Erin's Book #10: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is the story of two girls in 19th century China who become laotong, or old sames, (basically life-long best friends with a bond that can not be destroyed) before they even meet. The girls, Lily and Snow Flower, communicate with a secret women's writing called nu shu, which they write in letters as well as on a single fan, upon which their story together is written. The book is written from the point of view of Lily, who is now an old woman, reflecting back upon her life.

This book is amazing, heartbreaking, devastating, and beautiful. Lisa See paints an incredible and vivid picture of a very foreign world. Footbinding is described in shocking detail (and it's so much worse than I ever knew). Although nearly every element of the girls' lives are unfamiliar to me - daughters are worthless, valued only for the quality of the household they marry into, and this based in part on the size of their feet; many children die so women must perpetually be pregnant; marriages are arranged for teenagers who don't meet their spouse until years later and only live with them once they bear children, etc- I connected deeply with this book.

Ultimately this story is about two people who are lifelong friends until pride and sickness threaten to tear them apart. Despite the foreign setting, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is about very common themes. It reminded me in some ways of Water for Elephants - the protagonist at the end of his/her life, looking back on a strange world. I'm not sure which book I loved more. I was utterly fascinated by the customs of these people. The book is divided into chapters that signify certain periods of the girls' lives, like Hair Pinning Days and Rice-and-Salt Days. As they grow, we learn more about them and their people, as they become more aware themselves. I think this book will stay with me for a long time.

Blythe's Book 15: Noah's Compass

Allow me to paint a picture of my ideal weekend: it involves sitting on an island, my chair facing the sun, a cool breeze keeping the mosquitos at bay, and a good book in my hands. Add to that the company of Nate, our dogs, and several good friends, and I've just described this weekend... the perfect start to spring break. And it ended even better-- finishing said book while curled up on my couch with a blanket in the middle of a Florida thunderstorm. The book wasn't a letdown either, I might add. I always find good book suggestions in O Magazine; say what you will about Oprah (personally, I loooove her) but the woman loves books, and has devoted large portions of her magazine to sharing info on the literary world. Kudos, Oprah.

I've read several of Anne Tyler's novels, and I like her low-key approach to life. Her plotlines are never in-your-face, and her characters are charmingly realistic. In her latest novel, Noah's Compass, sixty-year old Liam is struggling to remember the details of a home invasion he's just experienced-- however, in trying to remember the scene, he's led to reexamine other details of his life, specifically involving his relationships with his three grown daughters and his ex-wife.
Liam is frustratingly absent, for lack of a better word; he's meek, bumbling, and befuddled by what others expect of him. He's an absentminded academic/philosopher surrounded by a bunch of women whom he just cannot fathom. He's perpetually alarmed by their needs and desires, and at a complete loss for how to give. In some ways, this book hits close to home; I think it sheds some light on communication differences, stereotypical as they may seem, between men and women in general. It isn't that Liam doesn't care about the people in his life-- he just becomes overwhelmed by their expectations and seems to find it easier to live up (or rather, down) to what they see him as. As Liam admits, he's never been "entirely present in [his] own life." However,as he struggles to recover his memory, Liam also sees the huge voids in his life that have been caused by his passivity, and he attempts to take hold of his life and find his own way to happiness. This sounds kind of melancholy, but really, the novel wasn't. I think we all have a little of Liam in us-- that part of us that waits to be acted upon, rather than stepping forth confidently, and this book was that gentle reminder many of us need, telling us that the ball is in our court.

Favorites:

Here, I cringed in self-recrimination: "[Barbara]certainly knew he was low-key. So why did she want more than that after they were married? Why did she prod him, and drag him to counseling, and at last, in the end, give up on him? Women had this element of treachery, Liam had discovered. They entered your life under false pretenses and then they changed the rules" (88).

This one made me laugh: "People like Eunice just never had quite figured out how to get along in the world. They might be perfectly intelligent, but they were subject to speckles and flushes; their purses resembled wastepaper baskets; they stepped on their own skirts. Actually, Eunice was the only person he could think of who answered to that description. But still..." (112).

These last few made me think and make resolutions...
"All along, it seemed, he had experienced only the most glancing relationship with his own life. He had dodged the tough issues, avoided the conflicts, gracefully skirted adventure" (241).

"The trouble with discarding bad memories was that evidently the good ones went with them" (275).

V's Pick #10: Rhetoric and Reality by James Berlin

Sorry about the picture - I couldn't find a single other photo of the cover. 


Anyway, this book is a doozy, so grab some coffee for this post. 


Berlin is a well-cited and well-respected Rhet/Comp scholar and I've read many authors who've based their lifes' work on his ideas...now I know why. This seminal text lays out the entire history of rhetoric within Composition within the US (as per the title). Here's a synopsis: until 1850, we taught rhetoric in college using the British texts of Blair, Campbell and Whately. What emerged as the field grew and expanded into the 20th century were three main epistemologies of rhetoric in regard to writing: objective, subjective and transactional. Within those three epistemologies, three major types of rhetoric organized: current-traditional, behavorist and semantic/linguistic. Berlin organized Rhetoric and Reality by these epistemologies and I'll give you a breakdown of them below. However, before I start, it's important to note that at almost every point in our history, more than one major rhetoric has been in play. Also, rhetorics and ideologies are always inter-realted. FYC (First-Year Composition) responds to society as a whole and thus, all of these rhetorics are important parts of its history. With regard to Berlin's treatment of the three epistemologies, we should be reminded that our pedagogical choices have repercussions. 


