. Oskar's mother tries to protect her son from her grief, and Oskar, in turn, tries to protect his mother from his own sadness. Oskar's elderly neighbor has cut himself off from the world by refusing to hear.
In spite of the sadness, there is also hope. In one remembered section, Oskar's father is telling his son a story. Oskar is questioning the factuality of the story. Oskar's father asks him if he's an optimist or a pessimist, and Oskar responds that he's an optimist. His father says "Well, that's good, because there's no irrefutable evidence. There's nothing that could convince someone who doesn't want to be convinced. But there is an abundance of clues that would give the wanting believer something to hold on to."
Real life, we women of Neland concluded, is "extremely loud and incredibly close." Sometimes that's too much for us, whether we are fragile, or grieving, or somewhere on the autistic scale. In good times, we take too much for granted, and we live with the guilt of that when disaster strikes. Karen did her best to bring us to tears by reading from the letter from the grandmother, who lost her sister Anna, along with the rest of her family, in the Dresden bombings.
"I said, I want to tell you something.
She said, You can tell me tomorrow.
I had never told her how much I loved her.
She was my sister.
We slept in the same bed.
There was never a right time to say it.
It was always unnecessary...
I rolled onto my side and fell asleep next to her.
Here is the point of everything I have been trying to tell you, Oskar.
It's always necessary.
I love you,
Grandma"
In Foer's novel, young Oskar is mourning the loss of his father, who died in the September 11 attack in New York. He has found a key in his father's closet, and he sets off, searching New York, to find the lock that it opens. The novel incorporates several narratives, as well as unusual design elements such as pages with only a few words, and photos of Stephen Hawking, fingerprints, gemstones and other images that give insight into the main characters more than they illustrate the story.
The overall response to the novel was positive, though there was a feeling of disappointment from some regarding the way the quest ends.
Karen, our enthusiastic leader, started us off with some biographical information about the author. Then she opened the discussion by asking "What do you think this novel is about?" The fact that this question got a few different answers is indicative of the odd nature of the story. Don't read it if you like a story that moves from point A to B to C all the way to Z. This one starts at point A (sort of) then has more of a G, F, B, J, D style.
And so, what did we think the book was about? Here's what we came up with: It was about a boy working out his grief, Aspergers syndrome or autism, post traumatic stress syndrome, and missed communication. And of course, 9/11.
Now that I've finished the book, I can tell you that I absolutely loved it. I love the way the weird characters and strange narrative weave together to give you a picture of love and sadness and loss. This sad little boy is brilliant, funny, awkward and utterly honest. It's surreal--you have to be willing to suspend disbelief on several occasions--but if you can do it, you'll be rewarded.
The broken, hurting people in the book love each other fiercely, even against their wills sometimes. But none of them tell each other how they really feel. They keep secrets, and they keep quiet. At one point, the grandfather is going through customs with a pile of suitcases, and he tells the customs officer that he has nothing to declare. "'That's a lot of suitcases for someone with nothing to declare,' he said, I nodded, knowing that people with nothing to declare carry the most..." This line is only a small portion of the sentence, which should also show you that Foer plays fast and loose with the commas.
In spite of the comma issues, Foer is a gifted writer who brings the reader into the emotions and experiences of the characters. He gives several images of people who have put away emotions with physical items. Oskar hides a phone with messages from his father recorded on it from the day of his death. He wraps it up in a scarf, puts that inside a grocery bag, inside a box, inside another box and under a pile in his closet. Another boy ends a long relationship with his female best friend next door when she says "I love you" into the can on her side of the string between their houses. The boy breaks the string, puts a cover on the can and "put her love for him on a shelf in his closet."
There are so many lovely, odd, heartbreaking moments. The grandparents, who lost everything in the allied bombings on Dresden, found each other in America but could never share their grief. They lived in self-imposed silences--he refusing to speak, she refusing to see--unable to visit the reality of the past and therefore turning the present into a fiction. Oskar's mother tries to protect her son from her grief, and Oskar, in turn, tries to protect his mother from his own sadness. Oskar's elderly neighbor has cut himself off from the world by refusing to hear.
In spite of the sadness, there is also hope. In one remembered section, Oskar's father is telling his son a story. Oskar is questioning the factuality of the story. Oskar's father asks him if he's an optimist or a pessimist, and Oskar responds that he's an optimist. His father says "Well, that's good, because there's no irrefutable evidence. There's nothing that could convince someone who doesn't want to be convinced. But there is an abundance of clues that would give the wanting believer something to hold on to."
Real life, we women of Neland concluded, is "extremely loud and incredibly close." Sometimes that's too much for us, whether we are fragile, or grieving, or somewhere on the autistic scale. In good times, we take too much for granted, and we live with the guilt of that when disaster strikes. Karen did her best to bring us to tears by reading from the letter from the grandmother, who lost her sister Anna, along with the rest of her family, in the Dresden bombings.
"I said, I want to tell you something.
She said, You can tell me tomorrow.
I had never told her how much I loved her.
She was my sister.
We slept in the same bed.
There was never a right time to say it.
It was always unnecessary...
I rolled onto my side and fell asleep next to her.
Here is the point of everything I have been trying to tell you, Oskar.
It's always necessary.
I love you,
Grandma"
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Another Hero Bites the Dust
Lest some of you expect to see a report on the Neland Women's Book Club meeting tonight, you'll have to wait a few more days for that. I have a little more to read in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer before I write it up. So on to something else.
Just last week I told some friends about my crush on Michael Chabon. I'd read The Yiddish Policeman's Union, and Chabon came to Calvin College two years ago to speak. He was so charming, intelligent and handsome in a tweedy professorial sort of way. The day after my "confession," I started listening to his book Manhood for Amateurs, which is a collection of essays reflecting on, as the cover says, his life as a son, husband and father.
First off, Chabon is a beautiful writer. In his novels, he concocts detailed, imaginative, real-to-the-reader worlds and characters. In these essays, he applies the same talent to describing the worlds of his childhood, teen years, young adulthood and his current role as a husband and father of four children. I found his essay on being the grateful son-in-law of a loving father-in-law, and the sorrow that he caused that father-in-law in the subsequent demise of his first marriage, to be an honest and touching examination of the way brokenness affects us.
But I wouldn't recommend this book to, well, anyone I can think of. I might recommend sections of it. I found myself ping-ponging between disappointment and warm feelings of familiarity and recognition of common experiences.
Disappointment at his contempt for "the God of Abraham" and Christians in general, as well as his honest-to-a-fault descriptions of his long-term use of marijuana and early sexual experience. Close to the beginning, he uses a profane nickname to express his disgust for the God of the Old Testament. While I have thought often that the God of the Old Testament is at times frightening and confusing, this was so disturbing to me that I almost turned it off for good. The fact that I had paid good money for this particular CD is probably the overriding, if not appropriate, reason I continued to listen at all. That and the fact that the story from the Bible he referred to was when Abraham was asked to sacrifice Isaac, which has always been one of the most difficult stories for me to process. He also refers to the Christmas story, strangely affectionately, as a lie that tells a truth.
And yet, profanity not dismissed but set aside, I also nodded knowingly when he discussed the change in the landscape of childhood, from adventurous wilderness exploration when we were young to the ultrasafe, prescribed bubbles of our own kids' lives. I laughed out loud at his reaction to finding out that the "oldies" station no longer played 50s and 60s music, but was playing Phil Collins and other 70s and 80s music. It gave me food for thought that the Lego sets of our childhoods were collections of uniform, brightly colored blocks that we put into whatever shape we thought up, while the sets that our children play with are designed to be turned into predetermined airships from Star Wars movies or sets from Indiana Jones movies. And Chabon's loving and unvarnished description of his wife, his children and their family life is one of the high points of the book.
In the last week, the only way I could read anything was to listen to it as I drove from place to place. Listening to a book is such a different experience than reading it. The things that offend me most stick in my head in the voice of the author, and the beautiful or humorous things don't. I had the same experience a while back when I listened to the young adult novel Feed by M.T. Anderson. The story had me, but the extreme language was intensified by hearing it spoken. On the other hand, that particular story that revolves around a futuristic world where people have some sort of internet feed in their heads, was quite effective on CD since it felt a bit as though the feed were inside my own head!
To counteract the downsides of Manhood for Amateurs, and to put something on when the kids were in the car and the book wasn't an option, I enjoyed listening to "Welcome to the Welcome Wagon" by the group called, you guessed it, The Welcome Wagon. The Welcome Wagon is headed up by a pastor/husband and wife duo, and their trippy music ranges somewhere between folk music, gospel, Salvation Army Band, and the age of Aquarius. It is often joyful and sometimes beautifully mournful, and it's great for a singalong in the car. A nice break from the musings of a dapper, sort-of-Jewish, liberal agnostic who has little use for me and my beliefs.
Just last week I told some friends about my crush on Michael Chabon. I'd read The Yiddish Policeman's Union, and Chabon came to Calvin College two years ago to speak. He was so charming, intelligent and handsome in a tweedy professorial sort of way. The day after my "confession," I started listening to his book Manhood for Amateurs, which is a collection of essays reflecting on, as the cover says, his life as a son, husband and father.
First off, Chabon is a beautiful writer. In his novels, he concocts detailed, imaginative, real-to-the-reader worlds and characters. In these essays, he applies the same talent to describing the worlds of his childhood, teen years, young adulthood and his current role as a husband and father of four children. I found his essay on being the grateful son-in-law of a loving father-in-law, and the sorrow that he caused that father-in-law in the subsequent demise of his first marriage, to be an honest and touching examination of the way brokenness affects us.
But I wouldn't recommend this book to, well, anyone I can think of. I might recommend sections of it. I found myself ping-ponging between disappointment and warm feelings of familiarity and recognition of common experiences.
Disappointment at his contempt for "the God of Abraham" and Christians in general, as well as his honest-to-a-fault descriptions of his long-term use of marijuana and early sexual experience. Close to the beginning, he uses a profane nickname to express his disgust for the God of the Old Testament. While I have thought often that the God of the Old Testament is at times frightening and confusing, this was so disturbing to me that I almost turned it off for good. The fact that I had paid good money for this particular CD is probably the overriding, if not appropriate, reason I continued to listen at all. That and the fact that the story from the Bible he referred to was when Abraham was asked to sacrifice Isaac, which has always been one of the most difficult stories for me to process. He also refers to the Christmas story, strangely affectionately, as a lie that tells a truth.
