tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66288788953956729062024-03-13T13:14:53.691-07:00Words on WordsTo read or not to read. Honest reviews of books new and old.Brittaniahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12158418202381878094noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6628878895395672906.post-85073451088871397242015-09-12T11:56:00.000-07:002015-09-12T11:56:04.868-07:00A History Story for Our Time<i>Coming Out of the Ice</i>, Victor Herman<br />
Freedom Press, 1979, 369 pages<br />
<br />
Sometimes readers get on a kick and read similar things for a while: books about animals, or biographies of famous people, or fantasy fiction. If there's a kick that's sure to both bring you down and make you wildly glad to be alive, it's memoirs of prison camp survivors.<br />
<br />
After a friend found out that I loved <i>Unbroken</i>, she loaned me <i>Coming Out of the Ice: An Unexpected Life</i> with promises that I'd be impressed. I devoured almost the whole the book in three days. And with each turn of the page, I became more and more grateful for the life I have, and for the choices my parents - and their parents - have made which have given me this free and overflowing life. <br />
<br />
Victor's story hinges, as do most lives, on the decisions and passions of his parent. His father, Sam, a Socialist living in Depression-era Detroit, jumped at the chance to live in Russia for a few years, helping to further the cause
in a practical way as an auto mechanic for the Ford Motor Company. Victor was a teenager in 1931 when he traveled with his family to Russia and he expected to be back home in three years. Instead, he spent the next 45 years battling one harsh Russian wilderness after another: first a long and unexplained imprisonment, then a sentence of lumberjacking forests in Siberia, then an isolated exile, and finally an extended tangle in the endless red tape of the Russian government.<br />
<br />
But it didn't start out that way. For the first few years, life in Russia bloomed for Victor. He found himself to be skilled at nearly every sport he attempted, and joined local teams to compete in basketball, riflery, boxing, and track events. Later, after being taught to fly airplanes in a prestigious flying school, he taught himself fancy piloting tricks, took up parachute-jumping, and even logged a world record deadfall jump. He even became known internationally as the Lindbergh of Russia.<br />
<br />
And then... An arrest one July afternoon after a track practice. A year in one prison cell shared with fifteen other men. Fifty-five nights of brutal beatings. No less than four different Siberian prison camps where failure to chop
down the required trees meant no food and where even meeting quota
brought barely a mouthful. Nearly two hundred covert meals of raw rat. Bits of toe chopped off with scissors after frostbite. "It was like anything else," Victor said of one camp's cruel method of food distribution. "You couldn't believe it at first. Then you got good at it. And then you prided yourself on your skill. That's what being a prisoner is, in a way - a man who at first can't believe it, and then he gets good at it, and then proud of getting good at what he could not believe." <br />
<br />
<i>Coming Out of the Ice</i> records a life that became so unexpected, Victor ceased to be surprised. Unlike most who were subjected to similar experiences, Victor came back. "But not all of me came back," he said. "Something, I left behind. I think it was disbelief. Not ever again would I not believe. It will happen - whatever <i>can </i>happen <i>will</i>."<br />
<br />
Today there is terror just as unbelievable on the other side of the globe. And for me, most of the time, it's easy to draw the curtains and leave it over there, hidden behind the headlines of articles that I choose not to read. But a story like Victor Herman's brings the real brutalities of oppressors into focus and reminds me that it's safe to assume that "whatever <i>can</i> happen <i>will</i>." Will my perfectly blooming life take a sharp turn toward something resembling Victor's eighteen years of imprisonment? Will my son's life? Could something so unexpected happen to us?<br />
<br />
Victor doesn't mention faith in his narrative, so I don't know if he clung to the hope of eternal peace while enduring his tortured life. But whether he intended to or not, he pushed me to grip tightly to something no one can take away, to fix my eyes on the place prepared for me, and to prepare my heart for enormous loss, knowing that the things which really matter are secured already. It's not the sort of book I'd like to read often, but a prison memoir brings a helpful perspective to a life that seems rather ordinary. And perhaps it is mine, the one laced with blessings and heaped up high with things to be grateful for, that is actually the unexpected one. Brittaniahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12158418202381878094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6628878895395672906.post-485962613379576072015-09-01T12:01:00.000-07:002015-09-01T12:01:00.764-07:00One Jumbo of a Sad Story<i>Jumbo: The True Story of the Greatest Elephant in the World</i>, Paul Chambers<br />
Steerforth Press, 2008, 208 pages<br />
<br />
*Alert: Spoilers included* <br />
<br />
I fell head over heels for circus lore after reading <i>Water for Elephants</i>, and was dying to get my hands on some real-life circus stories. The story of Jumbo seemed a perfect place to start. But this book was sad from start to finish. I turned the last page feeling disappointed, and Chambers' tone suggested that he did as well. His last line, which quotes the adage, "The bigger they come, the harder they fall," paints Jumbo's life as ultimately a let-down. <br />
<br />
From the very start, Jumbo's entrance into captivity was marked by violence. The Victorian era had developed an entire business around the sale and trade of wild animals, so capturing elephant calves, and necessarily slaughtering their mothers, was common. I have a middle-of-the-road attitude about treatment of animals: I like to see animals treated with kindness, but I would never elevate the importance of an animal with that of a person. Perhaps the killing of Jumbo's mother, and other wild elephants, was excessively cruel, but perhaps bringing a baby elephant into captivity for the delight of thousands of people should be expected to have such a cost. Regardless, it does tug at the heartstrings to read about a baby taken so forcibly from his dying mother.<br />
<br />
Jumbo's life in captivity continued to be laced with illness, deception, manipulation, and anger. Though he came to be nearly a national mascot while residing in the London Zoo, he was given to fits of rage and during some periods, his battered enclosure required daily repair. His keeper, a withdrawn and unsocial man, grew wildly possessive of Jumbo, not allowing anyone else to train or handle him. When sold to the American circus tycoon, P.T. Barnum, Jumbo apparently refused to go and it took the team nearly two months from the time of sale before they contrived a successful plan to move the animal from his London dwelling to the steamer that would take him across the Atlantic.<br />
<br />
After just four years of touring with Barnum's circus, Jumbo met a shocking and violent end in a train wreck. His preserved and stuffed skin, which first toured with the circus and was then donated to Tufts College where it stood for decades, also met a tragic end when the building caught fire in the 1970's. His keeper, who had always been a loner and was even more solitary after the death of his companion, dropped off the map and most likely died in poverty. Even Jumbo's "wife," a female elephant who'd been housed with him in London and was later bought by Barnum's circus, was killed in a fire several years after Jumbo's death. How's that for an upbeat tale?<br />
<br />
