Since the majority of story takes place in a graveyard, supernatural beings are essential components.  From the start the reader learns that Nobody Owens or Bod, the protagonist, is brought to the spirits of the graveyard as an infant by his mother, a ghost, after his parents and sister are murdered. The boy has no memory of his old life, thus ghosts, werewolves, witches, and ghouls become his family and teach him a variety of lessons about life, death, and the supernatural world. Gaiman makes the details of what life would be like in a cemetery come alive with special abilities and ideas Bod learns because he has a connection to the lifeless, such as fading and dream walking.  These special powers allow him to navigate the world of the living as he struggles to discover the murderer of his family.

Bod is grateful for his unique way of life and new family in the graveyard, but a few important pieces in his life remain missing. Bod needs to find the man who murdered his parents, or he can never safely leave the protected grounds of the graveyard to lead a normal life. The longer Bod stays away from the living world, forced to learn about it from a distance, the more he craves a place in it. Like any growing boy, he develops a curiosity and need to experience everything the world has to offer. Perhaps, more importantly, he craves human contact. He longs to hear humans breathing. Despite the love he feels for his caretakers, the dead cannot provide the stimulation he desires. Gaiman writes to express Bod’s thoughts and emotions, “In the graveyard, no one ever changed.“(p. 229) Both a blessing and a curse, this concept was helpful to a younger Bod who required stability, but as he grows into young adulthood, he realizes that he needs humans in his life too. The dead will remain stuck in the time period in which they lived and keep only the knowledge they had when they died. But is safe to leave? What will he discover on the outside?

As Bod is given more autonomy, he finds answers to his questions, but he also runs into trouble along the way. His story becomes a thought provoking and multifaceted journey as the worlds of the living and supernatural collide. Like all young people, Bod must come to understand the importance of those older and wiser than he is.  In a fashion difficult to predict, danger ensues and the secrets of his past including the reason he requires the protection of the undead come to light.

The combination of age old themes juxtaposed with new actions and abilities of ghosts, werewolves, and sleers, make for a fascinating reading experience. The older version of the tale paved the way for this new story.  Of course both have merit, and The Jungle Book is a classic, but The Graveyard Book does an exceptional job of conveying the message of alienation a person feels in an unfamiliar environment. Readers, both young and old, will appreciate and enjoy this novel.

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

More information:

Other Gaiman books: The Sandman, Stardust, Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett), Neverwhere, American Gods, and Coraline

Films:

Stardust (2007)

Coraline (2009)

The Graveyard Book (pre-release)

TV Series:

American Gods (2013)

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Cathleen Schine recreates Jane Austen’s beloved novel, Sense and Sensibility, with a modern touch in The Three Weissmann’s of Westport. While Schine’s adaptation of the Austen classic was named a New York Times Book Review Book of the Year, altering the story, characters, time and place of a beloved tale is no easy task.  While some readers appreciate a fresh voice and somewhat different ideas introduced in a new version, others are tied down to their love and appreciation for the formatting, style, and characterization of Austen’s original material.  Although some of Schine’s modernizations of the old text work for today’s audiences, there are limitations to her ability to convey the story, setting, relationships, and satire in a manner comparable to Jane Austen.

Although the story of the Weissmann women, Betty, and her daughters Miranda and Annie, is comparable in many ways to that of Austen’s Dashwood ladies, there are also stark contrasts dividing the two texts. While a reader of Austen’s Sense and Sensibility finds himself or herself absorbed in the personalities, emotions, and experiences of the family, the same cannot be said for the reader of Schine’s version.  The author creates a setting that goes from New York City to a cottage on a beach in Westport Connecticut, where the Weissmann women must live to get by. Yet, despite the potentially interesting background, little action occurs, and the interactions between and among the women and the people they meet don’t leave the pages, leaving the reader disinterested in the outcome of the story. What makes the lack of character development more disconcerting is that a reader who has already experienced the impeccable Austen version of the story: a) expects more from the characters and writing style and b) already knows what is going to happen in the end.

In a lecture famed director, screenwriter, and producer J.J. Abrams gave at TED, he discussed the concept of the “mystery box,” which he considers essential to keeping an audience enthralled in any great piece of film or writing. Some famous examples he gave were the audience never seeing the shark in Jaws or the alien in the Alien series; when the mystery is gone, so is the excitement and the wonder.  When I read The Three Weissmann’s of Westport, I thought of the “magic box,” because one of the most essential components of the original story Schine altered was the role of the father figure in the lives of the women. In Sense and Sensibility, Mr. Dashwood passes away, leaving the women in his life with no inheritance. But, in The Three Weissmann’s, Joseph Weissmann has not died; he has decided to divorce Betty. There is always a lingering sense that he will restore their relationship and financial status; therefore, there is no mystery as to how the women’s crisis will be resolved. Altering this piece of the story makes it unnecessary for the daughters to develop any significant relationships of their own to help solve the major family concern.

In conclusion, the book is predictable and uneventful. For those who have not read Austen’s work first, the reaction might be different.  However, if one had read Sense and Sensibility, there should be no reason to choose The Three Weissmann’s of Westport as a first choice.

Final Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars

For more information:

Watch J.J. Abrams “The Mystery Box” Lecture it is AMAZING!

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Due to the unique design, exceptional prose and verse, and ability to incite analysis, deep thought and a level of complexity with the possibility to cause utter confusion among average readers, Pale Fire succeeds in affirming Nabokov’s status as one of the most exceptional writers of the twentieth century.  The text is divided into three segments of alternate genres that are generally unexpected in a work of fiction. The first, a sort of biography, explains the relationship between the story’s narrator and famed professor and poet, Dr. John Shade. What follows is a poem, written by the famous poet in the month before his death; it is moving, profound, and has the ability to elicit strong emotions of empathy and sadness in readers. The content surprises and captivates the reader to learn more about the stories being communicated and the influence of non-fiction on the author’s creation.   The final part of the text resolves the some of the mystery behind the poem’s contents. It is an extensive list of commentary and explanations about the poem that are presented in the form of footnotes or supplementary material. Through out the text, the reader want to know: What concepts are based in fiction versus those relating to real-life experiences of the author? Additionally how does one adjust to such an unconventional format?

Beginning the reading, without first examining the history and reception of the work, I was admittedly confused about the techniques Nabokov employs as author of the text. This is because he communicates text from several different viewpoint. The most prominent is via the narrator regarding his opinions and intentions for the text. Still, the more I read the poetry, said to have been composed by the elderly Professor Shade, I realized that this too was the work of Nabokov, posing as another character. The verse was so emotional in its revealing of the most pleasant and painful aspects of the poet’s existence, I was actually moved to tears. But who is intended to take credit for the creation the art, Shade or Nabokov?

He writes about the special qualities of his marriage and the love he still feels for his wife after years of life together:

“And I love you most

When with a pensive nod you greet her ghost

And hold her fist to on your palm, or look

At a postcard from her, found in a book. (43)”

The poet in the text also discusses existential questions he has pondered all his life and the impact of his young daughter disappearing one day. Regarding this experience, he discloses that while others attributed the disappearance to crime or bad luck, both mother and father knew their daughter took her own life. (50)”

After the last line of the poem is complete, the reader feels satisfied in this choice of reading material.  But what follows is a bit more disconcerting.  While admiration is due for the innovation, creativity, and genius of the author exploring new options in the world of fiction, segment three, which contains the footnotes to the poem, lacks the same emotion, clarity, and cohesiveness as the first two segments. I expected more historical background about the author of the poem,such as why he chose to discuss certain aspects in a poem written only days before his death; but, the lines highlighted and explanations given are hard to understand in the context of the poem. Nabokov creates fictive worlds, new countries and rulers.  For example, there are claims that Shade referenced “the crystal land of Zembla, (74)” in one line. Yet, while reading Shade’s poems no mention of Nabokov’s countries “Zembla or Sosed, (75)” occurs. For this reason, there appears to be a different message intended for segments two (poetry) and three (annotation). There is a pervading sense that occurs ans sometimes overwhelms a person reading due to misinterpretation or misunderstanding of Nabokov’s intentions. Still, the innovation and brilliance of much of the text makes it a must read.

While one reader may prefer a certain segment over another, I attest that the poetry makes the rest come together in an artistic and creative fashion, others may like the challenge of interpreting annotations made by Nabokov under the guise of his narrator, Charles Kinbote. For those who enjoy classic, Russian, or any untraditional works, Pale Fire delivers many worthy components.

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Interested in Nabokov’s Life?  Check out the Pulitzer Prize Winning Biography of the author, his inspiration, guidance,  his wife Vera.:

Schiff, Stacy.  Vera: The Wife of Vladimir Nabokov. Modern Library. ISBN: 0375755349

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30 Day Book Challenge: Book from My Favorite Author

Gabriel Garcia Marquez captures the beautiful, eccentric, and capricious nature of love in Memories of My Melancholy Whores.  By conveying the love story from the perspective of a strange and lonely old man who never truly feels love until the age of ninety, Marquez asks the reader to pose the age-old question: what exactly is love?

