I reviewed Sue Bender's Plain and Simple a few months ago and, while that was my favorite of her three books, decided to read Everyday Sacred: A Woman's Journey Home and Stretching Lessons: The Daring that Starts from Within. All three books essentially explore the questions that Bender spent 20 years exploring: "What really matters? Is there another way to lead a good life?" While Bender learned a great deal from her experiences with the Amish, she struggled to apply the principles of simplicity, finding her life still cluttered with activities and expectations.
In Everyday Sacred, she explores the image of the begging bowl--starting the day with an empty bowl and filling it with the extraordinary "stuff" of everyday life. In Stretching Lessons, she looks at the idea of growing by taking risks--to become as big as we are. Both books have wonderful stories and vignettes, along with reflections that inspire. However, I find that they are better picked up and read in bits and pieces. At least when I sit down and read a big chunk of these books, I find myself losing patience with Bender--I want to yell, "Just get on with living your life as you want to." I realize this reaction is more about me than about the author, but I think others might feel similarly.
Favorite passages:
On seeing the white paintings of Robert Ryman (from Everyday Sacred):
An "inner light" radiated from the paintings.
The space was silent--with that respectful, muffled silence of a coister. The word purity came to mind.
And immense.
This was the "immensity within ourselves" I had read about and hadn't understood.
"It doesn't always have to be so hard," I heard myself say--the judge nowhere present at that moment. There are other ways of "seeing"--these paintings seemed to say. Other possibilities, infinite possibilities. Mysteries to be uncovered.
From Stretching Lessons:
Some people will never see us--that doesn't mean we're not there.
For years, my deepest wish had been to get away from my world, in which I feel pulled in so many directions, and retreat to a silent space. A place free of distractions, to work nonstop on the zillion of pieces of paper I had collected. A place where someone else would cook dinner.
Friday, June 13, 2014
The Storyteller, by Jodi Picoult
A couple of titles ago, I decided not to read any more Jodi Picoult because her books were so predictable. Then I read a description of The Storyteller and decided to try it because it was different from her typical book. While some aspects of The Storyteller are straight out of the Picoult tool kit--a New England setting, multiple narrators, a legal turn, and a twist at the end--the content of the story is quite unusual for Picoult.
Sage Singer is a baker, working for a former nun, blaming herself for her mother's death, having an affair with a married funeral director, and trying to hide physical and emotional scars. She becomes friends with an elderly customer, Josef Weber, a man much admired in their small town. Then Josef shocks her by telling her that he was a member of the SS guilty of atrocities while working at Auschwitz. What is more, he wants Sage to help him die.
Shocked by this request, Sage reaches out to a government attorney, Leo Stein, who investigates and prosecutes war criminals. He convinces her to talk with her grandmother, an Auschwitz survivor, to see if she can corroborate any of the information provided by Josef. Josef and Sage's grandmother narrate their wartime stories while Leo and Sage grapple with what to do in the present. Interspersed with these narratives is an allegory about a mythic Polish monster similar to a zombie; Sage's grandmother began writing the story as a girl and it played an important role in her time in the concentration camp.
I had mixed feelings about The Storyteller. The narratives set during the 1930s and 1940s were fascinating, providing detail that I had not internalized from other books and movies. On the other hand, the plot depended on unlikely coincidences, and the love story seemed entirely unbelievable. Furthermore, when Picoult tries to deal with questions of forgiveness--can Josef be forgiven and by whom?--the discussion is muddled. Muddling can be good if it causes you to question your ideas but this is the kind of muddling that makes you ask: What the heck is she saying?
I'm glad I decided to read The Storyteller, but I think Picoult could have done much more with the contemporary story.
Favorite passage:
That's the paradox of loss: How can something that's gone weigh us down so much?
