Readers of Dutch writer Herman Koch's The Dinner will find an excellent yet disturbing novel divided according to courses served at an upscale restaurant where two brothers and their wives are dining. But from apertif to digestif with the main course and dessert in between, this novel is anything but a story about food.
Rather, it is about two couples who have come together to discuss a horrible crime their teenage sons have committed and what to do -- or not to do -- about it. One brother, Serge Lohman, is a rising politician. The other, a former high school teacher named Paul, is the narrator who readers gradually realize is mentally unbalanced and certainly not a trustworthy relayer of information.
Paul Lohman cannot say his brother's name without disdain in his voice. Neither can Paul describe the waiter's description of the food on their plates without disdain for the waiter with the annoying "pinkie" finger. And Paul cannot talk of his son's crime without criticizing the victim's physical appearance. For that matter, Paul spends far less time talking about his son's crime than complaining about Serge's social status, about Serge's opinions of the latest Woody Allen movie, even about what Paul speculates is Serge's demeaning attitude toward his wife in the bedroom. For Paul Lohman, a grisly, unprovoked crime is almost a bothersome after-thought, a restaurant tip one might forget and have to return to pay.
The Dinner is not the kind of book readers will enjoy, though it is interesting, even a page-turner at times. It is not a feel-good story or one with a good ending or even one with any or many likable characters. There are zero laughs, not even a smile, and no places where a realistic reader would even hope things will work out in a way that most people would consider to be right, moral or just. Rather, the question becomes just how awful will the resolution be.
This book is for people who want to read about real people of all kinds, including those who aren't always nice even though they dine in the best restaurants, sit on the front pews, teach our children, run for political offices, know what to say and when to say it, and may even be our relatives or friends.
Rather, it is a book about the intersection of life, death and doing the right, or wrong, thing under the most challenging of circumstances.
Monday, February 24, 2014
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey
Books can be like dominos. One leads to another and sometimes to the unexpected. Consider that after reading an online review of The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey, I made a point to read the non-fiction story of her journey with illness and nature.
In short, Bailey tells of a debilitating illness that left her confined to bed for years. During that time, she found solace in nature, specifically a small, pregnant snail found in Bailey's garden and given to her along with a plant by a friend.
The book began on a high note, with the story focusing on the author's own struggles as well as the snail's habits and ... personality, if you will. Yet, the book grew increasingly tedious as what had started as creative non-fiction slowly spiraled downward into a too-long research paper. Yet that overwhelmingly well-sourced paper led me to another writer and her works.
Bailey cited a wide range of reading on snails, mostly scientific works by the likes of Charles Darwin. But she also mentioned a short story, "The Snail-Watcher" by Patricia Highsmith, better known for the novel, The Talented Mr. Ripley. That Highsmith, known for her mysteries in which the bad guys sometimes win, had written a story about snails fascinated me in itself. So, after wrapping up The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating and learning the fate of the once-wild snail and its many babies, I began searching for the Highsmith story. I found it in a Highsmith short-story collection titled Eleven.
This story focused on a professor whose obsession with snails leads to a deadly collection of the little critters not to mention a bit of marital strife.The story proved bizarre and rather distasteful, pun intended. But I loved it.
I looked further into the Highsmith collection and found yet another snail story. This one titled "The Quest for Blank Claveringi" is about a professor who sets out to discover a creature -- in this case, a huge, man-eating snail on a remote island -- and have it named after him.
Once again, the main character's obsession gets the best of him. This story of a couple of overgrown snails -- yes, mates and their smaller offspring -- would have made a better Vincent Price movie than a children's fantasy.
Along the way, I read the entire book of stories and found my favorite was not the ones about snails but one about another small creature. That work, titled simply "The Terrapin," is not a horror story or even one as unlikely as the two snail stories. The main character is a young boy who lives in an apartment with his dim-witted, insensitive mother. Suffice it to say, the terrapin was only a vehicle to show how the mother's cruelty forever changes her son's life. In the final paragraph, we learn of the boy's devastation and revenge in a few, concise sentences that readers are unlikely to forget.
In Highsmith, I have found another author whose creativity and writing I like. I plan to read more of her works.
So, the next time you read a book or article with literary references, consider jotting down those that sound interesting and giving them a try. You may find a new favorite writer.
In short, Bailey tells of a debilitating illness that left her confined to bed for years. During that time, she found solace in nature, specifically a small, pregnant snail found in Bailey's garden and given to her along with a plant by a friend.
The book began on a high note, with the story focusing on the author's own struggles as well as the snail's habits and ... personality, if you will. Yet, the book grew increasingly tedious as what had started as creative non-fiction slowly spiraled downward into a too-long research paper. Yet that overwhelmingly well-sourced paper led me to another writer and her works.
Bailey cited a wide range of reading on snails, mostly scientific works by the likes of Charles Darwin. But she also mentioned a short story, "The Snail-Watcher" by Patricia Highsmith, better known for the novel, The Talented Mr. Ripley. That Highsmith, known for her mysteries in which the bad guys sometimes win, had written a story about snails fascinated me in itself. So, after wrapping up The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating and learning the fate of the once-wild snail and its many babies, I began searching for the Highsmith story. I found it in a Highsmith short-story collection titled Eleven.