The narrator is a disturbing and incredibly sad figure.  In order to replace the loss of his parents, lack of friends, and most importantly, the absence of romance or love, he has spent his life paying for sex.  He refers to his need for touch versus companionship with Rosa Cabarcas’ whores as a substitution for what is missing in his life.  He says, “Sex is the consolation you have when you can’t have love (69).”  A writer and hermit, the man spends his days lying in a hammock in his mother’s old house and contributing articles to the paper he’s worked for his entire life.  Although his editor and readers take interest in the life of a man who has lived so long by requesting articles regarding his wisdom and experiences, he makes the reader wonder what exactly constitutes a full life.

At first, when the old man goes to Rosa Cabarcas after staying away for several years , and attempts to find comfort in the arms of young girl, a virgin, the reader views him as a sort of sexual predator. The man is thought to overstep his bounds in wanting to deflower, and, in the eyes of many, violate a child. After all, no girl could want to sleep with a wrinkly and eerie old creature.  But, when he spends his first night and many afterward with the 16-year-old Delagadina only to watch her sleep, find comfort in one-sided conversation, and bring her gifts of jewelry and paintings which once belonged to his mother, his intentions gain integrity.  Through his very real emotions, thoughts, and actions, an odd beauty and legitimacy develops in his declarations of love, which at first, seem more like lust or perversion.

In conveying the story from the first-person perspective, Marquez slowly unfolds for the reader, a man who is not merely using a young girl for pleasure, but a person who has lived his life in isolation and lacks human affection.  When the man finally finds a connection, a feeling of intimacy most people are lucky enough to experience in youth, as a nonagenarian, the reader must acknowledge the possibility of truth and beauty may be found in the strangest places and times.

The power of love is limitless and does not fit neatly into a box that most humans recognize.  Marquez takes a man in his final year of life, a female pimp, and a helpless virgin, to mold a familiar notion into something unique and refreshing.  The reader goes from harsh judgment to acceptance that love transforms people, regardless of the conditions under which it comes into existence. When the narrator expresses the revelation, “I became aware the invincible power that has moved the world is unrequited, not happy, love,“  there is no doubting his accuracy (65).  The concept and significance of emotion, reverence, and dedication being different for each individual is mind-opening and altering. We come to ask ourselves if tangibility makes for more validity than abstraction, and answer with certainty: no.  What may not be real to others could not be truer for the narrator, and this makes for a compelling first and final love in his life.

Final Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

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30 Day Book Challenge: Favorite Non-Fiction Book

For most people with even the slightest interest in ancient history, Cleopatra is a fascinating example of a queen and seductress.  Most of what we know or believe we know today about Cleopatra, her life, struggles, and associations with other famous figures has changed dramatically over the course of two thousand years.  Stacy Schiff has developed a marvel of research and historical analysis in Cleopatra: A Life.  Although the text is non-fiction, it often times reads like prose, keeping the reader in a trance about various subjects relating to the life of the ancient queen.  In tracing the history, actors, and culture of much of the known ancient world, Schiff colorfully provides a picture akin to a painting or film of how Cleopatra lived, her education, finances, ambition, private life with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, and her political maneuvers.  Through this account, factors and ideas known to few, still today, are brought forth, and in the process a new version of Cleopatra lives for the masses.

From the start Schiff, a Pulitzer Prize Winning biographer,  begins her account of Cleopatra by recreating the scenes of her life with perfect detail and grace.  The reader soon comes to realize Schiff’s intentions for conveying her account of the life of one of the most famous and disputed women in history-she intends to show that there was much more to being the richest and most famous women of the ancient world than being, “a carnal sinner, (321)” as Dante would later refer to her.  Knowing that Cleopatra was privileged to receive the best education possible at the time, that she was educated in rhetoric, science, mathematics, and spoke nine languages, artfully constructs imagry of an extremely intelligent women.  In Schiff’s astute estimation, “Cleopatra unsettles more as a sage than as a seductress; it is less threatening to believe her fatally attractive than fatally intelligent (320).”  With this line of thinking, the reader is introduced to a woman who is, perhaps, the opposite of later interpretations by Shakespeare and in film.

Although Schiff points out that much of Cleopatra’s story still remains enigmatic, she provides insight into the lives of similar Egyptian kings and queens, educated Greeks, and Roman politics, in order to make educated guesses about her life and events that take place in it.  Despite impeccable factual historical knowledge on the part of Schiff, much of this biography is still filled with vague evidence from sources such as the Bible about the lives of others assumed to mirror Cleopatra’s, where written records, specifically about the queen are lacking.  What is more, many of the sources are from Roman enemies of Cleopatra, and are written years after the incidents took place in other regions of the world. Schiff points out, “For a woman who was to celebrated for her masterly manipulation of Rome, Cleopatra’s story would be entrusted primarily to that city’s historians; she effectively ceases to exist without a Roman in the room (142).”  Indeed, writers who lived in Rome and Greece such as Plutarch and Cicero are referred to on numerous occasions for evidence of Cleopatra’s whereabouts, motives, and faults.  Yet, due to a superlative writing style many “facts,” which may indeed possess wrongly interpreted or even fictive qualities are acceptable and fitting.

The reader is pulled deeply into the imagined world of Cleopatra, Caesar, Mark Antony, and her enemies in Rome and the East such as Octavian and Herod.  Explanations about the cultures, actions, and personalities of each historical character make clear ideas that are formerly unfamiliar most people.  That both Caesar and Antony depended upon her riches and political power to support their campaigns for military greatness, she has gone down in history as the 22^nd richest person to ever live (105), makes her relationships with each less about sex and more about strategy and necessity.

The combination of testaments to Cleopatra’s history having been mythologized and altered each year after her death does not rewrite history or change some of what chroniclers of her life and times implied to be true.  History is written by the victors, and in the end, Cleopatra lost everything to Rome.  Still, with this biography, Schiff has created other possibilities for a woman time cannot forget.

Final Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

More information:

Books of the Times: The Woman Who Had Enthralled

Cleopatra: A Scientist, Not Seductress?

Film: Cleopatra (1963)

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30 Day Book Challenge: Book That Made Me Laugh Out Loud

With the creation of Major Pettigrew, his attitudes toward people, the small British village he resides in, and the reflections he makes, Helen Simonson devises a captivating tale.  As opposed to many great stories, the life and experiences of the retired Major Ernest Pettigrew is not overly exciting, one might argue that reading this novel is a slow process.  This does not reflect negatively on the author nor the text.  The development of a story involving the day-to-day routine of a man in his seventies might be argued to be written at a turtle’s pace to fully communicate the emotion and experiences viewed through the aged and wise eyes of an older figure.

It isn’t the plot that makes this novel exceptional, but the thorough examination of thoughts and feelings of characters that contribute to its success.  The blatant honesty, negativity, and selfishness with which Major Pettirgrew lives and observes the actions of others attach the reader to the character almost immediately. From his difficult relationship with his even more selfish son to an obsession over a Churchill rifle he is meant to inherit from his brother Bertie, upon his death, every moment, thought, and action is meant to make a readeranalyze and laugh at the same time.

Major Pettigrew is the prime example of what many readers might expect of an older English gentlemen.  There is not much that doesn’t offend or anger him and his inabiltiy the accept change is a familiar concept. He comments on one occasion about Lord Dagenham, a man he looks up to only because of his family, title, and money, “It was appalling to see a good man so trapped by ignorance and bad-mannered (81).” One of the better aspects of the text is the Major’s hypocrisy, as he criticizes without wanting to be criticized in return. Some might argue arrogant attitudes about the superiority of England, the countryside, class, tradition, and living without modernity allow the Major to fit perfectly in a village he slowly realizes is far from perfect.  It takes meeting and taking a liking to Mrs.Ali, a shopkeeper of Pakistani decent, to put him in his place.

In using an experienced man set in his ways as narrator and protagonist, Simonson is able to provide a magnifying glass for readers to view everyday occurances people don’t always consider that have a large impact on the state of the world, a small village, and a single man.  The village of Edgecombe St. Mary comes to signify the injustices and intolerances people sometimes ignore or live with by being passed up at the golf club due to income, class, or race. For example, members of the club wish to ask for favors and the attendance of people of Indian descent only when a dance is being held.  These older English ladies and gentlemen will allow Indians at their club for entertainment purposes, but allowing even an intelligent and wealthy doctor into the club is not even considered. The Major discovers he is most hurt and gossiped about for his relationship with Mrs.Ali by close friends and family members, the people who are supposed to be most loyal.

Simonson uses sarcasm and dramatic irony to draw readers in.  The more the Major associates with Mrs. Ali, and is able to observe how someone of a different culture and class is treated, it is pointed out by his own son Roger that she is a shopkeeper, he sees she is viewed negatively and treated unjustly. In viewing his world from the perspective of Mrs.Ali, the Major sees what is wrong with his old ways of thinking and insistance on keeping things the same. Since the reader comes to expect certain cynicism and reaction from the Major in regards to interactions with his family and oldest aquaintances, a level of dramatic irony exists. When a person chews too loudly or wears the wrong clothing, he is “horrified.” The question is will he allow himself to change completely for love?

The quirkiness and charm brought to light by a naive and decent man make this novel shine.  From the first chapter to the last, the characterizations and interactions are stunningly real- both happy and sad.  It is because the text conveys emotions, thoughts, and experiences so well that the reader finds it endearing.  Simonson truly knows how to peel the layers off of our deepest thoughts and display them for the world to read.