I. Objective Epistemology
- a positivist approach; truth exists only in that which can be empirically studied (science)
- the writers' job is to observe reality objectively and be clear/precise; audiences are also objective, invention has no place, grammatical correctness is key (think: Fulkerson's formalist axiology)
- truth is only what can be communicated, if something cannot be communicated, it's not truth


There are 3 types of objective rhetoric:
A.) behavorist - Skinner; learning is observable and can be measured
B.) semantist - German theories; avoid the distortion of language, be clear and that is truth
C.) linguistic - 1950s; thought to bring new approaches through linguistics but epistemology is the same - truth is prior to knowledge


II. Subjective Epistemology 
- truth originates in the individual but it can also be communicated
- Plato, Freud, Maslow, Thoreau 
- the rhetoric of liberal culture
- ordinary language can be tweaked (think: metaphor) to connect to the "supersensory" (12) and thus, explain truths
- truth can only be confirmed through personal experience
- writing cannot be taught, rather, the teacher provides an environment for the student to self-discover (like the Freudian therapist)
- metaphor can be taught and subjective writing classes do the following: journal keeping, metaphor making and peer editing
- peers in the classroom serve as "friendly critics" (14) and do not tell the writer how to do things, rather, the writers only job is to attend to their personal vision
- think: Fulkerson's expressionist axiology 


III. Transactional Epistemology 
- focused on the interaction between subject/object/audience


There are 3 types of transactional rhetoric: 
A.) Classical - most common; truth exists between writer and audience; truth is open to debate; community is the focus - public discourse = how things get solves
B.) Cognitive - psychology-based; composing process = mind + nature interacting; writing teacher steps into the process to help students understand the external world
C.) Epistemic - like Classical and Cognitive, major difference - language + experience are never disjointed; truth doesn't exist in or out - truth occurs when material, social and personal interact 
think: Fulkerson's rhetorical axiology

V's Pick #9: A Rhetoric of Motives by Kenneth Burke

Did you know that "belonging is rhetorical" (28)? Burke's big point in A Rhetoric of Motives is that of identification, or, to be 'substantially one' (or to be persuaded to be) with another person or group based on commonality. To belong. This idea instantly made me think about discourse communities (or activity systems as Russell refers to them) -- groups that share common goals, a lexis and often unify on purposes. If identification is 'sharing substances' and 'substances' are physical objects, occupations, friends, activities, values, beliefs, etc...then identification is being part of an activity system. Burke uses the word 'consubstantial' (to be one with the other) as his term for this belonging within a system. 


Rhetoric is important in belonging for a few reasons. First, it provides a ground of persuasion of belonging - one can use rhetorical tools to get someone to join their cause/group, etc. Second, this belonging, if hidden (and not viewed rhetorically) can become sinister - hypocrisy is cunning and a form of identification. Rhetoric for Burke is both the use AND study of persuasive resources. He urges that we expand rhetoric to be able to look at how we operate rhetorically upon ourselves...but he's a pretty confusing dude and he also believes that rhetoric can be unconscious (which I agree with)...but unconscious rhetoric would be pretty hard to talk about in regard to yourself. 


In sum, identification can be used in 3 ways: 


1.) as a means to an end
2.) to create anthesis (against common foe)
3.) unconsciously/consciously


So what does all this mean in the big picture? I think it means that when we belong to a group (or even a pair) there's always something rhetorical happening - when we identify with something (see your voter's card) we are making rhetorical statements about WHO we are...but part of who we are is because we have been persuaded...in love, in voting, in our occupation, by our family, etc, etc, etc. 

V's Pick #8: Landmark Essays on Rhetoric of Science edited by Randy Allen Harris

I've always enjoyed natural science, especially paleo, bio and marine...but it's been a long, long time since I've been in a science class and aside from online news articles, I haven't read anything remotely scientific in an even longer time. So, this book, week after week, has been shifted to the bottom of my pile; I won't make any claims to be above that kind of avoidance at this place in this game. 

However, today during my office hours I read an article by Richard Rorty called "Science as Solidarity." Rorty takes science's 'holier-than-thou' place in our world to task and argues (Kuhn has his back) that our frantic search for 'truth' in everything is because as a culture, we're becoming more secular and we're scared of losing the community that religion creates. Wait, did this guy just link science, rhetoric and religion in 10 pages? I had to read more...so, tonight's task has been combing through this ugly book from the bottom of my pile. 

I stand not only impressed, but incredibly learned. The cover is truly one of the worst I've ever seen, but Harris has gathered the seminal (landmark) essays written in the last 30 years or so that one should read to know about the field (field?!) of rhetoric of science. What is rhetoric of science? Why, it's the study of how scientists use rhetoric, silly! (news to me...)