And yet, profanity not dismissed but set aside, I also nodded knowingly when he discussed the change in the landscape of childhood, from adventurous wilderness exploration when we were young to the ultrasafe, prescribed bubbles of our own kids' lives. I laughed out loud at his reaction to finding out that the "oldies" station no longer played 50s and 60s music, but was playing Phil Collins and other 70s and 80s music. It gave me food for thought that the Lego sets of our childhoods were collections of uniform, brightly colored blocks that we put into whatever shape we thought up, while the sets that our children play with are designed to be turned into predetermined airships from Star Wars movies or sets from Indiana Jones movies. And Chabon's loving and unvarnished description of his wife, his children and their family life is one of the high points of the book.
In the last week, the only way I could read anything was to listen to it as I drove from place to place. Listening to a book is such a different experience than reading it. The things that offend me most stick in my head in the voice of the author, and the beautiful or humorous things don't. I had the same experience a while back when I listened to the young adult novel Feed by M.T. Anderson. The story had me, but the extreme language was intensified by hearing it spoken. On the other hand, that particular story that revolves around a futuristic world where people have some sort of internet feed in their heads, was quite effective on CD since it felt a bit as though the feed were inside my own head!
To counteract the downsides of Manhood for Amateurs, and to put something on when the kids were in the car and the book wasn't an option, I enjoyed listening to "Welcome to the Welcome Wagon" by the group called, you guessed it, The Welcome Wagon. The Welcome Wagon is headed up by a pastor/husband and wife duo, and their trippy music ranges somewhere between folk music, gospel, Salvation Army Band, and the age of Aquarius. It is often joyful and sometimes beautifully mournful, and it's great for a singalong in the car. A nice break from the musings of a dapper, sort-of-Jewish, liberal agnostic who has little use for me and my beliefs.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Working through a Good Book
As a reader, I am drawn to a good story. Good characters are high on my list, too. Nonfiction is not my first choice, though I still like it (when it reads like a story). I want to lose myself in a book, and if along the way I learn some facts or history, that's great too. Which made most textbooks a drag. Lots of facts, not enough story.
Another book that at times I have thought of as less than compelling reading is the Bible. Strange that a book that is so central to my faith, to my life, would be such hard going. Geneaologies, ritual laws, commands. Add some difficult language and the fact that I felt like I knew every story already from years of church education and Christian schools, and it became like my opinion of other textbooks--lots of facts, not enough story.
Of course, the relationship of a reader to the Bible goes through many phases. Sometimes the words come alive to me, breathing into my very soul. Other times the words run together and I can barely stay awake to make sense of them. But almost all of the time I tend to read the Bible as piecework--pick a book, start studying it, and I may or may not finish the job. I've always been impressed by people who make a commitment to read the whole Bible, in order, as a book, but I have yet to accomplish that myself.
About a year and a half ago, I began freelance work on study Bibles for Zondervan. I do some of the picky editing of the notes and articles--checking that quotes match the actual text, making sure that references actually refer to the correct verse, checking that the space after an italicized word is not italicized. Though I love the work, I am aware that my passion for finding an errant italicization is not a widely shared passion.
Beyond the edit, though, I learn a lot of little facts along the way. Did you know that the men of the tribe of Benjamin were mostly left-handed? Did you know that Abraham's wife Sarah, looker that she was, was taken into Pharaoh's harem at age 65 (when Abraham lied that she was his sister) and later into another harem at age 90--NINETY!--when Abraham lied again. Tattoos and nose rings are not a new trend--you can find them throughout the Bible, if you're reading the right translation, though the good Israelite was warned against getting inked. And in an interesting euphemism, where most modern translations refer to male prostitutes, the King James Version talks about "raisin cakes."
As fascinating as these tidbits may or may not be, I have learned something else. When you spend 2-3 months skimming the major points of the Bible, and then you go back and review the same Bible from different angles two more times, you realize how interconnected all of the stories and the promises are. God's book, that tome that sometimes seems so ancient and distant from my life, is alive with the struggles that I face in my everyday life, and it's overflowing with the promises that God offers (and fulfills) for both Biblical figures and to myself.
I may never get around to reading the every word of the Word from start to finish. Yet, the opportunity to work through it time and time again, by way of study notes and articles, has changed the way I look at the book, and I count it as a blessing.
Another book that at times I have thought of as less than compelling reading is the Bible. Strange that a book that is so central to my faith, to my life, would be such hard going. Geneaologies, ritual laws, commands. Add some difficult language and the fact that I felt like I knew every story already from years of church education and Christian schools, and it became like my opinion of other textbooks--lots of facts, not enough story.
Of course, the relationship of a reader to the Bible goes through many phases. Sometimes the words come alive to me, breathing into my very soul. Other times the words run together and I can barely stay awake to make sense of them. But almost all of the time I tend to read the Bible as piecework--pick a book, start studying it, and I may or may not finish the job. I've always been impressed by people who make a commitment to read the whole Bible, in order, as a book, but I have yet to accomplish that myself.
About a year and a half ago, I began freelance work on study Bibles for Zondervan. I do some of the picky editing of the notes and articles--checking that quotes match the actual text, making sure that references actually refer to the correct verse, checking that the space after an italicized word is not italicized. Though I love the work, I am aware that my passion for finding an errant italicization is not a widely shared passion.
Beyond the edit, though, I learn a lot of little facts along the way. Did you know that the men of the tribe of Benjamin were mostly left-handed? Did you know that Abraham's wife Sarah, looker that she was, was taken into Pharaoh's harem at age 65 (when Abraham lied that she was his sister) and later into another harem at age 90--NINETY!--when Abraham lied again. Tattoos and nose rings are not a new trend--you can find them throughout the Bible, if you're reading the right translation, though the good Israelite was warned against getting inked. And in an interesting euphemism, where most modern translations refer to male prostitutes, the King James Version talks about "raisin cakes."
As fascinating as these tidbits may or may not be, I have learned something else. When you spend 2-3 months skimming the major points of the Bible, and then you go back and review the same Bible from different angles two more times, you realize how interconnected all of the stories and the promises are. God's book, that tome that sometimes seems so ancient and distant from my life, is alive with the struggles that I face in my everyday life, and it's overflowing with the promises that God offers (and fulfills) for both Biblical figures and to myself.
I may never get around to reading the every word of the Word from start to finish. Yet, the opportunity to work through it time and time again, by way of study notes and articles, has changed the way I look at the book, and I count it as a blessing.
Monday, August 30, 2010
We've Come a Long Way, Baby
The Fab 5 tackled an unusually large book--both in size and topic--tonight. We discussed When Everything Changed by Gail Collins. With a subtitle like "The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present," readers should be prepared for a march through history.
In 1960, women were idealized as the June Cleavers of the world--well-groomed, stay-at-home mothers and wives with abundant homemaking, child-rearing and entertainment skills. They were also being arrested in some places for wearing pants in public and excluded from some male-only Executive Flights (unless they were the stewardesses, expected to bend over and light the passengers' cigars). Black women faced even stronger, higher barriers to career and acceptance.
This book works its way through the history of the fight for equal rights for women, including the way it became intertwined with the civil rights movement. So much of this is history that I've heard hints of, but never knew the whole story.
Growing up, we heard about the Equal Rights Amendment, and we knew the names of Friedan and Steinem, but generally the comments were negative, and the famous women's names were the punch lines to jokes. Most of the positive words for the ERA came from sitcoms and the Schoolhouse Rock segment. While none of us felt convinced that our mothers, for instance, were opposed to women being welcome as lawyers or doctors at equal pay to men, we think the negative response to the movement was due to the anti-housewife, anti-traditional-home feeling of the struggle.
All of us were fascinated by the stories and anecdotes. The first female U.S. Senator, Margaret Chase Smith, was barred from the Senate lounge, and when she was a member of the Naval Affairs Committee, "one of the staff members took her for a walk during long sessions so the men would have a break from the burden of a female presence." The stories of the black women who fought for civil rights, and at the same time, for the rights of women, are more amazing.
Sonya suggested that the book is a bit one-sided, ignoring the fact that many women at the time were happy to be stay-at-home mothers and wives, and Barbara noted that there wasn't, in the description of all the household labor, much mention of what "traditional" roles men took on at home--yardwork, heavy work, etc.
We had a bit of a discussion of what it means to have a career versus having a job. Only Barbara feels like she has a "career," and none of us feel that we are the ambitious types who want to move up and up. Barbara is also noted that being a stay-at-home mom encompassed some of the best years of her life.
As for homemaking, we all find different parts of it satisfying. For Nancy, it's cooking. For Barbara, canning is a fulfilling task. Sonya enjoys making the home a beautiful place to be. I can't say that I've found my niche in homemaking, though I do enjoy entertaining.
The revolutionaries seem disappointed by the later generations' decisions to drop out of the workforce to have children. They may have wished careers for us all, but we find that the real result for us is that we have that option, whether or not we choose to pursue it. That is something we are thankful for.
And pants. We're very thankful for pants. Though after spending a day at an amusement park last week, I think I see why the traditionalists were worried about the slippery slope of fashion. Yikes.
In 1960, women were idealized as the June Cleavers of the world--well-groomed, stay-at-home mothers and wives with abundant homemaking, child-rearing and entertainment skills. They were also being arrested in some places for wearing pants in public and excluded from some male-only Executive Flights (unless they were the stewardesses, expected to bend over and light the passengers' cigars). Black women faced even stronger, higher barriers to career and acceptance.
This book works its way through the history of the fight for equal rights for women, including the way it became intertwined with the civil rights movement. So much of this is history that I've heard hints of, but never knew the whole story.
Growing up, we heard about the Equal Rights Amendment, and we knew the names of Friedan and Steinem, but generally the comments were negative, and the famous women's names were the punch lines to jokes. Most of the positive words for the ERA came from sitcoms and the Schoolhouse Rock segment. While none of us felt convinced that our mothers, for instance, were opposed to women being welcome as lawyers or doctors at equal pay to men, we think the negative response to the movement was due to the anti-housewife, anti-traditional-home feeling of the struggle.
All of us were fascinated by the stories and anecdotes. The first female U.S. Senator, Margaret Chase Smith, was barred from the Senate lounge, and when she was a member of the Naval Affairs Committee, "one of the staff members took her for a walk during long sessions so the men would have a break from the burden of a female presence." The stories of the black women who fought for civil rights, and at the same time, for the rights of women, are more amazing.
Sonya suggested that the book is a bit one-sided, ignoring the fact that many women at the time were happy to be stay-at-home mothers and wives, and Barbara noted that there wasn't, in the description of all the household labor, much mention of what "traditional" roles men took on at home--yardwork, heavy work, etc.
We had a bit of a discussion of what it means to have a career versus having a job. Only Barbara feels like she has a "career," and none of us feel that we are the ambitious types who want to move up and up. Barbara is also noted that being a stay-at-home mom encompassed some of the best years of her life.
