I am off on vacation tonight. I am taking a break from phones, computers, email, blogs. Of course I will be reading as much as I can.
I will be with family celebrating my mom's 90th birthday. So it will be all about family and luckily I have a great family with a minimum of dysfunction and only a few weirdos to keep life interesting.
I'll be back in two weeks. If you miss me, you can catch up on earlier posts you might have missed or hey, read some books yourself instead of blogs. While it is fun to read about books, I believe it is much more fun to read them. What do you think?
See ya'!
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
THE MARTIAN CHILD
The Martian Child, David Gerrold, Tom Doherty Associates, 2002, 190 pp
Another book about adoption, recommended to me by my friend Laurie, the sci fi writer. This one is from the viewpoint of the adopting parent. Gerrold turned his experience into a novel and I devoured it in a few hours.
The man is single, gay and a sci fi writer living in the suburbs of Los Angeles. The boy he adopted was 8 years old, abandoned by his mother (who was a drug abuser) and in foster care since he was a year old. He was considered not adoptable because of all his behavior troubles plus he told everyone that he was from Mars.
Despite qualms and self-doubt, David adopted him and made a success of it. Another child saved by love. Good writing and excellent insight into the Martian thing. Apparently it is somewhat common for kids in the foster care system to believe they are from Mars.
Another book about adoption, recommended to me by my friend Laurie, the sci fi writer. This one is from the viewpoint of the adopting parent. Gerrold turned his experience into a novel and I devoured it in a few hours.
The man is single, gay and a sci fi writer living in the suburbs of Los Angeles. The boy he adopted was 8 years old, abandoned by his mother (who was a drug abuser) and in foster care since he was a year old. He was considered not adoptable because of all his behavior troubles plus he told everyone that he was from Mars.
Despite qualms and self-doubt, David adopted him and made a success of it. Another child saved by love. Good writing and excellent insight into the Martian thing. Apparently it is somewhat common for kids in the foster care system to believe they are from Mars.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
WORD OF THE DAY
Today's word is crenelate. It comes from p 16 of Children of Men by P D James. This is a word that I usually go past, knowing that it has something to do with buildings but not really knowing what it means. So this time, I got honest and looked it up. Then I was in a can of worms known by dictionary users as a word chain. Here we go:
crenelate transitive verb meaning to furnish with battlements or crenels, or with squared notches.
which led me to crenels.
crenel noun meaning any of the indentations or loopholes in the top of a battlement or wall, embrasure.
which led me to battlement and embrasure.
battlement noun meaning a parapet with open spaces for shooting built on top of a castle wall, tower or fort.
which led me to parapet (at which point I moved to an easier dictionary.)
parapet noun meaning a wall or bank for protecting troops from enemy fire. From French from Italian from papare, to guard + petto, breast from Latin pectus.
Sentence: OK guys, get behind the parapet before you get shot.
enbrasure noun meaning an opening, as in a parapet, with the sides slanting outward to increase the angle of fire of a gun. (Here we got a much needed picture.) From an obsolete French word, embraser, to widen an opening.
Sentence: Even though the guy was over to the right, I managed to pick him off thanks to the embrasure I was shooting through.
OK back to battlement noun meaning a parapet with open spaces for shooting built on top of a castle wall, tower or fort. From Middle English batelment from Old French bataillier, to fortify from battaille, fortification on a wall or tower. (Another great picture.)
Sentence: The soldiers were placed along the battlement with their bows, arrows and kettles of boiling oil.
OK, cool, so a crenel is a noun meaning any of the indentations or loopholes in the top of a battlement or wall, embrasure. (A crenel is an embrasure, one of those openings with the slanted sides.) It is from Old French, diminutive of the Vulgar Latin crena, a notch.
Sentence: While stooping behind the battlement, I shot an arrow through the crenel.
Back to the original word crenelate transitive verb meaning to furnish with battlements or crenels, or with squared notches.
Sentence: We finished the sand castle but it looked a bit plain so we crenelated the tops of the walls.
There, now you and I can read lots more historical fiction and know what they are talking about instead of guessing. We can also name the parts of our sand castles. All thanks to P D James. How about some sentences, guys?
crenelate transitive verb meaning to furnish with battlements or crenels, or with squared notches.
which led me to crenels.
crenel noun meaning any of the indentations or loopholes in the top of a battlement or wall, embrasure.
which led me to battlement and embrasure.
battlement noun meaning a parapet with open spaces for shooting built on top of a castle wall, tower or fort.
which led me to parapet (at which point I moved to an easier dictionary.)
parapet noun meaning a wall or bank for protecting troops from enemy fire. From French from Italian from papare, to guard + petto, breast from Latin pectus.
Sentence: OK guys, get behind the parapet before you get shot.
enbrasure noun meaning an opening, as in a parapet, with the sides slanting outward to increase the angle of fire of a gun. (Here we got a much needed picture.) From an obsolete French word, embraser, to widen an opening.
Sentence: Even though the guy was over to the right, I managed to pick him off thanks to the embrasure I was shooting through.
OK back to battlement noun meaning a parapet with open spaces for shooting built on top of a castle wall, tower or fort. From Middle English batelment from Old French bataillier, to fortify from battaille, fortification on a wall or tower. (Another great picture.)
