September Nights 'o Reading

Just finished Julia Child's My Life in France. Boy is that lady a good storyteller, albeit her grand-nephew takes much credit for putting together the book. I envy her memory, and now I don't feel so bad about keeping so many old letters and photos. They jog the memory cells that have gone to sleep.

Read through the prologue of Water for Elephants before my eyelids couldn't stay open longer last night. Went to Bharti Kirchner's 826 Workshop on Writing the First Page of a Novel, and based on what Kirchner said and other books I've read, Sara Gruen would get an A+.

Speaking of 826 How to Write Like I Do workshops, I learned loads from the queen of books, Ms. Nancy Pearl, this past month on writing book reviews. Check out the soon-to-be-released schedule of workshops for 2010: http://www.826seattle.org/writelikeido/bios.html

What I'm reading

Why read just one . . .

John le Carré's The Constant Gardener (got to read it before I see the movie!)

Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope--excellent!

Traveller's Tales' A Woman's Path

Robert Ray's The Weekend Novelist

Molly Gloss's The Hearts of Horses--so, so

And just found this site: http://www.bookbrowse.com/top_reviews/

An Artist of the Floating World (Kazuo Ishiguro)

Kazuo Ishiguro, who also wrote “The Remains of the Day,” is a highly lauded Japanese author, born in Japan, then moved to England at the age of six. The novel follows Masuji Ono, a much accomplished artist from October 1948 to June 1950. The background is a Japan recovering and rebuilding after World War II. Ono-san had joined the patriotic fervor leading up to the war. Confrontations with Mr. Kuroda, his former pupil, along with suggestions from his daughter Setsuko’s hint at past transgressions as does Ono-san believing his role in the war may hinder his daughter Noriko’s miai, or marriage arrangement. The new generation—Suichi, Setsuko’s husband, and Taro, his new son-in-law—regard the newly embraced democracy as tantamount to a happy future, even if, as Ono-san sees it, Japan remains in the shadow of America. He is old, retired, belittled by his two daughters, and so he passes his time reinterpreting conversations he’s had and sharing scenes of his past. Ono-san’s thoughts often glide in and out of these scenes even as his present life carries on, glimpses of past glories haunt the present in the same way Mrs. Kawakami’s traditional bar is soon overshadowed by multi-story offices. Unfortunately for this reader, the pacing of the novel is slow, and the meaning of those recounted episodes not evident until the reader has nearly finished the book. Still, perhaps the genius lies in the irony of a man stuck in the floating world of the past. And despite his break with Mori-san, his former mentor, Ono-san realizes the break was anything but clean. Ono-san’s words, thoughts he realizes may have been molded from his former teacher, show his life not so far removed from the one he so criticized in his former mentor. So, this inheritance--stuck as it seems in the floating world--only comes to fruition when he learns to break free.

Stiff (Mary Roach)

I remember one of my students recommending her book to me, so when it came up as a suggestion for my book club, I jumped on it, knowing only that it was a book about dead bodies. Boy, am I glad I finally had the chance to read Roach’s first book. It’s as entertaining as it is informative, one of the best combinations for remembered fodder that tends to pop up in conversations long after the last page is read. “Oh! That reminds me of this thing I read in Stiff . . .” Which I brought up recently after watching X-Files the movie, in which two women had disappeared, and Bolder and Scully track down some Russian scientists trying to keep a man alive by transplanting his head to the live woman’s body. In Chapter 9, Roach covers the history of scientists working toward this goal of keeping heads alive, using dogs, with limited success. Roach covers the gamut of what happens to donated bodies and their parts along with what we have discovered thanks to these generous dead folks. Plastic surgeons practice face lifts on donated heads, the history of cadavers’ use in anatomy classes, and experiments with dead bodies to test bullet-proof vests, air bags, army boots, just to name a few. For me, I intend to settle down to read her next books, Spook and Bonk, the next chance I get!