This story focused on a professor whose obsession with snails leads to a deadly collection of the little critters not to mention a bit of marital strife.The story proved bizarre and rather distasteful, pun intended. But I loved it.
I looked further into the Highsmith collection and found yet another snail story. This one titled "The Quest for Blank Claveringi" is about a professor who sets out to discover a creature -- in this case, a huge, man-eating snail on a remote island -- and have it named after him.
Once again, the main character's obsession gets the best of him. This story of a couple of overgrown snails -- yes, mates and their smaller offspring -- would have made a better Vincent Price movie than a children's fantasy.
Along the way, I read the entire book of stories and found my favorite was not the ones about snails but one about another small creature. That work, titled simply "The Terrapin," is not a horror story or even one as unlikely as the two snail stories. The main character is a young boy who lives in an apartment with his dim-witted, insensitive mother. Suffice it to say, the terrapin was only a vehicle to show how the mother's cruelty forever changes her son's life. In the final paragraph, we learn of the boy's devastation and revenge in a few, concise sentences that readers are unlikely to forget.
In Highsmith, I have found another author whose creativity and writing I like. I plan to read more of her works.
So, the next time you read a book or article with literary references, consider jotting down those that sound interesting and giving them a try. You may find a new favorite writer.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Life AND Death
Reading about death lately has taught me much about life.
First, I read Christopher Hitchens' Mortality, a book of unsentimental essays written after the author learned he was dying of cancer. While Hitchens' atheism and disdain for those who sought to convert him played a role in much of his writing, the essays also revealed a caring husband, father and friend; an intelligent observer and commentator; and a man who loved writing even in his final weeks. Sometimes as I read his essays, though, I questioned whether he was debating with himself the premise of God's existence and, hence, the hereafter. Otherwise, why go to such lengths to explain why he wouldn't convert as death closed in on him and why he didn't want others' prayers. Both answers already were obvious to anyone who had followed only bits of Hitchens' life. So, I wonder whether he wondered about God, whose name Hitchens spelled with a lower-case "g."
Later, I read former death-row inmate Damien Echols' essay collection, Life After Death. Echols, along with two other men, was imprisoned for almost 20 years in the 1993 murders of three little boys in West Memphis, Ark. In August 2011, the state released the three men from prison rather than retry them with one condition -- that they plead guilty but also be allowed to profess their innocence in court.
What most impressed me about Echols was his intellect, literary knowledge, his eclectic religious beliefs, which incorporated Catholicism and Buddhism, and most importantly his ability to survive so many years of forced isolation, suspicion and no doubt anger. He did not let that anger or bitterness destroy him. Rather, this man who was only a teenager when he went to prison and who did not finish high school educated himself by reading. He read and he read and he read. And he watched, becoming a close, if not always objective, observer of fellow inmates, relatives, attorneys and others.
Until his eyesight began failing, he was a voracious reader before and during imprisonment. He read works by and about such people and topics as diverse as Flannery O'Connor (not among his favorite authors); Stephen King; poet W.B. Yeats; Nostradamus; Latin American writer Julio Cortazar; Edgar Cayce; the Kabbalah, a book of Jewish mysticism; Eastern religions; Wicca; and the Medici period in Italian history. "I've read a few thousand books over the time I've been locked up," he writes. "Without books, I would have gone insane long ago."
Like his religious views, his taste in art if you will is equally eclectic. "I see no reason why I can't love pornography and the art of Michelangelo equally," he writes. "I want to see life from every angle."
I neither have the time nor the ability to read as much as Echols. But like him and others I, too, find comfort and knowledge in the written word, whether the author is a poet I've never met, a contemporary novelist or just myself. Sorting through storage boxes of clutter and memories recently, I found a childhood diary where I wrote about one of my first unrequited crushes. I found a journal from the mid-1970s, a time when my life was changing as was my chosen career. I had great dreams then. I still have a few, but then I had more hope of achieving them. And for the first time during those years, I said my final goodbyes to two of my closest relatives -- grandparents whose two-bedroom home with feathered mattresses, a rocking chair, biscuits and red-eye gravy, and always forgiving but quiet love felt as much like home as mine did. Decades later, the goodbyes are more frequent but no less difficult these days. I rarely talk about the sadness that accompanies deaths, one of a single mother I never met but who, like me, had adopted from China. I deal with death these days through writing, reading, prayer and none-too-seldom tears. And I dream not only of the future but of the people who are now gone but who helped define my life after I close my eyes at night.
First, I read Christopher Hitchens' Mortality, a book of unsentimental essays written after the author learned he was dying of cancer. While Hitchens' atheism and disdain for those who sought to convert him played a role in much of his writing, the essays also revealed a caring husband, father and friend; an intelligent observer and commentator; and a man who loved writing even in his final weeks. Sometimes as I read his essays, though, I questioned whether he was debating with himself the premise of God's existence and, hence, the hereafter. Otherwise, why go to such lengths to explain why he wouldn't convert as death closed in on him and why he didn't want others' prayers. Both answers already were obvious to anyone who had followed only bits of Hitchens' life. So, I wonder whether he wondered about God, whose name Hitchens spelled with a lower-case "g."
