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.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Saturday, October 20, 2012
In the Garden of Beasts & Camp Nine
I recently read two very different books set in similar times but far different places. One was historical fiction; the other, non-fiction.
Erik Larson's incredibly well-researched and readable In the Garden of Beasts, took place in Germany in the 1930s as Adolf Hitler deliberately but all too quickly escalated his anti-Semitism even as many Americans there and at home closed their eyes to the brutality and ultimate genocide. The other book is a short novel, Camp Nine by Vivienne Schiffer, who grew up in tiny Rohwer, Arkansas, but not until several years after World War II had ended and the Japanese internment camp there was only a memory, a taint on the town's and the nation's history.
Both works share common themes -- bigotry, hatred, fear-mongering and denial. How many of us have pretended we didn't see or hear a racist or sexist statement rather than confront the speaker? How many of us have been guilty of profiling -- or at least wondering about -- Middle Easterners working in our communities for no other reason than they appear to be Middle Eastern and, hence, possibly of the Islamic belief and MAYBE a terrorist? How many of us have silently given our OK to racial, gender or age discrimination? Perhaps, maybe even probably, we were not the ones to discriminate. But did we overlook the wrongdoing solely for the sake of non-confrontation or to avoid angering those who condone such actions? Did we stay silent out of fear?
Such inaction is exactly what happened in the years before the United States entered World War II, according to Larson's book, replete with pages upon pages of footnotes to support his account. Americans, many of whom no doubt were still weary from the previous war with Germany, had no desire to go to war against that country again. And, indeed, while Larson's book ends before 1941, it was not the murders of thousands of Jews and other victims of bigotry, but the bombing of Pearl Harbor that led to the U.S. intervention in that war.
As Larson tells it, even the U.S. ambassador to Germany in the 1930s, William Dodd, did not spend much time worrying about the plight of the Jews at first -- even though a wealthy Jewish man allowed Dodd to share his family's home as a way to afford some protection from the Nazis for that family. While Dodd fretted over such trivial matters as the cost of sending telegrams to Washington, his daughter, Martha, was having none-too-discreet affairs with the likes of Gestapo chief Rudolf Diels and Hitler aide Ernst Hanfstaengl. She met Hitler, too, but they never became romantically involved. For a time, Martha Dodd could not -- or would not -- believe the Nazis were so evil. After all, she could stroll along German streets without fear, see nothing visibly amiss, even as more and more Jews were increasingly denied such basic rights as holding jobs in order to feed their families.
But eventually, even she came to see -- or accept -- the truth as did her father. The hate had been there, all around them, all along.
Likewise in Camp Nine which is set during World War II, Japanese-Americans were forced to leave their homes and jobs in California to live in barracks where they were not allowed to leave without permission. They had done nothing wrong; they were not even the enemy. Rather, they were fellow Americans, some of whom joined the military and gave their lives for this country.
Why do you suppose Japanese-Americans rather than German-Americans were the ones herded like cattle and put on trains to live in remote towns they'd never heard of? Granted, there probably was more fear of the Japanese due to Pearl Harbor. But certainly race was a huge factor. After all, one can distinguish easily between an Asian-American and a white American. German-Americans, also being white, no doubt were harder to profile based solely on physical appearance.
Looking back, more than half-a-century later, it's easy to judge these actions during the 1930s and 40s as bigoted, wrong, evil. It's harder to make sure we do not make similar mistakes -- whether in discriminating against others or in pretending we do not know what's happening right in front of us.
Left unchecked, racism, bigotry and hatred will flourish again and again....
Monday, September 10, 2012
A Summer Bird-Cage by Margaret Drabble
Margaret Drabble, one of Britian's more respected authors, wrote her first novel, A Summer Bird-Cage, in 1962 -- a time when the world and the role of women were starting to change too slowly for some, too quickly for others.
Too often, perhaps even more then than today, single and married women tended to judge each other, much as moms outside the workforce and stay-at-home moms do today. Such judgment divides two sisters in Drabble's novel. One, Sarah, is a recent graduate of Oxford University. She's smart and knows it. She has an out-of-the-way boyfriend whom we never really meet. The other is Louise, "a knock-out beauty" who marries a boring but wealthy writer named Stephen, though she loves another man. Only near the book's end, does Sarah realize how much the sister she thought looked down upon her, really trusts her. The key is no great revelation, for the book is one of character, not plot, development. Rather, the key is the kinds of thing that only sisters who truly trust each other might tell the other one.