Here's what you should know: Kuhn is the guy who's responsible for getting people talking about this stuff. He started in the late 60s and while he passed in the early 90s, his mark was left on the interdisciplinary interests of both communities forever. He believed there to be two types of scientific discovery: data (as in, case studies, findings, etc) and persuasion. He broke down the walls that Aristotle built: 'the wall of certainty' and 'the wall of expertise', opening up the scientific floor for analysis and discussion that focused no longer only on 'truths' and/or 'stability'. Science is NOT linear. 

Rorty,the guy whose article started all of this for me, was responsible for the "rhetorical turn" (xvi); because of his work, philosophers started looking into scientific inquiry, which as a result, brought the scientist down a notch from the pedestal we'd put him on as a type of 'priest' in our culture. Rorty's "turn" is responsible for three major developments: Rhetoric of Inquiry (a Symposium was held in Iowa in the 70s which started the wave of interdisciplinary interest in rhet/sci), Argument Fields (thanks to Toulmin's argument model which stated there are field-specific as well as universal argument types) and SSK or Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (wherein sociologists picked up rhet/sci and started to collaborate). Sociologists are responsible for the current truism: "rhetoric is everywhere in science" (xxv). 

A few other gems: to know what rhetoric is, one has allegiance to it; all fields use rhetoric slightly differently (and that's partly the point) (xxvii); tool-sets from Aristotle are both used almost wholesale and also totally rejected - depends on the person applying rhetoric to science. 

The authors whose articles are in this collection are as follows, under the following sections:

(Giants in Science)

Campbell - rhetoric IS science, nothing but science; looks at Darwin's "accommodation" of rhetoric that made Origins popular among audiences

Gross - rhetoric is everything; rhetoric is the only reason Newton was successful

Halloran - ethos makes a scientist who they are 

(Conflict in Science)

Fahnestock - Kuhn is invoked by both sides (those opposing rhetoric's place in science and those supporting/practicing it)

Lyne and Howe - 2 themes: arguments change from audience to audience and invocation of Kuhn as 'Patron Saint' of rhet/sci embattled scientists

Prelli - the quest for authority within the public is a way all scientists use rhetoric (even when they deny it)

(Public Science) 

Weaver - science grew and rhetoric shrank (as fields) because people stopped culturally trusting emotions, a la Aristotle

Waddell - emotion CAN be trusted (take that, Aristotle!)

Reeve - emotion can twist science (for example, greedy scientists who want to get their name in the lights regardless of how they have to go about it) BUT...it's still an invaluable part of human decision-making and thus, we can't remove it from the scientific approach

(Writing in Science) 

Bazerman - studied one genre of science writing, the Experimental Report, to show that science writing is rhetorical; was the first scholar to bring writing into the rhet/sci discussion

Myers - wrote the book Writing Biology which Harris believes is the best book written on the subject of science writing; looks at the peer review process of publication to explore negotiation and knowledge as rhetorical actions within the science community 

V's Pick #7: Literacy in Theory and Practice by Brian Street

Hello skimming...this book was a snore. I took a 16 week class on literacy. I've been teaching an ENC 1102 course where we've talked about various aspects of literacy for going on 12 weeks. I receive two literacy-related email newsletters. I've been certified with the Literacy Alliance of Brevard thanks to a day two summers ago where the A/C went out and our dedicated group of volunteers sat in a sweltering conference room for eight hours. Literacy and me? We're more than friends. 

I was hoping Brian Street, whose name is mentioned often by other scholars, would have something amazing and new to teach me. Maybe I'm reading myself retarded or maybe I know more about literacy than I once thought, but after reading the introduction (wherein he methodically lays out in a truly dull voice what he will do in every single chapter) I couldn't bring myself to move forward in full. I finished the intro, took good notes and skimmed the rest. 

Here are some highlights: 

Ideologies about literacy and what it can do are all contextual to the culture wherein they take place - this the basis of the ideological model. (I agree)

"Faith in the power and qualities of literacy is itself socially learnt and is not an adequate tool which to embark on a description of its practice" (1). 

The widely-accepted autonomous model of literacy is aimed to distinguish literacy from schooling. 

Central question: "Are there, for instance, any significant general or universal patterns in the practices associated with literacy in different cultures?" (3) Sounds incredibly interesting but in my opinion, gets muddled down with ethnographic reporting written in pedantic prose that drains the life out of all the cultures mentioned...

Street uses linguistics to back up everything he does or believes. 

He urges us to take up the ideological model of literacy to inform our teaching and research. 

Cool new word alert: "maktabs" (religious schools)

Commercial literacy is literacy that results from economic expansion of a culture (12). 

Freire believes literacy means a raised consciousness which allows people to distinguish information from propaganda (known as the Unseco  view of literacy) (14). 

Main point: we need to teach and believe in the ideological model. 

Erin's Book #9: The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen

The front cover of The Sugar Queen features giant swirling peppermints and both covers are sprinkled with words such as "dessert", "bewitching", "irresistible", "sprinkling of magic", and "magical characters and mystical adventures." It would seem this book would be a delightful confection to devour.

