My nonfiction reading has continued, not without some struggle. But the three recently completed titles are worthy of mention here.
I am a big fan of Preet Bharara's Stay Tuned with Preet podcast so expected to enjoy his (much-plugged) book Doing Justice: A Prosecutor's Thoughts on Crime, Punishment, and the Rule of Law. And I did--though I somehow hadn't really grasped what it is about. In essence, it's a look at the ethical and practical decisions prosecutors must make in four phases of the process: inquiry, accusation, judgment, and punishment. Bharara combines case histories from his years as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York with his own analysis and even family anecdotes. The result is both entertaining and educational. Perhaps the oddest thing in the book is his use of the Menendez brothers' case as something of a touchstone for the idea that sometimes you miss the most important thing that is happening. You may not agree with all of Preet's conclusions, but you will learn something about the system and be challenged to think.
I am also a big fan of Top Chef so approached the memoir from a show alum with interest. While I have read enough other chefs' memoirs to know that life in the kitchen can be brutal, Notes from a Young Black Chef, by Kwame Onwuachi (just named a Food and Wine Best New Chef), was an eye-opener in terms of the racism still rampant in restaurants, both in the front and back of the house. Onwuachi has an interesting background, particularly in terms of the influences on his cuisine (I don't mean to be dismissive about the challenges and missteps he overcame--I'm just so old I'm more interested in food than youth). Although his rise in the culinary world seems very rapid from the outside, from his perspective, a lot of effort, anguish, and abuse (from chefs and investors, in particular) went into that rise. It's worth understanding what that experience involved.
I struggled to finish The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks, by Terry Tempest Williams (of whom I am also a fan). Each chapter of the book is set in one national park and deals not only with the park but with a topic concerning Williams. Since she is a well-known environmental activist, many have to do with the ways in which humans are threatening earth's very future. While I agree with her about the problem and admire her work to seek solutions, these chapters became tedious (sorry--shallow!). Other chapters were more engaging. The chapter on Grand Teton National Park takes a historical approach and is built around a poem Williams was asked to write for the dedication of the Laurance S. Rockefeller Preserve. I liked this chapter a lot, as I did the chapter on Alcatraz, which highlighted her visit to that historic site at the time art by Ai Weiwei was being exhibited. Also interesting was her discussion of the politicization of history at Gettysburg and her description of being in the path of the biggest fire ever at Glacier National Park. Williams is a gifted writer, so it's hard for me to stop reading a chapter for fear I'll miss a beautiful turn of phrase. For other readers, I'd suggest a pick and choose approach to this book.
Favorite passages
Humility is born in wildness. We are not protecting grizzles from extinction; they are protecting us from the extinction of experience as we engage with a world beyond ourselves. The very presence of a grizzly returns us to an ecology of awe. We tremble at what appears to be a dream yet stands before us on two legs and roars.
And the simple, undeniable fact: all wars are political. We will fight for the myth that will support and sustain our point of view at all costs.
. . . the best response to intimidation is joy and resolve.
"We forget the place of anger in the work of love." quote from Dylan Schneider
All from The Hour of Land, by Terry Tempest Williams
Thursday, July 4, 2019
Thursday, June 13, 2019
These Truths and An American Summer
I read much more fiction than nonfiction, but lately I've been on something of a nonfiction kick and have recently finished two works of nonfiction that I recommend.
These Truths: A History of the United States, by Jill LePore, is a political history of the nation--and in considering whether we have lived up to the ideals laid forth in our founding documents covers much of the dark side of our history. Even as a social studies nerd (so dubbed by my nine-year-old grandson), I learned a great deal from this book. From the fact that explorers prior to Columbus did not claim lands they "discovered" for their patrons to the similarities between Harding and Trump to the role of women's clubs in creating the conservative movement and the shocking fact that 90 percent of Americans now refuse to participate in polls, I encountered more new facts and ideas than I could absorb. I particularly would like to reread the latter sections of the book, which provide some new ways (for me) to think about how we have arrived at our current state of miasma.
Trying to "summarize" this rather massive book in any meaningful way is impossible (at least for me), but I can say that reading it will be edifying for virtually anyone. All of that is not to say the book is perfect--LePore has been roundly criticized for not dealing with how "these truths" applied to indigenous peoples throughout U.S. history. But it is still a worthwhile starting point for opening one's mind to new ideas.
An American Summer: Love and Death in Chicago, written by Alex Kotlowitz, is an example of long-form journalism. Kotlowitz also wrote There Are No Children Here, a book that profoundly affected me back in the 1990s. In that work, Kotlowitz followed closely two brothers living in public housing in Chicago; over the course of three years in the 1980s, the author observed and interviewed the boys, their family members, friends, and others who came into contact with them. The resulting narrative demonstrated how poverty and society's inadequate response to it affected every aspect of Lafayette and Pharoah's lives, in essence destroying their innocence and childhood.