Later, I read former death-row inmate Damien Echols' essay collection, Life After Death. Echols, along with two other men, was imprisoned for almost 20 years in the 1993 murders of three little boys in West Memphis, Ark. In August 2011, the state released the three men from prison rather than retry them with one condition -- that they plead guilty but also be allowed to profess their innocence in court.
What most impressed me about Echols was his intellect, literary knowledge, his eclectic religious beliefs, which incorporated Catholicism and Buddhism, and most importantly his ability to survive so many years of forced isolation, suspicion and no doubt anger. He did not let that anger or bitterness destroy him. Rather, this man who was only a teenager when he went to prison and who did not finish high school educated himself by reading. He read and he read and he read. And he watched, becoming a close, if not always objective, observer of fellow inmates, relatives, attorneys and others.
Until his eyesight began failing, he was a voracious reader before and during imprisonment. He read works by and about such people and topics as diverse as Flannery O'Connor (not among his favorite authors); Stephen King; poet W.B. Yeats; Nostradamus; Latin American writer Julio Cortazar; Edgar Cayce; the Kabbalah, a book of Jewish mysticism; Eastern religions; Wicca; and the Medici period in Italian history. "I've read a few thousand books over the time I've been locked up," he writes. "Without books, I would have gone insane long ago."
Like his religious views, his taste in art if you will is equally eclectic. "I see no reason why I can't love pornography and the art of Michelangelo equally," he writes. "I want to see life from every angle."
I neither have the time nor the ability to read as much as Echols. But like him and others I, too, find comfort and knowledge in the written word, whether the author is a poet I've never met, a contemporary novelist or just myself. Sorting through storage boxes of clutter and memories recently, I found a childhood diary where I wrote about one of my first unrequited crushes. I found a journal from the mid-1970s, a time when my life was changing as was my chosen career. I had great dreams then. I still have a few, but then I had more hope of achieving them. And for the first time during those years, I said my final goodbyes to two of my closest relatives -- grandparents whose two-bedroom home with feathered mattresses, a rocking chair, biscuits and red-eye gravy, and always forgiving but quiet love felt as much like home as mine did. Decades later, the goodbyes are more frequent but no less difficult these days. I rarely talk about the sadness that accompanies deaths, one of a single mother I never met but who, like me, had adopted from China. I deal with death these days through writing, reading, prayer and none-too-seldom tears. And I dream not only of the future but of the people who are now gone but who helped define my life after I close my eyes at night.
Monday, January 14, 2013
Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver
I've been a Barbara Kingsolver fan since I read her novel, Bean Trees, about a decade ago. I also have enjoyed many of her essays and her non-fiction book, Animal Vegetable Miracle. Overall, I liked Flight Behavior, but I found her/it to be more concerned with the evils of global warming and religion, especially that of the so-called fundamentalist variety, than the story she was telling.
But even more troublesome to me was that Kingsolver seemed intent on making sure readers knew how smart she is when it comes to science. Like many readers, I already knew she had a science background. And frankly, I found her sometimes overly complex details about climate change and at other times condescending explanations of it a huge turnoff.
Do not misunderstand. I agree that global warming is a serious problem. I agree that more people should listen to scientists, less to politicians when it comes to climate change. But Ms. Kingsolver, it's not just fundamentalists who reject climate change. There are others who do as well -- many solely for political reasons, some out of ignorance or apathy. And it's not just poor Southerners as one might think after reading your latest novel.
Kingsolver also is more than a tad harsh in her portrayal of the news media -- which she seems to lump into one stereotypical TV reporter -- long, blonde hair, perfectly manicured nails, sound bites only, happy news only. Kingsolver is so harsh in her presentation of this character, it makes me wonder if she had a bad experience with the media. Granted, I'm not keen on TV and radio reporters either. Few, if any, newspaper reporters and editors hold TV reporting "personalities" in esteem. That's why it's so disturbing that she lumps all the media together as she does.
All that and I heard Kingsolver tell an NPR interviewer that she tried to make sure that she didn't cast anyone in the book as the "right" ones, for no one had all of the right answers. If that's true, she didn't try hard enough, for her novel made it more than clear who had the right answers and who had the wrong ones -- at least from Kingsolver's point of view.
Two things I did respect about the novel were Kingsolver's depiction of Dellarobia's mistaken view of her mother-in-law -- not all bad, not all stupid after all, it turns out. The ending of the book, while a tad too tidy for me the cynic, was interesting and even thought-provoking. And I speak not only of the butterflies that survive but also of Dellarobia's escape from a bad relationship -- the kind so many of us never escape, whether in friendships, marriages or jobs.
The novel is worth reading, but with the mind of a skeptic and the heart of a bird -- or butterfly -- watcher.
But even more troublesome to me was that Kingsolver seemed intent on making sure readers knew how smart she is when it comes to science. Like many readers, I already knew she had a science background. And frankly, I found her sometimes overly complex details about climate change and at other times condescending explanations of it a huge turnoff.