Jumbo might have lived up to 60 years in the wild had he never been captured. He might have enjoyed 30 or more in the London Zoo, if he hadn't been so troublesome. As it was, he was killed at the age of about 25, but his impact outstripped his lifespan for he had entertained tens of thousands of people in both Britain and in the United States and had planted his name firmly into the American soil as a household adjective.<br />
<br />
If nothing else, Jumbo's story reminds us that nothing in this world can last and that perhaps by trying to hold on to something we love, we only make the parting more difficult when it finally comes. Furthermore, it uncovers the fact that life in the zoo or the circus is not as glitzy and magical as you might assume. Danger and exhaustion are a way of life and when tragedy strikes, the show must go on (even if it means whisking a killed acrobat from the ring before anyone notices). As a pleasure read, <i>Jumbo </i>was informative but discouraging. I suggest you take your reading hours elsewhere. Brittaniahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12158418202381878094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6628878895395672906.post-29169025819486392602015-07-10T05:26:00.001-07:002015-07-10T05:27:43.343-07:00It's Like Riding a Bike<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]--><i>L</i><span class="readablereviewtext"><i>ife is a Wheel: A Memoir of
a Bike-Riding Obituarist</i>, Bruce Weber</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="readablereviewtext">Scribner, 2014, 333 pages </span></div>
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<span class="readablereviewtext">This book
chose me, right from its spot on a library end-cap. It begged to be read and I
couldn’t refuse. So I took it home and barreled through it, gobbling up Bruce
Weber’s two-wheeled trip across the country in record time. My reading was
record time, not his journey. It took him around three months, a little longer
than his first trip. Yes, this is the memoir of a man cycling across the US for the
second time. Day after day of cycling, averaging around 50 miles a day, took
Bruce from Oregon to New York City. For a cyclist like me, though
I’ve never ridden farther than across the skinny state of New Jersey, this book rang true time and
time again. I could feel the aching "sit-bones," relate to the
constant calculating that overtakes the mind as we measure time against
distance, sense the flood of relief that happens when the narrow highway
shoulder finally opens up or an alternate route suddenly appears. Only cyclists
know the particular muscles that ache when you climb back on your bike after a
lunch break or the specific rush of camaraderie that you get from seeing
another cyclist along your lonesome route. Weber’s book will be most
appreciated by those who wear toe-clip shoes. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="readablereviewtext">For those less wheel-inclined,
though, Weber’s story can still be enjoyed. In a blend of recollections about
his own life - stories about his mom and dad, past and present romances, and
the death of a longtime friend – along with the nitty-gritty details about his
cross-country journey, <i>Life is a Wheel</i> is a smooth hybrid of travel story and
memoir. Weber unabashedly compares life to riding a bicycle: you're mostly
thinking about the next pedal-stroke, the next hot shower in the next motel room,
the highway in the distance you'll need to cross. Sometimes the ride itself
becomes so absorbing that as the miles to home become less, you may even began
to wonder, "What will I do when I get there?" And as much as you long
for the breath-taking ride over the continental divide or checking off your
longest day of mileage yet, when the ultimate end approaches, you suddenly wish
it would slow down. For a writer who has specialized in writing obituaries,
Weber understands the suddenness with which life can end. Cycling 4000 miles
creates a microcosm of the journey of life: a definite end in sight, a lot to
do along the way, and the danger of forgetting how brief it all really is. <i>Life
is a Wheel</i> reminds us to keep pedaling, notice the scenery, and not wish away
any of the time or distance because the end comes all too soon. I recommend
this book heartily for any cyclist, anyone who loves to travel, or anyone who's
ever noticed the similarity between riding a bike and journeying through life. </span></div>
Brittaniahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12158418202381878094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6628878895395672906.post-81858952549800591462015-05-08T12:35:00.000-07:002015-05-08T12:37:57.039-07:00Breathe Easy: Oxygen is a great beach read for your summer vacation<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]--><i>O</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">xygen</i>, Carol
Cassella<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Simon and Schuster, 2008, 288 pages</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A good novel lingers, like an anesthesia, clinging to you
long after it’s over. I finished <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Oxygen</i>
this week and three days later I’m still thinking about it. Without being a
full-fledged mystery novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Oxygen</i>
delivers enough of a who-done-it feel to keep you on the edge of your seat
while hitting close enough to home to stay believable. Marie Heaton, a highly
regarded physician in her respected Seattle
hospital, is wading through the emotional and legal aftermath of an operating
room tragedy. At the same time, a faded romance from the past is edging its way
back into her life while she also navigates the awkwardness of helping her aging
dad realize his dependency. Work stress, romantic uncertainty, and family
tension swirl into a perfect storm for Marie’s life. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This was Carol Cassella’s first novel, but her writing is
fabulous. She writes as naturally about a doctor’s morning routines “sorting
through stacks of paperwork, unfolding sterile blue drapes across massive
tables, adjusting lights, spreading out fields of stainless steel” as she does
about the backyard at Marie’s dad’s house, “the green weedy lawn, the rotting
fence, the caving garden shed, the leggy wands of my mother’s roses, grown
amok.” A child’s bedroom, a vacant strip-mall lot, a bachelor pad, and a theme
park are each hung around the reader’s mind like theater scenes, evoked
completely with the briefest of descriptions. Cassella’s narrator, Marie, is
ordinary and natural, preferring “a faded cable-knit sweater in army green,
blue jeans, and water-stained clogs” to trendy fashions, not ashamed to kneel
in the grass with a niece who wants to play princesses, and willing to swallow
her fear of flying if the trade-off is a private picnic lunch with her best
friend who happens to be an amateur pilot. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Oxygen</i> delivers a
satisfying ending without being cheesy. It’s got characters with honor, aiming
to do the right thing in a difficult world. It’s serious without being too
heavy, romantic without being sappy, and insightful without being
philosophical. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Oxygen</i> won’t
disappoint as a quick read for summer on the beach or winter by the
fireplace. Three cheers for this contemporary novel. Can’t wait to dive into
Cassella’s other books! </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Brittaniahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12158418202381878094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6628878895395672906.post-48167033588286559652015-05-03T18:15:00.000-07:002015-05-07T12:39:05.189-07:00Untangling HeLa<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>T</i></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>he Immortal Life of Henrietta Lack</i>s, Rebecca Skloot <br />Broadway Books, 2010, 328 pages</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I usually avoid trending books, so it took me five years to
read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks</i>.