In An American Summer, Kotlowitz 's reporting is broader but shallower. He examines how violence affects Chicago's poor, particularly those who are African American and Latinx. While he intended to tell the story of violence that occurred during one summer, he found it impossible to do so without going both backward and forward in the stories of the mostly young people affected by Chicago's epidemic of violence, violence that is often deadly or disabling. One of the most compelling stories is Marcelo's. Marcelo was a 17-year-old who had "straddled two worlds," his South Side neighborhood, where he had been shot and gotten into trouble with the law, and the world of the Mercy Home for Boys and Girls, where he had begged to be admitted and was known as a hard worker and good student. Marcelo ends up on "house arrest" in Mercy for more than two years, a strange and isolating experience for a young man struggling to find a path forward.
But Marcelo survives, which many of the people Kotlowitz profiles do not. It's heartbreaking and infuriating--but it doesn't provide a way forward. Kotlowitz allows us to see how violence devastates lives, families, and communities; to find solutions we must look elsewhere. Some reviewers have chastised Kotlowitz for not discussing that the murder rate is lower than it was in 1990--but a safer city overall does not do much for the young people in the neighborhoods the author observed in his four years reporting the book. I recommend reading the book--and then learning more about what can be done to help and taking action to make sure it does.
Favorite passages:
To study the past is to unlock the prison of the present. The past is an inheritance, a gift and a burden. It can't be shirked. You carry it everywhere. There is nothing for it but to get to know it.
--Jill LePore, These Truths
Violence has a way of catching up with you. Best not to stand still. Best to keep moving. Violence has a way of making you feel sullied. Best not to raise questions. Violence has a way of taking over your narrative. Best not to let it shape who you are. Violence has a way of exposing cracks in your universe. Best not to speak of those you love. Cathlene Johnson, who owns Johnson Funeral Home with her sister, once told me she might of added, on everyone around you as well.
--Alex Kotlowitz, An American Summer
These Truths: A History of the United States, by Jill LePore, is a political history of the nation--and in considering whether we have lived up to the ideals laid forth in our founding documents covers much of the dark side of our history. Even as a social studies nerd (so dubbed by my nine-year-old grandson), I learned a great deal from this book. From the fact that explorers prior to Columbus did not claim lands they "discovered" for their patrons to the similarities between Harding and Trump to the role of women's clubs in creating the conservative movement and the shocking fact that 90 percent of Americans now refuse to participate in polls, I encountered more new facts and ideas than I could absorb. I particularly would like to reread the latter sections of the book, which provide some new ways (for me) to think about how we have arrived at our current state of miasma.
Trying to "summarize" this rather massive book in any meaningful way is impossible (at least for me), but I can say that reading it will be edifying for virtually anyone. All of that is not to say the book is perfect--LePore has been roundly criticized for not dealing with how "these truths" applied to indigenous peoples throughout U.S. history. But it is still a worthwhile starting point for opening one's mind to new ideas.
An American Summer: Love and Death in Chicago, written by Alex Kotlowitz, is an example of long-form journalism. Kotlowitz also wrote There Are No Children Here, a book that profoundly affected me back in the 1990s. In that work, Kotlowitz followed closely two brothers living in public housing in Chicago; over the course of three years in the 1980s, the author observed and interviewed the boys, their family members, friends, and others who came into contact with them. The resulting narrative demonstrated how poverty and society's inadequate response to it affected every aspect of Lafayette and Pharoah's lives, in essence destroying their innocence and childhood.
In An American Summer, Kotlowitz 's reporting is broader but shallower. He examines how violence affects Chicago's poor, particularly those who are African American and Latinx. While he intended to tell the story of violence that occurred during one summer, he found it impossible to do so without going both backward and forward in the stories of the mostly young people affected by Chicago's epidemic of violence, violence that is often deadly or disabling. One of the most compelling stories is Marcelo's. Marcelo was a 17-year-old who had "straddled two worlds," his South Side neighborhood, where he had been shot and gotten into trouble with the law, and the world of the Mercy Home for Boys and Girls, where he had begged to be admitted and was known as a hard worker and good student. Marcelo ends up on "house arrest" in Mercy for more than two years, a strange and isolating experience for a young man struggling to find a path forward.