Sentence: The soldiers were placed along the battlement with their bows, arrows and kettles of boiling oil.
OK, cool, so a crenel is a noun meaning any of the indentations or loopholes in the top of a battlement or wall, embrasure. (A crenel is an embrasure, one of those openings with the slanted sides.) It is from Old French, diminutive of the Vulgar Latin crena, a notch.
Sentence: While stooping behind the battlement, I shot an arrow through the crenel.
Back to the original word crenelate transitive verb meaning to furnish with battlements or crenels, or with squared notches.
Sentence: We finished the sand castle but it looked a bit plain so we crenelated the tops of the walls.
There, now you and I can read lots more historical fiction and know what they are talking about instead of guessing. We can also name the parts of our sand castles. All thanks to P D James. How about some sentences, guys?
THE WHISTLING SEASON
The Whistling Season, Ivan Doig, Harcourt Inc, 2006, 345 pp
I had heard about this author. He writes about Montana in the homesteading days of the early 20th century. And I liked this book a great deal, though some say his earlier books are even better. He reminds me of Wallace Stegner but he is less ponderous-that's a good thing. He does not judge his characters.
The Whistling Season could be a Young Adult novel. Paul is the oldest of three sons and tells the story, looking back on his thirteenth year. His father, Oliver, is a homesteader who had lost his wife and the boys' mother a year ago to a medical emergency. Oliver decides to hire a housekeeper from an ad in the paper. Rose and her brother Morris arrive from Wisconsin and bring change to the area.
These two interlopers are surrounded by a certain amount of mystery and Doig does not reveal their secrets until the last few pages, so all through the story, though they each do wondrous deeds that improve life for Paul and his family, there is a certain uneasiness simmering just beneath.
All the characters are fabulously created. Paul and his brothers attend a one-room schoolhouse complete with bullies, buddies, lug heads and scholars as well as annoying girls. Morris becomes the school teacher and being well-educated as well as the flamboyant character he is, he teaches like his hair is on fire. My favorite parts of the book were the schoolhouse scenes.
It all ends happily with a sense of uprightness tempered by wisdom about people and the vagaries of the human heart. Doig has recreated a time we shall never see again in America and yet the juxtaposition of goodwill and values with lawlessness and a certain anarchy is still the essence of our country's character.
I had heard about this author. He writes about Montana in the homesteading days of the early 20th century. And I liked this book a great deal, though some say his earlier books are even better. He reminds me of Wallace Stegner but he is less ponderous-that's a good thing. He does not judge his characters.
The Whistling Season could be a Young Adult novel. Paul is the oldest of three sons and tells the story, looking back on his thirteenth year. His father, Oliver, is a homesteader who had lost his wife and the boys' mother a year ago to a medical emergency. Oliver decides to hire a housekeeper from an ad in the paper. Rose and her brother Morris arrive from Wisconsin and bring change to the area.
These two interlopers are surrounded by a certain amount of mystery and Doig does not reveal their secrets until the last few pages, so all through the story, though they each do wondrous deeds that improve life for Paul and his family, there is a certain uneasiness simmering just beneath.
All the characters are fabulously created. Paul and his brothers attend a one-room schoolhouse complete with bullies, buddies, lug heads and scholars as well as annoying girls. Morris becomes the school teacher and being well-educated as well as the flamboyant character he is, he teaches like his hair is on fire. My favorite parts of the book were the schoolhouse scenes.
It all ends happily with a sense of uprightness tempered by wisdom about people and the vagaries of the human heart. Doig has recreated a time we shall never see again in America and yet the juxtaposition of goodwill and values with lawlessness and a certain anarchy is still the essence of our country's character.
Monday, July 14, 2008
LIFE OF PI
Life of Pi, Yann Martel, Harcourt Inc, 2001 319 pp
I finished this book several weeks ago, so some of the impact has faded, but it was a large impact at the time. I dreamed about it all night after finishing it right before bed.
The story begins in India when Pi is a young boy. His parents own and run a zoo, so he grows up surrounded by hundreds of animals from all over the world. He is a bookish boy, taunted by his schoolmates and given to spiritual yearnings. By the time he is a teen, he is a practicing Christian, Muslim and Buddhist.
But hard times come and his family decides to emigrate to Canada. The animals are sold to other zoos and they set out on an ocean journey with some of the animals, which are bound for America, on board. Their ship is a Japanese freighter and sinks. Pi is left on a lifeboat with a hyena and a Bengal tiger for company.
He spends seven months on that lifeboat and manages to survive, living on fish and learning to use the meager emergency supplies he finds. Alone with the tiger, who would eat him in a heartbeat, Pi uses his knowledge of animals to keep the beast at bay, while he practices his three religions to keep from succumbing to hopelessness.
Martel writes the book as though it were Pi's true story but according to interviews he made up the whole thing. Some people found all kinds of symbolism in the story, others found it to unbelievable. I just let myself be completely taken in and marvelled at the contrasts between faith and despair. It is one of the best books I've read so far this year. I don't know how I missed reading it for seven years with everyone telling me how great it was. They were right.
I finished this book several weeks ago, so some of the impact has faded, but it was a large impact at the time. I dreamed about it all night after finishing it right before bed.