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

More information:

Interview with Simonson on youtube

Book Club Discussion Questions

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John Green’s  first novel, Looking for Alaska, is an inspiring coming of age tale, which follows in the tradition of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and A Separate Peace by John Knowles.  Each word jumps off the page and into the hearts and minds of readers.  The struggles of long and lanky Miles Halter, his rebellious roommate Chip, and the beautiful and bright Alaska Young are divided into two categories: 1. normal teenage issues from peers to teachers and grades 2. life’s most difficult existential mysteries involving man’s search for meaning, love, and death.

Miles arrives at the private boarding school his father attended before him, Culver Creek, in search of “the Great Perhaps.”  An avid reader of biographies, Miles is drawn to people’s last words, and he is convinced last words supply a picture of another person’s life and struggles.  The most memorable line in Miles’ memory bank contains the last words of Francois Rabelais: “I go to seek the Great Perhaps (5).” Similar to other literary figures before him, Miles is compelled to search for the truth about life.  When he meets the girl he falls in love with, Alaska, she has piles of books scattered among the other possessions in her dorm room.   She calls them her “Life’s Library.”  Alaska’s favorite text, written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, is also based on non-fiction, The General in His Labyrinth.  Alaska shares her belief that Simon Bolivar’s last words, “How will I ever get out of this labyrinth (19),” refer to inevitable human suffering.

Although the young people spend much of their time rebelling against authority, especially the Dean of Students, whom they refer to as “The Eagle,” they are also intelligent and reflective.  What at first seems like teenage angst being let loose on alcohol and cigarettes, soon becomes a coping mechanism for the issues the characters have no capacity to understand or deal with.  Alaska and Chip are poor scholarship students who don’t fit in with the privileged “Weekday Warriors” who return home to mansions in Birmingham each weekend.  What’s more they have both lost a parental figure, Chip as a result of abuse and divorce and Alaska as a result of her mother’s brain aneurysm and death when she was eight.

Green divides the novel into two portions: Before and After.  As the countdown to an enigmatic incident approaches, the reader expects the Prank to be the end of the countdown, while secretly hoping for something more.  The Prank, which may get them expelled, and is certain to have an impact, is designed by Alaska and Chip.  It is a method of retaliation not only against the rich kids who torment them, but also against sadness and intolerance.  This plan becomes a distraction for the main event or climax of the novel.

The author strategically interweaves an exam question that is posed by ‘the Old Man’, Dr. Hyde, in religious studies class with Miles and Alaska’s analyses regarding life: “What is the most important question a human being must answer.  Choose your question wisely, and then examine how Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity attempt to answer it (54).” Thus, the manner a group of high school students will use to decipher one of life’s most challenging questions becomes the most important aspect of the text.

Green surprises his readers with a response to the questions that plague his young characters.  Just as Miles thinks he sees the light at the end of the tunnel, Alaska disappears one night, and is killed instantly in a car crash.  In a manner that is familiar to readers both young and old, the author provides a disturbing and warranted reaction among Alaska’s friends who are left behind to grieve her loss.  The series of emotions and thoughts vexing Miles and Chip cause the reader to empathize and recall similar overwhelming instances.  They experience memories of joy with a girl gone too soon, guilt about letting her drive to her death, anger that she was reckless, and fear that Alaska is lost forever.

As the boys search for and uncover reasons why Alaska drove off drunk and angry to her death, they only find more unsolvable puzzles.  For Miles, the dreams and adventures he sought with the girl, his idea of “the Great Perhaps,” died along with Alaska.  He recalls, “Now she was gone and with her my faith in Perhaps (172).” In Dr. Hyde’s final exam, the students are asked another question, and this time it is about perseverance:  “What is your cause for hope (216)?”  In considering the most difficult questions and emotions a person faces in life, Miles decides that maybe he can continue on without Alaska, if in times of darkness, he forgives her.  He knows she forgives him, and that has to be enough.

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

For more information:

John Green’s other novels:  An Abundance of Katherines (2006),Paper Towns (2008), Will Grayson, Will Grayson (2011), The Fault in Our Stars (2012)

johngreenbooks.com

30 Book Challenge: Book I Liked Least

I truly wanted to like this book.  From its award winning status to the spiritually tormented and enigmatic characters, it delivers many of the aspects I seek in a novel.  When I read on wikpedia.com that J.J. Abrams bought the rights for a film adaptation, I was even more disappointed.  I LOVE J.J. Abrams, how could I not like this book.  Still, even the best and most respected authors write novels a person might not cannot with sometimes. The writing style wasn’t for me and try as I might I couldn’t really relate to the characters.

Review:

The story begins with a captivating scene- the entire city of Manhattan stops their morning commute to work, breakfast, school-to gaze toward the sky.  A man- no one can be certain who he is, what exactly he is doing, or why-stands atop a skyscraper on the brink of death.  Is he attempting suicide or toying with fate for an adrenaline rush?  McCann has succeeded in pulling the reader in; I want to know more.

The nameless man fades into the background and characters with faces, lives, and sad stories begin to surface, one after the other.  What begins as a mystery turns into a somewhat enthralling history of two Irish brothers: Corrigan and Ciaran.  The eldest, Corrigan, has a devout commitment to some spirituality entity, and he makes his way to New York City circa the 1960’s where he does his best to live a ‘pure’ life.  McCann depicts the Bronx ghetto Corrigan inhabits and the world of the prostitutes he helps survive the streets in perfect detail.  The dichotomy of reasons for Corrigan living among prostitutes, drug addicts, and the poverty stricken is true to life, moving and compelling.  In part his motivation is charity, but his brother knows that lack of self- control also plays a key role.  Just as Corrigan begins to realize his life as a holy man may not be what he is meant for, and the reader becomes invested in his fall from grace as he he falls head over heels in love, he is killed in a car crash.

It takes an effort to become attached to the characters and story lines (for this reader anyway).  Since the stories move so quickly and evolve without reason, the over-all concept of the work isn’t conveyed as fluidly as in other award winning novels.  When Corrigan and his women finally began to grow on this reader, I was sad to see them depart.  This retreat is not compensated with the arrival new ideas that provide meaning or growth to rival what had passed. With their exit came the arrival of a less likable crowd, the couple who crashed into Corrigan’s van, killing him.  The scene is eventful, yet somehow manages to remain mediocre.  The pair of cokeheads, Blaine and his wife, are high while driver, Blaine, runs his 1920’s vintage Buick into Corrigan’s van.  Next, they decide to run away from the scene of the crime.  It isn’t until the wife, who narrates her side of the story in the text, returns to make amends, meeting a grieving Ciaran that the reader begins to warm to her.  This, of course, is when she makes her exit.

As in the book a make a complete shift from one topic, and setting to another: Thus, it is back to the scene of the man on the top of the Manhattan skyline: Who is he?  After a strange conversation among unknowns (why would the reader want to know where the dialogue is coming from?) about the man’s activities-he’s walking a tight-rope, balancing, lying down, about to reach the other building.  Cut back to another series of unfamiliar events and characters.

I really do not like the feeling I get from reading a book and not knowing what is going on.  In Let the Great World Spin, each new chapter, seems to begin an entirely new story.  I read the first 200 pages trying to connect the dots, and in some cases, as in that of the Corrigan’s (the last name of the two brothers) and the couple who killed them in the car crash, paths do cross.  However, in the second 100 pages, I could make no such connections.  Characters, plot, formatting, interweaving, what?

This is a National Book Award winning text, so obviously many knowledgeable individuals find merit in it.  Perhaps if I had kept reading I would have understood the point of so many different characters and stories.  I am confident there was a method to the madness.  I hope one of the many faces to make an appearance in the novel, perhaps Ciaran or Blaine, was the man walking the wire? I admit part of me wishes I had continued reading, if only to find out what the author intended for odd man.

Everyone has books that aren’t for them.  I feel comfortable once character, setting, plot, and mood are established.  For this reason, stream of consciousness drives me batty.  In a way all the switching of plot and setting reminded me of it.  I considered that all the movement from place to place and person to person was an intentional literary device to keep the reader intrigued.  Still, with each adaptation from the original plot line I had acclimated myself to, I pulled further away from my reading.  This text made me feel uncomfortable, and- I’ll admit – stupid for not knowing what the author’s intentions were.

If anyone else had other incites, please let me know!

Final Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars

For more information:

colummccann.com

guardian.com: McCann wins IMPAC Dublin Prize 2011

newyorktimes.com: Significant Little Moments Pulled from Obscurity

image by heidikurp on flickr.com

30 Book Challenge: Book That Changed My Life, Book that is Most Like Your Life:

I agree with fellow blogger Beverly Penn on this one: all books have some impact, whether great or small. However, Mary Karr truly touched me with her honest and funny story. I completely related to her small-town roots contrasting with attempts to be smarter, more capable, richer-anything but the person she had grown up to be.

I was laughed, cried, empathized, questioned, and was inspired. I saw that a person with experiences so similar to my own had benefited from placing together the broken pieces of a life she felt was in shambles.  True, no one may care or want to read it. But even if it’s just for therapy, Karr’s memoir inspired me to write one of my own. That is some powerful stuff!