Sage Singer is a baker, working for a former nun, blaming herself for her mother's death, having an affair with a married funeral director, and trying to hide physical and emotional scars. She becomes friends with an elderly customer, Josef Weber, a man much admired in their small town. Then Josef shocks her by telling her that he was a member of the SS guilty of atrocities while working at Auschwitz. What is more, he wants Sage to help him die.
Shocked by this request, Sage reaches out to a government attorney, Leo Stein, who investigates and prosecutes war criminals. He convinces her to talk with her grandmother, an Auschwitz survivor, to see if she can corroborate any of the information provided by Josef. Josef and Sage's grandmother narrate their wartime stories while Leo and Sage grapple with what to do in the present. Interspersed with these narratives is an allegory about a mythic Polish monster similar to a zombie; Sage's grandmother began writing the story as a girl and it played an important role in her time in the concentration camp.
I had mixed feelings about The Storyteller. The narratives set during the 1930s and 1940s were fascinating, providing detail that I had not internalized from other books and movies. On the other hand, the plot depended on unlikely coincidences, and the love story seemed entirely unbelievable. Furthermore, when Picoult tries to deal with questions of forgiveness--can Josef be forgiven and by whom?--the discussion is muddled. Muddling can be good if it causes you to question your ideas but this is the kind of muddling that makes you ask: What the heck is she saying?
I'm glad I decided to read The Storyteller, but I think Picoult could have done much more with the contemporary story.
Favorite passage:
That's the paradox of loss: How can something that's gone weigh us down so much?
Thursday, June 5, 2014
A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry
The present action in A Fine Balance is set during the emergency declared by Indian Prime Minister Indira Ghandi in 1975. The events of this period are horrendous, but the back stories of the four main characters and the epilogue set eight years later reveal that life has been cruel to Indian peoples of limited financial means no matter the year.
As the book opens, tailors Ishvar and his nephew Om meet college student Maneck on the train. All three are traveling to the apartment of a widow named Dina, who is planning to rent a room to Maneck and employ the tailors to fill orders for a ready-to-wear business. Dina's husband was killed in a bicycle accident on their third anniversary and, ever since, she has been trying to maintain her independence from her brother's household. Ishvar and Om lost their entire families to violence in their village following a caste-related voting dispute and are looking for work in the city, hoping to make enough money to allow Om to marry on their return to the village. Maneck, whose mother knew Dina in college but married a shopkeeper from a mountain town, has been miserable at his student hostel, losing his one friend to involvement in student unrest. These events have brought the four of them to the point where they need one another.
Dina, who grew up in a wealthy family but chose to marry a working-class man, is at first disdainful of the tailors, who are from a much lower caste, but Maneck becomes friendly with them against her wishes. He learns of the complex web of relationships they have among others of Bombay's poor--people who live in the shack community where they find a home, beggars, waiters at coffee shops. As Om and Ishvar suffer a series of misfortunes brought about by government action, Dina finds herself opening her heart to them. By the end of a year together, the four are essentially a family, living, working, cooking, and eating together. Then Om and Ishvar return to their village to find a wife for Om, and Maneck finishes his one-year courses and returns to his mountain town. Suffice it to say, none of the four have a happy ending.
A Fine Balance, while written in a rather straightforward or objective tone that does not make the reader gasp with its beauty, is both engrossing and educative. And sad, so very sad. The conditions under which, according to Mistry, the poor lived in the mid to late 20th century are nearly incomprehensible--and I am embarrassed to say I am not knowledgable enough to say for sure what conditions they face today (though I suspect they continue to be terribly challenging). My shortcomings notwithstanding, I would recommend A Fine Balance.
Favorite passages:
Flirting with madness was one thing; when madness started flirting back, it was time to call the whole thing off.
But nobody ever forgot anything, not really, though sometimes they pretended, when it suited them. Memories were permanent. Sorrowful ones remained sad even with the passing of time, yet happy ones could never be recreated - not with the same joy. Remembering bred its own peculiar sorrow. It seemed so unfair: that time should render both sadness and happiness into a source of pain.