The story begins in India when Pi is a young boy. His parents own and run a zoo, so he grows up surrounded by hundreds of animals from all over the world. He is a bookish boy, taunted by his schoolmates and given to spiritual yearnings. By the time he is a teen, he is a practicing Christian, Muslim and Buddhist.
But hard times come and his family decides to emigrate to Canada. The animals are sold to other zoos and they set out on an ocean journey with some of the animals, which are bound for America, on board. Their ship is a Japanese freighter and sinks. Pi is left on a lifeboat with a hyena and a Bengal tiger for company.
He spends seven months on that lifeboat and manages to survive, living on fish and learning to use the meager emergency supplies he finds. Alone with the tiger, who would eat him in a heartbeat, Pi uses his knowledge of animals to keep the beast at bay, while he practices his three religions to keep from succumbing to hopelessness.
Martel writes the book as though it were Pi's true story but according to interviews he made up the whole thing. Some people found all kinds of symbolism in the story, others found it to unbelievable. I just let myself be completely taken in and marvelled at the contrasts between faith and despair. It is one of the best books I've read so far this year. I don't know how I missed reading it for seven years with everyone telling me how great it was. They were right.
WORD OF THE DAY
I haven't posted one of these in a while so I have a huge backlog. Please play the game and leave a sentence in the comments.
accidie
Found on page 3 of Children of Men by P D James.
accidie may also be spelled accidia or acedia. In Webster's New World Third College Edition the definition is given after acedia.
It means spiritual sloth or apathy and is one of the seven deadly sins.
It is derived from the Greek akedia which comes from a-, not + kedos, care.
My sentence: In college she discovered drinking which often happened on Saturday nights and led her to accidie on Sunday mornings.
What is your sentence?
accidie
Found on page 3 of Children of Men by P D James.
accidie may also be spelled accidia or acedia. In Webster's New World Third College Edition the definition is given after acedia.
It means spiritual sloth or apathy and is one of the seven deadly sins.
It is derived from the Greek akedia which comes from a-, not + kedos, care.
My sentence: In college she discovered drinking which often happened on Saturday nights and led her to accidie on Sunday mornings.
What is your sentence?
Thursday, July 10, 2008
THREE LITTLE WORDS
Three Little Words, Ashley Rhodes-Courter, Atheneum, 2008, 297 pp
One day at work, business was slow and I was there alone. I was looking through the Young Adult shelves and came across this memoir of a foster child who finally got adopted. I read anything I find on this topic as research for the novel I am not writing. By the time I went to bed that night I had finished the book.
The story takes place in South Carolina and Florida, where Ashley lived with her single mom and brother, later with her maternal grandmother and then in a long succession of foster homes. As usual, it is a heart wrenching tale of loss, neglect, sometimes abuse; of bureaucratic inefficiency and heartlessness, sometimes corruption.
Finally after nine years in fourteen different foster home, Ashley is adopted and has to work through lots of issues like trust, eating and accepting a new mother. She makes it. The new mother is novelist Gay Courter. I read and loved two of her novels in the 1990s: Flowers in the Blood and The Midwife. Gay Courter was instrumental in helping Ashley write her memoir and it is well written. They are both advocates for children who are lost in our failed foster care system.
I fully realize that this is a naive question with no easy answers, but how can the wealthiest nation in the world have so much poverty, messed up health care and so many children who are left adrift in our society? Lest we become complacent or over-confident, books like this should be required reading for all citizens.
One day at work, business was slow and I was there alone. I was looking through the Young Adult shelves and came across this memoir of a foster child who finally got adopted. I read anything I find on this topic as research for the novel I am not writing. By the time I went to bed that night I had finished the book.
The story takes place in South Carolina and Florida, where Ashley lived with her single mom and brother, later with her maternal grandmother and then in a long succession of foster homes. As usual, it is a heart wrenching tale of loss, neglect, sometimes abuse; of bureaucratic inefficiency and heartlessness, sometimes corruption.
Finally after nine years in fourteen different foster home, Ashley is adopted and has to work through lots of issues like trust, eating and accepting a new mother. She makes it. The new mother is novelist Gay Courter. I read and loved two of her novels in the 1990s: Flowers in the Blood and The Midwife. Gay Courter was instrumental in helping Ashley write her memoir and it is well written. They are both advocates for children who are lost in our failed foster care system.
I fully realize that this is a naive question with no easy answers, but how can the wealthiest nation in the world have so much poverty, messed up health care and so many children who are left adrift in our society? Lest we become complacent or over-confident, books like this should be required reading for all citizens.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
GIRLS LIKE US
Girls Like Us, Sheila Weller, Atria Books, 2008, 527 pp
Though the writing is weak and actually slowed my reading, this is the best book I've read about music, the 60s and 70s and the female musicians of my generation. Joni Mitchell, Carole King And Carly Simon are featured section by section, in an ambitious triple biography that is also social history. Weller follows each of these woman from early childhood through their respective peaks of fame and on up to the present.
Carly Simon is the only one who consented to interviews so the rest is based on research and interviews with people surrounding these women. One wonders about the reliability of those other interviewees. Still I was absorbed in these women's lives, their many love affairs and marriages, and the stories behind their songs. The organizing principle behind the book is the connection with feminism which the author handles well.