Review:

Mary Karr writes an impeccably gritty an familiar memoir about growing up, family_,academia, marriage, addiction, friends, tumultuous relations with her mother and personal growth as a follow up to her previous successes, The Liar’s Club (1995) and Cherry (2000) with Lit (2009).  She starts with an apology to her son for her mistakes as a mother, while at the same time mentioning that by watching an old tape of his grandmother’s antics, she is certain he is on the verge of understanding her. Now, with this memoir, she hopes to provide him the full package, an explanation, or at least a regrettable timeline of her missteps. In recalling her darkest days, thoughts, and relationships, Karr exposes to the world what few, even in the form of a memoir are willing to show.  There is a blatant and unapologetic honesty regarding much of her past and background that is necessary to complete such a daunting task.  At the same time, she admits just how difficult it is for her to acknowledge her own role in the problems she faces- it’s easier to blame luck, parental influence, and the privileged rich society surrounding her at all turns. It isn’t until she turns into a helpless drunk, like the mother she never wanted to become, with no hope or pride remaining, that she decides to allow others to help before all is lost.

There are several reasons Karr composes an excellent memoir. One of the most key aspects of her authority as a writer comes from her lack of inhibition. For instance, she begins recalling her troubles as she lies -on the verge- of passing out- smack on the floor in the apartment she shares with her husband, Warren, and their toddler, Dev.  A list of her on-going current issues follows.  Despite the seriousness of the scene, as with many others in the text, Karr allows humor to shine through the pain of the memory, commenting on the noise from ‘the landlords, The Loud family…Double- dog damn them(8).’ Included in the rant on the issues which have lead her to her current state, ‘Problem four-minor but ongoing-I’m just a smidge further in the bag tonight than I’d planned on (9).’ While Karr does sometimes reflect that she feels shame and guilt while the actions and emotions in the text take place, she writes without leaving anything to the reader’s imagination.  It is obvious; then, that painful though it may be to reveal her most shocking secrets to the world, it is necessary and even therapeutic.

There are moments when thoughts all people have at some time in their life come to the surface.  They are intimate details one thinks but never considers revealing.  Most of these minor details with large meaning are exposed in discussion about her relationship with Warren.  Her willingness to admit what so many others will not: that Warren turns away just when she begins a sexual fantasy that might bring them closer.  She answers what the reader might want to ask a close friend face-to-face, something Karr must have asked herself a million times: How could Warren not know about her alcoholism? She writes, ‘How did Warren miss all this? Maybe he conks out, or maybe I’m a sneaky bitch (205).’ Karr works hard for several years to come clean for herself, her son, and others in her life working to keep her sober and sane. Always in the back of her mind is the nagging notion-she must become something, someone relevant.

A large part of her problem stems from not being able to let go of anger and resentment about her family, the past, and where she comes from.  Surrounded by Ivy Leaguers and esteemed writers she would give just about anything to become, her life in Cambridge only makes her feel more inadequate than she did living in Texas with her alcoholic parents. In Leechfield, she always knew she could not stay and did not belong. In Lit, Karr admits there is much she doesn’t know, but one thing she can use to her advantage is her knowledge of literature.  The more she learns and grows academically, the more she believes she can earn the right to surround herself with those born into the privilege much like her husband with family money, Warren Whitbread.

Using famous quotations from literature and verse, Karr traces her life’s journey through her struggles to the place she currently resides: a place of at least, a bit more peace and sobriety than where she began.  Indicating her alienation from her place of birth and lack of direction, the memoir, not mistakenly entitled Lit, begins with a passage from Homer’s “The Odyssey,” it reads: Passage Home? Never.  Yet through her poetic words and vivid story-telling, Karr makes it known she is a fighter and maybe she can find a piece of home in her heart at last. Despite her mother’s erratic; and, yes, some might venture to insert the word crazy here, behavior, and Karr’s tendency toward making poor decisions, when Karr hits rock bottom she finds one path for redemption.

Her only way out? As suggested by friends and acquaintances in her addiction group meetings, the only certain way to remain in recovery is to find a higher power. Don’t think spit-fire Karr didn’t argue that point for years, but eventually the most desperate will try anything. A fellow counselor explained to her, ‘We often strap on the God mask of whoever hurt us as children.  If you’ve been neglected, God seems cold; if you’ve been bullied, He’s a tyrant.  If you’re filled with self-hatred, then God is a monster-making inventor (368).’ Finally Mary could find a way to accept that her own issues were getting in the way of accepting a higher power-any form of spiritual energy. She needed to take responsibility for her own life.

Each chapter heading includes a literary quotation that has influenced Karr’s path through life. Her last chapter begins with a line from “Paradise Lost” by John Milton: ‘Which way I flie is Hell; my self am Hell.’ This isn’t just a way for her to live her life. The way of acceptance she has come to find by letting go of her anger and realizing she makes her own hell is a way for others to see they make their own heaven or hell in this life as well.

Final Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

Mary Karr also writes award winning poetry: List of her titles on goodreads

Abacus (1987), The Devil’s Tour (1993), Viper Rum (1998), and Sinners Welcome (2006)

The Art of Memoir: Paris Review Interview with Karr

NPR Books interview with Karr, except from Lit included

30 Day Book Challenge: Book Most Like Your Life

The 2003 Scribner edition of Tender is the Night mentions the friend and contemporary of Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway once noted of this novel, “It is amazing how excellent much of it is.” This statement could not be truer.  In devising a modernist classic, which reflects the life the author lived with his wife Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald in Europe as an expatriate, the novel shines in all aspects of elements that combine to create a masterpiece in fiction: plot, setting, characterization, conflict, and organization, all executed with precision.  The tale focuses on Dick and Nicole Diver, who are said to be semi-autobiographical  portrayals of the Fitzgeralds.  Other characters, such as teenage actress Rosemary Speers, Mary Abrams, Frenchman Tommy Barban, socialite Mrs. Mickisco, and psychiatrist Dr. Dohmler  play supporting roles in the drama that unfolds.

At the onset of the story, in part one, Fitzgerald introduces the reader to a bright and sunny beachside hotel in the South of France.  Down the road from Dick and Nicole’s extravagant seaside home is also where Rosemary encounters, and ‘falls in love with’, the husband and wife pair. Both Dick and Nicole are magnetic, attractive, rich, and well-liked by everyone they meet.  It doesn’t matter that neither of them have careers, or that they spend all of their time traversing France, Spain, Switzerland, living in hotels, frequenting cafes, and throwing parities-this is their life because it can be.  No one questions them.  Dick, especially, convinces people that his way is the correct way.

Fitzgerald makes the persons he depicts so convincing, that even his readers have the notion that they cannot argue with the personalities or emotions he describes.  The author has insight into human interactions that readers may not have realized exist.  In observing Dick’s thought processes, the narrator writes, “When the subject of Mr. Denby fell on its own weight, he essayed equally irrelative themes, but each time the very deference of Dick’s attention seemed to paralyze him, and after a moment’s stark pause, the conversation that he had interrupted would go on without him (33).”  Not only is this observation something most people would not make, it completely encapsulates Dick’s experiences.  It also foreshadows part two of the text, when the reader realizes Dick’s discontentedness with his life.  He is not using his intelligence to feel fulfilled.

Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald

By part two of the text,which is a flash back, a completely new side to the story unfolds.  A serious issue briefly broached about Nicole’s situation is brought to light. The reader soon finds that Dick, a young and successful psychiatrist, a met the wealthy, schizophrenic, and previsouly sexually abused, Nicole, while she was a patient at a hospital for the mentally ill. What appears as a loving and functional marriage to outsiders years later, began as a request by Dick’s fellow doctors for Dick to do everything he could to keep Nicole stable and happy.  For her part, Nicole knew then, and as the marriage progressed, that Dick felt a dependency toward keeping her healthy.

In pairing this couple together the author makes both a likely and unlikely match.  Both people need to be loved and need to be cared for, both have addictive personalities and need to feel in control, both are exceedingly intelligent, yet constantly make unintelligent decisions,  and both want to save the other, but cannot save themselves.  Still, some things will always divide them.  The more Nicole’s health improves and the less she relies on Dick for support, and things fall apart for them as a couple.

The story is not just one of a couple’s rise and fall. It captures the larger image the Lost Generation in Europe, where people seek fulfillment they may never find.  Similar to the ideas Woody Allen executes in Midnight in Paris, the novel poses the question: What is it people live for?  As Nicole leaves Dick for Tommy Barban, and he moves back to the United States, the reader gets a sense there will never be an answer.

F. Scott Fitzgerald begins the novel with a line from Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale.” The meaning of the novel’s title and introduction can only be fully realized until after one has read the novel.  Keats wrote,

Nightingale

“Already with thee! tender is the night…

…But there is no light,

Save what from haven is with the breezes blown

Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.”

There is no better way to summarize the sad end of a man like Dick Diver, who despite the magnetism, beauty, intelligence, good intentions, and togetherness of his youth, became analogous to Keats’ nightingale in his older years.  He inevitably became jaded, unlikable, unable to save himself or his wife, could no longer impress or influence others, his addiction got the better of him, he lost his family, and his goals of being a successful doctor never came true.  Sadly, like all birds, his wings eventually failed him.

All humans want what they can’t have.  Dick Diver wanted to save Nicole and live happily ever after, even though he knew deep down this was not possible.  Dick could never be satisfied…is anyone?  It may be pessimistic, but Keats said it beast, “There is no light.”