As the book opens, tailors Ishvar and his nephew Om meet college student Maneck on the train. All three are traveling to the apartment of a widow named Dina, who is planning to rent a room to Maneck and employ the tailors to fill orders for a ready-to-wear business. Dina's husband was killed in a bicycle accident on their third anniversary and, ever since, she has been trying to maintain her independence from her brother's household. Ishvar and Om lost their entire families to violence in their village following a caste-related voting dispute and are looking for work in the city, hoping to make enough money to allow Om to marry on their return to the village. Maneck, whose mother knew Dina in college but married a shopkeeper from a mountain town, has been miserable at his student hostel, losing his one friend to involvement in student unrest. These events have brought the four of them to the point where they need one another.
Dina, who grew up in a wealthy family but chose to marry a working-class man, is at first disdainful of the tailors, who are from a much lower caste, but Maneck becomes friendly with them against her wishes. He learns of the complex web of relationships they have among others of Bombay's poor--people who live in the shack community where they find a home, beggars, waiters at coffee shops. As Om and Ishvar suffer a series of misfortunes brought about by government action, Dina finds herself opening her heart to them. By the end of a year together, the four are essentially a family, living, working, cooking, and eating together. Then Om and Ishvar return to their village to find a wife for Om, and Maneck finishes his one-year courses and returns to his mountain town. Suffice it to say, none of the four have a happy ending.
A Fine Balance, while written in a rather straightforward or objective tone that does not make the reader gasp with its beauty, is both engrossing and educative. And sad, so very sad. The conditions under which, according to Mistry, the poor lived in the mid to late 20th century are nearly incomprehensible--and I am embarrassed to say I am not knowledgable enough to say for sure what conditions they face today (though I suspect they continue to be terribly challenging). My shortcomings notwithstanding, I would recommend A Fine Balance.
Favorite passages:
Flirting with madness was one thing; when madness started flirting back, it was time to call the whole thing off.
But nobody ever forgot anything, not really, though sometimes they pretended, when it suited them. Memories were permanent. Sorrowful ones remained sad even with the passing of time, yet happy ones could never be recreated - not with the same joy. Remembering bred its own peculiar sorrow. It seemed so unfair: that time should render both sadness and happiness into a source of pain.
Monday, June 2, 2014
The Color Master: Stories, by Aimee Bender
Aimee Bender is reportedly a master of the short story form. Unfortunately, I am not a master short story reader. In fact, the stories in The Color Master provoke the "Hunh?" reaction, followed by brief concern that I am not very bright. A number of reviewers described the story as "modern fairy tales," and I can understand the comparison, without understanding the stories. For example, in "Appleless," a girl does not like apples--too mushy, cheeky, or bloomed, she says. So everyone else decides to eat only apples. When the girl returns, the entire group has some kind of ecstatic experience; soon, all the apples are gone. As I said, "Hunh?"
I did enjoy a few of the stories. In "Lemonade," Bender beautifully captures a teenager's angst at the mall when her friend is drawn away by her boyfriend and one of the "mean" girls from their school. "Wordkeepers" is about the loss of vocabulary the narrator posits may be caused by too much texting. The title story definitely fits the description of modern fairy tale but I almost understand it (the last line threw me off) and the idea of mixing colors in the way described in the story is both magical and entrancing.
If you like the surreal and opaque, you may well enjoy The Color Master. If you are more appreciative of the realistic and straightforward, you may want to skip this collection.
Favorite passages:
That's the thing with handmade items. They still have the person's mark on them, and when you hold them, you feel less alone.
The phone is about the same size as a cigarette pack. It's no surprise to me that the traditional cigarette lighter in many cars has turned into the space we use to recharge our phones. They are kin. The phone, like the cigarette, lets the texter/former smoker drop out of any social interaction for a second to get a break and make a little love to the beautiful object. We need something, people. We can't live propless.