If you have a truly close friend or a close sister as well as a sex life (or the lack of one), an innocuous but embarrassing habit or fondness, then you know the kind of thing you might share with one of them but absolutely no one else, not even your therapist. And that's exactly what happens in Drabble's intelligent but rather slow-paced book.
It's a creative work with themes which I suspect run in most people's lives whether they acknowledge them or not.
When I was young -- 18, even 35 -- I was Sarah. When I was in my mid 40s, I was Louise. And now that I'm a regular recipient of AARP solicitations, I'm honestly not sure who I am or what I believe in some cases. I have begun to question values I have long believed (or thought I did) and even pontificated. Maybe I need to live to be 100 to have all the answers. Maybe I'll never have them. Or maybe, just maybe there are different answers, different rules and even rules that should be broken.
Is a mother wrong to steal milk for a starving baby? Is a soldier wrong to kill his enemy in war even though his country has lied to him and does NOT have God on its side? Am I right even to begin to second-guess either of those people, especially when I've never lived through what they have endured? That's not situation ethics; that's reality.
Too often, perhaps even more then than today, single and married women tended to judge each other, much as moms outside the workforce and stay-at-home moms do today. Such judgment divides two sisters in Drabble's novel. One, Sarah, is a recent graduate of Oxford University. She's smart and knows it. She has an out-of-the-way boyfriend whom we never really meet. The other is Louise, "a knock-out beauty" who marries a boring but wealthy writer named Stephen, though she loves another man. Only near the book's end, does Sarah realize how much the sister she thought looked down upon her, really trusts her. The key is no great revelation, for the book is one of character, not plot, development. Rather, the key is the kinds of thing that only sisters who truly trust each other might tell the other one.
If you have a truly close friend or a close sister as well as a sex life (or the lack of one), an innocuous but embarrassing habit or fondness, then you know the kind of thing you might share with one of them but absolutely no one else, not even your therapist. And that's exactly what happens in Drabble's intelligent but rather slow-paced book.
It's a creative work with themes which I suspect run in most people's lives whether they acknowledge them or not.
When I was young -- 18, even 35 -- I was Sarah. When I was in my mid 40s, I was Louise. And now that I'm a regular recipient of AARP solicitations, I'm honestly not sure who I am or what I believe in some cases. I have begun to question values I have long believed (or thought I did) and even pontificated. Maybe I need to live to be 100 to have all the answers. Maybe I'll never have them. Or maybe, just maybe there are different answers, different rules and even rules that should be broken.
Is a mother wrong to steal milk for a starving baby? Is a soldier wrong to kill his enemy in war even though his country has lied to him and does NOT have God on its side? Am I right even to begin to second-guess either of those people, especially when I've never lived through what they have endured? That's not situation ethics; that's reality.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Stories by Doris Lessing
After reading a few of Doris Lessing's short stories, I realize how much great writing I have missed by not reading more of her works earlier. Of the few stories I have read lately -- "Wine," "He," "An Old Woman and Her Cat," "A Room," "The Unposted Love Letter" and "The Other Garden" -- the thing that struck me repeatedly was the universality, the timelessness of Lessing's stories.
In "Wine," for instance, a husband and a wife talk as they sip wine. Lessing does not give this couple names. After all, it doesn't appear as if they really know each other that well anymore anyway. And they could be any married couple, perhaps many couples -- those who, as they say, have grown apart or those who never were quite together anyway.
The story that most affected me, though, was "An Old Woman and Her Cat." This story is about a poor and lonely widow named Hetty whose only companion in her London flat is a once-stray cat named Tibby. She feeds it, she talks to it, she sings to it. So, when demolition in the name of progress threatens their home, she protects Tibby with her life, much as the friendly, trusting Tibby has protected her -- by bringing her birds to cook as she had no money to buy food -- and as the little cat ultimately will trust another less-deserving human for its own protection.
Humanity. Progress. Society. Trust. For me, the story was all about society's misplaced priorities and the dangers of misplaced trust. We trust political leaders filled with hate -- and money -- to guard our freedom; we trust often-greedy banks with our money; we trust our children with teachers who make less than plumbers, our lives with exhausted emergency-room doctors. We trust our safety with police officers who make less than men who can run fast and throw a ball far. We trust, and all too often we get burned, cheated, robbed, hurt because there's someone else who's richer, smarter, closer in kin, higher in rank, more powerful or just better-looking.