As for homemaking, we all find different parts of it satisfying. For Nancy, it's cooking. For Barbara, canning is a fulfilling task. Sonya enjoys making the home a beautiful place to be. I can't say that I've found my niche in homemaking, though I do enjoy entertaining.
The revolutionaries seem disappointed by the later generations' decisions to drop out of the workforce to have children. They may have wished careers for us all, but we find that the real result for us is that we have that option, whether or not we choose to pursue it. That is something we are thankful for.
And pants. We're very thankful for pants. Though after spending a day at an amusement park last week, I think I see why the traditionalists were worried about the slippery slope of fashion. Yikes.
Monday, August 23, 2010
The Hunger Games Wrap Up
Well. I can breathe again. I've been immersed in the latest, and last, installment of the Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins.
Now, what to say about it. Without giving anything away!
As grim as the premise is, the first two books struck me as keeping a little distance from the gore that resulted from the story. I didn't often have to look closely at the suffering of those who died. I thought that was in good keeping with the themes of oppression and abuse of power. Life is sacred, that the suffering of someone you do not know still matters, and the reason for the violence in the story was to point that out. It wasn't necessary to witness every gruesome detail.
Mockingjay is much more grisly. This is a book about war, and it spares us little. Reading the trilogy as a whole, I think that this book continues to push the reader to examine the effects of war, violence, and abuse of power. Indeed, it's impossible to miss those effects. While this does not diminish my estimation of the series--I don't believe that "nice" stories are the only ones worth reading--it does make me reconsider what age group for which I'd recommend them. A mature 12 or 13 year old can probably handle this, but there are many disturbing images, and I'd be cautious who I share them with. That said, my 11-year-old started reading The Hunger Games yesterday, and now I'm wondering if that was such a great idea! At least, having read them myself, I can talk about the books with her.
I heard Suzanne Collins on NPR last year when Catching Fire came out, and I believe she said that she came up with the idea for this series when she was channel-surfing and flipped between a story on child soldiers and a reality show. She says that if you combine the two, you get gladiators. The commentator asked her about the darkness and violence in the story, and she said something to the effect that we don't give children enough credit for knowing and interpreting the world we live in. She says that violence finds its way into their lives. We want to candy coat it, but they know better.
Certainly, if they read this series, they will know better. They'll also be offered various ways to look at violence and oppression. One choice is to use it as a sick sort of entertainment--picking favorites, watching disaster, getting a secret thrill from the proceedings--be it war between two entities, an exploitative reality game show, an epic disaster. Another choice is to shut it out, pretend it doesn't exist, and live our happily, relatively luxurious lives in ignorance. A third choice is to feel true compassion and reach out for change.
Another theme that is particularly strong in the third installment is the cost of survival. Whether helpless victims, unwilling participants or idealistic revolutionaries, surviving violence takes its toll on everyone. Coming into power changes people. And in particular, killing another human being (or many) changes a person profoundly. Given her initial impulse for the books, a story on child soldiers, this last theme makes perfect sense and is made painfully clear to the reader. It's hard for me to imagine someone "enjoying" the violence in the story in the same way as a spectacular special effects moment in an action movie. All of the characters, whether on the side of the heroine or not, are presented as human and cannot be dismissed lightly.
Mockingjay is a powerful book. Looking through discussions online, I see that much of the speculation surrounding it has to do with whether the heroine Katniss will end up with either Gale or Peeta. While I enjoyed speculating about that myself, readers looking for the Jacob/Edward tension of the Twilight books or the Pam/Jim progression of "The Office" should look elsewhere. This is a book about the pain of being manipulated, the horror of war and the horrible choices one is forced to make in such situations, where few are innocent and everyone has a motivation of his or her own.
Collins keeps the reader wrapped in the tension, refusing to allow readers to take a break when the chapter ends.
And while the novel is grim, it does offer hope. There are also brief moments of beauty. As a parent, I'd like to see that hope and beauty show up a bit earlier or in larger doses for my child. Contrarily, as a reader myself, I feel that any more would just negate the horror that the characters experience. And let's not delude ourselves--there are horrors, as well as beauty, everywhere. So, how will we respond? If we ignore the suffering in the world, can we truly appreciate the beauty? And if we constantly view horror while feeling ourselves detached and safe from it, how long will it be until we are so jaded that we can't see it for what it is?
Now, what to say about it. Without giving anything away!
As grim as the premise is, the first two books struck me as keeping a little distance from the gore that resulted from the story. I didn't often have to look closely at the suffering of those who died. I thought that was in good keeping with the themes of oppression and abuse of power. Life is sacred, that the suffering of someone you do not know still matters, and the reason for the violence in the story was to point that out. It wasn't necessary to witness every gruesome detail.
Mockingjay is much more grisly. This is a book about war, and it spares us little. Reading the trilogy as a whole, I think that this book continues to push the reader to examine the effects of war, violence, and abuse of power. Indeed, it's impossible to miss those effects. While this does not diminish my estimation of the series--I don't believe that "nice" stories are the only ones worth reading--it does make me reconsider what age group for which I'd recommend them. A mature 12 or 13 year old can probably handle this, but there are many disturbing images, and I'd be cautious who I share them with. That said, my 11-year-old started reading The Hunger Games yesterday, and now I'm wondering if that was such a great idea! At least, having read them myself, I can talk about the books with her.
I heard Suzanne Collins on NPR last year when Catching Fire came out, and I believe she said that she came up with the idea for this series when she was channel-surfing and flipped between a story on child soldiers and a reality show. She says that if you combine the two, you get gladiators. The commentator asked her about the darkness and violence in the story, and she said something to the effect that we don't give children enough credit for knowing and interpreting the world we live in. She says that violence finds its way into their lives. We want to candy coat it, but they know better.
Certainly, if they read this series, they will know better. They'll also be offered various ways to look at violence and oppression. One choice is to use it as a sick sort of entertainment--picking favorites, watching disaster, getting a secret thrill from the proceedings--be it war between two entities, an exploitative reality game show, an epic disaster. Another choice is to shut it out, pretend it doesn't exist, and live our happily, relatively luxurious lives in ignorance. A third choice is to feel true compassion and reach out for change.
Another theme that is particularly strong in the third installment is the cost of survival. Whether helpless victims, unwilling participants or idealistic revolutionaries, surviving violence takes its toll on everyone. Coming into power changes people. And in particular, killing another human being (or many) changes a person profoundly. Given her initial impulse for the books, a story on child soldiers, this last theme makes perfect sense and is made painfully clear to the reader. It's hard for me to imagine someone "enjoying" the violence in the story in the same way as a spectacular special effects moment in an action movie. All of the characters, whether on the side of the heroine or not, are presented as human and cannot be dismissed lightly.
Mockingjay is a powerful book. Looking through discussions online, I see that much of the speculation surrounding it has to do with whether the heroine Katniss will end up with either Gale or Peeta. While I enjoyed speculating about that myself, readers looking for the Jacob/Edward tension of the Twilight books or the Pam/Jim progression of "The Office" should look elsewhere. This is a book about the pain of being manipulated, the horror of war and the horrible choices one is forced to make in such situations, where few are innocent and everyone has a motivation of his or her own.
Collins keeps the reader wrapped in the tension, refusing to allow readers to take a break when the chapter ends.
And while the novel is grim, it does offer hope. There are also brief moments of beauty. As a parent, I'd like to see that hope and beauty show up a bit earlier or in larger doses for my child. Contrarily, as a reader myself, I feel that any more would just negate the horror that the characters experience. And let's not delude ourselves--there are horrors, as well as beauty, everywhere. So, how will we respond? If we ignore the suffering in the world, can we truly appreciate the beauty? And if we constantly view horror while feeling ourselves detached and safe from it, how long will it be until we are so jaded that we can't see it for what it is?
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Literary Junk Food
Recently I asked my friends on Facebook what snacks they buy at the gas station when they're on a road trip. I received an unprecedented response! A couple of principled people responded with "water" or "I hate snacks from the gas station." Most, however, gleefully admitted the various crap they ingest on such occasions, "edible food-like substances" as Michael Pollan describes them, that they normally do not allow themselves.
When I'm reading, I do the same thing. Being in 2 book clubs and reviewing books for a Christian magazine means that I am usually reading something that I expect will enlighten me or enrich my life in the process. Most of the time this leaves me happy and fulfilled. But every once in a while I get tired of reading useful and/or literary books. I want to read something just for the fun of it. Sometimes something truly crappy.
So, in the spirit of all of those who confessed their road trip preferences--cheesy popcorn, Sprees, Twizzlers, Reeses and mountains of soda--here are some of the books I've picked up for the pure guilty pleasure of some fun.
As a teen, I started out with sweet Christian romances like Janette Oke's Love Comes Softly, moved on to the First Love by Silhouette series, and moved with alarming speed into the less sweet, less sacred realm of romance novels for adults. My older, married sister was a great resource for this. But now, I like to think I've put that all behind me. After all, I still have a crystal clear memory of reading a Danielle Steel novel on a class trip, and having my friend Holly pick it up and do a random dramatic reading. The line she hit on? "She felt as though her insides were flying out her ears." Sorry, don't remember the context, but I can guess.
But I don't think I've gotten so far, really. Last year I picked up Twilight by Stephenie Meyer out of curiosity about all the press, and I was hooked. It isn't far off from some of the novels I read in high school. Lots of burning desire and longing gazes. Many people salute the books for having a teen couple who don't have sex until they're married. Since sex is just about all that occupies their minds, it's hard to take that too seriously. The writing is cliched, but the storyline is fun and satisfies all my inner teen's dreams of my misfit self being swept up by the most beautiful man in the world, who finds me utterly fascinating and protects me every moment. The fourth book is truly awful, and reading it diminished some of the fun of the preceding installments. And yes, I read them all.
Other things I read just for the fluff and nonnutritional value: The Nanny Diaries (so-so on the fun scale) and both Bridget Jones novels (the first is one of my all-time fluff favorites). My most recent venture into junk reading was (some of you may want to brace yourselves for the title) Good Christian Bitches by Kim Gatlin. This book takes place in a very wealthy part of Dallas, near where I spent middle school and high school years, and it is meant to be a fun skewering of mean-spirited "Christian" rich girls by a woman who appears to claim the same designation for herself. I couldn't resist, thinking that it would be fun to see a Christian writing some good-humored satire about her own circles. It fell flat--a poorly written story about mean-spirited people doing mean-spirited things, with no Christianity that I could recognize. So that one was the equivalent of Dutch licorice for me--looked like candy, had the texture of candy, but tasted like, well, crap.