Do not misunderstand. I agree that global warming is a serious problem. I agree that more people should listen to scientists, less to politicians when it comes to climate change. But Ms. Kingsolver, it's not just fundamentalists who reject climate change. There are others who do as well -- many solely for political reasons, some out of ignorance or apathy. And it's not just poor Southerners as one might think after reading your latest novel.
Kingsolver also is more than a tad harsh in her portrayal of the news media -- which she seems to lump into one stereotypical TV reporter -- long, blonde hair, perfectly manicured nails, sound bites only, happy news only. Kingsolver is so harsh in her presentation of this character, it makes me wonder if she had a bad experience with the media. Granted, I'm not keen on TV and radio reporters either. Few, if any, newspaper reporters and editors hold TV reporting "personalities" in esteem. That's why it's so disturbing that she lumps all the media together as she does.
All that and I heard Kingsolver tell an NPR interviewer that she tried to make sure that she didn't cast anyone in the book as the "right" ones, for no one had all of the right answers. If that's true, she didn't try hard enough, for her novel made it more than clear who had the right answers and who had the wrong ones -- at least from Kingsolver's point of view.
Two things I did respect about the novel were Kingsolver's depiction of Dellarobia's mistaken view of her mother-in-law -- not all bad, not all stupid after all, it turns out. The ending of the book, while a tad too tidy for me the cynic, was interesting and even thought-provoking. And I speak not only of the butterflies that survive but also of Dellarobia's escape from a bad relationship -- the kind so many of us never escape, whether in friendships, marriages or jobs.
The novel is worth reading, but with the mind of a skeptic and the heart of a bird -- or butterfly -- watcher.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Yes, Chef by Marcus Samuelsson
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 was first published in 1951 as McCarthyism was taking hold in Washington, America was moving into a period of uniformity, and television sets with "I Love Lucy" and "Father Knows Best" soon would be in living rooms nationwide. J.D. Salinger's not-so-happy The Catcher in the Rye featuring a young man who's anything but uniform was published that same year and, to this day, remains the target of censors.
In 1951, two world wars were behind us; a cold war hovered over us. Between cartoons, TV stations soon began interrupting programs for civil-defense preparedness sirens -- aka, nuclear- war preparedness. Blacks did not sit at the front of buses and did not dare to use the same bathrooms as whites in the South. Despite the cheerful family-oriented comedies so many nostalgic Baby Boomers fondly remember from the '50s, those years were not always happy ones and often were frightening and full of unfettered hate, naive apathy and intentional ignorance. Sometimes, often, we close our eyes to the truth; it's easier not to know some things.
That's what happens in Bradbury's classic book. Technology has grown to the point that people's homes are fireproof and television families are brought to them in the walls of their homes. It's easier not to read. For one thing, it's less work. For another, books can be a tad too awakening to reality -- the bad things we'd prefer not to know about and not have to confront. So, in Bradbury's dystopian future, people have chosen to quit reading, followed by the government's decree that no one is to own books. No one. Of course, some exceptions exist: tintillating sexual magazines are OK as are some trade publications. Nothing political, philosophical, literary or realistic, though. No Shakespeare, no Socrates, no Bible. Because firefighters no longer are needed to extinguish house fires, they now start them -- at the homes of people, subversives, who are found to possess books.
Most people are fine with this decree; after all, they weren't reading anyway. Even Guy Montag, a fireman, is fine with the idea until he meets a young woman who tells him about a time when people read books openly and without fear. Montag later meets a former teacher and begins to hide books, even the Bible. And when he cannot any longer hide them, he learns the way to save literature for what he and others hope is a different future. That way involves one thing the government cannot totally control -- people's minds and specifically their memories.
As a journalist, I've often heard the plea from readers for "good news." And I've nothing against that. I enjoy a light-hearted feature as much as almost anyone. But if we don't also report -- and read -- the "bad news," we will be closing our eyes to a big part of our world and, worse yet, letting wrongdoing fester.
Bradbury's novel is as relevant today as it was in 1951, maybe more so as we see bookstores closing and libraries changing their focus from books to multimedia events, parties and such. Socrates is still relevant today. So are the Bible and The Catcher in the Rye. We cannot, or rather should not, fight to save only those books that teach what we believe, but even those whose subject matter we detest. For what is it worth to stand up for what we believe, if there is only one thing we can believe?
In 1951, two world wars were behind us; a cold war hovered over us. Between cartoons, TV stations soon began interrupting programs for civil-defense preparedness sirens -- aka, nuclear- war preparedness. Blacks did not sit at the front of buses and did not dare to use the same bathrooms as whites in the South. Despite the cheerful family-oriented comedies so many nostalgic Baby Boomers fondly remember from the '50s, those years were not always happy ones and often were frightening and full of unfettered hate, naive apathy and intentional ignorance. Sometimes, often, we close our eyes to the truth; it's easier not to know some things.