I'm not entirely sure where all these words (from sources such as Entertainment Weekly and Publishers Weekly, no less) came from. The Sugar Queen isn't bad. It's a charming little story of a twenty-something friendless girl living in her successful father's shadow and under her overbearing, ailing mother's thumb, her only pleasure in life a hidden space in her closet stacked with sweets. When a mysterious woman appears in her closet, Josey's life begins to change. She slowly begins branching out and finding herself, making friends, pursuing her long-time crush, and creating a life for herself.

I enjoyed the story. It was a very pleasant, easy read, full of likable characters. It's just not very well written. There are sentences that remind me of stories I wrote in middle school, obvious, simplistic. The candy motif doesn't really hold up as a metaphor. And the magical realism elements (books that just appear, begging to be read, for example) feel out of place and random. The ending is predictable, though satisfying. An enjoyable book; I'm just not clear on where the rave reviews come from. Curious to hear anyone else's thoughts?

Blythe's Book 14: The Lonely Crossing of Juan Cabrera

If you loved The Old Man and the Sea, you also just might like The Lonely Crossing of Juan Cabrera. Different author, same writing style. Different sotry, same ocean. TLCoJC centers around the journey three men embark on, trying to get from Cuba to Florida on a tiny raft. Ultimately, as the name implies, Juan finds himself alone on his trip and this solitude forces him to face the lies he has told in order to fit in in Communist Cuba. The plot itself seems secondary to two things: description of the crossing (the ocean, the birds, the fishing, etc) and a comparison between Cuba and Miami. I found it to be interesting as a cultural study, but it was definitely not a real page-turner. This surprised me because several teachers have read it with their classes and claim it was a huge success. I enjoyed the description of the seas, and even the hurricane. As a Floridian, I found it easy to picture (and appreciate)the scenes the author painted, but outside of that I thought it was a bit of a snooze-fest and unbelievable to boot. Seriously, they made it through a huge hurricane on two inner tubes? A sand shark tore Jose in half and then ate him? Eh... I'm skeptical.

Blythe's Book 13: Push

Push is the novel that the independent film sensation, "Precious," is based on. Push tells the story of teenager Clareece "Precious" Jones, who is pregnant with her second child by her father. Precious' mom, rather than defending and protecting her young daughter, blames her for "stealing" her man. Because Precious is unable to fend off her father, and because her body physically responds to the abuse even while her mind rebels, she is completely torn. This book was so painful to read; Precious is illiterate, sexually abused by both parents, and friendless. Her mother sees her as nothing more than a homewrecker and paycheck (she receives welfare for both her and her first child, who actually lives with Precious' grandmother). However, after Precious births her second child, a little boy whom she loves dearly, a sympathetic guidance counselor tells her about an alternative school. Through this school, and due to the teachings of an inspirational teacher named Blue Rain, Precious becomes independent and moves out of the reach of her parents. The novel ends on a happy note, but I wasn't happy when I finished reading it. It raised so many questions in my mind: why were the social workers less in tune to what was going on in that house? Why was it so easy for Precious' mom to cheat the welfare system? Why, when Precious named her father as the father of her children at the hospital, was the matter not looked into further? Precious was let down by everyone who should have looked out for her as a child-- and I can't help but worry that there are many children out there like her.

Pam's Book 16: Olive Kitteridge

For those who are following this blog, I apologize for the third appearance in so short a time of this book. Like Blythe, I read it for our book club, and I actually wasn't going to post on it, but my sister, who thinks this is a competition, insisted (and I have yet to master the art of saying no to my big sister). So here we are. I promise this will be brief.

After reading Erin's blog, I was sure I would hate this book. I also am not big on short stories, nor am I big on deeply depressing stories. However, I fell in love with the writing within the first page and with Olive Kitteridge within the fifth story. Reading the first story, written from Olive's husband's perspective, I thought, "Wow, what a complete and utter bitch this woman is!" Then as I continued to read, her hidden redeeming qualities slowly began seeping through. It wasn't until she cried for the anorexic stranger, though, that I fell deeply, irreversibly in love with Olive Kitteridge. Yes, she is a domineering beast (her own, rather accurate, word); yes, she has treated her son and her husband terribly. But she cries for strange girls, and she talks to troubled boys, and she sits with grieving widows.

My favorite moment in the book is at her son's wedding, when Olive finds these beautifully passive-aggressive little acts of revenge to pull on her perfectly awful daughter-in-law. It's not so much the acts I appreciate so much is what she says about them:
"Olive's private view is that life depends on what she thinks of as 'big bursts' and 'little bursts.' Big bursts are things like marriage and children, intimacies that keep you afloat, but these big bursts hold dangerous, unseen currents. Which is why you need the little bursts as well: a friendly clerk at Bradlee's, let's say, or the waitress at Dunkin' Donuts who knows how you like your coffee. Tricky business, really."
Then, after her revenge:
"As a matter of fact, there is no reason, if Dr. Sue is going to live near Olive, that Olive can't occasionally take a little of this, a little of that--just to keep the self-doubt alive. Give herself a little burst. Because Christopher doesn't need to be living with a woman who thinks she knows everything."

