Slew of Books

I’ve been on a week and a half long reading binge and have just come up for air.   Imagine, if you will, scraps of half-chewed paper dangling from my lips.    I devoured these books like I was afraid I’d never get to read again–a feast before the famine.   Or like my husband eats a stromboli.    So here’s the list of the dearly departed:

1.  The Sea, John Banville

2.  Oracle Night, by Paul Auster

3.  The Wig my Father Wore, by Anne Enright

4.  The Book of Illusions, by Paul Auster

5.  The Gathering, by Anne Enright

Each of these books was a jewel–a real treasure.  Ok, I didn’t treasure The Wig my Father Wore quite as much as the others.   Enright weaves the past, present, future, real, imagined, true, and untrue together in such a way that you don’t always know which way is up.   There was a moment in The Gathering where our narrator finally does come clean, however, and serves up in the story  in such a way that we’re clear (or so we hope, at least) on what happens.  Not so in her earlier book, so when I shut the last page I found myself quite bewildered.  What kind of crazy journey had I just been on?  If it was the author’s intention to produce such bewildered readers (and I’m thinking that’s a yes), then well done Anne, you certainly messed with my head.

Quick U-ie.  I must rave for a moment about The Sea.   Now, I usually head into books knowing that a vast majority of their readers believe them to be good.  I have too little time to read to waste on crap, so I let reviewers do my vetting for me.   It drives me a bit crazy that there’s this select group that gets to decide what books get touted as literary gems, but hey, this select group hasn’t steered me too wrong (except, perhaps, on The White Tiger). So even though I knew from the quotes on the back that The Sea was elegiacal, hypnotic, and filled with “incandescent prose,” I still was not prepared for the spell this book wove.   When I read these pages I felt like I was floating above the world, or rather, floating on top of the waves with the sounds of my daily life cut off by the water in my ears.    His prose was poetical in its exactness.   Even when I didn’t understand the words he used (his book had me turning to my online dictionary more often than this English major would like to admit), they still produced a sensation.  The words poured over me like waves pour over the sand, tugging and pulling and shifting me.

I need to wrap this up, and I will wrap it up with the promise to talk a bit about Paul Auster the next time I post.   Who knows when that will be, but it will be.

The White Tiger

Rating:  This is a book I feel like I’m supposed to love–a Booker Prize winning, fresh voiced, little stunner (It literally stuns you-I felt like I got punched in the face with it).  And yet…When I read a book, I’m looking for a connection, for empathy with the main character, and it is that empathy that really carries me through the book.   This main character, “the white tiger,” despite how difficult his life was and how trapped he was and how his actions were in a way justified, this character lost me.  I stopped caring.  Perhaps I distanced myself from the character and his plight because watching the caste system in India in operation was so overwhelmingly horrible to me.   I despaired of any hope.   I don’t need a book to have a positive outcome, but it turns out that as a reader I do need a little hope to fully invest.

Not to say, dear friends, that you shouldn’t give it a try.  Your hearts may better be able to combat the injustice of the world with hope.  And other reviews of this novel are extremely positive.  Here’s a link to a site that has compiled links to reviews of The White Tiger:  http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/india/adigaa.htm#summaries

Which leads me to the question running around my brain this morning–how does one avoid complete despair when faced with the horrible injustice in this world?   My pastor told a story just this past Sunday of a photographer named Kevin Carter.  Carter traveled to the Sudan during the early 90’s and snapped this picture in 1993.   He won the Pulitzer Prize for feature photo in 1994 for this shot.   He accepted the prize on May 23, 1994.  Two months later he killed himself.

The note that he left on passenger seat of his  red truck said, “The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist.”

I understand Carter’s despair.   When I read The White Tiger, despair began to creep into my heart and take up residence there.  But I must fight it because despair will lead to throwing up my hands; it will lead to apathy.  Better anger than despair.  In anger there is still hope for change, still a desire to fight.

I’ll pause for now, but these thoughts will be with me for awhile.

The History of Love, by Nicole Krauss

Rating:  Loved it.  Deeply moving, honest, and well-conceived.  One of those books where the stories weave together but in Krauss’s hand this weaving was effective and not gimmicky.

The human heart is mysterious above all things.

The History of Love could also be called the History of Loneliness, or rather it’s a history of love lost, love unrequited, and love unknown. Basically, love in the form we know it best. Besides what kind of a story would a thriving, fulfilled love make? I’ll be frank—I wouldn’t want to read page after page filled with the sweetness of a satisfied love relationship. And I believe this is true for most  readers. We like to read about love that destroys the lover or beloved, love that beats noisily in someone’s heart until they think their heart can’t stand it anymore and yet is never shared. We like love that gets the timing wrong, or the timing right and the person wrong. And I think it’s because that is how we know it best. That makes sense to our fractured love lives, our secret longings, our botched romances. Besides our intimate knowledge with the screwy side of love, it also is seemingly more interesting—it tantalizes with its peaks of ecstasy and valleys of self-loathing.

Time for my confession (what’s a blog without confession?) I’m in a relatively peaceful, fulfilled love relationship. I’m married to a man who loves me and nurtures me, and wishes me the best, and I, in turn, try to do the same to him. That’s not the confession. The confession is that sometimes I miss the turmoil of my pre-Logan life—the pain and sudden joys. The time that boy left a rose in front of my door, and the time I made a fool of myself in ways that seem completely unfathomable now. Yes, that’s it—I miss the foolishness of it. Don’t get me wrong; Logan and I can be complete fools with each other, but it is a more private foolishness, without the risk of losing love.

I certainly wouldn’t trade in the tranquility of our relationship for any of the former things.  I believe what I have now is better, though it doesn’t make as good of a story for my girlfriends.  “You wouldn’t believe what happened today–Logan said kind things to me and I said kind things to him!”  Granted, we’ve only been married three years–I’m sure there are more peaks and valleys to come.

Anyway, this beautiful book reminded me of the rarity and preciousness of love, and the great lengths us humans will go to for it.   I’m very much convinced that most of human activity results from the quest for love or the quest for glory (and sometimes people seek glory because they think it will get them the love).  I very much recommend it, especially with a glass of merlot.

Hello world!

How to begin?   At the beginning, I suppose, but where does this story begin?  In my childhood bedroom, underneath the sheets with a Lloyd Alexander book and a flashlight?  Or even earlier, when my mother read to me in my cradle?  For sake of ease, and moving on, I’ll begin it this very morning, when my husband said to me, “You ought to blog,” and I responded with, “What exactly would I blog about?” and then the moment the question left my lips, the idea came to my head to blog about the books I read and the thoughts they provoked.   So that’s what this will be.   Perhaps I’ll review the books in a very basic way as well, but for the most part I think I’ll just share what comes to me when I finish the last page.    You are very welcome to suggest books to me and share the thoughts that came to you when you finished the same book.    That’s enough for an introduction for now.  I’ll tell you about myself bit by bit when the moment comes.  Suffice it to say that this blog comes from a deep love for the written word and its power over the human heart and mind.