Having been a fan of Joni Mitchell since I first heard her perform in 1968 and even met her backstage, just before her first album was released, I was most interested in the Joni sections. I learned things about her that I've not read elsewhere. Carole and Carly have never been favorites of mine though I like reading about Carly and James Taylor.
But this is a good book for any woman born between the mid-1940s to early 1950s, because whether famous or obscure, we all lived through the second women's movement toward independence and self hood and our story must be preserved. We've come a long way and it is not over yet for the women of this world.
Though the writing is weak and actually slowed my reading, this is the best book I've read about music, the 60s and 70s and the female musicians of my generation. Joni Mitchell, Carole King And Carly Simon are featured section by section, in an ambitious triple biography that is also social history. Weller follows each of these woman from early childhood through their respective peaks of fame and on up to the present.
Carly Simon is the only one who consented to interviews so the rest is based on research and interviews with people surrounding these women. One wonders about the reliability of those other interviewees. Still I was absorbed in these women's lives, their many love affairs and marriages, and the stories behind their songs. The organizing principle behind the book is the connection with feminism which the author handles well.
Having been a fan of Joni Mitchell since I first heard her perform in 1968 and even met her backstage, just before her first album was released, I was most interested in the Joni sections. I learned things about her that I've not read elsewhere. Carole and Carly have never been favorites of mine though I like reading about Carly and James Taylor.
But this is a good book for any woman born between the mid-1940s to early 1950s, because whether famous or obscure, we all lived through the second women's movement toward independence and self hood and our story must be preserved. We've come a long way and it is not over yet for the women of this world.
Monday, July 07, 2008
THE HOST
The Host, Stephenie Meyer, Little Brown and Company, 2008, 619 pp
In her first novel for adults, Stephenie Meyer, author of the wildly popular Twilight series, delves into sci fi. It is the sort of sci fi that anyone could like because it is about people and their interactions, something like The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. In fact, I was amused to see a sci fi novel take #1 on the New York Times bestseller list for two weeks in a row.
Thank goodness that she is a good storyteller because the writing is just OK, as it was in Twilight. She repeats herself and draws out the tension too long. I had to gulp down all 600 pages in a weekend because I was assigned by my boss at the bookstore to read it and rule on whether we could sell it to our teenage customers. (We can. No explicit sex, no gratuitous violence, though as in Twilight, plenty of sexual tension and rough stuff and injuries. It is one of Meyer's feats that she can do sex and violence without upsetting the YA censors.)
A race of outer space beings, known as souls, has invaded earth. No war or weapons are involved. They take over human bodies, replacing the personality while using the body as a "host." The emotions, senses and memories of the original person are left intact but the humans naturally feel invaded and look on these souls as parasites.
Melanie is invaded by Wanderer but in this case, she fights back hard and the two female personalities just about equally share one mind and one body. Melanie had a brother and a lover before the invasion and she convinces Wanderer to search until they are found.
Some humans have escaped capture and live literally underground in caves. Wanderer/Melanie find Jamie (the brother) and Jared (the lover) in such a hideout. At this point in the story, events get more tense than ever. The souls' purpose in coming to Earth is to bring peace to a violent and warlike planet, but that's a dicey proposition since human beings don't like being told how to behave by an outside influence.
Stephenie Meyer has amazing powers of imagination in all this and in the way she moves the story through all the conflict. I liked how Melanie and Wanderer become best friends. Imagine if you had an imaginary friend in your mind who was a fully realized personality. The ideas here include honor, courage and sacrifice in dealing with love, loyalty and anger. The theme is that love conquers all and is handled without sentimentality or melodrama though with plenty of drama. Pretty impressive actually, if you can stick with it for over 600 pages.
In her first novel for adults, Stephenie Meyer, author of the wildly popular Twilight series, delves into sci fi. It is the sort of sci fi that anyone could like because it is about people and their interactions, something like The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. In fact, I was amused to see a sci fi novel take #1 on the New York Times bestseller list for two weeks in a row.
Thank goodness that she is a good storyteller because the writing is just OK, as it was in Twilight. She repeats herself and draws out the tension too long. I had to gulp down all 600 pages in a weekend because I was assigned by my boss at the bookstore to read it and rule on whether we could sell it to our teenage customers. (We can. No explicit sex, no gratuitous violence, though as in Twilight, plenty of sexual tension and rough stuff and injuries. It is one of Meyer's feats that she can do sex and violence without upsetting the YA censors.)
A race of outer space beings, known as souls, has invaded earth. No war or weapons are involved. They take over human bodies, replacing the personality while using the body as a "host." The emotions, senses and memories of the original person are left intact but the humans naturally feel invaded and look on these souls as parasites.
Melanie is invaded by Wanderer but in this case, she fights back hard and the two female personalities just about equally share one mind and one body. Melanie had a brother and a lover before the invasion and she convinces Wanderer to search until they are found.
Some humans have escaped capture and live literally underground in caves. Wanderer/Melanie find Jamie (the brother) and Jared (the lover) in such a hideout. At this point in the story, events get more tense than ever. The souls' purpose in coming to Earth is to bring peace to a violent and warlike planet, but that's a dicey proposition since human beings don't like being told how to behave by an outside influence.