Somebody in our book club wondered whether Olive had mental problems. Another viewed her as an irredeemable horror. Another as perhaps one intellectually gifted and living in her own stratosphere. Another saw herself in Olive. I saw her as, simply, human. And I loved her.

V's Pick #6: Lives on the Boundary by Mike Rose

I haven't read anything that wasn't for my exam since my last post and when talking with Blythe the other day she suggested I post the books I'm reading anyway...because they ARE books I'm reading and maybe, just maybe, some of them might be interesting to you guys. I'm taking her up on it and I hope doing this will also be a good study tool.

It's no stretch to say that Lives on the Boundary: A Moving Account of the Struggles and Achievements of America's Educationally Underprepared by Mike Rose is my favorite book from the list so far. It's small, it smells like a non-school book (thanks Penguin!) and I decided it would be the book I took on my camping trip during the first weekend of Spring Break. I started reading it while I was waiting for John to get out of the shower on our first morning in the wilderness. A few sentences in, I was wishing John had legs to shave because it was so good I didn't want to put it down! He ended up reading it too - a few pages past me - while I was showering and in just about 14 pages, we had a good hour of discussion about it while walking through swamps later that day. I didn't get a chance to read much more that weekend, but finished the book in a day out by the pool when we got back, devouring it in the way I do with books I get the opportunity to choose.

Mike Rose is a pretty big name Composition scholar - he's the editor and/or writer of countless highly regarded books, scholarly articles and has been in the field since he was about my age, which is really cool. I knew that going in...but what I didn't know is that he'd be an incredible narrative writer - full of zest and life, admission, confession, description and most of all, honesty. He's been through a handful of various education fads along the way, he's taught writing in just about every educational environment one can imagine and most importantly, like me, he knows what it's like to be remedial. Rose was placed in the "dumb" classes due to an administrative mistake during elementary school and while he wasn't a "dumb" kid, he soon learned helplessness to fit in with his peers. A few years later someone realized the mistake at the school and he was catapulted into the "advanced" classes...leaving Rose with a lot of say about both worlds and what the tightrope walking between classifications did to him, not only as a student, but as a person and most importantly, as a teacher. I was always in below-average Math classes and after dropping out of high school and getting my GED, attending BCC meant enrolling in not one but TWO non-credit remedial math courses (not to mention failing my first for-credit math course). While it's hardly much compared to Rose, I understood where he was and what it looked like from those windows. Also like Rose, the innate knowledge of not being good at something that was expected of me to advance (math) plays into the respect and understanding I give my students who struggle with the same shortcoming/notions in regard to writing.

This book surprised the hell out of me; never before have I seen a scholar mix genres - narrative and research, poetry and scholarly literature, personal essay and panel-worthy summations - in such a beautifully fluid way. When I teach 1102 again, I'm going to assign this book, not only as a great introduction to literacy and the current climate of education but also an example of what astounding writing looks like from both creative and professional audiences.

I recommend this book to anyone who teachers anything, especially public school and college...as well as anyone who is interested in reading about what life was like for a young boy who lived on a street in the poor part of LA where hope was not a neighbor. Beyond anything related to pedagogy, it's wonderfully detailed tale of how where you come from not only creates you, but informs you - for better and for worse...and how the world sees you plays a bigger role in your outcomes in life than most of us probably want to admit.

Erin's Book #8: The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

I just sat here for several minutes, staring at the cover of this book, wondering what to say about it. Elegance is not an easy book. Not easy to read and not particularly easy to write about.

It follows Renee, a fifty something widowed concierge in an extremely upscale Parisian apartment building and 12-year-old Paloma, a brilliant but miserable wealthy tenant. Worlds apart in terms of class, the two have one thing in common - both are hiding themselves. Renee, secretly extremely intelligent and cultured, plays the part of the dumb, unenlightened concierge to a tee. Paloma is exceptionally intelligent and looks down at everyone who is not as smart as her, but thinks they know everything (which, sadly, is everyone she knows). So Paloma has decided to end her life on her 13th birthday. Until then, she spends her time writing in her journals, tracking either her profound thoughts (some of which are genuinely profound) or observing the movement of people, bodies, or things, and "to finding whatever is beautiful enough to give life meaning."

If you were to write down every single plot point that happens in this book, it wouldn't fill up a single 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper. The first 2/3 or so of this book are about ideas. It's essentially a philosophy book at times and I read it to myself (in my head) in a snooty French accent, which seemed required. Eventually though, with the arrival of the first new tenant in decades, things begin to happen. Lessons are learned. Worldviews are changed.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I didn't struggle through it quite as much as Blythe did, perhaps because I'd read her review and knew that something as bound to happen soon, though there were certainly times where I felt I wasn't smart enough to be reading it. I won't say why, but this book really upset me, which I think is largely why I have mixed feelings. I had Barbery's Gourmet Rhapsody on my list, but I'm not quite sure if I want to read it yet. There are some really beautiful ideas expressed here and I'll be curious to see what stays with me in a few weeks. It's not a book to quickly forget.