The Heart of Horses (Molly Gloss)

A story of a remarkable, independent-minded young girl named Martha Lessen at the turn of the century, the twentieth century, that is. She is like the horse whisperer a century earlier. And a girl, that is. Despite any intentions whatsoever, Martha warms her way into the heart of the townspeople through their unruly, bad tempered horses. For me, I loved the idea of putting a girl in such a milieu and giving her the kind of character that Martha has. But the book was slow for me, much attention paid to the horses Martha trains to ride, or “breaks to saddle.” The climax, when adventure speeds the plot up, is far too late and the ending far too conventional for me to give the book another read.

Narrative Non-fiction links

The Narrative Journal
http://poynter.blogs.com/narrative/

The Narrative Digest's Narrative Library
http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/narrative/resources.aspx

The Narrative Digest's Essays on Craft
http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/narrative/essays.aspx

The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard
http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/NiemanFoundation/Audiences/JournalistsAndWriters.aspx

Loving Frank (Nancy Horan)

Loving Frank could be said to be akin to Kate Chopin's The Awakening in that it is a woman's awakening to her own sense of self, her needs and aspirations apart from her partner's or her responsibilities as wife, lover, or mother. Written as if Mamah Borthwick Cheney was writing her own memoir in third person, the fictional story brings to light a largely secret chapter in a real-life affair with the same woman, a largely secret chapter in Frank Lloyd Wright's larger-than-life history. Beginning in Frank Lloyd Wright-country, Oak Park Illinois, in the early twentieth century, the clandestine lovers eventually leave their respective spouses to live a life together. But a description based on just the love affair or the "awakening" of a woman realized falls short of the Horan's prose, which is intoxicating with feelings of desire, guilt, shame, thrills, and quiet moments of determined resolution that this reader adored. So much so, that the page-turner disaster that closes the book and scars the infamous Taliesin house in Hillside, Wisconsin leaves shock and heartbreak in the wake of the last page read. Loving Frank is Nancy Horan's first novel. But her previous life as a journalist and the years living in Oak Park herself has brought this beautiful story alive on the page. For Horan has given voice to Mamah, a woman whose voice and life were all-too-soon silenced by the passing of years and a seemingly passing shadow towered over by the life of a world-famous architect like Frank Lloyd Wright.

The Audacity of Hope (Barack Obama)

The Audacity of Hope (Barack Obama)

You know you like a book when you tell everyone how good the writer is. And this was never more true than Barack Obama’s second book, The Audacity of Hope. He is an incredibly thought-provoking, articulate writer. And given for his present position, quite surprisingly humble. I am impressed that he published his beliefs in such a public way, his views on foreign policy, on community, and on family, among others. You’ll want to savor this as I did, enjoy the spell he casts over you, as you seem to be there in an armchair opposite the man, as if listening to him speak about each thing that is so important in this world.

Death of a Red Heroine (Qiu Xiaolong)

I adore books that cast me in a midst of a country, immerse me in all the senses, especially taste and smell, not withstanding a complicated culture and history like China's. Granted, Xiaolong has written the protagonist of his first crime novel--Chief Inspector Chen--as one of a kind. Chen is an English and literature scholar well versed in Chinese and Western poets, who writes and recites poetry throughout the novel. Added to that is Chief Inspector's penchant for good food, which he describes in succulent detail. So, the promotion to head of a "special" crime force seems strange to not only the reader, but to his colleagues as well. When he is placed on a case that involves the murder of Guan Hongying, a designated "national role-model worker" in the reign of Chairman Mao, everyone doubts Chen will be able to solve the case. More so when the case turns political and the high cadres--the upper echelon of the Communist Party--may be involved. The prose itself is tough to read, a stilted, unnatural English, which may lie in the difficulty of the translation or the style of the author. The author loses some points for the deux ex machina to conclude the novel, however clever the interweaving of the Chinese setting and conflicts fascinate me in this mystery story.