But Marcelo survives, which many of the people Kotlowitz profiles do not. It's heartbreaking and infuriating--but it doesn't provide a way forward. Kotlowitz allows us to see how violence devastates lives, families, and communities; to find solutions we must look elsewhere. Some reviewers have chastised Kotlowitz for not discussing that the murder rate is lower than it was in 1990--but a safer city overall does not do much for the young people in the neighborhoods the author observed in his four years reporting the book. I recommend reading the book--and then learning more about what can be done to help and taking action to make sure it does.
Favorite passages:
To study the past is to unlock the prison of the present. The past is an inheritance, a gift and a burden. It can't be shirked. You carry it everywhere. There is nothing for it but to get to know it.
--Jill LePore, These Truths
Violence has a way of catching up with you. Best not to stand still. Best to keep moving. Violence has a way of making you feel sullied. Best not to raise questions. Violence has a way of taking over your narrative. Best not to let it shape who you are. Violence has a way of exposing cracks in your universe. Best not to speak of those you love. Cathlene Johnson, who owns Johnson Funeral Home with her sister, once told me she might of added, on everyone around you as well.
--Alex Kotlowitz, An American Summer
Saturday, May 25, 2019
Feast Your Eyes and The Friend
In the past couple weeks, I’ve read two interestingly structured novels about art, friendship, family, memory, and more.
Feast Your Eyes by Myla Goldberg is structured as an exhibit catalog written by the artist/photographer’s daughter Samantha Jane and also incorporating excerpts from her mother’s journal and interviews with people from her mother’s past. Lillian knew as a girl in Cleveland in the 1940s that she would move to New York and be a photographer, despite her parents' wish that she lead a more traditional life. In 1951, after graduating from high school, she takes off to pursue her dream. By 1955, she has had her first show, given birth to her daughter (never telling the father that she was pregnant), and met Ken, with whom she will move to Brooklyn, free for a few years to pursue her photography without the constraints of making a living. But then Lillian becomes pregnant; she wants an abortion but Ken wants the baby, and the rift destroys their already-troubled relationship. Lillian has an abortion and a photograph of Sam and herself that she takes in the aftermath shocks viewers when it appears in an exhibition titled "The Samantha Series"; the ripples from this event permanently alter Sam and Lillian's relationship.
This brief synopsis does not do justice to the complexity of the plot; I have not even mentioned Lillian's two significant friendships, the relationship that develops between Sam and her maternal grandparents, the court case revolving around the Samantha Series, and more. The story of these deeply realized characters--even the minor characters are three-dimensional--is moving. In addition, the descriptions of how Lillian worked and the resulting 100+ images included in a posthumous exhibition gave this non-artist a window into photography and the creative mind.
I loved Goldberg's first novel, Bee Season, and Feast Your Eyes is similar in its originality, its complexity, its insights into art, and its spot-on portrayal of a young female character, and yet wholly different. Highly recommended.
The Friend by Sigrid Nunez is presented as a letter from the nameless narrator to her nameless friend, a well-known writer, her former teacher, and a recent suicide. Her friend was a womanizer who seduced and sometimes married his students. His third and final wife convinces the narrator to take in his dog, a Great Dane named Apollo. Since the narrator lives in a New York apartment, a Great Dane presents numerous challenges but also offers solace. Apollo's role in the novel provides the closest thing to a plot that the book has; most of the book is more a reflection on writing, memory, friendship, loss, and grief. I can't say I loved The Friend but it was interesting and thought-provoking, and well worth reading.
Favorite passages:
When we disagreed, Lillian's eyes stayed on my face, as if to remind me that our friendship would always have a place in the world.
Feast Your Eyes
If reading really does increase empathy, as we are constantly being told it does, it appears that writing takes some away.
The Friend, when the narrator hears another writer say about her friend, "Now he's officially a dead white male."
Feast Your Eyes by Myla Goldberg is structured as an exhibit catalog written by the artist/photographer’s daughter Samantha Jane and also incorporating excerpts from her mother’s journal and interviews with people from her mother’s past. Lillian knew as a girl in Cleveland in the 1940s that she would move to New York and be a photographer, despite her parents' wish that she lead a more traditional life. In 1951, after graduating from high school, she takes off to pursue her dream. By 1955, she has had her first show, given birth to her daughter (never telling the father that she was pregnant), and met Ken, with whom she will move to Brooklyn, free for a few years to pursue her photography without the constraints of making a living. But then Lillian becomes pregnant; she wants an abortion but Ken wants the baby, and the rift destroys their already-troubled relationship. Lillian has an abortion and a photograph of Sam and herself that she takes in the aftermath shocks viewers when it appears in an exhibition titled "The Samantha Series"; the ripples from this event permanently alter Sam and Lillian's relationship.