Stephenie Meyer has amazing powers of imagination in all this and in the way she moves the story through all the conflict. I liked how Melanie and Wanderer become best friends. Imagine if you had an imaginary friend in your mind who was a fully realized personality. The ideas here include honor, courage and sacrifice in dealing with love, loyalty and anger. The theme is that love conquers all and is handled without sentimentality or melodrama though with plenty of drama. Pretty impressive actually, if you can stick with it for over 600 pages.
Saturday, July 05, 2008
HIGHWIRE MOON
Highwire Moon, Susan Straight, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001, 305 pp
What a great book! It is the story of a mother and daughter who are separated when the daughter is only three. Serfina was an illegal Mexican immigrant who came to California from Oaxaca to work the oranges. Being Mexican Indian, she is considered the lowest even by other Mexicans. She was only 16 and got stranded in Rio Seco, which is Straight's fictional town based on Riverside, CA.
Serfina ends up with Larry, a white man who works various construction jobs, uses speed and was raised in foster homes. They have a daughter, Elvia, but they hardly connect because Serfina does not learn English or even venture out much. She pines for home. When Elvia is three, immigration gets Serafina and sends her back to Mexico. Elvia winds up in foster care for many years until her father finds her, takes her back into his crazy life and becomes fiercely protective of her in his own way.
When the story opens, Elvia (now called Ellie) is 16 and living with Larry and his speed freak girlfriend. For all these years she has thought that her mother abandoned her but now she is pregnant (though Larry does not know this) and decides to find Serafina. Meanwhile, Serafina is stuck in Tijuana caring for her own sick mother and pining for Elvira.
It could be an Oprah-like sentimental story but it's actually more like a prayer or an aria as these two women overcome dangers and pitfalls in their search for each other. The writing is perfect: images, just enough story, the viewpoints of the main characters clearly evolving in each one's distinctive voice. The life is hard, violent, unpredictable; there is barely enough love and hope to keep life going. Possibly this book is too dark for some, too lightweight for others. For me it was a jewel of a book.
MIDDLESEX
Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides, Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2002, 529 pp
I guess everyone in the world had already read this book. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003 and went on to be an Oprah selection. I even found two copies of it in my house. Finally it was picked as a selection in one of my reading groups. (I am currently in 5 reading groups.) So now I have read it too!
I liked it; it is a bit over-written in sections and thus over-long, but generally I enjoy long books. I learned plenty about human hermaphrodites, which caused me to recall that I became interested in genetics back in high school, except then I got a steady boyfriend and my sexual research took place with him. Since I lived in Ann Arbor, MI, for all of my early adult years, I loved that the book is mostly set in Detroit from 1922 to 1975.
What I enjoyed most was the main character. Calliope Stephanides was born a girl with Greek parents and a big fat extended family, but because of a recessive mutation on her fifth chromosome, she turned out to be a boy. As Cali becomes Cal, we learn the entire story of her family from a small Turkish town where Greeks lived in the shadow of oppressive Turks, to how that quirky chromosome showed up and made this character's life a misery.
It is not however a book about misery. It is about large characters, American society, love and coming of age. I now have scenes of joy, despair, humor, sex, shady business, and private girls school indelibly in my mind. Middlesex raised as many questions as it answered and maybe that is why I will never forget it.
I guess everyone in the world had already read this book. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003 and went on to be an Oprah selection. I even found two copies of it in my house. Finally it was picked as a selection in one of my reading groups. (I am currently in 5 reading groups.) So now I have read it too!
I liked it; it is a bit over-written in sections and thus over-long, but generally I enjoy long books. I learned plenty about human hermaphrodites, which caused me to recall that I became interested in genetics back in high school, except then I got a steady boyfriend and my sexual research took place with him. Since I lived in Ann Arbor, MI, for all of my early adult years, I loved that the book is mostly set in Detroit from 1922 to 1975.
What I enjoyed most was the main character. Calliope Stephanides was born a girl with Greek parents and a big fat extended family, but because of a recessive mutation on her fifth chromosome, she turned out to be a boy. As Cali becomes Cal, we learn the entire story of her family from a small Turkish town where Greeks lived in the shadow of oppressive Turks, to how that quirky chromosome showed up and made this character's life a misery.
It is not however a book about misery. It is about large characters, American society, love and coming of age. I now have scenes of joy, despair, humor, sex, shady business, and private girls school indelibly in my mind. Middlesex raised as many questions as it answered and maybe that is why I will never forget it.
Monday, June 30, 2008
A PERSON OF INTEREST
A Person of Interest, Susan Choi, Viking Penguin, 2008, 356 pp
A "person of interest" is an FBI term meaning someone deemed important to an investigation. Professor Lee, a Japanese immigrant and American citizen for over 30 years, a mathematician in his 60s who has tenure at an insignificant mid-western college, is possibly one of the least interesting persons around. Yet after a bomb explodes in the office next to his, killing a colleague, Professor Lee becomes of interest to the FBI and finds himself a suspect in the eyes of his department, his students and his neighborhood.
He enters a state of extreme fear and anxiety. Susan Choi so expertly details Lee's turmoil that as a reader, I was in that state along with him for the several days I was reading this literary thriller. And literary it is. Long sentences, somewhat deep ideas about math, competition, love, insecurity, the immigrant experience, made for a slow start but I could not stop reading and the pages turned fairly rapidly.