There are some books that can be read just for the fun of it, but aren't just fluff. Off the top of my head I think of Grand Opening by Jon Hassler, A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (especially if you skip over some of the more preachy environmental stuff) and Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns.
In the end, I find that a fluffy detour leaves me hungry for more satisfying fare. What is your literary junk food?
When I'm reading, I do the same thing. Being in 2 book clubs and reviewing books for a Christian magazine means that I am usually reading something that I expect will enlighten me or enrich my life in the process. Most of the time this leaves me happy and fulfilled. But every once in a while I get tired of reading useful and/or literary books. I want to read something just for the fun of it. Sometimes something truly crappy.
So, in the spirit of all of those who confessed their road trip preferences--cheesy popcorn, Sprees, Twizzlers, Reeses and mountains of soda--here are some of the books I've picked up for the pure guilty pleasure of some fun.
As a teen, I started out with sweet Christian romances like Janette Oke's Love Comes Softly, moved on to the First Love by Silhouette series, and moved with alarming speed into the less sweet, less sacred realm of romance novels for adults. My older, married sister was a great resource for this. But now, I like to think I've put that all behind me. After all, I still have a crystal clear memory of reading a Danielle Steel novel on a class trip, and having my friend Holly pick it up and do a random dramatic reading. The line she hit on? "She felt as though her insides were flying out her ears." Sorry, don't remember the context, but I can guess.
But I don't think I've gotten so far, really. Last year I picked up Twilight by Stephenie Meyer out of curiosity about all the press, and I was hooked. It isn't far off from some of the novels I read in high school. Lots of burning desire and longing gazes. Many people salute the books for having a teen couple who don't have sex until they're married. Since sex is just about all that occupies their minds, it's hard to take that too seriously. The writing is cliched, but the storyline is fun and satisfies all my inner teen's dreams of my misfit self being swept up by the most beautiful man in the world, who finds me utterly fascinating and protects me every moment. The fourth book is truly awful, and reading it diminished some of the fun of the preceding installments. And yes, I read them all.
Other things I read just for the fluff and nonnutritional value: The Nanny Diaries (so-so on the fun scale) and both Bridget Jones novels (the first is one of my all-time fluff favorites). My most recent venture into junk reading was (some of you may want to brace yourselves for the title) Good Christian Bitches by Kim Gatlin. This book takes place in a very wealthy part of Dallas, near where I spent middle school and high school years, and it is meant to be a fun skewering of mean-spirited "Christian" rich girls by a woman who appears to claim the same designation for herself. I couldn't resist, thinking that it would be fun to see a Christian writing some good-humored satire about her own circles. It fell flat--a poorly written story about mean-spirited people doing mean-spirited things, with no Christianity that I could recognize. So that one was the equivalent of Dutch licorice for me--looked like candy, had the texture of candy, but tasted like, well, crap.
There are some books that can be read just for the fun of it, but aren't just fluff. Off the top of my head I think of Grand Opening by Jon Hassler, A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (especially if you skip over some of the more preachy environmental stuff) and Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns.
In the end, I find that a fluffy detour leaves me hungry for more satisfying fare. What is your literary junk food?
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Reading in Place
The majority of the last 2 weeks found me in New Mexico, mostly in the Santa Fe area. I spent a little time, on my own and with my husband after he joined me, exploring the area. It is wonderful! Moderate, dry and lovely.
During our time, we visited the cathedral in Santa Fe, the Taos Pueblo, Kit Carson's home, and the Sandia Mountains. I loved all of these places, but I loved them even more after reading Death Comes to the Archbishop by Willa Cather.
I started this book several years ago when the Neland Women's Book Club read this title. I got about halfway through it and ran out of time (this happens to me frequently enough, which you might know if you've read earlier postings!). I always meant to come back to it. I came back to it this week, and I remembered very little from the earlier reading! I think I'd been rushing through in an effort to get to the end, comprehending less than usual.
This time around, I started again from the beginning. The book is beautiful, and the priests, Father Latour and Father Vaillant, are the kind of missionaries I always wanted to be. I've had a strong attraction to mission work all of my life, and if I ever did it for a longer period of time, I'd want to be like these men--dedicated, loving and becoming part of the community.
This is not to say they are perfect. Father Latour has a love for material things, and his dream, almost obsession, of building a cathedral is something I don't entirely understand. Why bring European architecture to a mission field in the New World? However, having seen the cathedral, I can appreciate the inclination to build something beautiful but simple, in keeping with the field where he was stationed. Father Latour's character was based on a real-life priest, who played a big part in building the existing cathedral.
He also has trouble forming deep connections with new people. That strikes me as a very real issue for any person in ministry. At some point, many of us feel as though our lives are "full" enough, and don't so much need more people in our lives. This, of course, misses the point that others may need someone in their lives, and I may be just the person to fill that need.
Father Vaillant is a wonderful character. He is earthy, passionate and temperamental. Yet his deep love of people opens their hearts to him. He is also open to God's guidance, no matter where it may bring him.
Cather, though sometimes bound in the language of her time (this book was published in 1927) had a great respect for the culture and spirituality of both the Catholic priests and the native Americans in her book. She also imbues the story with a strong sense of history--the priest arrives in the "wild west" and watches it become more and more "civilized."
Episodic in nature, this novel is different from most of the fiction that I read. So often the plot structure of the novel is the driving force. This book is an examination of character, two lives in particular. This makes for a different reading experience than something that starts with a problem and ends with a resolution. In some novels this episodic nature would lead the reader to lose interest in the story. Cather's great beauty and sympathy, as well as the rich history she alludes to, makes this novel interesting from start to finish.
A side note to the novel is Kit Carson. He shows up frequently in the book. We visited his former home in Taos, and learned a bit about his history. He was a well respected frontiersman, a real mountain man who spent a good part of his life moving around the independent western states. He was idealized in his time, made into a sort of folk hero. Cather portrays him in a very positive manner as well. It is interesting to consider whether this was the influence of her times or the truth of the matter.
In an earlier moment of enthusiasm and idealism, I promised to read both Cather's book and Tony Hillerman's The Blessing Way. I started this one first, but my husband needed a book, so I passed in on to him and soldiered on with Death Comes for the Archbishop. He (a much faster reader than myself) read The Blessing Way. I asked for his opinion of it so that I could report on it in some way, so here goes: "It was a quick read, with easy words." He meant this as a joke, but my limited experience with the first chapters tells me that he's right, in a good way. Hillerman explores the rituals and customs of this particular Indian tribe, and he turns them into a good setting for a mystery. I hope to read more of it sometime!
So, I recommend these books for anyone heading to New Mexico soon. They have enriched my experience of the area.
During our time, we visited the cathedral in Santa Fe, the Taos Pueblo, Kit Carson's home, and the Sandia Mountains. I loved all of these places, but I loved them even more after reading Death Comes to the Archbishop by Willa Cather.
I started this book several years ago when the Neland Women's Book Club read this title. I got about halfway through it and ran out of time (this happens to me frequently enough, which you might know if you've read earlier postings!). I always meant to come back to it. I came back to it this week, and I remembered very little from the earlier reading! I think I'd been rushing through in an effort to get to the end, comprehending less than usual.
This time around, I started again from the beginning. The book is beautiful, and the priests, Father Latour and Father Vaillant, are the kind of missionaries I always wanted to be. I've had a strong attraction to mission work all of my life, and if I ever did it for a longer period of time, I'd want to be like these men--dedicated, loving and becoming part of the community.
This is not to say they are perfect. Father Latour has a love for material things, and his dream, almost obsession, of building a cathedral is something I don't entirely understand. Why bring European architecture to a mission field in the New World? However, having seen the cathedral, I can appreciate the inclination to build something beautiful but simple, in keeping with the field where he was stationed. Father Latour's character was based on a real-life priest, who played a big part in building the existing cathedral.
He also has trouble forming deep connections with new people. That strikes me as a very real issue for any person in ministry. At some point, many of us feel as though our lives are "full" enough, and don't so much need more people in our lives. This, of course, misses the point that others may need someone in their lives, and I may be just the person to fill that need.
Father Vaillant is a wonderful character. He is earthy, passionate and temperamental. Yet his deep love of people opens their hearts to him. He is also open to God's guidance, no matter where it may bring him.
Cather, though sometimes bound in the language of her time (this book was published in 1927) had a great respect for the culture and spirituality of both the Catholic priests and the native Americans in her book. She also imbues the story with a strong sense of history--the priest arrives in the "wild west" and watches it become more and more "civilized."
Episodic in nature, this novel is different from most of the fiction that I read. So often the plot structure of the novel is the driving force. This book is an examination of character, two lives in particular. This makes for a different reading experience than something that starts with a problem and ends with a resolution. In some novels this episodic nature would lead the reader to lose interest in the story. Cather's great beauty and sympathy, as well as the rich history she alludes to, makes this novel interesting from start to finish.
A side note to the novel is Kit Carson. He shows up frequently in the book. We visited his former home in Taos, and learned a bit about his history. He was a well respected frontiersman, a real mountain man who spent a good part of his life moving around the independent western states. He was idealized in his time, made into a sort of folk hero. Cather portrays him in a very positive manner as well. It is interesting to consider whether this was the influence of her times or the truth of the matter.
In an earlier moment of enthusiasm and idealism, I promised to read both Cather's book and Tony Hillerman's The Blessing Way. I started this one first, but my husband needed a book, so I passed in on to him and soldiered on with Death Comes for the Archbishop. He (a much faster reader than myself) read The Blessing Way. I asked for his opinion of it so that I could report on it in some way, so here goes: "It was a quick read, with easy words." He meant this as a joke, but my limited experience with the first chapters tells me that he's right, in a good way. Hillerman explores the rituals and customs of this particular Indian tribe, and he turns them into a good setting for a mystery. I hope to read more of it sometime!
So, I recommend these books for anyone heading to New Mexico soon. They have enriched my experience of the area.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Halfway There
How many of you can put a book down without finishing it? This is a skill I have lost over the years. In high school and college, I left a large number of titles unfinished, even untouched! But now, even if I know a book is terrible, I generally have some strange compulsion to finish it. If I have to put a book down, it will clutter a corner of my mind with mental post-it notes nagging me to get back to it.
A couple of times a year I find myself searching desperately for a good piece of fiction to recommend in the magazine I work for, The Banner, and I end up reading bits and pieces. For one reason or another, certain books just aren't right, even if I like them, and I have to give them up to start something else. A couple of weeks ago I read about a quarter of The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer, which was (so far) about a young Jewish man who goes to school in Paris, leaving his home in Hungary behind, on the brink of World War II. For various reasons, it wasn't working for my purposes, but I was enjoying it and was very sorry to put it down.