This brief synopsis does not do justice to the complexity of the plot; I have not even mentioned Lillian's two significant friendships, the relationship that develops between Sam and her maternal grandparents, the court case revolving around the Samantha Series, and more. The story of these deeply realized characters--even the minor characters are three-dimensional--is moving. In addition, the descriptions of how Lillian worked and the resulting 100+ images included in a posthumous exhibition gave this non-artist a window into photography and the creative mind.
I loved Goldberg's first novel, Bee Season, and Feast Your Eyes is similar in its originality, its complexity, its insights into art, and its spot-on portrayal of a young female character, and yet wholly different. Highly recommended.
The Friend by Sigrid Nunez is presented as a letter from the nameless narrator to her nameless friend, a well-known writer, her former teacher, and a recent suicide. Her friend was a womanizer who seduced and sometimes married his students. His third and final wife convinces the narrator to take in his dog, a Great Dane named Apollo. Since the narrator lives in a New York apartment, a Great Dane presents numerous challenges but also offers solace. Apollo's role in the novel provides the closest thing to a plot that the book has; most of the book is more a reflection on writing, memory, friendship, loss, and grief. I can't say I loved The Friend but it was interesting and thought-provoking, and well worth reading.
Favorite passages:
When we disagreed, Lillian's eyes stayed on my face, as if to remind me that our friendship would always have a place in the world.
Feast Your Eyes
If reading really does increase empathy, as we are constantly being told it does, it appears that writing takes some away.
The Friend, when the narrator hears another writer say about her friend, "Now he's officially a dead white male."
Thursday, May 9, 2019
Well-Read Black Girl, edited by Glory Edim
Well-Read Black Girl started as a t-shirt given to Glory Edim by her partner. Then it became an Instragam, an on-line community, a national network of face-to-face book groups, a literary festival, and now this book, subtitled Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves.
As a 68-year-old white woman, I am not exactly the book's target audience, but I totally enjoyed the essays by African American woman writers, reflecting on the books that were significant to them as young people, books in which they first felt represented or seen. The essayists include women working in a variety of genres--novels, memoir, poetry, drama; among them are recognizable names like Jesmyn Ward, Tayari Jones, Rebecca Walker, Stephanie Powell Watts, Zinzi Clemmons, Lynn Notage, and Jacquelie Woodson. The works they cite as important to them (although not always in a completely positive way) include some of the works one might expect--Beloved, The Bluest Eye, and Sula by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Brown Girl, Brownstones by Paule Marshall, the poetry of Lucille Clifton and Nikki Giovanni. But there are also surprises--Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth by E.L. Konigsburg and Boy, by Roald Dahl to name two. One of the gifts of WRBG is the book list of every work mentioned by the essayists.
Another of its gifts is the inspirational writing about reading and writing. A few examples:
“Jamaica Kincaid taught me that the women I loved might not have been known to many people in the world but they were opera singers. They had beauty in their voices; great dramas were at the cruxes of their lives. And if I could catch their voices—the way they loved, the way they taught, the way they turned their faces away in pain, and how they stood in their own power—then their words on the page might become a song worth singing.”—Veronica Chambers
“Baldwin is a moral philosopher. His work does not merely describe and analyze oppression, but relentlessly asks the reader to examine their individual relationship to evil, to cruelty, bigotry, and white supremacy, and whether they are ready to change.” —Barbara Smith
“At the end of the day, the job of the Black woman writer is the same as the work of the well-read Black girl. We are to be curious and determined, committed to life and all of its many permutations. We are to look to the words of our sisters for knowledge and uplift, camaraderie and support. We are to seek beauty and find ourselves. We are to live and tell the story.”—Rebecca Walker
“So much depends on us remembering our past. We live in a country that likes to forget—likes to forget who was here before us, likes to forget who built the country, likes to forget who this country was stolen from.”—Jacqueline Woodson
I know that’s a lot of quoting, but perhaps one of these brief excerpts will inspire you to pick up this book—it’s well-worth your time. Meanwhile, I can’t help wondering where Glory Edim will take WRBG next.
As a 68-year-old white woman, I am not exactly the book's target audience, but I totally enjoyed the essays by African American woman writers, reflecting on the books that were significant to them as young people, books in which they first felt represented or seen. The essayists include women working in a variety of genres--novels, memoir, poetry, drama; among them are recognizable names like Jesmyn Ward, Tayari Jones, Rebecca Walker, Stephanie Powell Watts, Zinzi Clemmons, Lynn Notage, and Jacquelie Woodson. The works they cite as important to them (although not always in a completely positive way) include some of the works one might expect--Beloved, The Bluest Eye, and Sula by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Brown Girl, Brownstones by Paule Marshall, the poetry of Lucille Clifton and Nikki Giovanni. But there are also surprises--Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth by E.L. Konigsburg and Boy, by Roald Dahl to name two. One of the gifts of WRBG is the book list of every work mentioned by the essayists.