That's what happens in Bradbury's classic book. Technology has grown to the point that people's homes are fireproof and television families are brought to them in the walls of their homes. It's easier not to read. For one thing, it's less work. For another, books can be a tad too awakening to reality -- the bad things we'd prefer not to know about and not have to confront. So, in Bradbury's dystopian future, people have chosen to quit reading, followed by the government's decree that no one is to own books. No one. Of course, some exceptions exist: tintillating sexual magazines are OK as are some trade publications. Nothing political, philosophical, literary or realistic, though. No Shakespeare, no Socrates, no Bible. Because firefighters no longer are needed to extinguish house fires, they now start them -- at the homes of people, subversives, who are found to possess books.
Most people are fine with this decree; after all, they weren't reading anyway. Even Guy Montag, a fireman, is fine with the idea until he meets a young woman who tells him about a time when people read books openly and without fear. Montag later meets a former teacher and begins to hide books, even the Bible. And when he cannot any longer hide them, he learns the way to save literature for what he and others hope is a different future. That way involves one thing the government cannot totally control -- people's minds and specifically their memories.
As a journalist, I've often heard the plea from readers for "good news." And I've nothing against that. I enjoy a light-hearted feature as much as almost anyone. But if we don't also report -- and read -- the "bad news," we will be closing our eyes to a big part of our world and, worse yet, letting wrongdoing fester.
Bradbury's novel is as relevant today as it was in 1951, maybe more so as we see bookstores closing and libraries changing their focus from books to multimedia events, parties and such. Socrates is still relevant today. So are the Bible and The Catcher in the Rye. We cannot, or rather should not, fight to save only those books that teach what we believe, but even those whose subject matter we detest. For what is it worth to stand up for what we believe, if there is only one thing we can believe?
Friday, November 23, 2012
A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver
This is how much I love Pulitzer Prize - winning poet Mary Oliver's slender book, A Thousand Mornings. I checked it out of the local library a couple days ago. I began reading it that night and finished it the next evening. Today, I reread it and plan to read it again before I return it. Meantime, I plan to buy my own copy because I hope to read it many more times, again and again -- each time noticing a word, a name, an emotion I had not previously noticed.
I do not tend to love poetry. Too often, I find it hard to understand or simply do not relate to it. I had not read Oliver until this week. Frankly, I had not heard of her until I read a magazine article in Oprah, the magazine, the one I'm not supposed to mention here lest I offend literary snobs. I don't care. Through her magazine, I learned of a great writer and expanded my own reading enjoyment. And who knows, perhaps Oliver's concise but elegant poetry will lead me to give more poets a chance and to enjoy their work as well.
I cannot recall ever crying over a poem. Yet I did just that when I read Oliver's "For I Will Consider My Dog Percy," an elegy to the small, curly, white-haired pet with whom she is pictured at the end of the book. Oliver advises in a note that the poem is a "derivative of Christopher Smart's poem 'For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry."
I also do not remember ever reading a poem about a bird and learning about myself in the process. Yet, again I did so when I read Oliver's "The Mockingbird," in which Oliver speaks of a little "thief of other sounds" who finally settles down and looks around "as though to make sure he's alone; / then he slaps each wing against his breast,/ where his heart is,/ and, copying nothing, begins" the more difficult chore of becoming "his true self." Like the mockingbird, people, I so often put on a show. I smile when I'm sad, I'm polite when I'm angry, I'm quiet when I want to scream. But then, I am alone with my own "true self,/ which of course was as dark and secret/ as anyone else's."
And one last thing: Read Oliver's poetry aloud, not just in silence. It makes a difference.
I do not tend to love poetry. Too often, I find it hard to understand or simply do not relate to it. I had not read Oliver until this week. Frankly, I had not heard of her until I read a magazine article in Oprah, the magazine, the one I'm not supposed to mention here lest I offend literary snobs. I don't care. Through her magazine, I learned of a great writer and expanded my own reading enjoyment. And who knows, perhaps Oliver's concise but elegant poetry will lead me to give more poets a chance and to enjoy their work as well.
I cannot recall ever crying over a poem. Yet I did just that when I read Oliver's "For I Will Consider My Dog Percy," an elegy to the small, curly, white-haired pet with whom she is pictured at the end of the book. Oliver advises in a note that the poem is a "derivative of Christopher Smart's poem 'For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry."
I also do not remember ever reading a poem about a bird and learning about myself in the process. Yet, again I did so when I read Oliver's "The Mockingbird," in which Oliver speaks of a little "thief of other sounds" who finally settles down and looks around "as though to make sure he's alone; / then he slaps each wing against his breast,/ where his heart is,/ and, copying nothing, begins" the more difficult chore of becoming "his true self." Like the mockingbird, people, I so often put on a show. I smile when I'm sad, I'm polite when I'm angry, I'm quiet when I want to scream. But then, I am alone with my own "true self,/ which of course was as dark and secret/ as anyone else's."
And one last thing: Read Oliver's poetry aloud, not just in silence. It makes a difference.
Monday, November 12, 2012
About That Book Club
I've now belonged to two -- no, actually three -- book clubs, though one of them never met. Some might say, why join a book club when you can read whatever you want when you want. Here's what these groups have meant to me -- how they've helped my reading and me.