Our obituary may someday show up in a newspaper if any of our "survivors" sees fit to buy the space. But for the most part, most of our deaths will go unnoticed by the rich, the powerful, the smarter, those higher in rank or status. But our life will have mattered -- to ourselves and to the ones we helped, especially if their station in life was even lower than our own. And their life, no matter how unnewsworthy, will have mattered to us as well.
In "Wine," for instance, a husband and a wife talk as they sip wine. Lessing does not give this couple names. After all, it doesn't appear as if they really know each other that well anymore anyway. And they could be any married couple, perhaps many couples -- those who, as they say, have grown apart or those who never were quite together anyway.
The story that most affected me, though, was "An Old Woman and Her Cat." This story is about a poor and lonely widow named Hetty whose only companion in her London flat is a once-stray cat named Tibby. She feeds it, she talks to it, she sings to it. So, when demolition in the name of progress threatens their home, she protects Tibby with her life, much as the friendly, trusting Tibby has protected her -- by bringing her birds to cook as she had no money to buy food -- and as the little cat ultimately will trust another less-deserving human for its own protection.
Humanity. Progress. Society. Trust. For me, the story was all about society's misplaced priorities and the dangers of misplaced trust. We trust political leaders filled with hate -- and money -- to guard our freedom; we trust often-greedy banks with our money; we trust our children with teachers who make less than plumbers, our lives with exhausted emergency-room doctors. We trust our safety with police officers who make less than men who can run fast and throw a ball far. We trust, and all too often we get burned, cheated, robbed, hurt because there's someone else who's richer, smarter, closer in kin, higher in rank, more powerful or just better-looking.
Our obituary may someday show up in a newspaper if any of our "survivors" sees fit to buy the space. But for the most part, most of our deaths will go unnoticed by the rich, the powerful, the smarter, those higher in rank or status. But our life will have mattered -- to ourselves and to the ones we helped, especially if their station in life was even lower than our own. And their life, no matter how unnewsworthy, will have mattered to us as well.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake by Anna Quindlen
In Anna Quindlen's newest book, she writes of life as she approaches 60. The book is a memoir of, to a limited degree, her young adulthood and, to a much greater one, of her marriage, her three children and her career as a journalist and successful author. Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake is largely written in essay form -- perhaps my favorite genre -- and reveals much about the woman behind the bestselling name.
If you didn't already know it, she supports, among other things, women's rights, including those that would open more high-ranking management positions to women.
Quindlen takes a generally optimistic tone, though she admits some fears -- along with hopes -- that many, if not all, people face as they grow older.
"Most of us convince ourselves that we will reach a plateau from our peak, not a valley," she writes.
"I try to imagine all the contingencies, but I admit I focus on the ones I like best" -- sitting at a book club with friends, not in the hallway of a nursing home, for instance, she adds.
Quindlen recalls the words of an elderly friend, Mrs. Smiley, who once said, "If you break a hip, you're finished."
To which, Quindlen observes, "It was an overstatement, but I think what she was really trying to say was that sometimes a single moment can mark the dividing line between who you are and who you never wanted to be."
I read those words, I agreed with them, I pondered the unfairness of them, and then I tried to pinpoint the dividing line in my own life, if it already exists. The very fact that I consider these words to be so unfair suggests I have at least approached that line -- or it has approached me. The line, the incident, the thing that changes everything, does not have to be an injury or an illness.
It can be a wrong decision, one we made as an immature teenager (as in Anne Tyler's wonderful novel Saint Maybe). Or it can be one we made as a mature adult but with naive expectations, with fanciful hopes or sometimes with greedy or sinister intent. Perhaps, the dividing line is a move we made, a job we turned down, a job we took, a marriage proposal we accepted or declined, a missed plane, a canceled doctor's appointment, a lie we told, a lie we believed, a lie we pretend didn't happen.