Style, baby, STYLE

You're not getting any reader through your piece of prose, unless you've got style. And part of style, lies in knowing the rules. Everyone says that, right? 'Cause once you know the rules, then you know which ones to break. That's the beauty of it. So, learn 'em and learn 'em good.
Then your very own styled prose is filled with broken bits of standards along with idiosyncrasies no one else can claim.

Time-Tested Writing Guide:
William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White. The Elements of Style: http://www.bartleby.com/141/

For Science Writing:
A Field Guide for Science Writers, 2nd Edition. Deborah Blum, Mary Knudson, Robin Marantz Henig, Eds. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

For Non-Fiction Writing:
John Franklin. Writing For Story: Craft Secrets of Dramatic Non-Fiction. New York: PLUME, 1986.

William Zinsser. On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Non-Fiction. New York: HarperCollins, 1976.

For Memoir:

Natalie Goldberg. Writing Down the Bones. Boston & London: Shambala, 1986.

For Travel Writing:
L. Peat O'Neil. Travel Writing: See the World. Sell the Story. Cincinatti, OH: Writer's Digest Books, 1996.

The Seven Sisters (Margaret Drabble)

Half of us in the book club were split on whether The Seven Sisters was a good read or not. Sure, I respect the limited perspective offered by Drabble's main character Candida in this novel, as the world is seen only through her somewhat naive glimpses of the world around her. We never find out full truths or explore beyond what Candida can see. She, in her intimidated way, rarely ventures out beyond what her imagination allows. So, even the move to one of London's seedier sides from her very comfortable married life in Farlingham is a surprise. A move motivated by the infidelity of her husband Andrew, the acceptance of the upper class community of his affair with a mother whose daughter committed suicide. Candida's move also motivated by an isolation from her own three daughters, communication and closeness being her weaknesses. But I couldn't get past the affected writing, the shifts in perspective that turn out to be lies, and the pretenses of death. So, that the drama is as superficial as the world as I understand it through the main character's eyes.

No Country for Old Men (Cormac McCarthy)

After reading The Road and hearing the movie, No Country for Old Men, was receiving accolade after accolade, I was determined to read this 2005 McCarthy book. Boy, oh, boy was I glad I did. What a read. I had trouble putting it down. You know, those books that you read right before sleep, where your eyes grow heavy and your head starts to nod. Well, that just didn't happen with this book. In fact, I literally felt my adrenaline start to race, and my eyes scanned quicker, trying to keep pace with McCarthy's writing, flipping pages, curious as all hell to see what happens next. The dialogue is one of the best I've read, even though the truisms coming from bad-to-the-bone Anton Chigurgh and welder-on-the-run Llewelyn Moss sound like they could have come from the same character. I love what the book jacket depicts as the theme: "an enduring meditation on the ties of love and blood and duty that inform lives and shape destinies." The characters all seem to embody the belief that they are, not was or will be, just are. So be their demise. The only one that seems to escape this predetermined existentialism is Sheriff Bell, who follows the characters throughout the book, only to make his own decision on whether to stay with the killer til his own bitter end or to make a change that might save his own life, regardless of right or wrong.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Barbara Kingsolver)

Kingsolver never fails to send me flat in awe-struck wonder at her non-fiction prose and send me reeling from the truths that sink in after a read. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is no different, save for contributions to this book from husband Steven Hopp and daughter Camille Kingsolver. Moving from dry, water-deprived Tucson to verdant farm in the Southern Appalachians, Kingsolver and her family resolve to live on what they can grow in their garden, raise in their chicken and turkey coops and buy locally. What the book becomes is a diary of that experience, including recipes for each season, and a testament to how possible this venture can be. A book club book, we came together on May 3rd over a completely local dinner, determined to change our shopping ways after reading this book and understanding better the distances our food travels to our table and at what cost to our local farms and dependence on oil. I went to the local farmer's market to buy the book club dinner I was hosting. Spinach so crisp, I ate it like lettuce the entire week. Cilantro, long, bushy, so smelly. A thick slap of halibut that melted, flaked when grilled. Asparagus, spicy red potatoes. And wine from Bainbridge Island and Mt. Baker. Over and over I heard from my book club friends how wonderful the meal was . . . and all I can say is that I did very little but cook it. It's the love and work the farmers put into that food that brought out flavor we so miss when we buy sub-quality food from the grocery store.