In late 2001, I organized a book club at the condominiums where I lived in Northfield outside Chicago. For our first selection, we read Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, the same book that was being promoted at the time for all Chicagoans to read. Over the coming months, I came to know other authors thanks to that small but wonderful group of women. I met Barbara Kingsolver's literature for the first time when we read her first book, The Bean Trees, a novel. I loved it and soon became a Kingsolver fan, though I'm drawn more to her creative non-fiction than to her fiction. My favorite is Animal Vegetable Miracle, but I also particularly enjoy her essay collections. I am now looking forward to her latest novel, Climate Change, a book that reflects this biology major's interest in science as well as her creative talents.
In the late 1990s or early 2000s, a few of the women at The Associated Press in Chicago where I then worked decided to form our own book club. Someone -- I'm not sure who made the decision. -- decreed that we would read Toni Morrison's novel, Paradise. I had loved her book, Song of Solomon, and, as I read it, remembered that my mother had said a copy of it was lying on my aunt Vonda Lee's bedside when she died. But I struggled through Paradise, often confused by the enormous cast of characters and intricate plot. Somewhere along the line, a friend said she had read the book and it would be a good idea to keep a genealogical tree while reading it. How right she was! Morrison is a great writer, but her books are not always easy reads.
I finally finished Paradise only to figure out eventually that our book club for whatever reason -- probably the AP's erratic and varied work schedules -- would never meet. I remember that, upon completion, I felt I had read a truly good story but that I was unclear about some basic facts. I've since read, or rather listened to, Morrison's shorter and less complex The Bluest Eye, and enjoyed it. And now, a decade or more later, I want to re-read Paradise, but this time I'll keep a family tree at hand. I'll read from an old-fashioned hard copy so that I can take notes in the margins. Some books are made to be read once; others need to be read repeatedly to be fully appreciated. Paradise is such a book, at least for me.
In August 2003, I moved to Conway, Arkansas, where I had family but few friends. A couple of years later, I joined a book club at the suggestion of a colleague at the newspaper where I work. And, yes, I've made some wonderful friends. I've also read and enjoyed books that I never would have read otherwise. Among them are In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson, Just Kids by Patti Smith, Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, The History of Love by Nicole Krauss (another one that probably should be read more than once for full effect) and The Cat's Table by MIchael Ondaatje. When I've not liked a book, I've quit reading it. In a few cases, I never even began a club selection -- a decision that provokes no rebuke from our book club. Obviously, the discussions are more meaningful, though, if you've read the book.
I am not an official, or even unofficial, Oprah Book Club member, though I enjoy perusing her website's reading suggestions. And I count Bernhard Schlink's The Reader, an Oprah selection several years ago, as among my favorite books. Likewise, I check Nina Sankovitch's popular blog, readallday.org, occasionally for reading suggestions and was an early buyer of her book, Tolstoy and the Purple Chair, the story of her year of reading and critiquing a book a day.
No, a book club isn't for everyone. But for me, it's a connection, not only to other people, but to good reading suggestions and book discussions. And when there are so many great books to be read, it helps me know which one to pick up next.
In late 2001, I organized a book club at the condominiums where I lived in Northfield outside Chicago. For our first selection, we read Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, the same book that was being promoted at the time for all Chicagoans to read. Over the coming months, I came to know other authors thanks to that small but wonderful group of women. I met Barbara Kingsolver's literature for the first time when we read her first book, The Bean Trees, a novel. I loved it and soon became a Kingsolver fan, though I'm drawn more to her creative non-fiction than to her fiction. My favorite is Animal Vegetable Miracle, but I also particularly enjoy her essay collections. I am now looking forward to her latest novel, Climate Change, a book that reflects this biology major's interest in science as well as her creative talents.
In the late 1990s or early 2000s, a few of the women at The Associated Press in Chicago where I then worked decided to form our own book club. Someone -- I'm not sure who made the decision. -- decreed that we would read Toni Morrison's novel, Paradise. I had loved her book, Song of Solomon, and, as I read it, remembered that my mother had said a copy of it was lying on my aunt Vonda Lee's bedside when she died. But I struggled through Paradise, often confused by the enormous cast of characters and intricate plot. Somewhere along the line, a friend said she had read the book and it would be a good idea to keep a genealogical tree while reading it. How right she was! Morrison is a great writer, but her books are not always easy reads.
I finally finished Paradise only to figure out eventually that our book club for whatever reason -- probably the AP's erratic and varied work schedules -- would never meet. I remember that, upon completion, I felt I had read a truly good story but that I was unclear about some basic facts. I've since read, or rather listened to, Morrison's shorter and less complex The Bluest Eye, and enjoyed it. And now, a decade or more later, I want to re-read Paradise, but this time I'll keep a family tree at hand. I'll read from an old-fashioned hard copy so that I can take notes in the margins. Some books are made to be read once; others need to be read repeatedly to be fully appreciated. Paradise is such a book, at least for me.