The novel could be called When Bad Things Happen to Ordinary People. No one comes out as a particularly likable person. Lee and his main FBI contact become enmeshed in a curiously symbiotic relationship and completely unexpectedly become heroes, each in his own way. The last 100 pages left me breathless, panting really, and deeply satisfied. As they say in the blurbs, a triumph.
A "person of interest" is an FBI term meaning someone deemed important to an investigation. Professor Lee, a Japanese immigrant and American citizen for over 30 years, a mathematician in his 60s who has tenure at an insignificant mid-western college, is possibly one of the least interesting persons around. Yet after a bomb explodes in the office next to his, killing a colleague, Professor Lee becomes of interest to the FBI and finds himself a suspect in the eyes of his department, his students and his neighborhood.
He enters a state of extreme fear and anxiety. Susan Choi so expertly details Lee's turmoil that as a reader, I was in that state along with him for the several days I was reading this literary thriller. And literary it is. Long sentences, somewhat deep ideas about math, competition, love, insecurity, the immigrant experience, made for a slow start but I could not stop reading and the pages turned fairly rapidly.
The novel could be called When Bad Things Happen to Ordinary People. No one comes out as a particularly likable person. Lee and his main FBI contact become enmeshed in a curiously symbiotic relationship and completely unexpectedly become heroes, each in his own way. The last 100 pages left me breathless, panting really, and deeply satisfied. As they say in the blurbs, a triumph.
I FEEL BAD ABOUT MY NECK
I Feel Bad About My Neck, Nora Ephron, Alfred A Knopf Inc, 2007, 170 pp
Nora Ephron is famous for her screenplays of "When Harry Met Sally", "Sleepless in Seattle", "Michael" and "Bewitched." She is very good at making people laugh as I did, out loud, through much of this collection of essays on getting to be a woman of a certain age.
Though I have no plans to go under the knife, the title essay is all too true about what happens to aging female bodies. "I Hate My Purse", her futile search for a purse that works, pretty much paralleled my own experiences. I loved "Parenting in Three Stages" and my personal favorite "On Rapture" captures the joy of reading.
Funny thing though: like her movies, once I was done I could hardly remember a thing about the book. Just a few bright scenes remain. Perhaps when a writer so closely identifies certain human feelings common to many, it is so similar to what is already in our minds and hearts that there is a canceling out of emotion. More like therapy than art. We discussed this book at one of my reading groups and had hardly anything to say. Well thanks, Nora. That was the cheapest therapy session I ever had.
Nora Ephron is famous for her screenplays of "When Harry Met Sally", "Sleepless in Seattle", "Michael" and "Bewitched." She is very good at making people laugh as I did, out loud, through much of this collection of essays on getting to be a woman of a certain age.
Though I have no plans to go under the knife, the title essay is all too true about what happens to aging female bodies. "I Hate My Purse", her futile search for a purse that works, pretty much paralleled my own experiences. I loved "Parenting in Three Stages" and my personal favorite "On Rapture" captures the joy of reading.
Funny thing though: like her movies, once I was done I could hardly remember a thing about the book. Just a few bright scenes remain. Perhaps when a writer so closely identifies certain human feelings common to many, it is so similar to what is already in our minds and hearts that there is a canceling out of emotion. More like therapy than art. We discussed this book at one of my reading groups and had hardly anything to say. Well thanks, Nora. That was the cheapest therapy session I ever had.
Friday, June 27, 2008
RESERVATION NATION
Reservation Nation, David Fuller Cook, Boaz Publishing Company, 2007, 199 pp
This is a priceless little treasure of a book. The narrator is Warren, a young Native American man, who was raised on a reservation in the 50s and 60s. His grandparents brought him up after he lost his parents in a car crash and imparted to him, through stories and example, the truths of what it means to be Indian.
As Warren relates the incidents of his childhood, you meet many of the key characters on the reservation. Some maintain the traditional ways and others struggle with assimilation into the white man's world. It is Warren's grandfather who trains him to recognize his power and his role. Despite tribal politics, continuous betrayals and rip-offs by white government and business, even murder, Grandfather's wisdom brings clarity to Warren's quest for understanding life.
In the final chapter Warren has become The Seed, his Indian name and role. He states the Indian view of the universe and of life. It was deeply moving to me as he said, "The ways of the white man will pass, their influence will fade like the waning moon, because they are founded upon lies." Truth in fiction.
This is a priceless little treasure of a book. The narrator is Warren, a young Native American man, who was raised on a reservation in the 50s and 60s. His grandparents brought him up after he lost his parents in a car crash and imparted to him, through stories and example, the truths of what it means to be Indian.
As Warren relates the incidents of his childhood, you meet many of the key characters on the reservation. Some maintain the traditional ways and others struggle with assimilation into the white man's world. It is Warren's grandfather who trains him to recognize his power and his role. Despite tribal politics, continuous betrayals and rip-offs by white government and business, even murder, Grandfather's wisdom brings clarity to Warren's quest for understanding life.
In the final chapter Warren has become The Seed, his Indian name and role. He states the Indian view of the universe and of life. It was deeply moving to me as he said, "The ways of the white man will pass, their influence will fade like the waning moon, because they are founded upon lies." Truth in fiction.