If it's not clear by now, I loved Quindlen's book, though, unlike her, I am less happy with my life at this point than I was when I was in my 30s. The 30s brought more choices -- in work, in health, in relationships, in the smallest of decisions and in the biggest of adventures. And yet age also has given me more self-confidence, along with a greater ability to understand why good people make mistakes and why we should be inclined to forgive rather than accuse. You see, as we live longer, we are bound to make more and more mistakes, some worse than others. So, we -- I -- can see more clearly than ever how I, too, have so often needed forgiveness.
Unlike the high school senior who didn't get asked to her prom, who was made to believe she was obese at 130, 140 pounds, who felt such irrational guilt she washed her hands over and over and over -- the woman I have become is moderately self-confident, not content but no longer embarrassed by her weight. Now, I can more freely call a supervising editor by a first name instead of Mr. (There weren't many upper-management figures in newsrooms with a Mrs., Ms. or Miss title in the 70s and 80s, and frankly there still aren't.) I now can even express disagreement when I disagree. I will defend myself and rarely apologize unless I believe I am in the wrong or unless I see no other logical recourse: I am pragmatic. And despite the feeling by many younger men and women that it's time for people of my generation, especially women, to quit being ambitious, to step aside and let them replace us, I shall continue working for a better life, a better job, another start if you will -- I'm not quitting and have no intention of doing so.
In many ways I'm braver, more courageous than I was at age 30. In other ways never before expected, I'm more vulnerable than ever, afraid of the unknown, of what lies ahead.
But fears or not, if I live to be 80, 90, 100, I won't go out sitting quietly "in my place." I fully intend to speak up for women's rights and against gender, racial and age discrimination as long as I can -- unless both my verbal and written voices give out on me first.
As Quindlen writes, "To be continued. It's another day, and I'm off and running. See you."
If you didn't already know it, she supports, among other things, women's rights, including those that would open more high-ranking management positions to women.
Quindlen takes a generally optimistic tone, though she admits some fears -- along with hopes -- that many, if not all, people face as they grow older.
"Most of us convince ourselves that we will reach a plateau from our peak, not a valley," she writes.
"I try to imagine all the contingencies, but I admit I focus on the ones I like best" -- sitting at a book club with friends, not in the hallway of a nursing home, for instance, she adds.
Quindlen recalls the words of an elderly friend, Mrs. Smiley, who once said, "If you break a hip, you're finished."
To which, Quindlen observes, "It was an overstatement, but I think what she was really trying to say was that sometimes a single moment can mark the dividing line between who you are and who you never wanted to be."
I read those words, I agreed with them, I pondered the unfairness of them, and then I tried to pinpoint the dividing line in my own life, if it already exists. The very fact that I consider these words to be so unfair suggests I have at least approached that line -- or it has approached me. The line, the incident, the thing that changes everything, does not have to be an injury or an illness.
It can be a wrong decision, one we made as an immature teenager (as in Anne Tyler's wonderful novel Saint Maybe). Or it can be one we made as a mature adult but with naive expectations, with fanciful hopes or sometimes with greedy or sinister intent. Perhaps, the dividing line is a move we made, a job we turned down, a job we took, a marriage proposal we accepted or declined, a missed plane, a canceled doctor's appointment, a lie we told, a lie we believed, a lie we pretend didn't happen.
If it's not clear by now, I loved Quindlen's book, though, unlike her, I am less happy with my life at this point than I was when I was in my 30s. The 30s brought more choices -- in work, in health, in relationships, in the smallest of decisions and in the biggest of adventures. And yet age also has given me more self-confidence, along with a greater ability to understand why good people make mistakes and why we should be inclined to forgive rather than accuse. You see, as we live longer, we are bound to make more and more mistakes, some worse than others. So, we -- I -- can see more clearly than ever how I, too, have so often needed forgiveness.
Unlike the high school senior who didn't get asked to her prom, who was made to believe she was obese at 130, 140 pounds, who felt such irrational guilt she washed her hands over and over and over -- the woman I have become is moderately self-confident, not content but no longer embarrassed by her weight. Now, I can more freely call a supervising editor by a first name instead of Mr. (There weren't many upper-management figures in newsrooms with a Mrs., Ms. or Miss title in the 70s and 80s, and frankly there still aren't.) I now can even express disagreement when I disagree. I will defend myself and rarely apologize unless I believe I am in the wrong or unless I see no other logical recourse: I am pragmatic. And despite the feeling by many younger men and women that it's time for people of my generation, especially women, to quit being ambitious, to step aside and let them replace us, I shall continue working for a better life, a better job, another start if you will -- I'm not quitting and have no intention of doing so.