Hype deters me, as if something that appeals to the masses couldn’t also be
genuinely good. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Immortal Life</i> set me
straight. Nonfiction at its finest, the book braids the author’s journey into
the Lacks family’s confidence, scientific history, and life stories about
Henrietta and her family members into a single seamless narrative. The applause
this book received was well-earned. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Henrietta Lacks, a black woman descended from slaves, lived
near Baltimore
in the forties and fifties, raising her five children and scraping out a life
for herself well below the poverty line. She died at the age of 31 after about 10
months of battling cervical cancer. In the years following her death, and unbeknownst
to her family, her cancerous cells (named HeLa) were cultured in research labs around the
world, teaching doctors and scientists about how cells function, inspiring
vaccines and multiplying endlessly until they were so plentiful that, if laid
end to end, “they’d wrap around the earth three times.” In the meantime, Henrietta’s
family was trudging along, poor and uneducated, freckled with abuse and divorce
and crime. Upon finally learning about what had happened with Henrietta’s
cells, the family felt cheated, angry and bitter at a system that seemed to
making millions on the cells their mother had left behind. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Into this comes Rebecca Skloot, a white and presumably
well-to-do college student studying biology in the 1980’s. She found herself
drawn to the absence of any story behind the mysterious Henrietta Lacks
mentioned in her first biology class and, after some digging, discovered that
no one seemed to know much at all about the woman whose DNA thrived decades
after her death and whose biopsied tissue changed the face of medicine forever.
Intrigued, she eventually started a decade-long hunt for the life story of
Henrietta Lacks, committed to simply telling her story to the world that was
already benefitting from her in dozens of ways. Rather than stifling her own
role in teasing out the long history of Henrietta’s “immortal life,” Skloot includes
herself in the story as a key character, honest about the family’s initial
distrust of her, the bonds she eventually forged with several of them, and the
journey they took together to uncover the truths behind Henrietta’s life and
death. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Skloot tells more than an informative story of a woman’s
whose cells changed the course of medical history. She opens the privacies of
one family tree, reminding us that our own family histories are also tangles of
emotions, truths told and untold, hodgepodges of partial understandings about
events long-past. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Immortal Life</i> will
be salient to doctors, scientists, researchers, and medical students. But it transcends
the bounds of science reminding us that any life is, in its own way, immortal
because everyone leaves something behind. </div>
Brittaniahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12158418202381878094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6628878895395672906.post-70102754760250297622015-04-26T17:40:00.000-07:002015-04-26T17:40:09.749-07:00Mama Bird<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>First Meals</i>, Annabel Karmel</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">DK, 2004 updated edition, 187 pages</span><br />
<br />
Oh, the feeding of a little one. A mother's task from the moment a new baby screams her first breath. I was grateful for an easy five months of exclusively breastfeeding my son, and he transitioned easily to baby rice cereal and baby oatmeal around 5 months old. But when it was time to add purees and combinations, I needed help. My library had a copy of <i>First Meals</i>. I checked it out, renewed it, and renewed it again. I had to have a copy.<br />
<br />
The first thing I loved about the book was the layout. It's got glossy pages, lots of full-color photos of food and babies, and lists of ingredients in bold along the margin of the page for easy glancing. This is really helpful. In addition to recipes, each chapter contains helpful tips, medically-backed advice, and guidance for parents. Sidebars with bullet-point lists of things to remember or pantry staples or nutritional needs to keep in mind are easy to read and packed with information. <br />
<br />
The recipes themselves don't require a degree from cooking school, but describe ingredients and procedures simply enough to be accessible to the amateur chef. Our favorite meal when Henry was just getting started with puree blends
was Lentil and Vegetable Puree. I was actually envious of my son when he
was chowing down on a lunch of Lentil and Veggie Puree! Pasta options, chicken and fish meals, and vegetable-rich dishes are featured in every chapter. In the chapter for babies between 9 and 12 months, meals include Apple and Date Oatmeal, Cheesy Pasta Stars, Creamy Chicken and Broccoli, and Flaked Cod with Tomatoes and Zucchini. Finger food choices appear in later chapters, and many of the recipes for older babies are tasty enough for the whole family. Weekly menu suggestions in the back of the book provide inspiration and encouragement to keep going when homemade baby foods start to feel like a burden.<br />
<br />
For new moms first weaning little ones, nannies and babysitters looking for creative meal options, or veteran moms and grandmoms needing new inspiration, <i>First Meals</i> has friendly recipes and practical ideas that will please little ones from their first tastes until their first lunchboxes. Brittaniahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12158418202381878094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6628878895395672906.post-39125106240149130762015-04-14T11:42:00.001-07:002015-04-14T11:42:34.228-07:00Love Under the Big Top<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Water for Elephants</i>, Sara Gruen </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2006, 331 pages</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I wanted an easy reread this past week, a quick escape into
another world. It’s been a few years since I first read <i>Water for Elephants</i>,
but I couldn’t put it down the first time and I was craving that momentum
again. The second read was almost as good as the first and since a truly great
novel would be even better the second time around, I can’t really give this one
the highest possible marks. But it’s a personal favorite for sure and one I’ll
recommend – with some caveats – to fiction lovers, especially those who like
stories about animals, as I’ve found I do. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s depression-era New
York. A college student is about to take his final
exams at Cornell University when a family tragedy sends
him on the open road alone. He hops a train – a circus train, of course – and
the summer that follows crams in enough adventure to fill the Big Top several
times over. There’s sex and there’s violence, more than my taste would prefer,
but there’s love and kindness and beauty too. Picture an eccentric bunch of
circus carnies trying to scrape a living out of a dead economy. Picture an
upstanding near-graduate from an Ivy League school sharing half a boxcar with a
midget clown and his dog. Picture a sequined beauty riding pure white horses
and a half-mad animal trainer tricking newbies into feeding the lions by hand. And
every night the circus train hurtles down the tracks toward the next town,
crawling with the boss's henchmen assigned to toss working men out of cars when there’s
not enough pay to go around. All the while, college boy is falling in love with
two ladies: the woman riding the horses, and the fifty-three year old elephant.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At the end of the novel Sara Gruen includes an author’s note
about some real life elephants whom she read about and who inspired her
character, Rosie. It was these anecdotes that tipped the scales for me from
liking this book to really loving it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Though it’s fiction through and through, Gruen picked tidbits from
circus history to make her story ring true. Knowing that things like that
actually did happen makes the farfetched parts seem believable too. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve become more discerning as I’ve gotten older, and a
little more picky about the moral content of a novel. This one disappointed on
that front. At the heart of the story is an illicit romance that’s poorly
justified. So for that reason, I hesitate to recommend the book wholeheartedly.