Another of its gifts is the inspirational writing about reading and writing. A few examples:
“Jamaica Kincaid taught me that the women I loved might not have been known to many people in the world but they were opera singers. They had beauty in their voices; great dramas were at the cruxes of their lives. And if I could catch their voices—the way they loved, the way they taught, the way they turned their faces away in pain, and how they stood in their own power—then their words on the page might become a song worth singing.”—Veronica Chambers
“Baldwin is a moral philosopher. His work does not merely describe and analyze oppression, but relentlessly asks the reader to examine their individual relationship to evil, to cruelty, bigotry, and white supremacy, and whether they are ready to change.” —Barbara Smith
“At the end of the day, the job of the Black woman writer is the same as the work of the well-read Black girl. We are to be curious and determined, committed to life and all of its many permutations. We are to look to the words of our sisters for knowledge and uplift, camaraderie and support. We are to seek beauty and find ourselves. We are to live and tell the story.”—Rebecca Walker
“So much depends on us remembering our past. We live in a country that likes to forget—likes to forget who was here before us, likes to forget who built the country, likes to forget who this country was stolen from.”—Jacqueline Woodson
I know that’s a lot of quoting, but perhaps one of these brief excerpts will inspire you to pick up this book—it’s well-worth your time. Meanwhile, I can’t help wondering where Glory Edim will take WRBG next.
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
Great YA Novels, Classics, and Other April Reading
YA Novels
The Poet X, a YA novel written as the title character's poetry journal was a wonderful way to kick off my National Poetry month reading. The Poet X celebrates the power of poetry while grappling with religion, identity, family, sexuality--pretty much all the big issues teens deal with. Author Elizabeth Acevedo is a former middle school English teacher whose use of language is lovely. Here, the protagonist Xiomara writes about her new-found love, Aman:
Every time I think about Aman
poems build inside me
like I've been gifted a box of metaphor Legos
that I stack and stack and stack.
The author reads another of X's poems here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAKiLr__ppM&fbclid=IwAR0MBrzbABFLAU6KwagBM1HR9l28Ukk8dXOpfGjbI95Yd1cw2AjWEElxa_A
Highly recommended.
I also recommend Words in Deep Blue, by Cath Crowley, a teen love story with a twist--parts of the story are told in notes left in books in the Letter Library, a section of a charming book store owned by Henry Jones's family. Henry's childhood friend Rachel Sweetie is hired to create a catalog of everything written on or left within the books in the Letter Library--this cataloging is occurring because the book store may be sold in the wake of Henry's parents' separation. Rachel and others have secrets that only gradually emerge--while the characters do suffer pain, the ending is life-affirming.
Reading Classics
I read two "classics" this month, neither of which I had read before. I actually liked White Fang, by Jack London, more than I thought I would. It's a vivid portrayal of a wolf's life in the wild and then in domesticity; the reflective reader may be prompted to consider what is lost and what is gained when humans become "tamed." The book begins with the trek of two men across the Yukon, beset by a pack of wolves. After one man is killed and the other survives, the narrative follows the wolf pack. I didn't really think the switch in narration from humans to wolves worked, although I guess it provided a context for the travails of the wolves. Notwithstanding Theodore Roosevelt's having called out London as a "nature faker," the writing is compelling.
Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte, my book group's selection for the month, was another story. Although I really appreciated the analysis that our discussion leader Linda led us through, I really disliked the book. The characters were, in my opinion, entirely despicable, I could not understand Bronte's choice to put two unreliable narrators between the reader and the story, and, in sum, I disliked the book intensely.
Some Sci-Fi
I feel unjustifiably proud of myself when I venture out into some science fiction, and I enjoyed both of the speculative works I tried this month. The Dispatcher is a novella by John Scalzi that was one of Audible's free originals this month. In Scalzi's future Chicago, murdered people suddenly disappear from the scene and reemerge at home, naked and alive. Building on this miraculous development, an entirely new career develops--dispatcher, people who patrol hospitals to dispatch people beyond medical help so they can live. The book's story develops from the free-lance work that dispatchers do so that people can, for example, engage in risky activities and survive. It's both thought-provoking and entertaining.