Blythe's Book 12: Olive Kitteridge

This picture has absolutely NOTHING to do with Elizabeth Strout's novel, Olive Kitteridge. However, I picture Olive as a kind of big, strong, stoic Vanessa Redgrave-ish looking woman, and Erin already provided a pic of the cover, so... why not? It was either that or a picture of a scenic Maine coastline, mirroring the setting of the thirteen short stories that make up the novel.

It has been a while (is a month or two a while?) since I have really loved a book, but I truly loved this one. I've always had a soft spot for short story collections, especially ones where a main character reappears throughout, and in this way I was won over merely by the set-up. However, the stories don't disappoint. I'm not going to lie-- they were difficult to read. The characters are lonely, even in the midst of marriages and child-rearing. Infidelity is a common recurrence. although Strout wove these betrayals into her storylines in a way that suggested they were less about deception and lust than they were about filling an infinite hole many people can never fill, and easing an unbearable pain and loneliness. Happy endings are few and far between, but much of what Strout writes (although more extreme than what the day-to-day holds for many of us) carries that ring of truth that I am always seeking in books.

It's easy to dismissively peg the recurring characters early on; easy to paint Olive as a domineering and miserable woman, her husband, Henry, as a long-suffering and kindhearted mate... but to do so would be to oversimplify the love they shared and the complexities of the human experience in general. In most stories, Olive is aggressive, decisive and bitter; but in others, and through the eyes of other characters, we also catch glimpses of compassion, bewilderment, strength, and a deep love for her husband and son. Olive is just one woman among many in her seaside town-- no more or less important than any other-- but reading about her life, and the lives of those around her, filled my heart, giving me both comfort in knowing we're not alone, and a confidence that my life can be better than Olive's if I just keep my arms open to it.

Favorite Passages:

"She understood that Simon was a disappointed man if he needed, at this age, to tell her he had pitied her for years. She understood that as he drove his car back down the coast towards Boston, toward his wife with whom he had raised three children, that something in him would be satisfied to have witnessed her the way he had tonight, and she understood that this form of comfort was true for many people . . . but it was thin milk, this form of nourishment; it could not change the fact that you had wanted to be a concert pianist and ended up a real estate lawyer, that you had married a woman and stayed married to her for thirty years, when she did not ever find you lovely in bed" (58).

"[Olive came across] another photo of him [Henry] in the navy, tall and thin, just a kid, really, waiting for life to begin. You will marry a beast and love her, Olive thought. You will have a son and love him. You will be endlessly kind to townspeople as they come to you for medicine, tall in your white lab coat. You will end your days blind and mute in a wheelchair. That will be your life" (161).

On Olive discovering her potential suitor voted for Bush: "'You voted for him. You, Mr. Harvard, Mr. Brains. You voted for that stinker.' He gave a small bark of a laugh. 'My God, you do have the passions and the prejudices of a peasant.' 'That's it,' said Olive. She began walking, at her pace now. She said over her shoulder, 'At least I'm not prejudiced against homosexuals.' 'No,' he called. 'Just white men with money.' Damn right, she thought" (266).

"What young people didn't know, she thought, lying down beside this man, his hand on her shoulder, her arm; oh, what young people did not know. They did not know that lumpy, aged, and wrinkled bodies were as needy as their own young, firm ones, that love was not to be tossed away carelessly, as if it were a tart on a platter with others that got passed around again. No, if love was available, one chose it, or didn't choose it. And if her platter had been full with the goodness of Henry and she had found it burdensome, had flicked it off crumbs at a time, it was because she had not known what one should know: that day after day was unconsciously squandered" (270).

Pam's Book 15: Sarah's Key

On July 16, 1942, French policemen rounded up several thousand Parisian Jews and held them in the Velodrome D'Hiver, an indoor bicycle racing facility. The Nazis made the order, but it was Frenchmen who carried it out. They were only supposed to round up adults, but they took it upon themselves to gather 4,051 children as well. They were held for days in the Velodrome and then taken by cattle calls to French detention camps. Men were separated from the women and children, and then the children were brutally, physically, bloodily separated from their mothers. The adults were taken to Auschwitz while the children were held, alone, with no one to care for them, in the French camps. Later, the children were mixed in with other adults for transport to Auschwitz (the Nazis had never asked for these children), and, upon arrival, taken straight to the gas chambers. The incident is known today as the Vel d'Hiv. It is a sickening, horrifying story, made all the worse by the French complicity; the gendarmes carried the entire thing out, not the Nazis.

Sarah's Key tells two interwoven stories: that of Julia Jarmand, an American ex-pat living in modern-day Paris, and Sarah Starzynski, a Polish Jew living in France, a ten-year-old victim of the Vel d'Hiv. When the police come to take Sarah and her family, she hides her little brother in a secret cupboard, promising to come back for him soon; she is too young to understand she is never coming back. Meanwhile, in the present, Julia is assigned to write a story about the Vel d'Hiv for its sixtieth commemoration. She becomes captivated by the events of July 16, 1942, and soon discovers that her in-laws had moved into the Starzynskis' apartment soon after the roundup. Julia delves into Sarah's story. The story is told in alternating voices, Sarah's and Julia's. Ultimately, Sarah's story becomes an integral part of Julia's.