In many ways I'm braver, more courageous than I was at age 30. In other ways never before expected, I'm more vulnerable than ever, afraid of the unknown, of what lies ahead.
But fears or not, if I live to be 80, 90, 100, I won't go out sitting quietly "in my place." I fully intend to speak up for women's rights and against gender, racial and age discrimination as long as I can -- unless both my verbal and written voices give out on me first.
As Quindlen writes, "To be continued. It's another day, and I'm off and running. See you."
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
It took the death of a beloved horse to make me cry and then to make me understand how nature can help us understand our own lives. Lady, a registered American Saddlebred, was not my horse. She belonged to Cheryl Strayed, the author of Wild, the account of Strayed's hike more than a decade ago along the Pacific Coast Trail and the events that prompted her journey.
Strayed is not a particularly sympathetic narrator, despite the abandonment by her father, the death of her mother from cancer and her own recent divorce. Neither is she an especially credible narrator unless the reader is to believe that a woman who is smart enough to write two books didn't realize that her backpack-luggage was too heavy to carry hundreds of miles on rugged, sometimes dangerous terrain even though she could barely lift it without first sitting down. Nor did she think to pack a hiking stick, though she brought along a stash of condoms -- just in case.
Even so, the links between nature and humanity became obvious to me when Strayed wrote of putting down Lady, her ailing, 31-year-old horse. Because she couldn't afford a veterinarian, Strayed decided to summon her brother Leif to help her shoot the horse. She'd been told that death by gunfire would be instant, painless for Lady. So, Strayed brought Lady out, tied her to a tree and stood by Leif as he followed her instructions and shot the horse "Right between her eyes."
Yet Lady's death was neither sudden nor painless. "She bolted so hard her leather halter snapped into pieces and fell away from her face, and then she stood unmoving, looking at us with a stunned expression," Strayed writes.
So, Leif shot again, firing three more bullets into Lady's head. "She stumbled and jerked, but she didn't fall and she didn't run, though she was no longer tied to the tree. Her eyes were wild upon us, shocked by what we'd done, her face a constellation of bloodless holes."
The pain, the suffering, the sense of betrayal linger until Lady finally dies. But only after Strayed told how Lady looked at Strayed and her brother "with a stunned expression" did I grasp the link between a horse and a person, maybe even myself. Strayed's gentle horse was stunned, not only because of the bullet, but more importantly because the people she had trusted made it happen. To Lady, they had betrayed her.
How many times have we also been hurt, betrayed -- whether physically or mentally -- by people we thought loved us or at least cared for us? Maybe they did love us at least once upon a time; maybe not. If we survive the hurt to deal with those people -- whether friends, colleagues, spouses, others -- then we have our own decisions to make. Do we trust them again? Do we watch our backs as we continue the relationship? Do we act by doing nothing? Or do we take chances, make compromises with our own lives because rarely is anything -- even death, divorce, abandonment -- as simple, clean or clear-cut as we once thought it was, back in the days before betrayal, before we woke up, before it happened. Before. Before. ...
Rarely, are solutions to difficult problems, to betrayals, a clean shoot; a clean, painless, instant end. And maybe non-fiction is that way, too. Maybe the truth just doesn't always add up. Maybe the truth doesn't even always seem credible, even when it is. So, perhaps Strayed is far more credible than I gave her credit for at the start of this review. Maybe just as she was clearly unprepared for some of the rugged terrain of life -- marriage, drugs and death among them -- perhaps that explains why she also was unprepared for nature's challenges on the Pacific Coast Trail.
Strayed is not a particularly sympathetic narrator, despite the abandonment by her father, the death of her mother from cancer and her own recent divorce. Neither is she an especially credible narrator unless the reader is to believe that a woman who is smart enough to write two books didn't realize that her backpack-luggage was too heavy to carry hundreds of miles on rugged, sometimes dangerous terrain even though she could barely lift it without first sitting down. Nor did she think to pack a hiking stick, though she brought along a stash of condoms -- just in case.
Even so, the links between nature and humanity became obvious to me when Strayed wrote of putting down Lady, her ailing, 31-year-old horse. Because she couldn't afford a veterinarian, Strayed decided to summon her brother Leif to help her shoot the horse. She'd been told that death by gunfire would be instant, painless for Lady. So, Strayed brought Lady out, tied her to a tree and stood by Leif as he followed her instructions and shot the horse "Right between her eyes."