I did enjoy a few of the stories. In "Lemonade," Bender beautifully captures a teenager's angst at the mall when her friend is drawn away by her boyfriend and one of the "mean" girls from their school. "Wordkeepers" is about the loss of vocabulary the narrator posits may be caused by too much texting. The title story definitely fits the description of modern fairy tale but I almost understand it (the last line threw me off) and the idea of mixing colors in the way described in the story is both magical and entrancing.
If you like the surreal and opaque, you may well enjoy The Color Master. If you are more appreciative of the realistic and straightforward, you may want to skip this collection.
Favorite passages:
That's the thing with handmade items. They still have the person's mark on them, and when you hold them, you feel less alone.
The phone is about the same size as a cigarette pack. It's no surprise to me that the traditional cigarette lighter in many cars has turned into the space we use to recharge our phones. They are kin. The phone, like the cigarette, lets the texter/former smoker drop out of any social interaction for a second to get a break and make a little love to the beautiful object. We need something, people. We can't live propless.
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems, by Billy Collins
The first poem in this collection cannot help but draw the reader in; titled "Reader," it evokes so many aspects of our passion for books: "Looker, gazer, skimmer, skipper,/thumb-linking page turner, peruser,/you getting your print-fix for the day." "Reader" started the journey into Billy Collins' latest work on an exceptionally high note.
Many of the poems in the collection are about poetry and the work of the poet. Some of these poems are quite serious as in "The Trouble with Poetry," which includes the marvelous quatrain: "Poetry fills me with joy/and I rise like a feather in the wind./Poetry fills me with sorrow/and I sink like a chain flung from a bridge." But even when he is serious, Collins manages to be amusing. "The Trouble with Poetry" also includes these lines: "the trouble with poetry is/that it encourages the writing of more poetry," accompanied by a prediction that poets will keep on writing until "we have compared everything in the world/to everything else in the world." He writes about the topics people suggest he should write about; riffs on the predominance of the word death in the work of John Donne; and reflects on the biographies of authors included in a haiku collection.
Collins also writes about daily life--eating alone in a restaurant, a child's belief that making his mother a lanyard at camp is a fair trade for all she did in raising the child, burying the family cat, teenage girls' use of the phrase "Oh, My God!" Many of the poems are witty, some take an unexpected turn along the way, all are accessible to the average reader. If the poems don't pack the gut-punch that some poems do, the collection is nonetheless enjoyable.
I realized while reading this book how little I know about the various forms that poetry takes. I don't even know whether, for example, a poem that alternatives two- and three-line stanzas has a name and whether the poet sets out to write a poem in this form or it emerges as he/she works. Perhaps my next read needs to be a basic poetry textbook!
Favorite passages:
life's end just around another corner or two,
yet out the morning window
the thrust of a new blossom from that bush
whose colorful name I can never remember.
From "American Airlines #371"
Just because I'm dead now doesn't mean
I don't exist anymore.
All those eulogies and the obituary
in the corner of the newspaper
have made me feel more vibrant than ever.
From "All Eyes"
But why not honor the literal for a change,
let the rules speak for themselves,
and not get all periwinkle with allegory?
From "Friends in the Dark"
You are turning me
like someone turning a globe in her hand,
and yes, I have another side
lake a China no one,
not even me, has ever seen.
From "Orient"
Many of the poems in the collection are about poetry and the work of the poet. Some of these poems are quite serious as in "The Trouble with Poetry," which includes the marvelous quatrain: "Poetry fills me with joy/and I rise like a feather in the wind./Poetry fills me with sorrow/and I sink like a chain flung from a bridge." But even when he is serious, Collins manages to be amusing. "The Trouble with Poetry" also includes these lines: "the trouble with poetry is/that it encourages the writing of more poetry," accompanied by a prediction that poets will keep on writing until "we have compared everything in the world/to everything else in the world." He writes about the topics people suggest he should write about; riffs on the predominance of the word death in the work of John Donne; and reflects on the biographies of authors included in a haiku collection.