Then there are the books that I read for book club but don't finish in time. I end up setting them on the shelf with a bookmark lodged in them against the day nothing else is calling for my attention (whenever that might be). Right now that encompasses The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, as well as a book the Fab 5 read about 3 years ago, Blowing My Cover by Lindsay Moran about her experience as a spy for the CIA. I'll even confess that I never actually read the last little bit of Chris Cleave's Little Bee, about a young Nigerian woman who flees illegally to England, in spite of the fact that the book was compelling, and I liked it! Since we talked about the ending at book club, and I skimmed through it pretty thoroughly, the urgency to read every last word has passed.
This week I'm feeling particularly bereft about a partly-read book. The Neland Women's Book Club is reading Mary Barton, the first novel by Elizabeth Gaskell, the same author who wrote Cranford (which was turned into a great PBS mini-series with Judi Dench). It's an old-fashioned tale, a book which would never see the light of day now with it's preachy undertones and strangely self-asserting omniscient narrator. But I'm enjoying it and have gotten very interested in what will happen to the title character. Unfortunately, I was using the library copy from the college I stayed at in Santa Fe, and I had to return it when I checked out. I was about halfway when I slid it into the book return.
Here's the truly awful part. I only have a week and a couple of days left to read it. The Grand Rapids Library system has one whole copy, which some other Nelander has no doubt squirreled away on her shelf. Schuler's Books didn't have it, and no bookstore in Santa Fe appears to have a copy. So even though I have time and would like to finish it, at this point I have no copy to read!
Books come alive in my imagination, and a half-read book leaves a lonely ghost haunting the back stairways and storage rooms of my mind. What books are haunting you?
A couple of times a year I find myself searching desperately for a good piece of fiction to recommend in the magazine I work for, The Banner, and I end up reading bits and pieces. For one reason or another, certain books just aren't right, even if I like them, and I have to give them up to start something else. A couple of weeks ago I read about a quarter of The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer, which was (so far) about a young Jewish man who goes to school in Paris, leaving his home in Hungary behind, on the brink of World War II. For various reasons, it wasn't working for my purposes, but I was enjoying it and was very sorry to put it down.
Then there are the books that I read for book club but don't finish in time. I end up setting them on the shelf with a bookmark lodged in them against the day nothing else is calling for my attention (whenever that might be). Right now that encompasses The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, as well as a book the Fab 5 read about 3 years ago, Blowing My Cover by Lindsay Moran about her experience as a spy for the CIA. I'll even confess that I never actually read the last little bit of Chris Cleave's Little Bee, about a young Nigerian woman who flees illegally to England, in spite of the fact that the book was compelling, and I liked it! Since we talked about the ending at book club, and I skimmed through it pretty thoroughly, the urgency to read every last word has passed.
This week I'm feeling particularly bereft about a partly-read book. The Neland Women's Book Club is reading Mary Barton, the first novel by Elizabeth Gaskell, the same author who wrote Cranford (which was turned into a great PBS mini-series with Judi Dench). It's an old-fashioned tale, a book which would never see the light of day now with it's preachy undertones and strangely self-asserting omniscient narrator. But I'm enjoying it and have gotten very interested in what will happen to the title character. Unfortunately, I was using the library copy from the college I stayed at in Santa Fe, and I had to return it when I checked out. I was about halfway when I slid it into the book return.
Here's the truly awful part. I only have a week and a couple of days left to read it. The Grand Rapids Library system has one whole copy, which some other Nelander has no doubt squirreled away on her shelf. Schuler's Books didn't have it, and no bookstore in Santa Fe appears to have a copy. So even though I have time and would like to finish it, at this point I have no copy to read!
Books come alive in my imagination, and a half-read book leaves a lonely ghost haunting the back stairways and storage rooms of my mind. What books are haunting you?
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Metallica, Coming Soon to a Church Near You
Pastor John Van Sloten preaches on many topics in his sermons. He is dedicated to looking for the way that God reveals himself through both the Bible and through his other "text," creation. While it's easy to imagine that we can find God in a forest or on a mountaintop, Van Sloten contends in his book The Day Metallica Came to Church that we can find God in culture, which is also his creation. Whatever people produce through the talents God has given them is also an extension of his creation. And he can reveal himself through that creation. In fact, he says that creation, including culture, helps to illuminate Scripture, not only the other way around.
The book starts with a challenge that Van Sloten received to preach a sermon on the music of Metallica. He took it seriously, and found that some of Metallica's angry lyrics echoed the anger at injustice that is found in the words of the prophet Jeremiah. Since then he has gone on to explore (and preach on) the ways he sees God in all of culture--movies, architecture, art--the list goes on and on. It sounds like this was not always a comfortable transition for his church.
As I finished reading this book at The Glen Workshop, a retreat for Christians interested in the arts, I found myself thinking that some of his theology is intuitive for artists. Christians who are searching to express beauty in their music, words, painting, and films often sense that they see God revealed in all sorts of creative work, even if the person doing the creating is not a Christian.
Van Sloten explains the theology behind this. It has a lot to do with common grace, a term many of us know but don't always think through. He says, "God's goodness surrounds all people. God's truthful light doesn't discriminate; it shines everywhere. And it's shining more brightly and consistently than we realize."
I'll admit I am not immediately attracted to theology books. This one particularly interests me because it examines the connections between God and the culture where I live, engage and create. These are the same connections that I find so exhilarating when I attend the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin College. Journals like Image, Ruminate and The Other Journal seek the same intersection. The book Through A Screen Darkly, by Christian film critic Jeffrey Overstreet, explores the same themes in film.
Take a look around you. Yes, God speaks to us in the wind and in the storm. He might also be speaking to you through that movie on Friday night.
The book starts with a challenge that Van Sloten received to preach a sermon on the music of Metallica. He took it seriously, and found that some of Metallica's angry lyrics echoed the anger at injustice that is found in the words of the prophet Jeremiah. Since then he has gone on to explore (and preach on) the ways he sees God in all of culture--movies, architecture, art--the list goes on and on. It sounds like this was not always a comfortable transition for his church.
As I finished reading this book at The Glen Workshop, a retreat for Christians interested in the arts, I found myself thinking that some of his theology is intuitive for artists. Christians who are searching to express beauty in their music, words, painting, and films often sense that they see God revealed in all sorts of creative work, even if the person doing the creating is not a Christian.
Van Sloten explains the theology behind this. It has a lot to do with common grace, a term many of us know but don't always think through. He says, "God's goodness surrounds all people. God's truthful light doesn't discriminate; it shines everywhere. And it's shining more brightly and consistently than we realize."
I'll admit I am not immediately attracted to theology books. This one particularly interests me because it examines the connections between God and the culture where I live, engage and create. These are the same connections that I find so exhilarating when I attend the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin College. Journals like Image, Ruminate and The Other Journal seek the same intersection. The book Through A Screen Darkly, by Christian film critic Jeffrey Overstreet, explores the same themes in film.
Take a look around you. Yes, God speaks to us in the wind and in the storm. He might also be speaking to you through that movie on Friday night.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Getting Graphic
Have you read a graphic novel yet? I'm not talking about the old romance novels my sister used to keep under her bed. I think Shanna got passed around to all of us over the years--even my brother read it. They were pretty graphic. But I digress.
Graphic novels are sort of like comic books, only not so comic. They are a long way from my old stash of Archie, Richie Rich, and Casper and Wendy comics. They cover deeper subjects and are generally longer and less episodic. The story arc is larger. Take a look in the children's, young adult and even the adult sections at the library. The graphic novel shelves are growing and filling, and the books are getting a lot of use!
I'm a bit careful with them, because to me a visual image leaves a much stronger footprint on my mind, and I want to know what my kids are looking at. Like any other books, there are some better choices and some not-so-great choices. However, graphic novels are great for reluctant readers, because they get to move along in a story with a higher level of sophistication, and with a diverse vocabulary, without being bogged down in long paragraphs. This can be a great step into reading. Author Sue Stauffacher collaborated on a series of graphic novels called Wireman, with just this purpose in mind--to catch the imagination of older readers who needed encouragement to read.
Graphic novels have served another purpose in my household. When assigned reading takes up a lot of the spare reading time for my school-age kids, graphic novels can provide a nice side reading project. My son thoroughly enjoyed the Bone series by Jeff Smith, and he has been introduced to many classics--Frankenstein, Treasure Island, even a Bible story, to name a few--in graphic or manga formats (manga is the Japanese version of graphic novels). He usually hauls home several new choices when we go to the library. My daughter and I had a good time reading Rapunzel's Revenge, a wild west take on the fairy tale, and its sequel, Calamity Jack, both by popular young adult author Shannon Hale. She also enjoyed a book called Korgi by Christian Slade that involved a cute little dog, always a winning topic with her.
But these books can also be deeply-felt novels for adult readers. Today (yes, one day--another bonus of graphic novels for slow readers!) I read Stitches by David Small. He is a Caldecott-winning illustrator of children's books. This book is not fiction--it is Small's memoir. He grew up in Detroit, and he suffered many traumas in his childhood, including losing his voice when he undergoes surgery for cancer. No one told him he had cancer, no one told him he was losing a vocal chord, and no one seemed to care about his loss.
Stitches recounts many horrifying experiences, yet somehow it is bearable because of Small's ability to remember the details of looking at things through a child's eyes. Which is also what makes it so sad. The strange thing about reading this story in a graphic format is that you move through it all so quickly. You hardly have time to recover from one thing, and there he is moving on to the next. That may be precisely what it is like for a child in his situation. Yet it's a strange way to read about a tragic childhood, if you are accustomed to wordy recollections and pontifications in memoir.
It's a fascinating read--partly because of his story, and partly because of the format. It's the first graphic book I've actually sat and read from cover to cover, on my own, to myself. It gives you an intimacy with the mind and heart of the author that mere words could not conjure. I'm looking forward to trying another soon.
Added Note: About 15 minutes after I posted this, I realized that I had lied, but I was too tired to bother fixing it! I have read another graphic novel, and it might be one that interests many of you. It's a gorgeous, glossy, colorfully illustrated version of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, adapted by Nancy Butler and Hugo Petrus. The front cover is made to look like a women's magazine, but the words inside are directly from the novel. It's the perfect gift for P & P diehard fans.
Graphic novels are sort of like comic books, only not so comic. They are a long way from my old stash of Archie, Richie Rich, and Casper and Wendy comics. They cover deeper subjects and are generally longer and less episodic. The story arc is larger. Take a look in the children's, young adult and even the adult sections at the library. The graphic novel shelves are growing and filling, and the books are getting a lot of use!