THE MONSTERS OF TEMPLETON
The Monsters of Templeton, Lauren Groff, Nyperion, 2008, 361 pp
I wish I could say that I loved this book, but I didn't. I was looking forward to it with high expectations because I had read a story by the author in the 2007 Best American Short Stories which just took my breath away.
I think this is an ambitious novel with plenty of elements that I usually like: a young woman who is quirky and intelligent, history, a family tree which figures in the story and a bit of the supernatural. But I found it hard to follow, which is saying a lot because I can follow even the most convoluted novels. I just could not completely believe Willie Upton, the twenty-something heroine, and I could not get a grasp on her mother Vi in such a way as to feel involved with either one.
Willie has gotten herself in a jam and come home from an archeology dig that would have figured in her graduate thesis. She feels she has totally blown it and that her life is ruined. For such an independent and intelligent young woman, she spends the whole book being nasty to the mother she came home to for shelter and being about as silly emotionally as any chick lit heroine. It didn't seem to fit together right.
Getting through the novel was an effort, took way too long for a mere 361 pages and while the reader is supposed to feel that Willie changed and grew, I did not feel that she did. However, due to the short story that introduced me to Lauren Groff and to the large amount of potential I see in the novel, I will certainly read the next one she writes.
(The Monsters of Templeton is available in paperback and eBook by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore. To find it at your nearest indie bookstore, click on the cover image above.)
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
LOST CITY RADIO
Lost City Radio, Daniel Alarcon, HarperCollins Publishers, 2007, 257 pp
I was attracted to this book by the reviews and by the idea that a radio show called "Lost City Radio" brought separated people and families back together after a decade of civil war in an unnamed South American country. As it turned out, while the story is centered on the radio announcer Norma and her missing husband, it is not really about the show or its results.
The story is about war, displacement of peoples, oppressive government versus rebels and most deeply, about the effects of all this on a marriage and the great love between Norma and Rey. Since this is a novel about South America, the story goes in a South American trajectory, which is so different from the North American story telling tradition. I like this sort of story and after reading much of other such writers, I am beginning to see the influences of it in contemporary North American fiction.
Some readers I know get annoyed by a story that goes back and forth in time, circling round and round itself until all is told. It doesn't bother me. I could say that not a lot happens in Lost City Radio in terms of events, yet much occurs in the lives of the characters. The degree of uncertainty and upheaval portrayed here would most likely do me in and books like this make me realize how stable life is in the United States, how predictable, at least for the middle class. Alarcon writes about all these factors in wonderful prose. I felt the city and the jungle, the terrible fear and instability in these people's lives, the complete unreliability of the government and the news.
Somehow he has written a powerful story in a quiet way. I won't forget it soon.
I was attracted to this book by the reviews and by the idea that a radio show called "Lost City Radio" brought separated people and families back together after a decade of civil war in an unnamed South American country. As it turned out, while the story is centered on the radio announcer Norma and her missing husband, it is not really about the show or its results.
The story is about war, displacement of peoples, oppressive government versus rebels and most deeply, about the effects of all this on a marriage and the great love between Norma and Rey. Since this is a novel about South America, the story goes in a South American trajectory, which is so different from the North American story telling tradition. I like this sort of story and after reading much of other such writers, I am beginning to see the influences of it in contemporary North American fiction.
Some readers I know get annoyed by a story that goes back and forth in time, circling round and round itself until all is told. It doesn't bother me. I could say that not a lot happens in Lost City Radio in terms of events, yet much occurs in the lives of the characters. The degree of uncertainty and upheaval portrayed here would most likely do me in and books like this make me realize how stable life is in the United States, how predictable, at least for the middle class. Alarcon writes about all these factors in wonderful prose. I felt the city and the jungle, the terrible fear and instability in these people's lives, the complete unreliability of the government and the news.
Somehow he has written a powerful story in a quiet way. I won't forget it soon.
TENDER IS THE NIGHT
Tender is the Night, F Scott Fitzgerald, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933, 315 pp
I read this for one of my reading groups and I was the only one who finished it. In fact, this group is now defunct. I am done with Fitzgerald. Not that I have read all of his novels but I've read three and with the possible exception of The Great Gatsby, he has let me down every time.
In The Beautiful and the Damned he at least wrote well. In Tender is the Night, I had no idea who was who or what was going on in the first 50 pages. I pressed on and found out that Dick Diver was the main character and a psychologist who married his schizophrenic patient. I mean, how dumb was that? Because: she was ridiculously rich, he lost his self-respect and his purpose in life and then due to his efforts, she eventually got well only to leave him.
I'm sorry but I really could not feel any pity for any of the characters and their collective tragedy seemed inevitable, due to many stupidities which could have been avoided. Someday I will read Zelda Fitzgerald's autobiography and biography to get the other side of the story. Fitzgerald's low opinions of mankind in general are only topped by his misogynist views of women in particular.
I read this for one of my reading groups and I was the only one who finished it. In fact, this group is now defunct. I am done with Fitzgerald. Not that I have read all of his novels but I've read three and with the possible exception of The Great Gatsby, he has let me down every time.