For more information:

Read Tender is the Night  free On Project Gutenberg

Others Works By F. Scott Fitzgerald: This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and the Damned, The Great Gatsby, The Last Tycoon

F. Scott Fitzgerald Biography on Biography.com

Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald Zeldafitzgerald.com

Watch Tender is the Night 1962 film

Tender is the Night 1985 TV Mini Series

-Mikhail Bulgakov, The White Guard

Caitlin Smith is very dependent on her school counselor Mrs. Brook; she sees her every day for lessons in socials skills, behavior regulation, and perhaps most importantly, she is a mediator between Caitlin and her Dad.  The family lost the most special person in their lives to a school shooting, Caitlin’s older brother Devon.  To make matters even worse, Caitlin’s mother died of cancer two years before.  So, when Caitlin asks Mrs. Brook where exactly she can find closure, as if she can pick it up somewhere, her counselor knows what the young girl does not, that Caitlin must first be able to distinguish the tangible from the intangible in order to grasp the concept and process her brother’s passing.  But, once Caitlin decides she needs to find closure, due to repetitive instincts which are driven by stressors triggered by her disorder, she cannot stop thinking about the word and what it means to her.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Brook attempts to teach Caitlin how to empathize with others and explain to her how her father feels about the loss of Devon. Caitlin’s dad has shut her out of his life, because she is not able to express her emotions in the same ways he does, or understand how a neurotypical person grieves after such a terrible loss.  Now that Caitlin has lost  most of her family and her father is having difficulty with his own emotions and raising Caitlin, she relies on Mrs. Brook to show her how her father wants her to act. Since Devon was so accepting of Caitlin and helped her deal with the loss of their mother, Caitlin’s way of handling his death is to pretend he is still around. Her dad is not comfortable with this approach, but when Caitlin attempts to modify her behavior by referring to her brother as “Devon-who -is dead,” to suit him, he becomes more saddened and angry with her. Caitlin doesn’t mean to be offensive or hurtful, in fact she is changing her behavior, to try and help her father.  But, she can’t stop focusing on how she can find closure for her family.

Ever since Devon died, his Eagle Scout chest has been sitting unfinished in his bedroom with a sheet covering it. Caitlin’s dad doesn’t want to talk or hear about Devon. But, because Caitlin has Asperger’s and her needs entail never giving up on a subject she is passionate about, her dad is forced to get past the pain, which otherwise might have taken him years to overcome and finish work with Caitlin on Devon’s chest with Caitlin.  It is clear that Caitlin and her dad are able to work their way through a dark time in their lives, partially due to Caitlin’s distinctiveness, which leads her to focus on closure above all else when others might have waited and grieved a long time before taking action.

Caitlin spends a large majority of her young life working with adults to develop abilities which will help her function according to standards considered normal or neurotypical in society.  As her character develops, she is viewed less in regards to how well she is able to adjust her behaviors in accordance to the way those around her think and act.  There comes a point when one wonders if she will begin to lose part of her originality and sense-of-self in the midst of it all.  But, by the end of the story, Caitlin’s problems are merely a portion of the larger picture, showing the reader that a person with her disorder does not have to let it control his or her existence.

Final Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

For more information:

DSM-IV (diagnostic critiera) for Asperger’s

Publisher’s Weekly Interview with Erskine

National Book Foundation, 2010 National Book Award Speech

More reading:

For Young Adults:

The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-time by Mark Haddon

Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork

Mindblind by Jennifer Roy

For Adults:

Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s by John Elder Robison

Thinking in Pictures: And Other Reports From My Life With Autism by Temple Grandin and Film(2010)

Resources:

Temple Grandin Autism Official Website

Asperger Syndrome and Adolescence: Helping Preteens and Teens Get Ready for the Real World by Teresa Bolick

In the second part of the novel, the perspective changes from first to third person, thus making Maria’s story more enigmatic and debatable.  The reader has received a straightforward answer from Maria in regards to her troubles, “I am what I am. To look for “reasons” is beside the point.”  Yet,  the much of the novel is focused on solving the puzzle about when and where it all began.

The timeline of the story shifts from past to present, allowing the reader an introspective way of analyzing Maria’s psyche and her life, which is unavoidable because of the way the tale unfolds. From the beginning, the reader is informed that Maria has always had personal and emotional distractions looming in the back of her mind.  As a young girl, she grew up in an abandoned town in the middle of the desert that her gambling father won on a bet.  In order to escape from something, perhaps it is herself even then, Maria decides to move to New York City.  Shortly after leaving her family behind, her mother is killed in a car accident, which leaves a hole in Maria’s heart she never seems to fill. She feels it was her responsibility to be there, and she wasn’t.  When she meets her future husband, Carter, in NYC , she turns to him for guidance and support. He does this well by promoting her acting career, and providing her with the things he thinks she wants. Maybe she thought she wanted those things at the time.

While her decision to marry Carter, and have a baby seem like a good idea, it becomes obvious that she cannot find herself through him. Rather, Maria becomes defined by Carter and the privileges she is given, not due to her talents, but to her connections through her husband.  In addition, a relationship that might have been redeemable is destroyed when Carter sends their daughter Kate away due to an illness which is undisclosed to the reader. The final straw between them occurs when Maria becomes pregnant again; she knows Carter will not accept the baby, and decides to abort it.

The dynamics of the relationship between Maria and Carter are illustrated in their dialogues.  The reader is able to sense Carter’s hostility and insults flying off the pages of the novel. He is frustrated by her problems and inconsistencies, which only manifests to create a worse situation for Maria. She begins a down-ward spiral after the abortion has taken place, illegally, and without anesthetic in a private home where the floor is covered in newspapers to absorb both her blood and her loss.

Maria turns to a variety of drugs such as barbiturates , marijuana, and alcohol in order to self-medicate.  She also moves out of her Beverly Hills mansion to live in a small apartment.  As usual, Carter’s response to her acting out is to ignore the root of her problems and criticize her coping methods.  Part of Maria’s problem is that the circle of people she and Carter surround themselves with in Hollywood is toxic to her.  “They are not her friends,” she admits. Even when her acquaintances, BZ, Helene, and Les Goodwin, the man Maria’s sleeping with, come around to help, she only feels more alone.

Maria has considered suicide, and has even gone as far as to write three last letters; she planned to die.  Carter is well aware of the seriousness of her situation, but instead of trying to talk her down from the ledge, he encourages her to follow through and end it on more than one occasion. He says, “Well go to sleep, cunt.  Go to sleep. Die fucking vegetable.”  This is inexcusably harsh, but a perceptive reader can deduce that he is a man who once loved Maria, and he cannot stand to see her life in shambles. By giving up on her, he also admits defeat, thus he lashes out.

There comes a time in the text when a reader asks much the same question as Carter poses to Maria: if she is infinitely miserable with no way out, why doesn’t she just end her own suffering? The more Maria’s past and present are revealed, the reader begins to see what Carter and Helene see in Maria, selfishness. In her defense,  she is a young woman who has never been content, and her life has been filled with disappointments. The best she can do is enter a facility and attempt to improve her circumstances. This is how the text comes full-circle, bringing the reader back to the first scene, where Maria waits in recovery.

It is truly saddening, yet realistic, to read a story about a young woman as tormented as Maria. There are many things to take out of this novel, but the thought that Maria has always suffered, and is perhaps doomed to do so, is a thought to be considered.  Of course another reader might argue that the final result came from years of mistakes and confusion.  Part of the brilliance of this text is that, similar to Maria’s peers, the reader can never really be certain what exactly Maria’s main problems are. She reflects on her own life, commenting “I never in my life had any plans, none of it makes sense, none of it adds up.”  I would like to think that Didion purposely finished this novel with unanswered questions to allow people to ruminate.  She knew that each person would come to their own conclusions and take away what made them feel better about the plight of Maria.

Final Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

For more information:

Play It As It Lays: Joan Didion on the Writing Process -Interview with The Paris Review

The Years of Writing Magically - Interview with the Guardian

Film (1972)

Pamuk explores the perspectives of both “insiders” and “outsiders” and the ideologies that go along with those views.  The text searches for answers to questions about a suicide epidemic plaguing a city and a nation, which actually occurred in Batman, Turkey. The author uses compelling and complex issues as a mode of character examination for three important figures whose disconnections with others lead them to search for missing pieces of themselves. The associations that can be made between insider/outsider perspectives, suicides, disconnections, and dangerous consequences that can arise from the lack of understanding become key elements in relation to the novel.

Ka, a Turkish writer, is visiting from the West to investigate a story he has heard: headscarf girls have become famous by refusing to remove their headscarves, which are symbols of “political Islam.” From the beginning it is made clear to Ka by the community that he is not welcome in Kars, especially since the community does not want news of the suicides publicized more than they already have been. When Ka meets Blue, an Islamic fundamentalist, Blue is angry at Ka for trying to understand the struggle of the suicide girls. Blue says Ka could never comprehend their perspectives. Blue doesn’t want to open up to Ka about the issues occurring in Kars for fear Ka will misinterpret the situation and communicate the story to the West under false pretenses. Ironically, without a firsthand account of the girls’ stories and Blue himself, the “outside” or Western world already receives a blurred vision of life in Turkey.