Yet Lady's death was neither sudden nor painless. "She bolted so hard her leather halter snapped into pieces and fell away from her face, and then she stood unmoving, looking at us with a stunned expression," Strayed writes.
So, Leif shot again, firing three more bullets into Lady's head. "She stumbled and jerked, but she didn't fall and she didn't run, though she was no longer tied to the tree. Her eyes were wild upon us, shocked by what we'd done, her face a constellation of bloodless holes."
The pain, the suffering, the sense of betrayal linger until Lady finally dies. But only after Strayed told how Lady looked at Strayed and her brother "with a stunned expression" did I grasp the link between a horse and a person, maybe even myself. Strayed's gentle horse was stunned, not only because of the bullet, but more importantly because the people she had trusted made it happen. To Lady, they had betrayed her.
How many times have we also been hurt, betrayed -- whether physically or mentally -- by people we thought loved us or at least cared for us? Maybe they did love us at least once upon a time; maybe not. If we survive the hurt to deal with those people -- whether friends, colleagues, spouses, others -- then we have our own decisions to make. Do we trust them again? Do we watch our backs as we continue the relationship? Do we act by doing nothing? Or do we take chances, make compromises with our own lives because rarely is anything -- even death, divorce, abandonment -- as simple, clean or clear-cut as we once thought it was, back in the days before betrayal, before we woke up, before it happened. Before. Before. ...
Rarely, are solutions to difficult problems, to betrayals, a clean shoot; a clean, painless, instant end. And maybe non-fiction is that way, too. Maybe the truth just doesn't always add up. Maybe the truth doesn't even always seem credible, even when it is. So, perhaps Strayed is far more credible than I gave her credit for at the start of this review. Maybe just as she was clearly unprepared for some of the rugged terrain of life -- marriage, drugs and death among them -- perhaps that explains why she also was unprepared for nature's challenges on the Pacific Coast Trail.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton
Blood, Bones & Butter is not just another book for foodies. Gourmands will enjoy it, but so will almost any reader who likes a good story with offbeat characters. There's not a single recipe in this book whose cover depicts a chicken's head turned upside down -- perhaps reflecting the way life has at times been for author/chef Gabrielle Hamilton, neither predictable nor conventional.
I cannot recall a single paragraph where Hamilton, owner of Manhattan's popular Prune restaurant, waxes eloquently about the taste of green vs. white asparagus, oysters on the half shell or a mirepoix.
What Hamilton does is wax, usually with eloquent writing and often with earthy language, about a life spent learning to survive and even thrive in the kitchen and, more importantly, with her own family and her husband's -- with food somehow almost always at center stage. Her work in the food industry has not always been a pretty job. She writes of almost being arrested once in her low-wage waitress days. She recalls later cleaning up "legions of cockroaches," human excrement, rotten apples and the remains of a dead rat.
Clearly, a chef who will clean up a stranger's excrement rather than delegate that chore to a subordinate is likely not prone to food snobbery. Indeed, Hamilton, who's more akin to Anthony Bourdain than Daniel Boulud, once even mentions how unimpressed she was by a meal at one of New York's most upscale restaurants. Still, food is a big part of Hamilton's story -- her memories of it as child at family meals, her dependence on it to make a living as a young adult and finally her adventure with and love of good food and those around her who also celebrate it and, like her, want to learn more about it.
Hamilton is also nothing but candid about herself. She writes of her strengths; she writes of her weaknesses. She writes of her own indecisiveness. She writes of her lesbian lovers followed by her Italian husband and never fully explains the change in lifestyles, sounding a bit baffled by it herself. The couple have two children but have never lived together.
Hamilton tells her life story almost as if she were talking, without dressing up her language or her actions over the years. The same goes for those who have played major roles, good or bad, in her life. Her parents, who divorced when she was a child, come across as more than a little negligent. Her in-laws, whom she sees once a year in Italy, fare much better despite the lack of demonstrative love between Gabrielle and her husband. I say "demonstrative" because it's clear that Hamilton wants more from her husband, that she wants him to suggest a romantic evening or such even though he is more concerned with getting the latest iPhone.