Like Julia, I've studied the Holocaust, have read books about it, have visited a French WWII museum, have visited a concentration camp, but I had never heard of the Vel d'Hiv. My sophomores just finished reading Maus, a Holocaust story (the author's parents') told in graphic novel form, and the two stories could not have been more different, nor could have been related in more disparate ways. Yet they both have the same effect: they bring the atrocities to life for the reader, showing us a side of human nature we'd like never to admit exists at all. In Maus, the police of occupied Poland also played a role in the terrors of the Jews. These were ordinary, everyday people who committed atrocities by day and came home to their wives and children at night, went to church on Sunday mornings. Yet, had they not been complicit, what would have happened to them, to their wives and children?

As you can see from the dates between this post and the last, I read this book in two days. I couldn't put it down. It tore my heart out, but I had to keep reading so I could find out what happened to Sarah, to her little brother, to Julia. I think I'm going to pick up something light and fluffy that I've already read before I read another book for this blog.

Pam's Book 14: The Flying Troutmans

Miriam Toews' The Flying Troutmans is endearing, heart-wrenching, baffling, but mostly it's funny. The book jacket compares it to Little Miss Sunshine, which I guess it is, inasmuch as there is a van, a road trip, and a quirky family. But while Little Miss Sunshine was a blatant (but enjoyable) rip-off of the original National Lampoons Vacation movie, The Flying Troutmans is all its own.

Hattie, recently dumped for Buddha, is summoned from Paris by her ten-year-old niece Thebes. Hattie's psychologically disturbed sister Min has once again fallen apart, fifteen-year-old Logan is in trouble again at school, and Thebes is desperately trying to hold the family together. She even poses as her mother on the phone to her brother's principal. Hattie places Min in the local psych ward and takes the kids on a wild goose chase to find their father, Cherkis. Last anyone heard, Cherkis was in South Dakota. The Troutmans live in Canada.

While they travel, Thebes creates novelty checks (you know, the ridiculously big checks winners of television competitions receive) and other crafts, while Logan uses his knife to carve esoteric phrases into the dashboard. The tales of the road are interspersed with Hattie's memories of Min. We get a sketch of their family life growing up, the sisters' relationship, Min's relationship with her kids and their father, and the history of Min's various psychoses.

I think what I loved most about this book is how the characters are nutty and quirky, yet wholly believable and three-dimensional. Thebes has purple hair, is averse to personal hygiene, and talks like a gangsta. Logan is obsessed with basketball, music, his hoody, and his own personal angst. Both kids are in turns overly mature and emotionally stunted, which make sense in their situation. They fight like any siblings but love each other more than anything. Hattie obsesses over her ex-boyfriend and her sister and intermittently calls Paris, the hospital, Paris, the hospital, trying to sort out her life.

I feel like I'm reading a lot about dysfunctional families who somehow manage to love each other and grow throughout the book. But I guess everybody has a somewhat dysfunctional family, so 1) that's what people have to write about and 2) it's easy to connect to those stories. Most of us don't have (actually) psychotic sisters/mothers, but most of us do have siblings and all of us have mothers (whether their in our lives or not), and there's always that one person in the family who takes responsibility for the rest of us. That said, I'm sure this will not be the last book I blog about that centers around dysfunctional families in some way or another.

Blythe's Book 11: The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

Lawrence Wright's Pulitzer Prize- winning history of modern-day Islamic extremism, The Looming Tower, is a book I would recommend to anyone. It isn't a quick read (I've been laboring through it for three weeks now), but it certainly sheds a lot of light on how and why Al-Qaeda came into being, as well as how the face of terrorism against the U.S. has changed over the last two decades. As far as the big picture goes, I don't think Wright provided any huge illuminations; I was fortunate enough to stumble into a Middle Eastern Politics course my senior year of college, and the professor, who was extremely knowledgeable, really helped our class understand the roots of unrest in the Middle East. However, I now have a much better idea of how WE allowed terrorist acts to occur. Wright paints a picture of two institutions, the FBI and CIA, that are so suspicious of each other, and so possessive of their information, that they effectively crippled any inroads that could have been made against the growing threat of Islamic terrorist groups. The CIA, in particular, seemed to withhold valuable information. A lot of what happened after 9/11 (so far as creating Homeland Security and new gov't positions) was a blur to me-- but now I understand that these weren't kneejerk reactions, but instead were responses to the extreme inefficiency of the existing antiterrorism infrastructure that was brought to light after the tragedy.

Another thing this book did was paint a much clearer picture of who Bin Ladin is. I've always seen him as this mysterious mountain man, but in reality, he is a man who has been influenced by other extremist movements and manipulated by leaders of other groups (like Egyptian and Sudanese nationalists)who hoped to take advantage of his family's wealth and his followers' loyalty. Of course, there's more to him than this, but I no longer see him as the leader of a movement of his own making, but instead as one face among many.