There is a complex and widely debated history concerning Islam, the government in Turkey since Ataturk’s rule, and how women have been affected. In commanding the girls to remove their headscarves, the state has- in turn- handed over political power the girls don’t realize they possess, at first. Perhaps the answers to their suicides lie in simple theories, but in reality, they are much more complex and virtually unexplainable by anyone but the girls themselves. This is something Pamuk reminds the reader as he involves Ka in a romantic relationship with the beautiful  Kadife. When she explains that headscarves are about pride, the notions Ka developed about headscarves from speaking to people in Kars are altered.

Throughout the novel, the suicide girls are portrayed as a misunderstood group by the entire Kars community.  Neither the people of Kars, nor the narrator, have any insight into the real thoughts and feelings of the suicide girls until Kadife’s performance at the National Theater with Sunay.  Finally, Pamuk provides answers in her dialogue from a girl on the brink of hanging herself. At the same time, she reminds the audience of the individuality of the girls who chose to take their own lives. Kadife proclaims, “The main reason women kill themselves is to save their pride.  At least that’s what most women kill themselves for.”

“You mean they’ve been humiliated by love?”

“You don’t understand a thing!” said Kadife.  “A woman doesn’t commit suicide because            she’s lost her pride, she does it to show her pride.”

“Is that why your friends committed suicide?”

“I can’t speak for them.  Everyone has her own reasons.  But every time I have ideas of killing myself, I can’t help thinking they were thinking the same way I am.  The moment of suicide is the time when they understand best how lonely it is to be a woman and what being a woman really means.” Obviously Kadife knows she cannot necessarily speak for every girl, yet the significance of a girl speaking out before it’s too late is tremendous.  Not only has Kadife taken the role of the leader of the headscarf girls, she has the power to make a difference in the eyes of the people of Kars with her words and actions.

Each character appears to have a problem connecting with others in some way, which leads to an ultimate misunderstanding of the individual. This phenomenon is a statement about the inability of people everywhere not only to make strides to come together regarding religion and politics; these characters have deficiencies connecting on basic levels, which creates the impossibility of coping with life’s most difficult issues.

Ka asks the citizens of Kars for an “insider” perspective in regards to the community.  He wants to know the citizens’ personal opinions and what they would project to the readers of his story if they had the opportunity.  At the end of the Snow, Fazil explains to Ka what his final message to the West would be involving the utter lack of understanding facing the people of Kars.  Fazil says, “If you write a book set in Kars and put me in it, I’d like you to tell your readers not to believe anything you say about me, anything you say about any of us.  No one could understand us from so far away.” It’s possible that Fazil believes that the Western world could never fathom a single aspect of life in a city where the people remain trapped by a relentless blizzard and a government seeking to control their every political and religious belief.  While the people of Kars don’t trust those in the West to understand their stories, they also don’t want to give people like Ka, who were born in Turkey, and wish to help tell the truth about them a chance to become “insiders.”  The fact of the matter of the remains, even the people living in the community possess no answers to the problems facing Kars, even they are too far away.

This novel includes more positive aspects than a reader can ask for in a text.  It is historically, politically, religiously, and culturally relevant, but these components are not what makes it outstanding.  It’s a contender for the best novel I have ever read for other reasons. Very few books make a reader want to stop and re-read line after line due to the brilliance and beauty of the prose. I feel incapable of expressing the manner in which the author interweaves plot, theme, symbolism, and setting to create the perfect execution of a story.  Read this novel and you will fall in love with it and Orhan Pamuk!

Final Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

More Information:

Arkoun, Mohammad.  Rethinking Islam. Common Questions, Uncommon Answers.  (Trans.)  Robert D.Lee. Boulder:  West View Press, 1996.

Ugur, Mehmet and Canefe, Urgis. Turkey and European Integration: Accession Prospects and Issues. London: Routledge, 2004.

The way Alexie chooses to use a title in which he includes the words absolutely, true, and diary only to fill the pages of the novel with a story of sarcasm and exaggeration in order to make a point about things people believe about others is brilliant. There are times in the text when notions about Native American culture which might have been brought up to make a point about ignorance are lost on readers, because they don’t know enough to realize they are being naïve. However, the hyperbolic repetition Alexie uses throughout the text when discussing the alcoholism of Junior’s family, friends, and community cannot be mistaken. After this “problem” is mentioned so many times, a reader must finally think that even on a reservation, it is not possible that every single person drinks. The same modes of thinking hold true for white people.

When Junior attends Reardan High School, he assumes that all of the students are rich, smart, and perfect.  The illustration he draws representing a white boy’s attire is very far-fetched with Tommy Hilfiger pants, Michael Jordan shoes, and a Timex watch, as many white kids don’t have parents who can afford these things. Perhaps the best example of Arnold  discovering that white people also have faults and emotional deficiencies is when he hears Penelope, his dream girl in the bathroom next to him throwing up.  If the most beautiful and popular girl in the white school is bulimic, his ideas about  the flawlessness of all the white kids must change along with his image of her.

Fittingly Junior does begin to see that the labels he had in his head involving both Indians on his reservation and the white people outside of it cannot continue to exist if he wants to keep attending Reardan High, remain close to the people he feels he has betrayed, and eventually fulfill his personal dream of leaving the reservation. The title of the book is ironic and Junior’s diary cannot be true; because, as he finds out, all people are different.  It’s like he says to his teacher, Mrs. Jeremy, “I used to think the whole world was broken down by tribes. By black and white. But I know that isn’t true. The world is only broken into two tribes: The people who are assholes and the people who are not (178).”

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

(I would like to make a note to my subscribers that I am in the midst of my last semester as a grad student and am taking a young adult literature course. Since I am reading these books for class, I will be posting about them; thus for the next two months I will not be posting as many classics as usual. Please be assured that in the future I will resume my regular reading material.)

The struggles Jason Bock encounters in Godless in order to declare he is free of the religion he believes is forced upon him by his parents, are both interesting and controversial. Hautman provides a groundbreaking look at something many young people must come to grips with at some point in their lives- disagreeing with their parents, especially in terms of religious teachings. Although the author makes it obvious that Jason is extremely intelligent, there is a question as to how realistic it is that a high school student has moments of profound insight into intellectual and religious matters which are a bit beyond his years. Often times, the novel seems to be written more from the retrospective perspective of an adult than that of a teenager.

The text oscillates between Jason making very adult observations and stumbling upon other findings which allows the story of the Chutengodians appear to be merely a childlike orchestration . Jason distains the TPO meetings lead by Just Al. He realizes that much of what is discussed in the meetings doesn’t make sense. Most teenagers are able to discern that there is circular logic involved in Just Al’s reasoning. However, Jason is able to transition to the fact that this is “brainwashing.” Where would a teen such as Jason learn about brainwashing? How would any of the kids in the TPO group have any idea that their parents were forcing their own beliefs onto their children until later in life when they were offered other beliefs as an option? Jason acts much more like a young person when he is punched by Henry. He lies on the ground and stares up at the sky. This is when, by chance, he notices the water tower. “Water is life,” he says.  In this way the author keeps the reader guessing throughout the novel as to whether or not Jason knew what he was doing when he began his new religion.

Jason’s discovery of the water tower is innocent enough, but when he presents his idea for worship of the idol to Shin, his more knowledgeable persona comes out again. It is almost as though the narrator presents two sides to Jason in the novel: the child and the adult. It is the adult who chooses to present the clever and existential questions which  cause problems for the kids deciding to start a new religion. It is incredibly clever for the narrator to challenge what is unproven in religion by creating his own god. “You’re saying the water tower is God?”

“Think about it,” I say.

Shin thinks about it.

“Prove me wrong,” I say.

The reason it must be an adult coming out in Jason is because most kids ask questions regarding blind faith in religion, but when adults tell them they just need to believe, they don’t push the issue any further.

For adults reading the novel, it is easy to read very deeply into each line and assume younger readers  won’t comprehend or don’t consider these issues . The teen years are the transitionary period between child and adulthood; kids’ minds are blossoming and the gears are turning in ways adults cannot imagine. Whether a person agrees or disagrees with the messages Hautman sends with his inquisitive characters, the novel is a great opportunity for, both young and old readers to ruminate over the topics addressed.  After all, the quirky and laughable Jason Bock is the perfect person to present the question: “Why mess around with Catholicism when you can have your own customized religion?”

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Both the beginning and the end of the novel are told from the perspective of Charles Bovary. Since the novel is an account of Emma’s story, the author’s focus on Charles is an interesting way to depict the couple’s meeting and wedding through his eyes instead of hers. Charles is completely awestruck by Emma-he is totally in love. One of the only things the reader finds out about Mademoiselle Emma at this time is that she ‘did not really enjoy living in the country.’ Perhaps Emma is looking forward to a different life and hopes a doctor can provide it. When the reader is finally introduced to Emma’s perspective a complete juxtaposition of views is given.

Emma is never depicted as having a fondness for Charles, but her past may have something to do with her lack of affection. She was educated at a convent where the nuns had hopes Emma would be made for the vocation. Similar to other female heroines such as Jane Eyre and Elizabeth Bennett, she reads furiously. Since she cannot experience for herself, she must create through her imagination: ‘Gentlemen brave as lions, tender as lambs, virtuous as a dream, always well dressed, and weeping pints.’ When Charles comes into the picture, he is disappointing in comparison to what she has wished for. In addition at this time in her young life, ‘she considered herself disillusioned, with nothing more to learn, nothing more to feel.’ Even if Charles had been perfect, Emma was not ready or willing to love him.