I'm a bit careful with them, because to me a visual image leaves a much stronger footprint on my mind, and I want to know what my kids are looking at. Like any other books, there are some better choices and some not-so-great choices. However, graphic novels are great for reluctant readers, because they get to move along in a story with a higher level of sophistication, and with a diverse vocabulary, without being bogged down in long paragraphs. This can be a great step into reading. Author Sue Stauffacher collaborated on a series of graphic novels called Wireman, with just this purpose in mind--to catch the imagination of older readers who needed encouragement to read.
Graphic novels have served another purpose in my household. When assigned reading takes up a lot of the spare reading time for my school-age kids, graphic novels can provide a nice side reading project. My son thoroughly enjoyed the Bone series by Jeff Smith, and he has been introduced to many classics--Frankenstein, Treasure Island, even a Bible story, to name a few--in graphic or manga formats (manga is the Japanese version of graphic novels). He usually hauls home several new choices when we go to the library. My daughter and I had a good time reading Rapunzel's Revenge, a wild west take on the fairy tale, and its sequel, Calamity Jack, both by popular young adult author Shannon Hale. She also enjoyed a book called Korgi by Christian Slade that involved a cute little dog, always a winning topic with her.
But these books can also be deeply-felt novels for adult readers. Today (yes, one day--another bonus of graphic novels for slow readers!) I read Stitches by David Small. He is a Caldecott-winning illustrator of children's books. This book is not fiction--it is Small's memoir. He grew up in Detroit, and he suffered many traumas in his childhood, including losing his voice when he undergoes surgery for cancer. No one told him he had cancer, no one told him he was losing a vocal chord, and no one seemed to care about his loss.
Stitches recounts many horrifying experiences, yet somehow it is bearable because of Small's ability to remember the details of looking at things through a child's eyes. Which is also what makes it so sad. The strange thing about reading this story in a graphic format is that you move through it all so quickly. You hardly have time to recover from one thing, and there he is moving on to the next. That may be precisely what it is like for a child in his situation. Yet it's a strange way to read about a tragic childhood, if you are accustomed to wordy recollections and pontifications in memoir.
It's a fascinating read--partly because of his story, and partly because of the format. It's the first graphic book I've actually sat and read from cover to cover, on my own, to myself. It gives you an intimacy with the mind and heart of the author that mere words could not conjure. I'm looking forward to trying another soon.
Added Note: About 15 minutes after I posted this, I realized that I had lied, but I was too tired to bother fixing it! I have read another graphic novel, and it might be one that interests many of you. It's a gorgeous, glossy, colorfully illustrated version of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, adapted by Nancy Butler and Hugo Petrus. The front cover is made to look like a women's magazine, but the words inside are directly from the novel. It's the perfect gift for P & P diehard fans.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Music and a Movie, Part II
This was the one I'd been looking forward to all summer. Tonight Natalie Merchant brought back memories with "Carnival," "Wonder" and "Kind and Generous." She also did an amazing thing--she brought people to their feet--dancing even--to poetry. Her latest album, Leave Your Sleep, features 2 discs of children's poetry put to her original musical compositions. She plays just about every genre of music, from Chinese-inspired to Cajun to nautical tunes. She did not, however, satisfy the 10,000 Maniacs fans in the crowd who were shouting for the numbers she sang with her former group.
The most interesting part of the concert may have been Natalie herself. She appears to be easily distracted, or unaccustomed to being able to see her audience as clearly as she could tonight at Meijer Gardens. She would lose track of her lyrics as she watched people talking on cell phones, which obviously irritated her. She was already a little out of her element because it was too bright for some of the projections of her show, and she was waiting for the sun to go down. Which it did eventually, but it meant changing up the order of her show. She was very interactive, launching into impromptu tunes such as "Dust in the Wind." She even sang the second verse after someone Googled the lyrics on his iPhone for her.
Mellow, beautiful and filled with great music, it was another lovely night at Meijer Gardens. And I think Natalie Merchant's voice could make the Oscar Meyer song sound fabulous. Even if people are walking around talking on phones or standing in line for popcorn just around the corner.
Also went to see "Inception" this weekend with our movie group. What a mindbender! Which shouldn't be a surprise, given that it was directed by Christopher Nolan, the same mind behind one of our personal favorites, "Memento." I don't think I can even describe the plot, but it was great to see with a group--plenty to wonder about. Though I haven't been that tense during a movie, or exhausted after, in a long time.
Get out there and enjoy some summer fun before everything starts over again!
The most interesting part of the concert may have been Natalie herself. She appears to be easily distracted, or unaccustomed to being able to see her audience as clearly as she could tonight at Meijer Gardens. She would lose track of her lyrics as she watched people talking on cell phones, which obviously irritated her. She was already a little out of her element because it was too bright for some of the projections of her show, and she was waiting for the sun to go down. Which it did eventually, but it meant changing up the order of her show. She was very interactive, launching into impromptu tunes such as "Dust in the Wind." She even sang the second verse after someone Googled the lyrics on his iPhone for her.
Mellow, beautiful and filled with great music, it was another lovely night at Meijer Gardens. And I think Natalie Merchant's voice could make the Oscar Meyer song sound fabulous. Even if people are walking around talking on phones or standing in line for popcorn just around the corner.
Also went to see "Inception" this weekend with our movie group. What a mindbender! Which shouldn't be a surprise, given that it was directed by Christopher Nolan, the same mind behind one of our personal favorites, "Memento." I don't think I can even describe the plot, but it was great to see with a group--plenty to wonder about. Though I haven't been that tense during a movie, or exhausted after, in a long time.
Get out there and enjoy some summer fun before everything starts over again!
Friday, July 23, 2010
Bedtime Stories
My 7-year-old and I finished yet another Junie B. Jones title by Barbara Park tonight. I have to admit, when my older daughter became old enough for such books, I avoided Junie B. because she seemed like such a smart mouth. Since I have given up on parenting the perfect child, my younger daughter and I have enjoyed reading these books together--there are many laugh-out-loud moments. We've come a long way from reading the same board books over and over, and though I love Goodnight Moon and Time for Bed, it's fun to explore wider worlds with her.
The youngest likes to read the books to me now, instead of the other way around. Since I am generally tired and ready to finish the bedtime routine as quickly as possible, this isn't always my favorite way. After all, I could read it so much faster! But when I take a deep breath, settle in, and give myself to enjoying the book with her, it's fun to hear her inflection and her sense of humor coming through. Some of her favorites right now, besides Junie B. and a multitude of picture books, are the Daisy Meadows fairy books--Weather Fairies, Pet Fairies, Flower Fairies, Dance Fairies--you get the picture. When she allows me to read to her, we've been laughing over Beverly Cleary's Ramona books. (We're looking forward to seeing Ramona and Beezus in the theater soon!)
One of my favorite read alouds to all of my kids at 7 or 8 years old is The Prince of the Pond by Donna Jo Napoli. This is the story of the prince who has been turned into a frog by an old hag, told by the female frog who finds this huge, inexplicably incompetent male frog and eventually falls in love with him. The book subtly teaches numerous facts about frog life, and it is very entertaining. All three kids loved it. My son liked one of his dad's old favorites, Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown. I did too, though I found the rest of the series, well, flat. Cleary's The Mouse and the Motorcycle was a good one, too.
Our older daughter is 11, and she still wants to read with us every night. Some of our favorites together have been Inkheart by Cornelia Funke, and The Thief Lord by the same author has her wanting to visit Venice sometime soon! The Princess Academy by Shannon Hale was another great one. Though the plot involves all of the girls from a small mountain village being sent to learn to be princesses because the prince will be choosing one of them for his own, the main character is a strong, smart young woman who is not interested in wealth or fame. Both of us were hooked reading this one. I have wept through parts of Because of Winn Dixie by Kate diCamillo, and I'm hoping to read Louisa May Alcott's Little Women with her soon, though again I'll probably turn into a blubbering mess!
The oldest, our son, recently turned 13 and has not had us read to him regularly for a while. This is partly due to the logistics. Often one of us is gone for a meeting or exercise or whatever in the evening, so bedtime is a one-man or woman show. Reading to three kids for any significant length of time can be a big commitment! The boy child is content to read to himself most nights, especially when he has a stack of new graphic novels from the library.
Every so often, though, I will sit down with whatever book he happens to be reading at that time, and I'll read 5 or 6 pages to him. This keeps me connected to what he is reading, and it gives him an opportunity to ask questions that the book has brought to his mind. And if he is reading a book that's been assigned by school, a few pages of read aloud sometimes kicks in his interest and he can move forward more eagerly.
Bedtime stories are a great way to connect with our kids. Choosing books that interest both the reader and the child being read to makes this a fun experience rather than a boring chore.
The youngest likes to read the books to me now, instead of the other way around. Since I am generally tired and ready to finish the bedtime routine as quickly as possible, this isn't always my favorite way. After all, I could read it so much faster! But when I take a deep breath, settle in, and give myself to enjoying the book with her, it's fun to hear her inflection and her sense of humor coming through. Some of her favorites right now, besides Junie B. and a multitude of picture books, are the Daisy Meadows fairy books--Weather Fairies, Pet Fairies, Flower Fairies, Dance Fairies--you get the picture. When she allows me to read to her, we've been laughing over Beverly Cleary's Ramona books. (We're looking forward to seeing Ramona and Beezus in the theater soon!)
One of my favorite read alouds to all of my kids at 7 or 8 years old is The Prince of the Pond by Donna Jo Napoli. This is the story of the prince who has been turned into a frog by an old hag, told by the female frog who finds this huge, inexplicably incompetent male frog and eventually falls in love with him. The book subtly teaches numerous facts about frog life, and it is very entertaining. All three kids loved it. My son liked one of his dad's old favorites, Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown. I did too, though I found the rest of the series, well, flat. Cleary's The Mouse and the Motorcycle was a good one, too.
Our older daughter is 11, and she still wants to read with us every night. Some of our favorites together have been Inkheart by Cornelia Funke, and The Thief Lord by the same author has her wanting to visit Venice sometime soon! The Princess Academy by Shannon Hale was another great one. Though the plot involves all of the girls from a small mountain village being sent to learn to be princesses because the prince will be choosing one of them for his own, the main character is a strong, smart young woman who is not interested in wealth or fame. Both of us were hooked reading this one. I have wept through parts of Because of Winn Dixie by Kate diCamillo, and I'm hoping to read Louisa May Alcott's Little Women with her soon, though again I'll probably turn into a blubbering mess!