But Gruen’s thesis is noble: take care of the weak, and the weak will take care
of you. Kindness wins. It’s got a happy ending and a likable supporting cast.
It’s fun and quick and a bit like hopping a circus train yourself: be prepared
to be swept off for a wild ride. </div>
Brittaniahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12158418202381878094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6628878895395672906.post-32467373717495071392013-03-21T18:03:00.000-07:002015-04-14T11:44:03.842-07:00Not Worth the Heartache<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Beatrice and Virgil</i>, Yann Martel</span><br />
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Spiegel and Grau, 201, 197 pages </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Beatrice and Virgil</i> seems to be the
overzealous result of a parlor game, the sort of game in which each player must
choose three words at random from a hat and compose a story using all three ideas.
Yann Martel chose “taxidermy,” “Holocaust,” and “theatre.” </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Martel’s
main character, Henry, is a novelist between jobs. His most recent pitch, a
“flip book” about the Holocaust which is half novel and half essay, has been
booed by his editors so he takes a hiatus in a big city where he starts taking clarinet
lessons, working in a chocolate shop, acting in local community theatre, and
answering mail from fans of his first famous novel. One letter comes from an
address in town, so Henry decides to check it out. At the appropriate address,
Henry is startled by an unusual sight. “An okapi was looking up the street at
him, its head tilted forward and turned his way, as if it were expecting him.” No,
it’s not a fantasy story with talking animals roaming the streets of big
cities. Henry’s correspondent is a taxidermist, proprietor of Okapi Taxidermy.
Against his better judgment, as he will learn in about 130 pages, Henry enters
the shop. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>An
acquaintanceship (friendship would be too strong a word) follows in which Henry
slowly hears fragments of a play the taxidermist is writing called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Beatrice and Virgil</i>. The play features a
donkey and a howler monkey, both of which are stuffed and mounted in the
taxidermist’s workshop but come to life in the pages of a script. Henry
realizes, over time, that the taxidermist’s script is covertly about the
Holocaust, a strange coincidence considering his own recently-failed creative
endeavor about the same topic. Henry attempts to help the taxidermist improve
his story, trying to make sense of the man who displays almost no personality
and the strange story that has become his life’s work.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The play
begins innocently enough, with Virgil describing to Beatrice the qualities of a
pear, a fruit she’s never seen. Martel’s best writing in the whole novel is on
these seven pages, so I won’t spoil it by recounting the passage here. As the
play goes on, though, it becomes more abstract. Beatrice and Virgil are sitting
by a tree, trying to find ways to describe what’s happened to them without
actually saying what’s happened to them. Apparently, there’s been some sort of
animal annihilation which these two managed to escape. Their deep grief and
clinging fear are matched by their stiff detachment which enables them to
create symbols for their experiences without actually discussing it emotionally.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
taxidermist says much about his play in the course of his conversations with
Henry. At least one comment is decidedly untrue: “They’re exactly the same at
the end of the play as they were at the beginning,” he says of his heroes. While
the bulk of the play is static – with Beatrice and Virgil chatting by a lone
tree – the end is overwhelmingly dramatic and altering. And Henry’s
relationship with the taxidermist follows the same pattern: bland and routine
throughout the novel until a final climactic end. Neither Beatrice and Virgil
nor Henry and the taxidermist are the same at the end as they were at the
beginning. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In the end,
after everything has gone terribly wrong, the frustrated reader is not sad as
much as relieved. Perhaps, though, the reader echoes Henry’s sadness. His one
regret is “not having saved Beatrice and Virgil. He missed them with an ache
that made itself felt even years later.” Despite the frustration of reading a
novel that doesn’t quite go anywhere, that tries blunderingly to combine
disparate topics, and that includes gratuitous carnage, the sensitive reader’s
heart will ache, in the end, for Beatrice the donkey and Virgil the magnificent
howler monkey. </div>
Brittaniahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12158418202381878094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6628878895395672906.post-31022940457939686382012-03-18T18:55:00.000-07:002015-04-14T11:45:30.336-07:00A Worthy Hero?<div style="font-family: inherit;">
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The Giver</i>, Lois Lowry</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Bantam Doubleday, 1993, $6.99, 180 pages</span></div>
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The Newbery Medal is awarded annually to “the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.” For nearly 90 years, one book each year has been named a Newbery Medal Winner. The topics of these books range from the tale of a Polish family fleeing from an evil man after a family heirloom to the escapades of a girl left alone in New York while her parents travel abroad to the alliance between field mice and rats in a joint battle against humans. </div>
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Medal Winners are sometimes whimsical stories that shed light on coming-of-age scenarios. Others address mature ideas and topics in a context applicable to children. Through Newbery Medal books, children begin to understand the consequences of political turmoil, the challenges of forging into unconquered territory, and the heartbreak of family disintegration. The 1994 Newbery Medal Winner tackles another hefty issue for young readers: the possibility of a future society in which personal choices are entirely eliminated. In Lois Lowry’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Giver</i>, twelve-year-old Jonas challenges everything his society has ever taught him, his parents, his authorities, and his peers. He determines to break all the rules in order to better his society by reintroducing chaos. What Lowry fails to see, however, is the danger of suggesting that children break society’s rules. As a novel for young adults, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Giver</i> plays with fire by offering a hero who bucks the system and demands societal change that fits his own perspective. </div>
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<i>The Giver</i> takes place in a utopian world, a place where there is no crime, no socioeconomic difference, and no fear of war, plague, or financial crisis. But it’s also a world where there are no choices. Upon each child’s twelfth birthday, he or she is assigned an occupation which will begin that year with a phase of training and apprenticeship. More menial aspects of life are dictated too. All clothing is the same, everyone rides an identical bicycle, and family units are assigned, with a mother, father, one daughter and one son, by the Elders. Even habits of speech and conversation are mandated including the required dream-telling in which all members of the family unit must participate each morning. </div>
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Jonas, a boy of twelve, is given by the Elders the unique and extremely special Assignment of Receiver. This means he will slowly become the sole possessor of all the world’s memories from before the Sameness was instituted to eliminate social classes, lifestyle decisions, colors, music, and even the awareness of death. The memories are currently sustained by the previous Receiver who is now called the Giver since he will pass down all memories to Jonas. As Jonas begins to learn about the past, however, he starts to question the Sameness in which his whole world now operates. </div>