In August 2003, I moved to Conway, Arkansas, where I had family but few friends. A couple of years later, I joined a book club at the suggestion of a colleague at the newspaper where I work. And, yes, I've made some wonderful friends. I've also read and enjoyed books that I never would have read otherwise. Among them are In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson, Just Kids by Patti Smith, Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, The History of Love by Nicole Krauss (another one that probably should be read more than once for full effect) and The Cat's Table by MIchael Ondaatje. When I've not liked a book, I've quit reading it. In a few cases, I never even began a club selection -- a decision that provokes no rebuke from our book club. Obviously, the discussions are more meaningful, though, if you've read the book.
I am not an official, or even unofficial, Oprah Book Club member, though I enjoy perusing her website's reading suggestions. And I count Bernhard Schlink's The Reader, an Oprah selection several years ago, as among my favorite books. Likewise, I check Nina Sankovitch's popular blog, readallday.org, occasionally for reading suggestions and was an early buyer of her book, Tolstoy and the Purple Chair, the story of her year of reading and critiquing a book a day.
No, a book club isn't for everyone. But for me, it's a connection, not only to other people, but to good reading suggestions and book discussions. And when there are so many great books to be read, it helps me know which one to pick up next.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and Breakfast With Buddha
So, you're ready for a vacation but can't afford one. Then, take a road trip with Buddha, Harold Fry or any number of literary figures.
I just read two very different road-trip novels, as I was taking a not-so-joyous journey of my own.
Breakfast with Buddha by Roland Merullo tells the story of one Otto Ringling, an upper middle-class man with a typical family, a typical lifestyle and a typical religion -- a believer of sorts but not much of a practitioner in other words.
Ringling, an ordinary New York suburbanite, is planning a cross-country trip to Oregon to close the estate of his parents, recently killed in a car wreck. He goes to pick up his
New Age sister, the one who reads tarot cards and has her own guru, a long-robed
fellow named Volya Rinpoche. To Otto's dismay, the sister says she's staying
at home and sending Rinpoche in her place. That's Rinpoche, the one who smiles
a lot, ponders life even more and preaches moderation in all things, even in driving and eating.
So, while Otto the gourmet orders a splendid meal, Rinpoche settles for a poached egg and a slice of bread. When Otto takes the expressway, Rinpoche suggests the slower, more scenic back roads. Along the way, Otto learns to listen and Rinpoche -- well, he learns to bowl. It's
a good book packed with plenty of laughter and some serious notes as well.
It could pass for non-fiction, but it's not.
Another road-trip book -- albeit this time the story of a foot journey --
is The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. Rachel Joyce's novel tells the
story of Fry, a recent retiree whose rather boring, unemotional life begins to change
when he gets a letter from an old friend named Queenie. She's dying and
just wanted to tell say thank you to him and good-bye.
Harold, in typical form, writes a brief, unemotional letter in return and starts walking to
the post office to mail it. Along the way and without any sensible plan or even proper walking shoes, he decides to walk the roughly 600 miles to Queenie's hospital room in the
hope that she will cling to life until he gets there.
During his journey, Harold meets a varied cast of characters, all with their own stories
and idiosyncrasies. Harold also has time to think -- a lot -- and starts to
see his life and the lives of his wife and son in a more objective yet also more emotional way.
I read these books shortly before I was about to embark on my own road trip, though I never left town. I was already grappling with issues, problems -- aka life in general -- when I became sick one day and collapsed onto a tile floor at home. I irreparably damaged all of my upper teeth. Days later, I got a call from my mother at about 2:30 a.m. My father was sick, and she needed help. My daughter and I rushed over there to discover that his heartbeat was plummeting. I called 911, and he was rushed to the hospital. Days later, he had a Pacemaker implanted, quietly observed his 85th birthday in a hospital bed and then celebrated President Obama's re-election in style -- at home in front of a television.
My road trip was a short one, from my house to my parents' home across town and then to the hospital and finally back to my place. Along the way, I learned to quit taking family and friends for granted. Teeth can be replaced. Bills will still be there -- invariably. But the people we love are with us only for a season. Do as Rinpoche suggested: Slow down, take the back roads and be with your families. You deserve that time as much as they do.
I just read two very different road-trip novels, as I was taking a not-so-joyous journey of my own.
Breakfast with Buddha by Roland Merullo tells the story of one Otto Ringling, an upper middle-class man with a typical family, a typical lifestyle and a typical religion -- a believer of sorts but not much of a practitioner in other words.
Ringling, an ordinary New York suburbanite, is planning a cross-country trip to Oregon to close the estate of his parents, recently killed in a car wreck. He goes to pick up his
New Age sister, the one who reads tarot cards and has her own guru, a long-robed
fellow named Volya Rinpoche. To Otto's dismay, the sister says she's staying
at home and sending Rinpoche in her place. That's Rinpoche, the one who smiles
a lot, ponders life even more and preaches moderation in all things, even in driving and eating.
So, while Otto the gourmet orders a splendid meal, Rinpoche settles for a poached egg and a slice of bread. When Otto takes the expressway, Rinpoche suggests the slower, more scenic back roads. Along the way, Otto learns to listen and Rinpoche -- well, he learns to bowl. It's
a good book packed with plenty of laughter and some serious notes as well.
It could pass for non-fiction, but it's not.