What is the What? (Dave Eggers)

What is the What? is a sad, sad, story. How could it not be? It's the story of Valentino Achak Deng, a "Lost Boy" from war-ravaged Sudan. Albeit it's not pure autobiography, the disclaimer by Deng says that much of the story is true. Eggers tells Deng's story through a series of flashbacks, flashbacks during and shortly after a violent robbery of Deng's apartment in Atlanta, Georgia, ironically his sanctuary after years of suffering, starvation, and deprivation running from one group or another in his native Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya.All proceeds from the sale of the book go to t he Valentino Achak Deng Foundation: http://www.valentinoachakdeng.org/. For me, the story brought to life the reality of the suffering of what remains ongoing in Sudan--now in Darfur, Sudan. It makes a news headline or a story more than just a place far-far away. It's a person like you or I, suffering in fear, starvation, without family or love, and without shelter. What the book leaves you with is to answer the question of what exactly is the what that will make a deranged world sit right.

The Road (Cormac McCarthy)

Gruesome. Scary. Devastingly awful. That's what I thought of the bleak scene painted in Cormac McCarthy's novel, The Road, as I read it in a two-night marathon. I couldn't put it down. The world as we know it has ended, and yet what has caused the end is never told. The land is covered with ash, in many places, the trees are burnt, the tires of cars melted, bubbled into softened pavement. Corpses sunken, beyond recognition lie along the road, in empty, decrepit houses. And a father and a son, both also never named, travel this road trying to survive despite long periods of starvation, lack of water, of shelter from the snow and wind. More grievous, more threatening are the tribes of "bad guys" as the son calls them who scavenge, steal, rape young boys and women, and then kill all they encounter to eat--that's the "bad guys" version of surviving. Beyond all hope, the boy and his father endure until the very end. What a read. An unusual read, to be sure. But considering I could not put it down, perhaps it was because of that pull of love amidst the destruction and waste that would have devastated most that kept me reading on.

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America (Erik Larson)

When I started this book, I was thrilled that I'd be going to Chicago for my sister's wedding, right to the heart of where the story takes place. Only, when I was there, I kept trying to figure out where oh where was the World's Fair and the time-consuming structures that had been erected over a century ago, where had it been located? Later, nearly at the end of the book I find out that very little of the landscape or architecture survived beyond that year in 1893. Much of it was destroyed in riots, none of the buildings really meant to last. All the effort for a single year. Unbelievable. Behind the design and the construction is architect Daniel Burnham who oversaw the building of the fair. George Washington Gale Ferris, too, left his mark, little known until his namesake left an indelible mark on every fair and festival thereafter with his Ferris wheel. The Ferris Wheel was almost a losing bid among the others who attempted to outdo the Eiffel Tower, if you can believe it. And the creepiest of creeps, Herman W. Mudgett, lived just a few miles away, committing murder after murder in a building he'd designed himself, complete with hidden doors and gas pipes exposed, vats, and kilns big enough for bodies. It's the shadow of this evil that darkens the otherwise white city, so named because all the buildings erected for the fair were painted white. Larson does an admirable job tying these story lines together, and bringing in bits and pieces of history, a history that includes Susan B. Anthony, Buffalo Bill, and even the sinking of The Titanic. A must read, if you believe me.

Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi)

Marjane Satrapi's book Persepolis is a graphic novel both history of Iran during the period of the Shah, his downfall and then Iran's war with Iraq, and autobiography. It is the story of her early childhood--pre and post teenage years, when she first begins to think she'll grow up and be the first female prophet. Only she vacillates between becoming a prophet of God or a prophet of Marx. The disappearance of family members and friends, the charged marches, the bombing by Iraq, and forced dress--the burqa and the scarf--from this little girl's eyes is disturbing, even if her way of coping makes you laugh. Reading a graphic novel is a different experience, but not necessarily a bad one. The pictures and the captions leave many more interpretative gaps to the reader, which may make for a powerful read.