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“If everything’s the same,” he argues, “then there aren’t any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">decide</i> things. A blue tunic or a red one? But it’s all the same, always.” Later, Jonas starts to understand feelings of love, bereavement, and pain, feelings no one else in his culture could even define. These deep feelings are experienced exclusively by Jonas and The Giver. “The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain,” The Giver says. “It’s the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.” With this goal in mind, Jonas and The Giver hatch a scheme to release the memories back into the society at large. </div>
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In one respect, Jonas has the right idea. In a world where choices are utterly absent, his resentment toward the societal leaders who have restricted his freedom, eliminated differences, and deleted his culture’s past is justified. Young people should be taught history, should welcome variety, and should be free to make personalized choices. But Lowry presents a society that will never be. We live in an age when nearly all personal choices, even poor ones, are applauded. Our culture broadens its arms daily to willingly accept every manner of diversity. And our libraries are thick with books that tell of national and international history. A society in which all differences, choices, and memories are eliminated is simply not plausible. </div>
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Lowry’s fans will argue that her book is fiction and meant not to warn against concrete possibilities but to open young readers’ eyes to the concept of a dystopian future. Certainly, today’s children should be aware that adults sometimes make bad choices and that society may erect barriers that unnecessarily limit certain choices. But for today’s young readers, arousing such resentment toward authority breeds only disrespect and distrust, sentiments young people are more than capable of developing on their own. </div>
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Lowry’s hero chooses rebellion in the absence of oppression. He does not struggle against a society that demeans, undermines, or persecutes its members. In fact, no one but Jonas and the Giver know that life could be anything other than perfect. But like Eve enticed by the serpent’s promise of greater knowledge, Jonas feels compelled to bring the knowledge of good and evil to his ignorant society. Is this rebellious conspiracy-theorist to be the hero for a generation of young people? If we are to idolize a rebel, perhaps we should choose one who fights a worthy cause against a genuine threat. Not one who brashly seeks to defy authority and destroy peace out of passionate bitterness. Although critically evaluating one’s society is a worthy undertaking, giving children the green light to question authority is unwise.</div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span>Brittaniahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12158418202381878094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6628878895395672906.post-61225941748089596542011-12-31T12:17:00.000-08:002015-04-14T11:45:21.134-07:00How Much Truth is Too Much Truth?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>House Rules</i>, Jodi Picoult</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Washington Square Press, 2010, $16.00, 532 pages</span></div>
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It’s a bit like the story of the Prodigal Son. The whole time you think the story is about one brother, but really, it all hinges on the other one. It’s Jacob who’s on trial for murder. It’s his fate that hangs in the balance, that’s decided by twelve strangers behind closed doors. But it’s Theo, his younger brother, who has the most to learn. It’s Theo who’s changed the most by the end of the book. Being locked up for first-degree murder is not his imminent fear, but his own guilty conscience locks him up in his own personal prison until he learns which rules matter most, rules his brother has been following all along. </div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">House Rules</i> opens up the life of a family affected by Asperger’s syndrome to the scrutiny of people who don’t understand. When Emma Hunt describes her eighteen-year-old son’s Asperger’s-related behavior to the judge – behavior that includes “when he decides to do something, he needs to do it immediately,” “he hardly ever shows emotion,” “if his routine gets disrupted, he becomes extremely anxious,” and “when things are really overwhelming, he’ll go somewhere to hide” – the judge replies, “So your son is moody, literal, and wants things his own way and on his own timetable. That sounds very much like a teenager.” The judge, like most other characters in the story, has not known anyone with Asperger’s syndrome and is unable to put herself in Jacob’s shoes. </div>
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Jacob, though, is also unable to sympathize with the judge. One of the traits common to Asperger’s is an inability to feel empathy for other people, or to recognize their emotions. Oliver, Jacob’s lawyer, uses this inability as the cornerstone of his case. Jacob can only experience the world through his own skin, never imagining what others might feel or think. Therefore, his crime, if he in fact committed it, occurred in a moment of insanity, legally defined as lacking the capacity to understand right from wrong because of a mental defect or disease. He killed Jess Ogilvy, if he did kill her, because it was in his own best interest. He is cognitively unable to consider how it would affect her, her parents, her boyfriend, or the world at large. </div>
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Against all this is the argument that Jacob is also religiously devoted to the rules. He knows that killing is against the rules, so how could he have done it? He knows that lying is wrong, yet he maintains that he did not kill the victim although all the evidence screams his name. He follows his own rules, such as wearing clothes and eating food of only a particular color on each day of the week, absolutely to the letter. But he has to be taught social rules that others would pick up naturally. He has learned, for example, that people don’t always mean what they say. “Get a grip,” for instance, doesn’t mean hold onto something. It means “calm down.” Not everyone, he’s also learned, likes to hear the list of things you’ve memorized about apples just because you notice that they’re selecting apples in the produce section. He sees, as most of us secretly do, that smalltalk is inane and often untruthful (am I really “fine” most of the time?) but he’s learned that it’s a necessary part of communication with people you don’t know very well. If he’s so devoted to following rules, then wouldn’t he know that committing murder would get him in trouble? If he knew it was wrong, how can he be considered legally insane?</div>
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Theo is three years younger than Jacob, yet he often finds himself in the role of older brother, defending Jacob from taunts and even punches from other kids. “If anyone’s going to beat up my brother,” he says after a pummeling friend who’s tackled Jacob for interrupting a Frisbee game, “it’s going to be me.” Theo doesn’t care much about following the rules and secretly longs for a life without an Aspie brother. He’ll sneak a frozen and decidedly non-green pizza on Green Monday, and cut class to roam the neighborhood. But Theo knows and accepts that he may someday be Jacob’s caretaker and remains devoted to his brother despite the ways Jacob has deprived him of a normal teenage life. For him, following the rules consists primarily of being as “normal” as possible and avoiding the label “retard’s brother.”</div>
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Both brothers are thrust into a life-altering murder trial when Jacob’s tutor turns up dead. Although Theo knows that his own secret might bring clarity to the murder trial, he sits on the truth, fearing the fallout it would bring on him. Jacob hides part of the truth he knows too, but not for the same reason. Only the combined secrets of Jacob and Theo can acquit Jacob. And neither brother seems willing to reveal what he knows. </div>