Early in the marriage Emma decides that she will never be happy with what she has. Emma has never been happy with country life. When the couple is invited to La Vaubyessard home of the Marquis d’Andervilliers, Emma pretends she is a person of nobility, ignoring Charles for the entirety of the night and the next morning. ‘Her journey to La Vaubyessard had made a hole in her life.’ Emma always wants to be something she isn’t and Charles caters to her every whim by giving her money and allowing her more indulgences than other women of her class have because he loves her so much. In this way she comes to believe her desires and dreams are correct-one day she will have even more.

Leon Dupuis works in Yonville as a clerk. When he visits the Bovary home, he speaks to Emma about creating an alternate reality out of fiction. He says that one day he’ll move to Paris to finish his law degree. Emma believes he’s similar to her and that he is what Charles can never be. She begins to watch him as he passes by her window. Does he provide a mode of escape from her terrible, annoying  husband?

Soon after Leon leaves Yonville, Emma meets Rodolphe. Before their relationship becomes physical, Rodolphe decides he will leave with Emma. But her careless and unique ways make it difficult for him to say no to her and he finds himself in a drawn out affair. When Emma visits Rodolphe’s chateau and is seen by some people from the town they decide they must leave together. In her life filled with discontent, Emma thinks she has finally found what she longs for. ‘She had indefinable beauty which comes from joy, from enthusiasm, from success, the beauty which is simple harmony, between temperament and circumstances.’ But Rodolphe will not take her daughter, Berthe, for his own. He never intended to continue the affair. ‘Better to harden his heart.’ He writes her a letter in which he takes no responsibility for the relationship, referring to fate and the cruelty of the world. Leaving Emma with a broken heart and shattered dreams of leaving the countryside, he signs it your friend, Rodolphe.

Emma continuously criticizes Charles and carelessly spends every franc he earns on herself. But fora moment when Rodolphe leaves, she feels guilty for plotting to abandon him. She decides to give Charles a chance to make a name for himself. Somehow this is Emma’s way of showing she cares just enough to put forth a bit of effort on her husband’s account. She becomes aware of the possibility of Charles earning acclaim and money. It soon becomes apparent that her only concern is gaining fame, money, and prestige. She is perfectly content with the exchange of Charles’ reputation and a man’s life in the process.  Knowing Charles will do anything for her, Emma convinces him to perform an unnecessary surgery with the potential to kill Hippolyte for her own benefit. With Hippolyte on his deathbed and Charles full of regret, all she can think is, ‘What stupid mania was it driving her like this, driving her into wrecking her existence by continual self-sacrifice?’ At this point the reader is astounded and overwhelmed by her self-centeredness. Yet one wonders if there isn’t more to Emma’s character than selfishness. Does Flaubert hint with Emma’s feelings of disillusionment, mania, and hatred indicate a sort of madness which should not only predict the outcome of events which follow, but lead the reader to understand her actions and pity her case?

Instead of feeling guilt for hurting others, Emma focuses on Charles’ mediocrity. No matter what she does Charles never becomes upset, more importantly he never finds fault in Emma. The more she despises him, his unfaltering magnanimity and loyalty creates her own self-loathing. Her adultery and considerations of eloping are all coping mechanisms. The truth is Charles is far from ‘mediocre.’ He is a decent doctor, well-liked by others, a nice man, loving husband and father, and a good provider. He is so good that she cannot stand him in comparison to herself.

For years, Emma has bought an exorbitant amount of goods from Msr. Lheureux’s shop. It reaches a point where she can no longer pay for the items and must sell her recently deceased father in-law’s property behind Charles’ back to pay her debts. This does not stop her from making new purchases. Emma seeks to fill a void which has always existed in her sad life. In way then, it is not surprising that Charles the one person who may understand becomes the most resented. Eventually she accumulates 8,000 francs in debt and must go around begging rich men for the money. No one will give it, except perhaps her husband whom she refuses to ask for the money and has no more to give. The combination of her self-loathing, years of discontentment, inability to pay her debt, and the realization that her dreams have been the crafted from fiction all come together at once. She can no longer face her problems. What is worse she cannot face herself. She goes to the pharmacist’s lab where she receives the key from Justin. Taking the blue bottle of arsenic, she swallows it all.

Even after Emma is gone, Charles remains true to her memory. After he has found her letters from Rodolphe, Charles still cannot admit Emma’s true colors. Although she has taken the easy way out of a life she viewed as awful despite being deeply loved by both her father and husband, the men are left to live alone and in poverty for the rest of their lives. After a chance meeting with Rodolphe, Charles forgives him as well, only to die the next day of a broken heart. Emma’s daughter, Berthe, is left without family to grow up as a working girl in a cotton mill. The story ends as one might have guessed-all of Emma’s loved ones suffer because of her failure to factor anyone but herself into her life.

At first it seems as though Charles is an exceedingly stupid person. Yet their seems to be an understanding, as with all couples far greater than any outsider might ever be able to grasp. Charles never admits that Emma betrayed him, even after she is gone. He may have created an imaginary world in which the two of them lived together happily, but then how much did Emma ever really understand about herself? Any notion of the life Emma thought she wanted was actually fulfilled by Charles’ love devotion and willingness to give unconditionally. If she was psychologically unable to ever be truly content, there is nothing Charles could have done to change the situation.

Final Rating 5 out of 5 Stars

For more information:

Read:

Bloom, Harold, ed. Modern Critical Interpretations: Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1988

Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary: Backgrounds and Sources; Essays in Criticism. Ed. and trans. Paul de Man. New York: W.W. Norton & Company,1965.

Barnes, Julian. Flaubert’s Parrot. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.

If this story is a parable, perhaps everyone takes his own meaning from it and reads his own life into it. In any case, they say in the town that…”

A parable is defined by dictionary.com  as a short allegorical story designed to illustrate or teach some truth, religious principle, or moral  lesson. It may also be a statement or comment that conveys a meaning indirectly by use of comparison, analogy, or the like. Stating the tale is a form of oral history implies that it has become a method for each local to shape their own version of the truth. Some may continue to deny the evil which exists in the story while others immediately recognize the ways in which the message of the story of Kino, Juana their baby Coyotito came to represent the larger context of bad versus good, or in this case, the colonist versus the native in society.

The beauty of telling a story the way Steinbeck chooses to do with this novella lies in the simplicity of the plot and actions, and dialogue within the narrative which instead of taking away from the text, add to its profundity. Told from a third person omniscient narrator, Steinbeck communicates the idea that any person having witnessed the struggle of the family or heard of their plight years in the future might be qualified to convey the importance of maintaining values of the old (ancient) ways when destructive forces threaten. Although they may live in poverty, Kino and Juana live contently, according to their indigenous traditions on the sea coast of the village of La Paz. There is a certain mode of perfection displayed in the description of the life of the family. They have no need to communicate with language, for they have an intrinsic connection to the world of nature, sounds and Songs of things which allow them to communicate with the world around them and each other. Looking into each other’s eyes, listening to breathing, observing daily rituals, sensing and feeling touch, are all manners of comprehension and communication. ‘Kino could see things without looking at them.’ Both Kino and Juana sing and hear an ancient song, which connects them to something greater than themselves. These sounds and cycles from a perfect rhythm and unity which must not be disturbed.

The connection with the spirit world allows Kino to immediately recognize a shift has occurred when he senses the Song of Evil enter their brush house. A scorpion comes and bites the baby Coyotitio on the shoulder. For the first time, this family must consider turning outside of the Indian village for assistance. They know the French doctor will most likely turn them away, but for their first born child, they will cross the line between ancient and modern practices in order to save him. When they arrive, the doctor sits inside his lavish home feeling sorry for himself because he is no longer living the ‘civilized life’ of a Parisian. When he finds that an Indian family is waiting the doctor refuses the poor suffering infant treatment. ‘I am a doctor, not a veterinary.’ In this moment, Kino is forced to try to pay for his son’s life. ‘He brought out a paper folded many times. Crease by crease he unfolded it, until at last there came to view eight small misshapen seed pearls, as ugly and gray as little ulcers, flattened and almost valueless.’ They are ripped from his hand and the door slammed in his face. While Kino is angry and his mind from that time on is set earning money, something which never occurred to him before-the reader is stunned. Not because the exchange is surprising, it is heartbreaking enough to make one cry (and I did) due to its horrible reality.

The only way Kino and Juana have to pay for the doctor to treat Coyotito is with to use of their canoe, their only means of sustenance. They take the baby out to the water with them to search for something which can help save him. Kino finds what he now believes he needs-The Pearl of the World. He looks down in the boat to see the baby’s fever residing. While Kino has only ever considered money for Coyotito, after he has the pearl, he begins to wonder how much it is worth and later, what he will buy with the money he receives.