Here and Now and Then, by Mike Chen, is a time-traveling adventure and, like all time-travel adventures occasionally confused me--but it's entertaining nonetheless. Kin Stewart was a time-traveling agent from the year 2142 who becomes stranded in the 1990s. He decides to build a life there, marrying and fathering a child. After 18 years, rescuers from 2142, where only a few weeks have passed, arrive to rescue him, whether he wants to be rescued or not. Back in 2142, he has a fiance who no longer understands him and the ability (though forbidden) to find out what happened to his wife and daughter after he left--what he learns is not good and he sets out to change his daughter's future. The book is, in essence, a testament to the power of love, and I recommend it.
Rant
I've gone on about this before, but Anna Quindlen's Nanaville: Adventures in Grandparenting brings an old complaint to the fore: there are a lot of silly books that get published simply because their authors are well-established. At the time she wrote this book, Quindlen had one grandchild who was still a toddler and, honestly, she doesn't have anything of much interest or value to share about grandparenting. Her advice is, at best, common sense that few need to be told--and it comes from her privileged position as a member of a functional family unit with exceptional means. Advice from that perspective does not go down well.
The Poet X, a YA novel written as the title character's poetry journal was a wonderful way to kick off my National Poetry month reading. The Poet X celebrates the power of poetry while grappling with religion, identity, family, sexuality--pretty much all the big issues teens deal with. Author Elizabeth Acevedo is a former middle school English teacher whose use of language is lovely. Here, the protagonist Xiomara writes about her new-found love, Aman:
Every time I think about Aman
poems build inside me
like I've been gifted a box of metaphor Legos
that I stack and stack and stack.
The author reads another of X's poems here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAKiLr__ppM&fbclid=IwAR0MBrzbABFLAU6KwagBM1HR9l28Ukk8dXOpfGjbI95Yd1cw2AjWEElxa_A
Highly recommended.
I also recommend Words in Deep Blue, by Cath Crowley, a teen love story with a twist--parts of the story are told in notes left in books in the Letter Library, a section of a charming book store owned by Henry Jones's family. Henry's childhood friend Rachel Sweetie is hired to create a catalog of everything written on or left within the books in the Letter Library--this cataloging is occurring because the book store may be sold in the wake of Henry's parents' separation. Rachel and others have secrets that only gradually emerge--while the characters do suffer pain, the ending is life-affirming.
Reading Classics
I read two "classics" this month, neither of which I had read before. I actually liked White Fang, by Jack London, more than I thought I would. It's a vivid portrayal of a wolf's life in the wild and then in domesticity; the reflective reader may be prompted to consider what is lost and what is gained when humans become "tamed." The book begins with the trek of two men across the Yukon, beset by a pack of wolves. After one man is killed and the other survives, the narrative follows the wolf pack. I didn't really think the switch in narration from humans to wolves worked, although I guess it provided a context for the travails of the wolves. Notwithstanding Theodore Roosevelt's having called out London as a "nature faker," the writing is compelling.
Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte, my book group's selection for the month, was another story. Although I really appreciated the analysis that our discussion leader Linda led us through, I really disliked the book. The characters were, in my opinion, entirely despicable, I could not understand Bronte's choice to put two unreliable narrators between the reader and the story, and, in sum, I disliked the book intensely.
Some Sci-Fi
I feel unjustifiably proud of myself when I venture out into some science fiction, and I enjoyed both of the speculative works I tried this month. The Dispatcher is a novella by John Scalzi that was one of Audible's free originals this month. In Scalzi's future Chicago, murdered people suddenly disappear from the scene and reemerge at home, naked and alive. Building on this miraculous development, an entirely new career develops--dispatcher, people who patrol hospitals to dispatch people beyond medical help so they can live. The book's story develops from the free-lance work that dispatchers do so that people can, for example, engage in risky activities and survive. It's both thought-provoking and entertaining.
Here and Now and Then, by Mike Chen, is a time-traveling adventure and, like all time-travel adventures occasionally confused me--but it's entertaining nonetheless. Kin Stewart was a time-traveling agent from the year 2142 who becomes stranded in the 1990s. He decides to build a life there, marrying and fathering a child. After 18 years, rescuers from 2142, where only a few weeks have passed, arrive to rescue him, whether he wants to be rescued or not. Back in 2142, he has a fiance who no longer understands him and the ability (though forbidden) to find out what happened to his wife and daughter after he left--what he learns is not good and he sets out to change his daughter's future. The book is, in essence, a testament to the power of love, and I recommend it.
Rant
I've gone on about this before, but Anna Quindlen's Nanaville: Adventures in Grandparenting brings an old complaint to the fore: there are a lot of silly books that get published simply because their authors are well-established. At the time she wrote this book, Quindlen had one grandchild who was still a toddler and, honestly, she doesn't have anything of much interest or value to share about grandparenting. Her advice is, at best, common sense that few need to be told--and it comes from her privileged position as a member of a functional family unit with exceptional means. Advice from that perspective does not go down well.