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Picoult reminds readers that nobody’s normal and that although the legal system has instituted laws to protect the people, there are exceptions to every rule. Because Jacob is easily overstimulated by the sounds and sights of the courtroom, he is allowed to request a recess whenever he wants, a concession not normally allowed to defendants. He’s also allowed to remain at home, instead of in jail while awaiting his trial because having his routine upset by being in a different location could be mentally catastrophic for him. As the rules are bent to accommodate the necessity of putting a man with Asperger’s on trial for murder, the reader must wonder: What rules would I want bent if in that situation? Am I so different from Jacob? We’ve all broken the rules at some point. And we all have guilt we’d like to keep hidden. But at the end of the day it’s not the rules you break that set you apart. It’s the rules you adhere to that define you. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
Brittaniahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12158418202381878094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6628878895395672906.post-16139075246490886762011-05-15T13:53:00.000-07:002015-04-14T11:49:21.789-07:00Beautiful Singing<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Bel Canto</i>, Ann Patchett</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">HarperCollins, 2001, 318 pages </span><br />
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It’s a kidnapping attempt gone wrong. In search of a South American president, a band of guerrilla soldiers bust a lavish dinner party at the VP’s palace. After training for months, planning, plotting, waiting for this evening, the band of rebels infiltrates Vice President Ruben’s home only to find their prey, President Masuda, not in attendance. The invaders, embarrassed and empty-handed, seize control over the only thing within their grasp: a collection of dinner party guests. What follows in the palace, as the outside world pushes for release of the captives and surrender of the soldiers, crescendos into a beautiful harmony between the “good guys” and the “bad guys,” between international dignitaries and jungle rebels.</div>
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With its guns, political demands, and South American setting, <i>Bel Canto</i> might put off the average pleasure reader by seeming inaccessible and layered with too much unfamiliar context. But just as the soldiers’ intended plot fails, so does the potentially weighty plot of volleyed threats and demands. The plot that emerges instead tells a story of humanity, the equality of all men, the ways we react under pressure, and our innate desire for love and home.</div>
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Patchett’s story unfolds like a reality show. First there are the tensions, the bold statements off camera while the on-screen drama is hesitant, cautious. As the rebel leaders take notes about the hostages, “the guests downplayed their own importance when questioned. After all, in this room of prestigious international guests, “no one was quite willing to lie, but they tugged down the edges of the truth” to avoid potentially disastrous fates. Soon, though, truths start to emerge, colors start to show, defenses come down. Surprisingly, the line in the sand you expected to be etched deeply between captors and captives is washed away quickly by the tide of normalcy that necessarily intrudes on any attempt to forge life in close quarters. The players in the drama prove not to be as good or as bad as you once thought. They are hued, shades of good, shades of bad. General Benjamin, on of the rebel leaders, has a face inflamed with shingles, a malady that makes him tired, understandably irritable, and forgivably short-tempered despite his flagrant criminal intent. Carmen, one of two teenaged girls who has joined the rebel band, secretly wants to learn English and pursues the hostage translator, Gen, to be her personal coach. Mr. Hosokawa, an electronics executive, has a passion for opera, specifically for Roxane Coss, the world-renowned soprano who has been taken hostage with him. It’s hard to hate anyone, even Beatriz, the other rebel girl, a tough-skinned, tomboy-ish brat. And it’s impossible not to love Cesar, the rebel boy who falls in love not with Roxane but with the music she sings, longing to stretch his own vocal wings. In the palace that becomes home for 40 hostages and their captors, dynamics turn enemies and strangers into friends, chess partners, accompanists, fellow chefs, even lovers. </div>
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The scene – the vice president’s palace – remains static throughout the novel, a risky move for Patchett who could lose her audience quickly. But she keeps her readers intrigued even within the tight quarters. On the first day after being taken hostage Father Arguedas, one of few locals in residence at the palace, “explained that what they were looking at in the hours they spent staring out the window was called <i>garúa</i>, which was more than mist and less than drizzle and hung woolly and gray over the city in which they were now compelled to stay.” In a place where “time, in the manner in which they had all understood it, was over,” it is just the sort of weather one would expect. But eventually, the <i>garúa</i> “simply stopped, so that one day everything had the saturated quality of a book dropped into a bathtub and the next day the air was bright and crisp and extremely blue.” As the weather brightens, so the story’s action also begins to open up, reaching for fresh air. The story blossoms from concentrated action in the large ballroom to life as it spreads out through the kitchen where large meals must be prepared, into a sitting room where chess is played, into the china closet where secret meetings are conducted at midnight, and up the servants’ stairs to the bedrooms in the private wing. Even the backyard is swept into the action. Patchett ushers the reader through ever-widening circles until the walls of the palace property are all that separate timeless hostage life from the outside world. </div>
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As the rules loosen on the hostages, Roxane and her voice finally settle in at center stage. “She started the morning at six o’clock because she woke up when the light came in through her window and when she woke up she wanted to work. She took her bath and had two pieces of toast and a cup of tea that Carmen made for her, brought up on a yellow wooden tray that the Vice President had picked out for this purpose.” With opera consecrating each morning like a holy ritual, life becomes beautiful to everyone living in Vice President Ruben’s home. Chess, soccer games, gardening, and cooking are pursuits shared by both soldiers and hostages. Life becomes nearly idyllic. Routine is established, friendships bloom and flourish, and everyone is free to think, play, love, and hope as they wish. </div>
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But paradise can’t last forever. A stalemate surfaces as everyone realizes that the end must come. The reader, feeling the pile of pages thicken on the left and become ever thinner on the right, fears the end, knowing there is no good way out. Either the soldiers will eventually want what they came for, or the captives will want their old lives back. The world will not allow this strange marriage of good and evil to go on forever. </div>
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Patchett gives her readers a sweet taste of life paused, life caught between action and reaction. It is a lull that cannot last, a surprising eye of a deadly hurricane offering momentary windless peace. The story of <i>Bel Canto</i> provides for its readers the same fleeting sense of perfection it gives to its own characters, like the last note of an aria, ringing, quivering, fading, finally dying in the cool night air. </div>
Brittaniahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12158418202381878094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6628878895395672906.post-11666550393896668762011-05-15T12:21:00.000-07:002011-05-15T12:21:08.225-07:00When "Borrowed" Means "Stolen"<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormal">Necklaces are meant to be borrowed. Handkerchiefs, maybe, or antique hairpieces. Not fiancés. And “borrowing” the fiancé of your very best friend just months before the wedding is certainly off limits. Unless you’re Rachel White, in which case your lust – or, I’m sorry, true love – comes first and even a best friend might end up a casualty. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This is the premise of Emily Giffin’s debut novel, <i>Something Borrowed</i>, and it smacks of American self-centeredness. On the night of Rachel’s thirtieth birthday, after perhaps one too many drinks, she hooks up with Dex, fiancé of her best friend, Darcy. It seems to be a one-time mistake, a misdirected passion resulting from the disappointment of being single at thirty. But over the next few weeks, Dex continues to pursue Rachel, and Rachel finds herself a willing Judas, betraying decades of Darcy’s friendship with a kiss. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Giffin’s plot seems at first humorous. “Oh, dear,” the reader may think, “How will Rachel ever explain and make things right with Darcy? Surely the two of them will band together and give Dex a kick in the pants, a boot out the door, which is just what his cheating ass deserves.” But as the story progresses, it becomes clear that this is not Giffin’s end. Instead, the peripheral characters side with Rachel, telling her to “go for it,” and swipe something of Darcy’s because, after all, Darcy has been a lucky girl all these years, often getting what Rachel had wanted first whether college acceptance letter, boyfriend, cushy job, or skinnier body. Darcy is painted as the enemy despite her long history of friendship with Rachel. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">For female readers, this should come as a shock. But as the novel’s best-seller status suggests, today’s readers are more likely to sympathize with a cheating, lying maid of honor than they would with a loyal best friend. Giffin elevates Dex and Rachel’s love – and it is regarded as love – over the bond of female friendship. And whether Rachel and Dex are “in love” or not, isn’t the crime of stealing a near-husband from a best friend just as criminal? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Rachel might be forgiven for her theft, if Darcy had really been a wretched person. But she does not come across as a bad friend. After all, who hasn’t had a friend like Darcy? A “lucky one” who seems to walk on rose petals and wrap the world around her finger with one batted eyelash? Such a friend may incite envy, but she is not deserving of such betrayal. For Rachel to steal her fiancé displays Rachel’s wickedness, not Darcy’s. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If Rachel is the hero of <i>Something Borrowed</i>, our ladies have come to a sad place, indeed. If it’s the Rachels of this world that we are to admire – those who take what they want at the expense of anyone, regarding even lifelong friends as mere stepping stones – what’s to prevent any of us from becoming the Darcy? Which of us wants to be robbed of our life because someone else wants it more? And where does it leave our men? If Dex can finally unchoose Darcy and choose Rachel – mere days before a wedding – where is commitment? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Giffin’s debut novel should sober us with the realization that in this world, no one cares for you. Even your very best friend cares more for herself than for you. What’s worse, Giffin makes no attempt to suggest that this paradigm is backwards. Instead, she promotes this thinking throughout the novel, ending with the cheaters, Rachel and Dex, “looking for a yellow cab headed in the right direction.” If self-centered, friend-smashing living is not your idea of “the right direction,” avoid Giffin’s sad social commentary and pursue novels with higher standards. </div>Brittaniahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12158418202381878094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6628878895395672906.post-50030577866865740842011-02-18T11:14:00.000-08:002011-03-11T08:25:06.997-08:00Spilling Secrets: Easing the Pain for Two Guilty Women in Anita Shreve’s The Weight of Water<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face";"> How long can you keep a secret? Will you give yourself away in a thoughtless phrase or a nervous laugh? Will guilt break your silence? Or can you bottle it up, cork the top, and set your secret adrift at sea for decades until, eventually, time washes it back to your door and demands that you pour it out? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face";"> The two narrators in Anita Shreve’s 1997 novel, <i>The Weight of Water</i>, both have secrets, and circumstances have forced them both to uncork the stoppers and splash out all the messy details. “I have to let this story go,” opens Jean. And her counterpart, Maren, of nearly 100 years earlier begins her own memoir, “I mean with these pages… that the truth shall be known.” Neither will find absolution, for they are both soaked in “hurt that stories cannot ease, not with a thousand tellings.” But the weight that has burdened them for so long compels them to confess, although finding peace may be a hopeless cause.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face";"> On assignment for a magazine in the 1990’s, Jean has been hired to take photographs of Smuttynose Island, the setting of two 1873 murders. She has turned the job into a vacation, bringing along her husband and small daughter, and convincing Rich, her brother-in-law, and his latest girlfriend, Adaline, to ferry them to the island in his Morgan. Over the two-day excursion, Jean watches as Thomas, her husband, hits it off with the mesmerizing Adaline and fights the rising jealousy she feels for the younger woman. In response, she finds herself drawn to Rich, Thomas’s endearing brother who also sees the mounting interest between the other two adults. In the middle of this tension is young Billie, “an effervescence that wants to bubble up and pop out of the top of the bottle,” a little girl who makes pancakes and collects mussels and likes to have her picture taken. Between lobster dinners and swims in the ocean, the five people on the Morgan must find a balance between love and hate, between knowledge and ignorance. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face";"> This microcosm of life on the sailboat echoes the cramped life that Maren Hontvedt lived on Smuttynose more than 100 years earlier. Maren, a young Norwegian wife who came to New England with her new husband, arrived on “shallow and barren” Smuttynose in 1868 moving into a small house “of an entirely unadorned style…, and quite gloomy.” Within a few years, Maren’s toughened spinster sister and her beloved brother and his new wife had joined the family from Norway, and Maren and her husband made room in their home. The inevitable tensions of extended family became more pronounced in the tight quarters, and Maren found herself often in the middle. After five years on the island, catastrophe dismantled the family when Karen and Anethe, Maren’s sister and sister-in-law, were brutally murdered in the Hontvedt home while the men were away on the mainland. This is the famous story Jean has come to Smuttynose to investigate. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face";"> Maren was the only witness of the murders and recorded her whole story, including an account of the murders, in a yellowed, dusty document which lay long forgotten in the Portsmouth Athenaeum for many years. Jean finds the manuscript, learns the truth about the long-ago crime, and becomes the sole recipient of Maren’s confessions, while simultaneously watching her own life churn into a frothy storm. It seems inevitable that the two stories will find their common end in catastrophe. