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.
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