Perhaps the most striking realization I'm coming away with is that a lot of the terrorist acts performed against us could have been avoided. Bin Ladin could have been stopped a dozen different times, if anyone in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, or the U.S. had taken the threat seriously. He would have had a much more difficult time recruiting terrorists if we didn't always respond by attacking (after we bombed parts of the middle east in response to African U.S. embassies being bombed, hundreds of new recruits poured into Al-Qaeda camps; before our military response, public opinion was firmly in our favor). If we were a little less ardent in our support of Israel over Palestine, or if we had withdrawn from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq sooner after the Gulf War, we would have fewer enemies. I know we have interests abroad that must be protected, and I know that where there's a will, there's a way-- those looking for a scapegoat will always be able to find one, and chances are Bin Ladin would have hated the U.S. anyways... BUT, we certainly make ourselves an easy target when we constantly boast of our power, seemingly rejoice in depravity and licentiousness, and plead ignorance to how protecting our global interests could ever negatively impact other countries. Americans know we stand for more than that, but the pictures don't lie, nor do the troops stationed across the world... and in many areas, that's all that is known of the U.S.
For a subject that is multi-layered and complicated beyond belief, Lawrence Wright does a superb job connecting the dots. He writes about the men on both sides, their missions, and their mistakes. It's impossible to come away from this book without a deeper understanding, and perhaps a deeper fear, of the threat of terrorism.

Pam's Book 13: Neither Here Nor There

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I love Bill Bryson. I love his linguistics books and I love his travel books. This book, as you can see from the cover, is about Bryson's travels around continental Europe. He follows the route he and a buddy (Katz) took twenty years before. There are lots of gems in the book that I marked while reading, intending to reproduce them here, but I don't happen to have the book with me right now.

Neither Here Nor There is a funny travelogue, recounting details, facts and opinions. One thing I like about Bryson's writing is that he doesn't hold back; he calls things like he sees them, unapologetic, yet willing to change his opinion when circumstances change. He makes sweeping generalizations about people and cultures, some I agree with, some I don't. I chose this book because it's about places I've been, places I'm soon visiting, or places I'd very much like to go, and I thought maybe it would give me some good insights. I learned that it's always a good idea to book an Amsterdam hotel in advance and never to be the first off the ferry in Copenhagen. I learned that if you want to travel by sleeper train from one European capital to another, it's best to book well in advance.

What struck me most about the book, though, more than the insights, was how dated it seemed. Bryson kept talking about how long ago 1970 was, and how different things were. Then I looked at the copyright, and the book was published in 1992. I learned later that the trip had taken place in 1990, twenty years ago. There are as many differences between 1990 and today as there are between 1970 and 1990. I wouldn't have thought so, just thinking about how I remember things. Obviously fashions are different now, and the Internet is far more pervasive. Yet, this trip in 1990 was just after the fall of the Iron Curtain. The Berlin Wall was newly torn down. The Euro did not yet exist, nor did the European Union. Cheap airline operations such as Ryan Air did not seem to exist, or if they did, they weren't on Bryson's radar.

I wonder if he has any plans to return to Europe soon for another twenty year reunion trip. If so, what changes will he note? If he goes, I hope he puts out another book about it.

Erin's Book #7: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

As I've previously said, I often pick books to read without really knowing what they're about. Because of this, I didn't realize that Olive Kitteridge is essentially a compilation of short stories. Had I known this, it may have fallen down my list a bit.

Not to say that it's not a good book. Olive Kitteridge is comprised of thirteen stories that all take place in the small town of Crosby, Maine. Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, is the connective thread. In some stories, she is a primary character; in others, she receives merely a mention.

The stories themselves were engrossing enough, though some left me unsatisfied. If I had to sum up this book in one word, I'd say Death. Most of the stories seem to center on elderly characters, who are either grieving or dying. It's by no means a happy book; even the younger characters are suffering - eating disorders, broken marriages and engagements, depression and thoughts of suicide... The young aren't spared death either.

Olive herself is an interesting character. We first meet her through a story about her charming, likeable husband, Henry. In contrast, she comes off as intensely unlikeable - cold, abrasive, blunt, feisty. As the stories wear on, we learn more about her, seeing different sides of her, as Strout slowly reveals her vulnerability. I'm always intrigued by authors who dare to write about unlikeable protagonists, though I found myself annoyed by her more often than not. By the end, she had certainly grown on me.

I'm still not quite sure how much I enjoyed this book. It was a quick and easy read and I found myself very into each story. But for me personally, this format is not my preference. It's the complete antithesis of any John Irving novel, so it's odd to read these two back-to-back. Instead of the fully fleshed out, complex character studies of Irving, Olive Kitteridge presents brief glimpses into lives. You scarcely have time to get attached to the character and then the story is over, not to surface again. There are so many characters that when a name from a prior story is occasionally brought up again, I couldn't always remember what their story was or how it was resolved, which frustrated me.

Like I said, it's a quick read and entertaining enough. The story-in-bite-size-pieces was convenient - I could read a story on the train from my house to downtown. But ask me about this book in a month or two and I probably won't remember it.