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face";"> The text of Shreve’s novel flows through several pages of Maren’s ancient narrative, then to a few hours of Jean’s life, and back to Maren’s words with barely an interrupting ripple. Facts about the island and transcripts of dialogue from the murder trial bob in and out of the story, painting the both the historical background and the setting. Despite all this juxtaposition, the novel reads easily. Jean and Maren are linked by jealousy and guilt, themes that span the centuries. With these emotions to connect them, their parallel stories become a single tale. Maren Hontvedt’s life, as read by Jean Janes, and the life of Jean herself collide like swells in an ocean storm. Slow to rise, almost imperceptible until the whitecaps crest up into foam, the stories mirror one another all the way up to their crashing ends.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face";"> “If you take a woman and push her to the edge,” Jean wonders, “how will she behave?” <i>The Weight of Water</i> provides a disheartening answer at best. As each woman tries to assuage the guilt that plagues her, she finds no relief. Not even confession can ease the hurt and, ultimately, the same sins will be repeated, though 100 years may pass. Shreve gets to the heart of a woman’s pain, but the reader may not like what she finds there. Just as Jean must decide what to do with the weighty confession passed to her from Maren Hontvedt, so also the reader of <i>The Weight of Water</i> must turn the final page with Jean’s own guilt on her hands. </span></div>Brittaniahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12158418202381878094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6628878895395672906.post-91041269991374107472011-02-06T13:20:00.000-08:002011-02-08T05:52:30.188-08:00All His Eggs in One Basket: David Benioff’s Literary Gamble with City of Thieves The premise of David Benioff’s second novel, <i>City of Thieves</i>, is as absurd as they come. Two Russians, arrested by the Germans for petty crimes during the WWII German occupation of Russia, are offered a deal: in exchange for their lives, they must provide the colonel with a dozen eggs. Accepting the mission, Lev and Kolya set off across the famine-ridden frozen wasteland with high hopes. Ridiculous? Perhaps. But Benioff’s simple tale capitalizes on the complexity of friendship and the escapist pleasure of the quest novel. With confident Kolya, the “great salesman, especially when he was selling himself,” and the overly self-conscious narrator Lev, even a hopeless quest for elusive eggs remains entertaining.<br />
Although primarily lighthearted, <i>City</i> takes on an eerie aura with “German corpses falling from the sky; cannibals selling sausage links made from ground human; apartment blocks collapsing to the ground; and dogs becoming bombs.” Despite this, however, the novel provides an excellent weekend getaway book. Such shocking scenes seem almost mythical, lending a larger-than-life quality to the novel. In the peculiar quest of Lev and Kolya, even the most bizarre events seem right at home. Reality and fantasy blur into a whirling cycle of dreamlike dance and vivid nightmare.<br />
Rounding out the cast of characters are the tomboy sniper Vika, her posse of Russian resistance fighters, and the German villains. Vika provides the love interest, one that becomes appropriately sticky with triangulated affections, and the host of enemy leaders – from Colonel Grechko who sits as his desk drawing X’s on his notepad to bulky chess-playing Commander Abendroth – spice up the pages of <i>City</i> while complicating things for its heroes. Love and war flit across the pages, interspersed with somber reflections on the potential immediacy of death, a balance that allows <i>City of Thieves</i> to be action-packed while retaining complexity.<br />
Among all this drama, Benioff’s prose elicits a surprising combination of grins and grimaces. The extreme desperation Benioff builds up at the beginning of the novel frightens readers into submission in the violent environment of Russia. Lev admits to “spending spare minutes hunting rats” to quell his hunger and buys “library candy, made from tearing the covers off of books, peeling off the binding glue, boiling it down, and reforming it into bars.” The cold weather compounds the desperate situation of starvation. Moving through the wasteland, “the cold was a greater danger than the Germans” to Lev and Kolya; Lev’s fingertips were numb even with “thick wool mittens and hands shoved into the pockets of his overcoat.” Lev’s miserable plight causes readers to shiver with each page turn and long for a mere hard-boiled egg to satisfy the hungry ache.<br />
The harsh winter misery is somewhat assuaged by Kolya’s charming attempts to be the older brother figure to young Lev. “You’re a virgin, aren’t you,” Kolya asks. And thus the stage is set for Kolya’s sexual education of young Lev. With anecdotes of his personal love life providing the basis for advice, Kolya takes it upon himself to instruct Lev in the ways of women. Lev proves a willing pupil, although an uncomfortable one, and the dynamic between these two men provides a diversion – for them and for readers – from the dangerous task at hand. Although Benioff includes some measure of gratuitous sexual content in the course of this subplot, the mentor role of Kolya allows him to gain respect from even squeamish readers. Who but the heroic-looking blondie Kolya could get away with such indelicacy yet remain so likable?<br />
Benioff’s narrator, Lev, couldn’t be more different from confident Kolya. Lev typifies the self-conscious youth. While about to face hand-to-hand combat with eight Germans, Lev finds himself reflecting on how foolish he must look with a wimpy knife in his hand. He fears sex because “the geometry of the act confuses him.” Lev has a sensitive soul, one unaccustomed to sharing feelings or thoughts with anyone. He also possesses a reflective imagination that enhances his sensations of loneliness and discomfort on his long trek. Lev imagines himself and his companions as “a band of enchanted mice, marching beneath the chalked moon on the blackboard sky.” He also admits to feeling slow and exhausted during the journey, feeling like “someone had poured thick syrup into a hole in my skull.” <br />
Kolya represents the polar opposite of Lev’s vulnerability, rarely revealing any fear or weakness. The self-assured, dominant Kolya leads Lev into maturity in the span of one week, referring to the timid boy affectionately as “little lion,” and showing confidence in the boy despite the frightful circumstances. Behind his tough-guy façade, Kolya hides a natural storyteller, an insightful intellectual who rarely shuts up. With only Lev to listen, Kolya resembles “a senile grandfather” who repeats his memorized stories over and over again to family dinner parties. Senile, maybe. But endearing nonetheless.<br />
Although Kolya and Lev both possess enjoyable quirks and form an engaging duo throughout the novel, neither protagonist offers much by way of originality; both are classic examples of stock characters. Character development happens naturally, but a bit too predictably. For a quick action read, though, Benioff’s characters serve their purpose.<br />
Benioff’s recent screenwriting experience is obvious in <i>City of Thieves</i>, which reads like a film script: a well-paced quest journey and the struggle to survive. Although the terrain of Russia is unfamiliar to most readers, the story does not require understanding of the novel’s locale. The haunting images of a frozen dead soldier, marking the road like a signpost, and a farmhouse filled with beautiful girls dancing in the firelight affect Benioff’s characters as much as they affect his readers. Without requiring immersion in Russian culture, Benioff still provides a believable setting filled with convincing characters. <i>City of Thieves</i> draws readers into the unfamiliar setting with comfortable ease, providing just enough stability to prevent disorientation. The plot does what seems fitting, but does it so adeptly that readers can still be excited by the outcomes. <i>City of Thieves</i> might not be ground-breaking in plot theme or character models, but the book does its job as entertaining escapist literature.Brittaniahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12158418202381878094noreply@blogger.com0