Sunday, March 24, 2019
Everything Happens for a Reason . . . and Other Lies I've Loved
I stumbled across the relatively brief book Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I've Loved and basically checked it out because "everything happens for a reason" is one of my least favorite bromides (right up there with "whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger"--for a takedown of that one, see Christopher Hitchens' Mortality). The author, Kate Bowler, was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer when she was 35, and she writes about that experience, how it affected her in innumerable ways, and how people around her responded (and various other things related to serious illness--but you get the picture).
The book was good, but what I liked even better is her podcast, "Everything Happens," in which she talks with people about what they have learned in the dark times in their lives. Three of the episodes that I found particularly meaningful (and I haven't quite listened to them all yet) featured conversations with Alan Alda, Lucy Kalanithi (widow of Paul, the author of When Breath Becomes Air), and pediatric oncologist Ray Barfield. Great life-affirming wisdom born out of great pain. I REALLY recommend the podcast: https://katebowler.com/everything-happens/.
The book was good, but what I liked even better is her podcast, "Everything Happens," in which she talks with people about what they have learned in the dark times in their lives. Three of the episodes that I found particularly meaningful (and I haven't quite listened to them all yet) featured conversations with Alan Alda, Lucy Kalanithi (widow of Paul, the author of When Breath Becomes Air), and pediatric oncologist Ray Barfield. Great life-affirming wisdom born out of great pain. I REALLY recommend the podcast: https://katebowler.com/everything-happens/.
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
Questions, Comments, and Rants: February Reading
Questions
I like to keep up with things my granddaughter is reading (my grandson loves mostly weird kid graphic novels, which I find less intriguing). This month I read two YA's--Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum and Turtles All the Way Down by John Green (granddaughter is on a major John Green kick). Reading the two in close proximity, I couldn't help noticing that dead parents are a key plot device in both books (the books are about much more but a dead parent is important to each). Then I started thinking about other YA or kids books with dead parents and wondering why. This prompted an interesting dinnertime conversation with the grandkids and their parents, with the kids getting very engaged in shouting out the titles books with dead parents (Harry Potter! Wizard of Oz! Cinderella!); the consensus around the table was that killing off a parent was a quick and easy way to provide a source of drama.
This isn't too far off what I read in an explanation of why Disney movies so often feature characters with dead parents. According to Disney producer Don Hahn, "One reason is practical because the movies are 80 or 90 minutes long, and Disney films re about growing up. They're shorthand. In shorthand, it's much quicker to have characters grow up when you bump off their parents. Bambi's mother gets killed, so he has to grow up. Belle only has a father, but he gets lost, so she has to step into that position. It's a story shorthand." (The other reason Hahn hypothesizes has to do with the death of Walt Disney's mother and isn't broadly relevant.)
Is this an effective device or a lazy shortcut? I tend to vote for the latter.
Comments
In February I read Ursula K. LeGuin's collection of poetry, So Far So Good, finished shortly before her 2018 death. I didn't love the poetry but I was intrigued by the list of financial contributors in the back of the book. It appears that the book was published through a version of crowd-sourcing (perhaps we might call it fan-sourcing). While I love that LeGuin's fans wanted to do this, it's sad that it would be necessary for a work by such an eminent author.
I also read Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann last month. It relates one of the most horrific stories of greed, betrayal, and evil-doing by humans that I have ever read. It's truly unspeakable--and it's only one of many terrible stories in our history. We should all be better educated about how the United States was built.
It's scary how much I forget. I look at the list of books I read this month and have already forgotten what some of them were about (this is especially true of mysteries). However, it was really weird to reread Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton this month and discover that I was remembering a totally different book (one of Nadine Gordimer's, I think). Sometimes I wonder if it is worth reading if I remember so little!
I love cookbooks, but I also like books about food that are contextualized within the author's personal life. Buttermilk Graffiti by Chef Edward Lee was exactly that kind of book, since his goal as he traveled to various locations sampling various ethnic/regional foods and talking with the people who make and eat them, was "trying to find my own America and where I belong in it." I enjoyed the book (except for a misplacing of Des Moines in Illinois) and was stunned by the amount of food Lee apparently ate on these forays around the United States. Just reading about it made me slightly queasy--but his writing also inspired me to think more deeply about my connections to food.
I finally read A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman and I don't quite understand why people like it so much. But I guess different people find their upbeat stories in different places. Some people like Fredrik Backman, some like Fannie Flagg; I like Elinor Lipman (she has a new book out--Good Riddance) and Elizabeth Berg. A chacun son gout.