Because of the first-person narration, the reader sees all of the characters in Hamilton's life through her point of view, an unflinchingly opinionated one at that.
Hamilton is not only a gifted chef but also holds a master of fine arts degree in fiction writing. She is a visual artist as well. Just look at the picture of the bloody asparagus at the front of her book.
Hamilton's memoir is interesting and, for the most part, well-done. At times, though, I found her writing rough and hard to follow -- a bit uneven just as Hamilton's own life has been.
I cannot recall a single paragraph where Hamilton, owner of Manhattan's popular Prune restaurant, waxes eloquently about the taste of green vs. white asparagus, oysters on the half shell or a mirepoix.
What Hamilton does is wax, usually with eloquent writing and often with earthy language, about a life spent learning to survive and even thrive in the kitchen and, more importantly, with her own family and her husband's -- with food somehow almost always at center stage. Her work in the food industry has not always been a pretty job. She writes of almost being arrested once in her low-wage waitress days. She recalls later cleaning up "legions of cockroaches," human excrement, rotten apples and the remains of a dead rat.
Clearly, a chef who will clean up a stranger's excrement rather than delegate that chore to a subordinate is likely not prone to food snobbery. Indeed, Hamilton, who's more akin to Anthony Bourdain than Daniel Boulud, once even mentions how unimpressed she was by a meal at one of New York's most upscale restaurants. Still, food is a big part of Hamilton's story -- her memories of it as child at family meals, her dependence on it to make a living as a young adult and finally her adventure with and love of good food and those around her who also celebrate it and, like her, want to learn more about it.
Hamilton is also nothing but candid about herself. She writes of her strengths; she writes of her weaknesses. She writes of her own indecisiveness. She writes of her lesbian lovers followed by her Italian husband and never fully explains the change in lifestyles, sounding a bit baffled by it herself. The couple have two children but have never lived together.
Hamilton tells her life story almost as if she were talking, without dressing up her language or her actions over the years. The same goes for those who have played major roles, good or bad, in her life. Her parents, who divorced when she was a child, come across as more than a little negligent. Her in-laws, whom she sees once a year in Italy, fare much better despite the lack of demonstrative love between Gabrielle and her husband. I say "demonstrative" because it's clear that Hamilton wants more from her husband, that she wants him to suggest a romantic evening or such even though he is more concerned with getting the latest iPhone.
Because of the first-person narration, the reader sees all of the characters in Hamilton's life through her point of view, an unflinchingly opinionated one at that.
Hamilton is not only a gifted chef but also holds a master of fine arts degree in fiction writing. She is a visual artist as well. Just look at the picture of the bloody asparagus at the front of her book.
Hamilton's memoir is interesting and, for the most part, well-done. At times, though, I found her writing rough and hard to follow -- a bit uneven just as Hamilton's own life has been.
Friday, April 6, 2012
The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje
At 269 pages, Michael Ondaatje's newest novel, The Cat's Table, is reasonably short. As a result, Ondaatje leaves the reader wanting to know more about different characters and plotlines. Isn't that what a good book should do?
So many authors today write what they apparently perceive to be epics and leave no room for a reader's imagination. In 500, 700, 950 pages and more, they share every detail -- past, present and future -- with the reader, leaving little, if anything, to the imagination.
The imagination is what allows intelligent people to disagree at times about parts of a book's plot, to wonder what happens to the characters after the work's final page, to have differing interpretations of an ending.
The imagination is what allows a child to read C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia solely as fantasy. It is what allows that same person, once an adult, to read the same series for biblical themes as well as fantasy. Imagination is what left me grasping for more information, searching the Internet for clues to the meaning of the ending of Audrey Niffenegger's wonderful novel, Her Fearful Symmetry, and to wonder even more about the symbolism, if any, in her adult graphic novel, The Night Bookmobile.
A long book is not necessarily bad anymore than a short one is necessarily good. I've read excellent long books. But I've also read some that could and should have been shorter. I liked Stephen King's 11/22/63, for instance. But I also thought it was excessively long and repetitious. Just as a good reporter is not necessarily a good writer, an author who excels at plot is not necessarily a good writer.