The Namesake (Jhumpa Lahiri)

Now I don't wonder why Lahiri won the Pulitzer prize, and I haven't even yet read The Interpreter of Maladies, her debut collection of fiction that took that prize . The Namesake transported me so completely into a world I've never been and yet longed to be for much, much longer than the final page. Her description, the sensation of touching, of feeling, of tasting were powerful, as were the turns of phrase that persisted beyond each page turned, lay deep in the recesses of my mind, digesting, resonating those truths of what she'd written. For me, it wasn't merely a coming of age novel, a story of a boy from an Indian American family in the US, it was the story of growing up in a family who have all the right intentions, but who don't realize how suffocating a life pre-determined with high expectations can be, how difficult trying to make a life apart remains. Yet, the first generation of an immigrant is a powerful story, and Gogol is the central figure, even though we meet and live in the lives of his parents in the beginning of the book--Ashima and Ashoke. Once he's born, it's Gogol who embodies the first-born immigrant whose life is pulled between the world his parents recreate of India in a suburb of Boston and the America he's known all of his life. All of this and a curious namesake, given to him by his father because of a tragedy he'd lived long ago and never told to his son he'd named. To Gogol, his name is meaningless, ridiculous until at the age of 18 he learns the true history of his name. A name perhaps more powerful because he changes this name to a "good name," a name his parents had intended all along for him to use outside the home. His other name--Gogol--would be more intimate, more familiar, for family only. And it's that namesake that leaves a powerful final message as the book ends, too.

Book suggestions?

Every night I try to have a wee bit of time to read, that wee bit between settling down for the night and when my eyes start to droop too heavy. I have a lot of books to choose from, what with a house full of books and lists upon wish lists of books from the local library. So, that wee bit of time never goes far enough to make a dent in all those books I want to read, let alone books I'd like to read again someday. 'Course the worst, just the worst, is when you believe so fervently that the author is going to get the story together by page 10 or 50, and when he or she doesn't, boy, do I feel cheated. Wee time is meaningful time best spent. So, I try to select the best-est of books, which come from recommendations of trusted friends and literary types, and of course, the Sunday edition of The Seattle Times' Book Review. Want to be let in on some of those best-est of books? Check out the Bookclub Blog at: http://jees-bookclub.blogspot.com/

The Great Escape: Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World (Kati Marton)

I've heard that Hungary boasts the most Nobel prize winners, which for a relatively small country is quite impressive. But I had no idea of the impact a select nine Hungarians had on the world, forced to flee their native country because of antisemitism and the events leading to World War II. Author Kati Marton interweaves narratives of these individuals' lives, their personal motivations, hardship, romance, defeat, and the sweet recognition of their accomplishments into a story of our own history. Names easily recognized to us like Laurence Olivier or Ingrid Bergman, Albert Einstein, and Theodore Roosevelt are influenced by these men. Perhaps as striking is their ability to surpass enormous obstacles to become part of history--loss of family, friends, the antisemitism that displaced them from their native Budapest, and a language that isolated them linguistically from the rest of the world. Scientists Edward Teller, John von Neumann, Leo Szilard, and Eugene Wigner led the movement to develop the nuclear weapon in advance of Hitler. These scientists also worked to develop the computer. Major film makers Michael Curtiz (Casablanca) and Alexander Korda (The Third Man) created legendary movies, directing Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart, for example in Casablanca. Photographers Robert Capa and Andre Kertesz's photos live on; Capa's fuzzy D-Day photo on Omaha Beach is recreated in Steven Speilberg's film: Saving Private Ryan. Capa's love affair with Ingrid Bergman, his war photography that brought the war to the public in the U.S. Kertesz's photos that captured emotion in a single moment.And writer Arthur Koestler (Darkness at Noon) prophesied the dictatorial state even before the Soviet Union had expanded its reach to his homeland: Hungary.