The oldest, our son, recently turned 13 and has not had us read to him regularly for a while. This is partly due to the logistics. Often one of us is gone for a meeting or exercise or whatever in the evening, so bedtime is a one-man or woman show. Reading to three kids for any significant length of time can be a big commitment! The boy child is content to read to himself most nights, especially when he has a stack of new graphic novels from the library.
Every so often, though, I will sit down with whatever book he happens to be reading at that time, and I'll read 5 or 6 pages to him. This keeps me connected to what he is reading, and it gives him an opportunity to ask questions that the book has brought to his mind. And if he is reading a book that's been assigned by school, a few pages of read aloud sometimes kicks in his interest and he can move forward more eagerly.
Bedtime stories are a great way to connect with our kids. Choosing books that interest both the reader and the child being read to makes this a fun experience rather than a boring chore.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
It's A Dog's LIfe
Narrow Dog to Carcassonne. If Bill Bryson (A Walk in the Woods, In A Sunburned Country) decided to take his wife and dog in a narrow canal boat to cross the English Channel and explore France, and if he decided to disregard almost all punctuation, this is the book he would write.
And the Fab 5 would read it all, given enough time. As it turned out, two of us almost finished it, and two of us merely got a taste of it. For the record, I am one of the two who almost finished it (and skimmed the rest). I report that only so you don't think I'm getting into a habit of reporting on books I haven't even made it halfway through. That will come later this year, when work picks up a bit!
Terry and Monica Darlington, along with their dog Jim--a whippet--made the journey through England, across the Channel, and through France in their 7-foot-wide English canal boat. Most travel books incite a renewed case of disastrous wanderlust in me, causing me to lose many hours of my life to Travelocity.com. The Fab 5 agreed that many months aboard a narrowboat (particularly crossing the Channel), waiting for locks to fill and open, isn't our next hoped-for adventure.
Sonya brought a catalog of canal boats along to the meeting. They look so cute and cozy, but yet so narrow. Perhaps it's having children at home that makes it sound so claustrophobic, or jobs that we must get back to, or the fact that most of our vacations are always fitted to the very limited time frame set for them. Terry and Monica are retired, which I realize doesn't mean they have nothing to do, but it gives them some freedom to take a leisurely pace if they so desire.
This book is hard to read. There are no quotation marks. And he jumps from topic to topic, allusion to allusion, event to event very quickly. I think he must have read Joyce's stream of consciousness novel Ulysses one too many times, or possibly even Finnegan's Wake. (Does anyone really read all of Finnegan's Wake?) But hard reading isn't necessarily unenjoyable. The book is hilarious, and the further we read, the more we liked it. It just takes a bit more time and concentration than we planned for a summer travel read.
Terry enjoys people, pubs and keeping his dog company. Monica, his tiny dynamo of a wife, keeps them moving in a straight line. Jim the whippet runs the show and keeps them on their toes. Jim encourages the pub habit and, sadly, hates boating. A couple of us might be next in line at the whippet adoption center. If you want to see a picture of Jim and his owners, you can look them up on http://www.narrowdog.com/.
I personally laughed out loud many times while reading, and I forced my husband to listen to many out-of-context readings that left me howling with laughter while he graced me with his patient smile, waiting for the opportunity to get back to his own book. Yes, I'm one of those people. But Darlington is a very funny writer, and his quiet exaggerations of certain scenes are worth the work of deciphering his paragraphs.
Talking about the book got us talking about vacations. Nancy is the opposite of Terry and Monica. While the Darlingtons are forever visiting other boaters or having them to visit, Nancy suggests that one good way to discourage strangers from talking to you at a campground is to display an Amway or Herbalife sticker in your vehicle--"Lose weight now, ask me how." She tried putting beer on the picnic table one time, but that only encouraged visitors. It would most certainly encourage Terry Darlington. Not so much a people person, that Nancy.
The follow up to this book is Narrow Dog to Indian River, in which they somehow take their boat (or at least a boat) down the United States to Florida. I definitely want to read this book, because I'd love to know Darlington's impressions of the American territory as he passes it by.
Next month we'll be getting our feminist groove on, reading When Everything Changed. It's something to do with the state of women in the US over the last 40 or 50 years. Get out the bras and the lighter fluid.
And the Fab 5 would read it all, given enough time. As it turned out, two of us almost finished it, and two of us merely got a taste of it. For the record, I am one of the two who almost finished it (and skimmed the rest). I report that only so you don't think I'm getting into a habit of reporting on books I haven't even made it halfway through. That will come later this year, when work picks up a bit!
Terry and Monica Darlington, along with their dog Jim--a whippet--made the journey through England, across the Channel, and through France in their 7-foot-wide English canal boat. Most travel books incite a renewed case of disastrous wanderlust in me, causing me to lose many hours of my life to Travelocity.com. The Fab 5 agreed that many months aboard a narrowboat (particularly crossing the Channel), waiting for locks to fill and open, isn't our next hoped-for adventure.
Sonya brought a catalog of canal boats along to the meeting. They look so cute and cozy, but yet so narrow. Perhaps it's having children at home that makes it sound so claustrophobic, or jobs that we must get back to, or the fact that most of our vacations are always fitted to the very limited time frame set for them. Terry and Monica are retired, which I realize doesn't mean they have nothing to do, but it gives them some freedom to take a leisurely pace if they so desire.
This book is hard to read. There are no quotation marks. And he jumps from topic to topic, allusion to allusion, event to event very quickly. I think he must have read Joyce's stream of consciousness novel Ulysses one too many times, or possibly even Finnegan's Wake. (Does anyone really read all of Finnegan's Wake?) But hard reading isn't necessarily unenjoyable. The book is hilarious, and the further we read, the more we liked it. It just takes a bit more time and concentration than we planned for a summer travel read.
Terry enjoys people, pubs and keeping his dog company. Monica, his tiny dynamo of a wife, keeps them moving in a straight line. Jim the whippet runs the show and keeps them on their toes. Jim encourages the pub habit and, sadly, hates boating. A couple of us might be next in line at the whippet adoption center. If you want to see a picture of Jim and his owners, you can look them up on http://www.narrowdog.com/.
I personally laughed out loud many times while reading, and I forced my husband to listen to many out-of-context readings that left me howling with laughter while he graced me with his patient smile, waiting for the opportunity to get back to his own book. Yes, I'm one of those people. But Darlington is a very funny writer, and his quiet exaggerations of certain scenes are worth the work of deciphering his paragraphs.
Talking about the book got us talking about vacations. Nancy is the opposite of Terry and Monica. While the Darlingtons are forever visiting other boaters or having them to visit, Nancy suggests that one good way to discourage strangers from talking to you at a campground is to display an Amway or Herbalife sticker in your vehicle--"Lose weight now, ask me how." She tried putting beer on the picnic table one time, but that only encouraged visitors. It would most certainly encourage Terry Darlington. Not so much a people person, that Nancy.
The follow up to this book is Narrow Dog to Indian River, in which they somehow take their boat (or at least a boat) down the United States to Florida. I definitely want to read this book, because I'd love to know Darlington's impressions of the American territory as he passes it by.
Next month we'll be getting our feminist groove on, reading When Everything Changed. It's something to do with the state of women in the US over the last 40 or 50 years. Get out the bras and the lighter fluid.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Music and A Movie--A Good Weekend!
This has been an unusual weekend for us. Last night we went to a concert, and tonight a movie. Can you tell that two of our kids are at summer camp? And the youngest one is thrilled to have "real babysitters," so we're making the most of it.
Friday night we went to see Umphrey's McGee at Meijer Gardens. This band is considered improg, or progressive improvisational rock. That means, as far as I can see, that within the structure of the song, the musician that is currently spotlighted is free to play whatever comes to them. We heard a lot of different influences in their music--Yes, Supertramp, the Who, a bit of world beat. I'm very lyrically-oriented when I listen to music (should that surprise anyone?), so the fact that they are not as strong vocally as instrumentally takes a few points from the grading scale. However, they really play well and it was a beautiful night, so all is good. Also, I think this may be the first time I saw a light show at Meijer Gardens.
We were, however, old fogies in the crowd. For once we got there in time to get seats closer to the stage, which turned out to be a problem for us. Umphrey's has a devoted following, and they were out in force. Mostly in their 20s or early 30s, well pierced and tattooed, wearing either homemade superhero costumes or flower-child meets Hollister outfits. All of the rows directly ahead of us stood up to become a mass of movement and skin. From our comfortable beach chairs, we were staring directly at a derriere covered by nothing but a very thin gauzy skirt. That might have worked for Brian, but quite a few were ignoring the no-smoking policy, which drives him bonkers.
Eventually we packed up our things and moved to a spot in the grass on the side, and from there we could people-watch to our hearts' content and see the stage at the same time. Obviously none of these kids had spent the day unpacking one kid from camp, getting her to a birthday party, then packing and shipping off the other two to camp. I think I might have had that much energy at some point in my life, but at this time, sitting in the beach chairs is much more appealing.
So that was Friday.
Tonight we met a portion of our movie group to see the movie "Please Give." This is the sort of odd, funny movie I like. It's not for everyone--too much talking, not enough plot, too much language for others. The movie starts in a jarring way, showing a series of breasts being placed on slides for mammograms in a decidedly unsexy way.
The story centers on a family going through midlife--a too-familiar marriage, a difficult 15 year old. They have a neighbor who is dying, and her granddaughter is caring for her. All of their lives become intertwined, including an extramarital affair.
There are a lot of themes twisted through the story, some of which are: how women see themselves, what makes someone attractive, our need to give and receive and what motivates charity. Always excellent, actress Catherine Keener plays the wife and mother of the family, who lives in a fog of guilt and sees only the sadness in the world. Her husband seems happily immune to guilt, until he makes his own mistakes. The daughter hates the way she looks and needs understanding and acceptance.
The caretaker granddaughter and her sister are a study in opposites--plain vs. beautiful, duty-bound vs. cold-hearted. The grandmother is as cold as her less caring granddaughter. There is a lovely scene where the kind, duty-bound granddaughter chooses to see the beauty in the world rather than to dwell on the sadness.
If you like your movie in blockbuster form, this one won't be for you. If you like smaller, quiet movies with interesting characters (and aren't offended by the bad language or other mature situations), you might give it a try.
Friday night we went to see Umphrey's McGee at Meijer Gardens. This band is considered improg, or progressive improvisational rock. That means, as far as I can see, that within the structure of the song, the musician that is currently spotlighted is free to play whatever comes to them. We heard a lot of different influences in their music--Yes, Supertramp, the Who, a bit of world beat. I'm very lyrically-oriented when I listen to music (should that surprise anyone?), so the fact that they are not as strong vocally as instrumentally takes a few points from the grading scale. However, they really play well and it was a beautiful night, so all is good. Also, I think this may be the first time I saw a light show at Meijer Gardens.