The Cat's Table is not a book I expected to like but ended up thoroughly enjoying. A man named Michael and nicknamed Mynah narrates the story. He recalls a three-week voyage from Sri Lanka to London that he took as an 11-year-old boy along with two other young boys. Aboard the ship, the youngsters were relegated to eat, not at the captain's table, but at the less-desirable "cat's table." While at sea, the youngsters did as many unsupervised little boys might do -- they snooped around, got into trouble and played in places that were off-limits to them -- the ship's upper-class swimming pool, for example.
Along the way, the boys encountered a bizarre group of passengers: a woman who stashed pigeons in her pockets; a botanist; a prisoner escorted in chains; a pretty cousin who sparked Mynah's sexual desires at a time when he likely was entering puberty; a murder at sea; a savvy thief who uses the little boy to crawl through small spaces to steal expensive items from the rooms of first-class guests.
Ondaatje, who also wrote The English Patient, has said he took a similar voyage when he was a lad. Yet, his book includes a disclaimer saying it is not autobiographical. With his own memories for inspiration and his talent for story-telling and writing, Ondaatje has created a book that is believable yet incredible and also restrained. With the last, he has allowed the reader to wonder about his story's unanswered questions and to wish the novel had not ended.
So many authors today write what they apparently perceive to be epics and leave no room for a reader's imagination. In 500, 700, 950 pages and more, they share every detail -- past, present and future -- with the reader, leaving little, if anything, to the imagination.
The imagination is what allows intelligent people to disagree at times about parts of a book's plot, to wonder what happens to the characters after the work's final page, to have differing interpretations of an ending.
The imagination is what allows a child to read C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia solely as fantasy. It is what allows that same person, once an adult, to read the same series for biblical themes as well as fantasy. Imagination is what left me grasping for more information, searching the Internet for clues to the meaning of the ending of Audrey Niffenegger's wonderful novel, Her Fearful Symmetry, and to wonder even more about the symbolism, if any, in her adult graphic novel, The Night Bookmobile.
A long book is not necessarily bad anymore than a short one is necessarily good. I've read excellent long books. But I've also read some that could and should have been shorter. I liked Stephen King's 11/22/63, for instance. But I also thought it was excessively long and repetitious. Just as a good reporter is not necessarily a good writer, an author who excels at plot is not necessarily a good writer.
The Cat's Table is not a book I expected to like but ended up thoroughly enjoying. A man named Michael and nicknamed Mynah narrates the story. He recalls a three-week voyage from Sri Lanka to London that he took as an 11-year-old boy along with two other young boys. Aboard the ship, the youngsters were relegated to eat, not at the captain's table, but at the less-desirable "cat's table." While at sea, the youngsters did as many unsupervised little boys might do -- they snooped around, got into trouble and played in places that were off-limits to them -- the ship's upper-class swimming pool, for example.
Along the way, the boys encountered a bizarre group of passengers: a woman who stashed pigeons in her pockets; a botanist; a prisoner escorted in chains; a pretty cousin who sparked Mynah's sexual desires at a time when he likely was entering puberty; a murder at sea; a savvy thief who uses the little boy to crawl through small spaces to steal expensive items from the rooms of first-class guests.
Ondaatje, who also wrote The English Patient, has said he took a similar voyage when he was a lad. Yet, his book includes a disclaimer saying it is not autobiographical. With his own memories for inspiration and his talent for story-telling and writing, Ondaatje has created a book that is believable yet incredible and also restrained. With the last, he has allowed the reader to wonder about his story's unanswered questions and to wish the novel had not ended.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Coming Up & What I'm Reading Now.....
Now reading: Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, essays by Anna Quindlen, one of my favorite authors.
Coming soon will be thoughts on:
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman.
Messenger of Truth, a Maisie Dobbs mystery.
Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading by NPR's Maureen Corrigan.
Writers on Writing, essays first published in The New York Times.
Soon to read: Room.
And more.
Coming soon will be thoughts on:
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman.
Messenger of Truth, a Maisie Dobbs mystery.
Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading by NPR's Maureen Corrigan.
Writers on Writing, essays first published in The New York Times.
Soon to read: Room.
And more.
A Note to Readers
Books I discuss on this blog often have already been reviewed by many others. So, I tend to offer more personal thoughts about the books I read than traditional reviews. While I generally say whether I like a book and why I feel that way, I often write about what the book meant to me or aspects of writing and life that it brought to mind. I hope you enjoy the entries and offer your own comments as well.
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