Another road-trip book -- albeit this time the story of a foot journey --
is The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. Rachel Joyce's novel tells the
story of Fry, a recent retiree whose rather boring, unemotional life begins to change
when he gets a letter from an old friend named Queenie. She's dying and
just wanted to tell say thank you to him and good-bye.
Harold, in typical form, writes a brief, unemotional letter in return and starts walking to
the post office to mail it. Along the way and without any sensible plan or even proper walking shoes, he decides to walk the roughly 600 miles to Queenie's hospital room in the
hope that she will cling to life until he gets there.
During his journey, Harold meets a varied cast of characters, all with their own stories
and idiosyncrasies. Harold also has time to think -- a lot -- and starts to
see his life and the lives of his wife and son in a more objective yet also more emotional way.
I read these books shortly before I was about to embark on my own road trip, though I never left town. I was already grappling with issues, problems -- aka life in general -- when I became sick one day and collapsed onto a tile floor at home. I irreparably damaged all of my upper teeth. Days later, I got a call from my mother at about 2:30 a.m. My father was sick, and she needed help. My daughter and I rushed over there to discover that his heartbeat was plummeting. I called 911, and he was rushed to the hospital. Days later, he had a Pacemaker implanted, quietly observed his 85th birthday in a hospital bed and then celebrated President Obama's re-election in style -- at home in front of a television.
My road trip was a short one, from my house to my parents' home across town and then to the hospital and finally back to my place. Along the way, I learned to quit taking family and friends for granted. Teeth can be replaced. Bills will still be there -- invariably. But the people we love are with us only for a season. Do as Rinpoche suggested: Slow down, take the back roads and be with your families. You deserve that time as much as they do.
Still Alice by Lisa Genova
Alice is a Harvard professor, a mother of two adult children and the wife of a fellow professor with whom she's co-written a scholarly book. She walks to her office, runs to stay in shape and, as an over-achiever, isn't any too keen on her daughter's plan to put art ahead of a college degree. Alice is 50 years old when she learns that she has early onset Alzheimer's -- a diagnosis her husband has more trouble accepting than she.
Lisa Genova's all-too-realistic novel addresses the stigma that society unjustly puts on early Alzheimer's patients whose symptoms appear gradually and who, therefore, are at first as lucid and aware of their surroundings as anyone most of the time. We've heard of support groups for these patients' families. But how many Alzheimer's patients have their own support networks of people to help them? Alice finds none and, to her credit, starts such a group.
Much as someone given a year to live treasures every day, every moment more than ever, so does Alice. She hopes to keep her mind functioning well enough and long enough that she can hold her first grandchild and still understand who the infant is. She wants to see the doctoral student she's been mentoring get his degree. And all those books -- there are so many she wants to read.
Genova, a neuroscientist, also deals with another less openly discussed facet of the illness. Alice at one point makes careful, detailed plans to kill herself when she realizes she has reached a certain point in her illness. I won't divulge what happens, but Genova tells the reader in an afterword that suicide is a common thought among people suffering early onset Alzheimer's.
The novel leaves some questions unanswered: Did Alice's husband know of the suicide plan? There's at least a hint that he did, but that's all it is -- a hint. And if he did, did he try to prevent it? What did he mean when he told his children he knew something they didn't to justify his move to New York? Was it the suicide plan? Was it just an excuse to leave? Or was it something else, something unspoken?
I learned much from this book, not only about the disease's symptoms and effects but also about the ways the rest of us confront -- or avoid -- the illness when it strikes someone we know or love. Genova, a neuroscientist who has written two other books, researched her subject so thoroughly and wrote about it so elegantly that Alice's story could be true. And sadly, it is.
Lisa Genova's all-too-realistic novel addresses the stigma that society unjustly puts on early Alzheimer's patients whose symptoms appear gradually and who, therefore, are at first as lucid and aware of their surroundings as anyone most of the time. We've heard of support groups for these patients' families. But how many Alzheimer's patients have their own support networks of people to help them? Alice finds none and, to her credit, starts such a group.
Much as someone given a year to live treasures every day, every moment more than ever, so does Alice. She hopes to keep her mind functioning well enough and long enough that she can hold her first grandchild and still understand who the infant is. She wants to see the doctoral student she's been mentoring get his degree. And all those books -- there are so many she wants to read.
Genova, a neuroscientist, also deals with another less openly discussed facet of the illness. Alice at one point makes careful, detailed plans to kill herself when she realizes she has reached a certain point in her illness. I won't divulge what happens, but Genova tells the reader in an afterword that suicide is a common thought among people suffering early onset Alzheimer's.
The novel leaves some questions unanswered: Did Alice's husband know of the suicide plan? There's at least a hint that he did, but that's all it is -- a hint. And if he did, did he try to prevent it? What did he mean when he told his children he knew something they didn't to justify his move to New York? Was it the suicide plan? Was it just an excuse to leave? Or was it something else, something unspoken?
I learned much from this book, not only about the disease's symptoms and effects but also about the ways the rest of us confront -- or avoid -- the illness when it strikes someone we know or love. Genova, a neuroscientist who has written two other books, researched her subject so thoroughly and wrote about it so elegantly that Alice's story could be true. And sadly, it is.
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