Rant
Michelle Obama's Becoming was the first book I read this month; I enjoyed it a great deal and respect the former First Lady's candor. My rant focuses not on the book but on a review that I heard, in which the reviewer reported enjoying the parts about Ms. Obama's childhood but finding the parts about her public life disappointing. This immediately reminded me of a situation years ago in which I went off on my boss for saying he enjoyed the parts of the film Malcolm X in which Malcolm was a criminal but found it boring when he became politically engaged. The racism in finding black people as criminals entertaining and as activists boring seemed obvious to me. Perhaps it's more subtle here, but I suspect the reviewer found the story of Ms. Obama's childhood interesting because she doesn't expect African American children to have "typical" two-parent, achievement-oriented, middle-class upbringings--puh-leeze! Meanwhile, the story of a black woman (and her husband) achieving is boring. That, too, is racism.
I like to keep up with things my granddaughter is reading (my grandson loves mostly weird kid graphic novels, which I find less intriguing). This month I read two YA's--Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum and Turtles All the Way Down by John Green (granddaughter is on a major John Green kick). Reading the two in close proximity, I couldn't help noticing that dead parents are a key plot device in both books (the books are about much more but a dead parent is important to each). Then I started thinking about other YA or kids books with dead parents and wondering why. This prompted an interesting dinnertime conversation with the grandkids and their parents, with the kids getting very engaged in shouting out the titles books with dead parents (Harry Potter! Wizard of Oz! Cinderella!); the consensus around the table was that killing off a parent was a quick and easy way to provide a source of drama.
This isn't too far off what I read in an explanation of why Disney movies so often feature characters with dead parents. According to Disney producer Don Hahn, "One reason is practical because the movies are 80 or 90 minutes long, and Disney films re about growing up. They're shorthand. In shorthand, it's much quicker to have characters grow up when you bump off their parents. Bambi's mother gets killed, so he has to grow up. Belle only has a father, but he gets lost, so she has to step into that position. It's a story shorthand." (The other reason Hahn hypothesizes has to do with the death of Walt Disney's mother and isn't broadly relevant.)
Is this an effective device or a lazy shortcut? I tend to vote for the latter.
Comments
In February I read Ursula K. LeGuin's collection of poetry, So Far So Good, finished shortly before her 2018 death. I didn't love the poetry but I was intrigued by the list of financial contributors in the back of the book. It appears that the book was published through a version of crowd-sourcing (perhaps we might call it fan-sourcing). While I love that LeGuin's fans wanted to do this, it's sad that it would be necessary for a work by such an eminent author.
I also read Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann last month. It relates one of the most horrific stories of greed, betrayal, and evil-doing by humans that I have ever read. It's truly unspeakable--and it's only one of many terrible stories in our history. We should all be better educated about how the United States was built.
It's scary how much I forget. I look at the list of books I read this month and have already forgotten what some of them were about (this is especially true of mysteries). However, it was really weird to reread Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton this month and discover that I was remembering a totally different book (one of Nadine Gordimer's, I think). Sometimes I wonder if it is worth reading if I remember so little!
I love cookbooks, but I also like books about food that are contextualized within the author's personal life. Buttermilk Graffiti by Chef Edward Lee was exactly that kind of book, since his goal as he traveled to various locations sampling various ethnic/regional foods and talking with the people who make and eat them, was "trying to find my own America and where I belong in it." I enjoyed the book (except for a misplacing of Des Moines in Illinois) and was stunned by the amount of food Lee apparently ate on these forays around the United States. Just reading about it made me slightly queasy--but his writing also inspired me to think more deeply about my connections to food.
I finally read A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman and I don't quite understand why people like it so much. But I guess different people find their upbeat stories in different places. Some people like Fredrik Backman, some like Fannie Flagg; I like Elinor Lipman (she has a new book out--Good Riddance) and Elizabeth Berg. A chacun son gout.
Rant
Michelle Obama's Becoming was the first book I read this month; I enjoyed it a great deal and respect the former First Lady's candor. My rant focuses not on the book but on a review that I heard, in which the reviewer reported enjoying the parts about Ms. Obama's childhood but finding the parts about her public life disappointing. This immediately reminded me of a situation years ago in which I went off on my boss for saying he enjoyed the parts of the film Malcolm X in which Malcolm was a criminal but found it boring when he became politically engaged. The racism in finding black people as criminals entertaining and as activists boring seemed obvious to me. Perhaps it's more subtle here, but I suspect the reviewer found the story of Ms. Obama's childhood interesting because she doesn't expect African American children to have "typical" two-parent, achievement-oriented, middle-class upbringings--puh-leeze! Meanwhile, the story of a black woman (and her husband) achieving is boring. That, too, is racism.
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