As soon as the pearl is discovered, word quickly spreads around the village. People want
 to know what Kino will do with the money. At first, he will only buy clothes and shoes for his family. Soon he decides he must have more and more. Although their family has never been unhappy, gazing at the pearl causes thoughts of discontent with his place in the world to be reflected back to Kino. Coyotito cannot read and Kino imagines his child going to school like the children in the town. ‘This is what the pearl will do.’ In describing these dreams to his neighbors, not only Kino’s ideas, but his demeanor changes. Kino begins talking instead of remaining silent indicating he is giving up on his traditions. Kino is naïve to believe that sacrificing his old life and trading it for the money the colonists in town will give him for something they use as a status symbol will make things better. The shift from ancient to modern ideals is mirrored not only in the pearl itself, but in the events which begin to take place which indicate that the pearl not only brings a bad omen to Kino and Juana but that it (and the modernism it represents) does not belong with them.

Kino senses that keeping the pearl might not be the best idea. His pride gets in the way of his mind when he makes the decision to go into town and ask to sell it. His people have been mistreated, ostracized, brutalized, and worse for many years now. He wants to stand up for himself, his family, and his ancestors. When he is told that the pearl is worth nothing, after feeling like a victim for the doctor’s mistreatment of his son, Kino has had enough of the colonists. He will go to the capital for money. Later that night, someone enters the brush house to steal the pearl and Kino chases him out to the beach and kills him in self -defense. Looking back to the house they find it in flames. Despite Juana’s pleas that he give up the evil pearl, Kino is too caught up in the things people have already taken from them to give this one away so easily, even if it is bringing the bad luck to them. “This pearl has become my soul. If I give it up I shall lose my soul.’

They must leave the village if they are to be safe now. He wants to flee alone to keep Juana and Coyotito safe, but she will go along. The fastest way to travel north is by boat. When they reach the canoe Kino inherited from his grandfather, they find it too has been destroyed. ‘This was beyond evil thinking. Killing a man was not so evil as the killing of a boat.’ They set off with trackers on their trail. The family runs and climbs into the mountains. Finally they can go no more and Kino decides to approach the three men while two of them sleep. One of them has a rifle. As Kino grabs the rifle, it goes off and he hears a cry above him in the brush.

When the family returns from their journey, they  are two instead of three. The beloved baby they began the search for the Pearl for in the first place is lost.  Instead of Juana walking behind Kino as she did before, she walks beside him. He is no longer wiser than she is. Had he listened to her when she told him to release the pearl in the first place, none of this would have happened. There is no question after all the losses they suffered, the pearl must go. ‘And the pearl was ugly; it was gray like a malignant growth. And Kino heard the music of the pearl, distorted and insane.’ Kino and Juana finally take the pearl to sea and Kino throws it as far as he can never to see or hear from it again.

Although the narrative is short, in the end the message is not as straight forward as one
might at first assume. In the introductory quotations, Steinbeck mentions good and evil, that there is no in between. But he also says that people make their own interpretations of the story. When Kino and Juana first find the pearl they see it is organic magnificent, alluring, beautiful.  It isn’t until his own decisions, bitterness, violence and occur that the reader finds out that it is ‘ugly and malignant.’ What did it really look like? Did it ever have power of evil or good or does this lie within people?

I found myself wondering about the message Steinbeck sends regarding Kino’s desire forhis family to better themselves according to European standards. It is saddening for a reader living in a modern society, one that has for the most part embraced colonialism, to feel sympathy for a character wanting money and education when the author is trying to point out that he should not need feel dejected for lacking these things. Just because I think I need these things to be happy doesn’t mean they are essential for all humans.

Final Rating 4 out 5 Stars

For more information: The Pearl-wikipedia

Film (2001)

Read:

Karson, Jill, ed. Readings on The Pearl . San Diego: Greenhaven Press,1999.

Steinbeck, John. Steinbeck: A Life in Letters (new edition). New York: Penguin, 2001

Benson, Jackson J., ed. The Short Novels of John Steinbeck: Critical Essays with a Checklist to Steinbeck Criticism. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1990.

As Claudia, the once famed historian tells her own story, she makes a point to note several times throughout that she will write a history of the world. Claudia’s life, like all people’s is woven as part of a larger narrative-her memories, events, books she wrote, significant people have all become part of a greater history. ‘A history of the world, yes. And in the process, my own.’ Those she loves most are also very much a significant part of history.

The reflections of Claudia Hampton, despite her scholarly background, contain observations one might not expect from a historian. She mentions that history isn’t linear in the memory, rather it is recalled to the mind in streams of consciousness. ‘I’ve always thought a kaleidoscope view might be an interesting heresy. Shake the tube and see what comes out.’ It is very true that no person thinks directly about things, but one notion leads to another. They do not need to be connected or related in time or substance. Since the key to understanding one’s own past and the whole history of man, which are inextricably tied together really exists only in the mind-past, present, future must be only what we make them. Through Claudia, the author questions the objectivity of the historian and human race by asking existential questions. What is history, after all, if each person views things from a different perspective? Even a shared memory may be considered a completely alternate reality. What really happened? As Claudia ruminates, she realizes all that will be left of her after she dies is not the way she sees herself, but the way others perceive her.

There is a startling lack of affection given to some vital figures in Claudia’s life. She has an on-again-off-again romantic relationship with Jasper for about a decade. Her descriptions of Jasper involve his ancestry, success as a businessman, affairs with other women, and ability to annoy her. Claudia explains situations which occur between them such as the day she told Jasper she was pregnant and would keep the baby. He agrees that he will help her raise the child. Their daughter, Lisa, becomes part of the narrative. Yet in all of their encounters there never seems to be any emotion present. Jasper is a way to pass time-that is all.

When Lisa comes into the picture, it is difficult for the reader to comprehend why Claudia, abandons her in many ways. Lisa is left with her grandmothers most of the time. When she is with her mother, Claudia is distanced by the fact that the child is nothing like her. There is a sense that Claudia, like most parents wishes to start fresh with her little girl and undo the damage that has been done to her in her own life. ‘We do not remember childhood-we imagine it. We search for it in vain, through layers of obscuring dust, and recover some bedraggled threads of what we think it was.’ Our own children become a way for us to take back pieces of our missing childhood through them and with them. But, neither Claudia nor Jasper can see any part of themselves in their daughter. Since Claudia needs to feel something that is missing from her own world, Lisa never even knows her mother loves her.

Similar to most all who know her, the reader often misunderstands Claudia as a person. But as the layers of her intellect unfold the secrets she keeps hidden are exposed. Always competitive and independently spirited, Claudia travels to Cairo during World War II in order to prove to her ‘alter ego’ brother Gordon that she can be a journalist. This is where she meets the only man to ever compare with Gordon intellectually or physically, her soul mate, Tom Southern. They climb the Great Pyramid, eat dinner on a restaurant boat, and walk around the city’s crowded marketplaces together. With Tom she never feels so sure of herself-they plan to marry and have children. Even as an old woman in her bed, Claudia can picture clear as day the ring Tom buys her and filled with desert sand, the poinsettia growing beside his army boot out of nothingness , and the moon tiger burning smoke into the night sky.

Every moment of Claudia’s life after Tom is killed is filled with sadness and disappointment because it doesn’t compare to the life she thought she would have with him. Every other person in her life suffers because of the emptiness of the void she cannot fill. Of course there is the chance things may not have worked out well with the young Tom. But seeing only the beginning of their relationship misleads her perception- something she claims to understand but is biased about in regards to herself- for the rest of her life. What might have been is always more alluring to consider that accepting reality. It is human nature to know you should not question these things and do it anyway.

There is one person always by Claudia’s side in what some might label an unorthodox manner, her brother Gordon. What starts out as a competitive relationship in youth, develops into something more physical in their teenage years. When the two go to a dance and spend the night rubbing on each other, which culminates in a kiss, the reader isn’t certain what to make of the situation. Claudia never notes any uncomfortable feelings regarding their incestual relationship, which she likens to narcissism. Rather she alludes to the fact that siblings are mirror reflection of each other. I once read that siblings reared in the same environment should not be physically attracted to each other. There must be certain psychological or physical circumstances which could alter this. In the case of Gordon and Claudia, she mentions that they are both exceedingly attractive and intelligent (She considers this the reason she cannot find a man to live up to Gordon). They received no love from their mother and their father was killed in the Battle of the Sommes. Are the siblings psychologically disturbed and morally corrupt, or is Claudia justified in her explanation of the two egomaniacs loving themselves in each other?

In attempting to move on with her life years after Tom has passed on, Claudia is involved in a car accident. She sits in a Madrid hospital and breaks into tears when Gordon arrives days later. He asks what could be wrong because he hasn’t seen her cry since she was six years old. She says she is sad to realize she’s still alive. Claudia looks deeply into Gordon’s eyes and the reader, again, is confronted with an eerie feeling. It’s uncomfortable because in our society incest is taboo. Then I wondered: is it wrong for this woman to love her brother more than anyone else because society says so? Where is the harm in it? She found another man and he was taken away. If Tom had lived, Claudia would not have needed to continue her fascination with Gordon. As with most things of this nature, no one, aside from Gordon and possibly his wife Sylvia even sensed that their emotions ran so deep.

The final message of Claudia’s history becomes her communication with the deceased Tom Southern. Long ago she was sent his diary from the desert which records, among visions of violence and death, dreams and gazelles. The last act of her life is preserving his memory in her mind, they will remain here forever. She combines his history with hers. This must be enough.

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

For more information:

Penelope Lively- official website

Penelope Lively-wikepedia

Read novel with themes of memories, love, loss, romance by Lively: The Phototgraph