We were, however, old fogies in the crowd. For once we got there in time to get seats closer to the stage, which turned out to be a problem for us. Umphrey's has a devoted following, and they were out in force. Mostly in their 20s or early 30s, well pierced and tattooed, wearing either homemade superhero costumes or flower-child meets Hollister outfits. All of the rows directly ahead of us stood up to become a mass of movement and skin. From our comfortable beach chairs, we were staring directly at a derriere covered by nothing but a very thin gauzy skirt. That might have worked for Brian, but quite a few were ignoring the no-smoking policy, which drives him bonkers.
Eventually we packed up our things and moved to a spot in the grass on the side, and from there we could people-watch to our hearts' content and see the stage at the same time. Obviously none of these kids had spent the day unpacking one kid from camp, getting her to a birthday party, then packing and shipping off the other two to camp. I think I might have had that much energy at some point in my life, but at this time, sitting in the beach chairs is much more appealing.
So that was Friday.
Tonight we met a portion of our movie group to see the movie "Please Give." This is the sort of odd, funny movie I like. It's not for everyone--too much talking, not enough plot, too much language for others. The movie starts in a jarring way, showing a series of breasts being placed on slides for mammograms in a decidedly unsexy way.
The story centers on a family going through midlife--a too-familiar marriage, a difficult 15 year old. They have a neighbor who is dying, and her granddaughter is caring for her. All of their lives become intertwined, including an extramarital affair.
There are a lot of themes twisted through the story, some of which are: how women see themselves, what makes someone attractive, our need to give and receive and what motivates charity. Always excellent, actress Catherine Keener plays the wife and mother of the family, who lives in a fog of guilt and sees only the sadness in the world. Her husband seems happily immune to guilt, until he makes his own mistakes. The daughter hates the way she looks and needs understanding and acceptance.
The caretaker granddaughter and her sister are a study in opposites--plain vs. beautiful, duty-bound vs. cold-hearted. The grandmother is as cold as her less caring granddaughter. There is a lovely scene where the kind, duty-bound granddaughter chooses to see the beauty in the world rather than to dwell on the sadness.
If you like your movie in blockbuster form, this one won't be for you. If you like smaller, quiet movies with interesting characters (and aren't offended by the bad language or other mature situations), you might give it a try.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Elegant Hedgehogs
Well, in my initial statements for this blog, I talk about how you can attend book club vicariously through me. I think I rashly mentioned something like "I read the book, I attend the book club..." I'm here to tell you I've let you down. I didn't finish the book. I didn't even finish half of the book. I got about one third of the way through. And it won't be the last time.
It was not even my desire to fulfill the rest of my commitment to my blog readers that goaded me to attend the meeting anyway. It was the presence of my children. With one coming home from summer camp this morning, and two headed out to summer camp tomorrow, things are in an uproar around here, and book club was my escape from the rabble. My husband, Brian, cast a sorrowful look my way as I headed to the garage.
The Neland Womens' Book Club gathered tonight to talk about The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. My failure to meet the reading deadline has nothing to do with a lack of interest in the book. This book has been a worldwide bestseller. It was originally published in France (in French, of all things), and, according to our diligent leader-of-the-night, Rita, it has been translated into 35 languages. Apparently it sold 1.2 million hardcovers in France alone!
I think it goes without saying, but the following thoughts and insights are hardly mine! These are things plucked from the group discussion.
A friend of mine sums this book up as a beach read for philosophers. If philosophers ever went to the beach, this is what they'd read there. I don't know the beachgoing tendencies of philosophers, but I can say that this book covers its share of philosophy. Tonight's leader, Rita, who has spent a lot of time living in France, said that the philosophical nature of the book is part of its appeal for the French readership--philosophy is still compulsory in high school there, and it is part of the general conversational atmosphere.
France is also a country that has a strong sense of classes, and this novel about people learning to step across barriers is intriguing. One of our members had recently heard a lecture by a professor here, Dr. James Bratt, who said that classism is going to become an overriding issue for the U.S. in coming decades. The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. The gap between them will become a bigger barrier to cross. Even in the U.S. (land of opportunity and all that) it takes an extraordinary child to break out of the expected, no matter their class. Paloma, the young girl in the book, writes "But if, in our world, there is any chance of becoming the person you haven't yet become...will I know how to seize that chance, turn my life into a garden that will be completely different from my forebears?"
The book is told from two perspectives--a 50-something concierge of an apartment building, and a 12-year-old girl who resides there as well. This book got very positive reactions from many of the readers at the meeting, and one woman said she went back and read each narrative separately to get a different view of the story. It is hard to imagine a 12-year-old with this sort of insight into the world and the people around her, but most were able to get past that aspect of the story.
The Elegance of the Hedgehog is not a light read--part of the reason I have not finished it is that I have tried to read it while sitting at the neighborhood pool, and I've been too distracted there to dive into the story, if you'll pardon the pun. Reading time at home in the quiet living room has been much more successful.
The novel reflects on art and beauty, and what meaning those things add to our lives. It also shows the way that people hide part or all of themselves from the world. (I can't help hearing the lyrics to "The Stranger" by Billy Joel over and over in my mind.) When we are quick to categorize without looking at people more deeply, we miss the chance to really know them. And all of us have a longing to be known for who we really are.
Rita was able to give us more insight into the French context of the novel. In the past, starting in the 18th century, almost every apartment building in France came to have a concierge. The concierge sweeps the hall, polishes the doorknobs, takes the garbage bins to the street for pickup, and numerous other tasks, sometimes even keeping noisy residents under control.
Over the last decade, 10,000 buildings have given up their concierges. Cleaning crews from businesses sweep through many buildings a day for a lower cost than maintaining a concierge position. Many mourn the loss of this tradition and are campaigning to keep the positions. They are the only human connection that some residents have, especially elderly people who depend on them. Personally, I would very much appreciate a concierge in my home.
Also, there is one scene in the book that was more understandable (and more humorous) when Rita explained that France controls the "sales" that retail stores can offer. Sales can only occur in January or July, so everyone goes in to try to get a deal.
Beyond the specifics of trying to better understand a novel written in another country and language, there are universals here that make the book successful in so many places. As I mentioned, art and beauty and the desire to know and to be known are strong themes. The last page has some lovely words. "...Maybe that's what life is about: there's a lot of despair, but also the odd moment of beauty, where time is no longer the same. It's as if those strains of music created a sort of interlude in time, something suspended, an elsewhere that had come to us, an always within never. Yes, that's it, an always within never." Isn't that what we are all searching for in some way, an always within the never?
It was not even my desire to fulfill the rest of my commitment to my blog readers that goaded me to attend the meeting anyway. It was the presence of my children. With one coming home from summer camp this morning, and two headed out to summer camp tomorrow, things are in an uproar around here, and book club was my escape from the rabble. My husband, Brian, cast a sorrowful look my way as I headed to the garage.
The Neland Womens' Book Club gathered tonight to talk about The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. My failure to meet the reading deadline has nothing to do with a lack of interest in the book. This book has been a worldwide bestseller. It was originally published in France (in French, of all things), and, according to our diligent leader-of-the-night, Rita, it has been translated into 35 languages. Apparently it sold 1.2 million hardcovers in France alone!
I think it goes without saying, but the following thoughts and insights are hardly mine! These are things plucked from the group discussion.
A friend of mine sums this book up as a beach read for philosophers. If philosophers ever went to the beach, this is what they'd read there. I don't know the beachgoing tendencies of philosophers, but I can say that this book covers its share of philosophy. Tonight's leader, Rita, who has spent a lot of time living in France, said that the philosophical nature of the book is part of its appeal for the French readership--philosophy is still compulsory in high school there, and it is part of the general conversational atmosphere.
France is also a country that has a strong sense of classes, and this novel about people learning to step across barriers is intriguing. One of our members had recently heard a lecture by a professor here, Dr. James Bratt, who said that classism is going to become an overriding issue for the U.S. in coming decades. The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. The gap between them will become a bigger barrier to cross. Even in the U.S. (land of opportunity and all that) it takes an extraordinary child to break out of the expected, no matter their class. Paloma, the young girl in the book, writes "But if, in our world, there is any chance of becoming the person you haven't yet become...will I know how to seize that chance, turn my life into a garden that will be completely different from my forebears?"
The book is told from two perspectives--a 50-something concierge of an apartment building, and a 12-year-old girl who resides there as well. This book got very positive reactions from many of the readers at the meeting, and one woman said she went back and read each narrative separately to get a different view of the story. It is hard to imagine a 12-year-old with this sort of insight into the world and the people around her, but most were able to get past that aspect of the story.
The Elegance of the Hedgehog is not a light read--part of the reason I have not finished it is that I have tried to read it while sitting at the neighborhood pool, and I've been too distracted there to dive into the story, if you'll pardon the pun. Reading time at home in the quiet living room has been much more successful.
The novel reflects on art and beauty, and what meaning those things add to our lives. It also shows the way that people hide part or all of themselves from the world. (I can't help hearing the lyrics to "The Stranger" by Billy Joel over and over in my mind.) When we are quick to categorize without looking at people more deeply, we miss the chance to really know them. And all of us have a longing to be known for who we really are.
Rita was able to give us more insight into the French context of the novel. In the past, starting in the 18th century, almost every apartment building in France came to have a concierge. The concierge sweeps the hall, polishes the doorknobs, takes the garbage bins to the street for pickup, and numerous other tasks, sometimes even keeping noisy residents under control.
Over the last decade, 10,000 buildings have given up their concierges. Cleaning crews from businesses sweep through many buildings a day for a lower cost than maintaining a concierge position. Many mourn the loss of this tradition and are campaigning to keep the positions. They are the only human connection that some residents have, especially elderly people who depend on them. Personally, I would very much appreciate a concierge in my home.
Also, there is one scene in the book that was more understandable (and more humorous) when Rita explained that France controls the "sales" that retail stores can offer. Sales can only occur in January or July, so everyone goes in to try to get a deal.
Beyond the specifics of trying to better understand a novel written in another country and language, there are universals here that make the book successful in so many places. As I mentioned, art and beauty and the desire to know and to be known are strong themes. The last page has some lovely words. "...Maybe that's what life is about: there's a lot of despair, but also the odd moment of beauty, where time is no longer the same. It's as if those strains of music created a sort of interlude in time, something suspended, an elsewhere that had come to us, an always within never. Yes, that's it, an always within never." Isn't that what we are all searching for in some way, an always within the never?
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