Collins also writes about daily life--eating alone in a restaurant, a child's belief that making his mother a lanyard at camp is a fair trade for all she did in raising the child, burying the family cat, teenage girls' use of the phrase "Oh, My God!" Many of the poems are witty, some take an unexpected turn along the way, all are accessible to the average reader. If the poems don't pack the gut-punch that some poems do, the collection is nonetheless enjoyable.
I realized while reading this book how little I know about the various forms that poetry takes. I don't even know whether, for example, a poem that alternatives two- and three-line stanzas has a name and whether the poet sets out to write a poem in this form or it emerges as he/she works. Perhaps my next read needs to be a basic poetry textbook!
Favorite passages:
life's end just around another corner or two,
yet out the morning window
the thrust of a new blossom from that bush
whose colorful name I can never remember.
From "American Airlines #371"
Just because I'm dead now doesn't mean
I don't exist anymore.
All those eulogies and the obituary
in the corner of the newspaper
have made me feel more vibrant than ever.
From "All Eyes"
But why not honor the literal for a change,
let the rules speak for themselves,
and not get all periwinkle with allegory?
From "Friends in the Dark"
You are turning me
like someone turning a globe in her hand,
and yes, I have another side
lake a China no one,
not even me, has ever seen.
From "Orient"
Friday, May 30, 2014
The Age of Grief, by Jane Smiley
The Age of Grief is a collection that includes five short stories and the title novella, which is the star of the collection (and is placed last in the book). Dave and Dana are married dentists in practice together. They are in a difficult phase of their 30s,what Dave calls the age of grief, when you recognize "that the barriers between the circumstances of oneself and of the rest of the world have broken down" and you realize that you must drink from the "same cup of pain that every mortal drinks from." They are working and raising three daughters together, the youngest of whom is in a phase in which only her father can make her happy. This phase creates tension in the family and exhausts Dave. Then Dave comes to believe that Dana is having an affair, and he loses it, doing nearly anything to stop Dana from confessing to him. At their weekend home, for example, he hides outside (in the winter!) all night to avoid a conversation. A flu bug that strikes the entire family forces Dave and Dana to decide what they are going to do about the "small container" that is their marriage.
A similarly bleak view of marriage is reflected in two of the five short stories. Both of these stories involve a couple and a third person whose expectations of friendship with the couple cannot be met. In "The Pleasure of Her Company," Florence is enamored with her new neighbors, feeling they have an ideal life; she soon learns that her perceptions couldn't be more wrong. The title character of "Lily" hopes her married friends can advise her on why she cannot find love; again, however, her visit with Kevin and Nancy reveals that they are not who the previous ten years of friendship had led her to believe. A third story, "Long Distance," involves a young man who has just ended a relationship with a Japanese woman in a way that has left him feeling small and insensitive. He is also spending the holidays with his two married brothers, and observing their family dynamics is disorienting--again, providing an outsider's view of marriage. The third-party observations of marriage give these stories an unusual perspective that differentiates them from "The Age of Grief," despite similar tones and themes.
The remaining two stories, while written in Smiley's deft style, seemed dated--although this collection was published in 2002, the individual pieces were written in the late 1970s and 1980s, when Smiley was the age of the characters in this book. Interestingly, I recently read a brief piece she had written about being 64 and am happy to report that her outlook about this phase of life is quite upbeat--it will be interesting to see whether her book coming out later this year reflects that view.
Favorite passage:
. . . there were certain notes that should not have ended, that should be eternal sounds in the universe.