In The Beautiful and the Damned he at least wrote well. In Tender is the Night, I had no idea who was who or what was going on in the first 50 pages. I pressed on and found out that Dick Diver was the main character and a psychologist who married his schizophrenic patient. I mean, how dumb was that? Because: she was ridiculously rich, he lost his self-respect and his purpose in life and then due to his efforts, she eventually got well only to leave him.
I'm sorry but I really could not feel any pity for any of the characters and their collective tragedy seemed inevitable, due to many stupidities which could have been avoided. Someday I will read Zelda Fitzgerald's autobiography and biography to get the other side of the story. Fitzgerald's low opinions of mankind in general are only topped by his misogynist views of women in particular.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
THE GATHERING
The Gathering, Anne Enright, Grove/Atlantic Inc, 2007, 261 pp
This dark novel won the Booker Prize in 2007. I liked it pretty well because the writing is great. The story however is not too original: a woman's brother commits suicide, she gathers with her family, re-lives her childhood and uncovers hidden incidents to make sense of her brother's death. In fact, it was the same story told in Mary Morris's The Waiting Room, though much better written.
Really it is a story of abuse and how that poisons a family. Veronica, the sister, is a woman who rose out of the pit of her family only to become somewhat unhinged when her brother dies. But she comes through all sorts of grief, denial and fear of life, so there is hope in the end. Clearly a message is being sent here that what families sweep under the carpet will come back to haunt them. Also she does an excellent job of showing how children cannot make sense of many things in childhood but can unravel those confusions as adults.
We discussed the book at one of the reading groups I attend and not many liked it at all. For those women it was way too heavy and upsetting. I think they had their own issues of denial going on.
This dark novel won the Booker Prize in 2007. I liked it pretty well because the writing is great. The story however is not too original: a woman's brother commits suicide, she gathers with her family, re-lives her childhood and uncovers hidden incidents to make sense of her brother's death. In fact, it was the same story told in Mary Morris's The Waiting Room, though much better written.
Really it is a story of abuse and how that poisons a family. Veronica, the sister, is a woman who rose out of the pit of her family only to become somewhat unhinged when her brother dies. But she comes through all sorts of grief, denial and fear of life, so there is hope in the end. Clearly a message is being sent here that what families sweep under the carpet will come back to haunt them. Also she does an excellent job of showing how children cannot make sense of many things in childhood but can unravel those confusions as adults.
We discussed the book at one of the reading groups I attend and not many liked it at all. For those women it was way too heavy and upsetting. I think they had their own issues of denial going on.
THE SPARROW
The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell, Villard Books, 1996, 405 pp
Wow! Amazing! So good. One of those books you stumble upon that takes you by surprise. I first saw it on the backlist shelf at the bookstore where I work. (Once Upon A Time in Montrose, CA) Then I saw it mentioned on several lists of top sci fi books. While on a trip to Ann Arbor, MI, I bought it at my favorite Ann Arbor bookstore: Shaman Drum.
Set in 2059, the story combines space travel, Jesuits, aliens and a group of flawed but wonderful human characters. All you know at the beginning is that Emilio Sandoz has returned from a journey into space, sick, broken and without the rest of his party. He is a Jesuit priest and is taken in by his order for healing, but there are some huge shameful aspects to the mission. The rest of the book, shifting back and forth in time, reveals the whole story.
In an interview, the author says she wanted to write a story about the pitfalls of first contact between two alien cultures and at this point in time, had to go offworld to do so. She has tackled here also issues of faith, belief and duty in religion; of family and love and recovery from horrific childhoods; of time and science, linguistics and society.
Hard to believe that it is a first novel. She weaves through all that heavy stuff with the lightest of touch. On top of all that, she never over-explains, so I felt I was discovering the alien culture right along with the mission and that I was recovering from devastating memories right along with Emilio. A masterpiece! Even if you think you don't like science fiction, give it a try.
THE WAITING ROOM
The Waiting Room, Mary Morris, Doubleday, 1989, 273 pp
After reading Mary Morris's travel memoir Nothing to Declare, I wanted to read more of her work. This is her second novel, published the year after the memoir and the lyrical but reportorial style I liked in that book did not enchant me in her novel.
Zoe Coleman returns to her Wisconsin hometown because her younger brother Badger has come back from Canada, where he had gone to escape the draft, and is now a drug casualty in a facility for various types of rehab patients. I think it would have been a pretty good and relevant book in the 80s. The quirky characters in Zoe's back story and the troubles with her mother make this a sort of Lisa Alther meets early Anne Tyler novel.
Morris does too much telling without showing and the deadpan delivery is at odds with the emotionally charged story. It did not make me want to read it but I made it through.
After reading Mary Morris's travel memoir Nothing to Declare, I wanted to read more of her work. This is her second novel, published the year after the memoir and the lyrical but reportorial style I liked in that book did not enchant me in her novel.
Zoe Coleman returns to her Wisconsin hometown because her younger brother Badger has come back from Canada, where he had gone to escape the draft, and is now a drug casualty in a facility for various types of rehab patients. I think it would have been a pretty good and relevant book in the 80s. The quirky characters in Zoe's back story and the troubles with her mother make this a sort of Lisa Alther meets early Anne Tyler novel.
Morris does too much telling without showing and the deadpan delivery is at odds with the emotionally charged story. It did not make me want to read it but I made it through.
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