A similarly bleak view of marriage is reflected in two of the five short stories. Both of these stories involve a couple and a third person whose expectations of friendship with the couple cannot be met. In "The Pleasure of Her Company," Florence is enamored with her new neighbors, feeling they have an ideal life; she soon learns that her perceptions couldn't be more wrong. The title character of "Lily" hopes her married friends can advise her on why she cannot find love; again, however, her visit with Kevin and Nancy reveals that they are not who the previous ten years of friendship had led her to believe. A third story, "Long Distance," involves a young man who has just ended a relationship with a Japanese woman in a way that has left him feeling small and insensitive. He is also spending the holidays with his two married brothers, and observing their family dynamics is disorienting--again, providing an outsider's view of marriage. The third-party observations of marriage give these stories an unusual perspective that differentiates them from "The Age of Grief," despite similar tones and themes.
The remaining two stories, while written in Smiley's deft style, seemed dated--although this collection was published in 2002, the individual pieces were written in the late 1970s and 1980s, when Smiley was the age of the characters in this book. Interestingly, I recently read a brief piece she had written about being 64 and am happy to report that her outlook about this phase of life is quite upbeat--it will be interesting to see whether her book coming out later this year reflects that view.
Favorite passage:
. . . there were certain notes that should not have ended, that should be eternal sounds in the universe.
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Slices of Life: A Food Writer Cooks Through Many a Conundrum, by Leah Eskin
For ten years, Eskin has written a food column, "Home on the Range," for the Chicago Tribune. Slices of Life is a collection of those columns (each accompanied by a recipe) that, taken together, provide something of a memoir. Eskin cooks through life's ups and downs--raising children (which provides both highs and lows), moving, losing loved ones, buying furniture, trying new exercise programs, celebrating holidays . . . you get the picture.
The relationship of the columns to their companion recipes varies from close and logical to less clear and perhaps more metaphorical. To wit: a discussion of the Jewish New Year is accompanied by a recipe for challah, a column on the crunch experienced on tax day is followed by a recipe for a snack called "snack crunch crunch," a column on her husband's penchant for huge eggplant-colored speakers is paired with a recipe for an eggplant dish, and a piece on compost precedes a recipe for "Savory Strawberry Smash." Occasionally, the text is actually about the dish for which directions are provided.
Slices of Life is a pleasant, well-written diversion. So far I've tried two of the recipes. One, "Night Tart," was very pretty but just okay in terms of taste. The other, "Mozzarella and Tomato Salad," was a delicious expansion of the flavors of a caprese.
Favorite passages:
We ate. Meals so good we remembered almost nothing. Like waking from a dream, all that remained was a feeling of sublime contentment and a whiff of creamed parsnips, roast duck, and lemon curd. (I've had this exact experience!)
Once, the boy leaned into your pages, finding adventure, solace, and breakfast menu. Under his stare your shapes crisped into letters, your letters clumped into words, your words linked into stories. Your naughty wolves and pensive bears will accompany the boy forever. But the boy, he's already gone.
The relationship of the columns to their companion recipes varies from close and logical to less clear and perhaps more metaphorical. To wit: a discussion of the Jewish New Year is accompanied by a recipe for challah, a column on the crunch experienced on tax day is followed by a recipe for a snack called "snack crunch crunch," a column on her husband's penchant for huge eggplant-colored speakers is paired with a recipe for an eggplant dish, and a piece on compost precedes a recipe for "Savory Strawberry Smash." Occasionally, the text is actually about the dish for which directions are provided.
Slices of Life is a pleasant, well-written diversion. So far I've tried two of the recipes. One, "Night Tart," was very pretty but just okay in terms of taste. The other, "Mozzarella and Tomato Salad," was a delicious expansion of the flavors of a caprese.
Favorite passages:
We ate. Meals so good we remembered almost nothing. Like waking from a dream, all that remained was a feeling of sublime contentment and a whiff of creamed parsnips, roast duck, and lemon curd. (I've had this exact experience!)
Once, the boy leaned into your pages, finding adventure, solace, and breakfast menu. Under his stare your shapes crisped into letters, your letters clumped into words, your words linked into stories. Your naughty wolves and pensive bears will accompany the boy forever. But the boy, he's already gone.
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