Please Don’t Ignore Her

“The trick is remembering that change is as easy as you make it.” Truth.

5.13 Please Ignore Vera Dietz

This was a pretty gut-wrenching read.  It just rang so true, and so sad, for me.  It made the faces of many past students flash before my eyes, with the constant reminder that for some kids life will never be fair.  Some kids are failed by the system and by the people around them, by the people who know better.

As the story opens Vera is at the funeral of her best friend Charlie, or ex-best friend as the case may be.  We being at the end, as the rest of the story tells us, through flash backs, about their friendship, how it fell apart, and what really happened to Charlie. Meanwhile it is also a story about two kids, acting very much like teenagers – which I am sure has conservative parents in an absolute fit as the book won a Printz  Honor Award – and just trying to keep their heads down and make it through.  So many kids now a days do that.  It seems like they are literally holding their breath until the something better comes along, but there are also so many more ways to get in trouble than there used to be, and so many more people too bothered to intervene when they see wrongs being committed.  At the core, I think that is what this book is about:  Idly standing by, and how it has become really hard to push back against that new expectation.  I think both kids and adults would learn a lot about acting responsibly from this book.

The end is a bit tidy for me, but the core is very messy and very real.  And in many ways, very scary.

Write Me Well

“I immersed myself in books and rock ’n’ roll, the adolescent salvation.” Truth.

1.13 Just Kids

“Write me well.” are the final words Viola speaks to Shakespeare in the movie Shakespeare in Love.  They are the most romantic words.  To trust every bit of the truth of yourself to the person you love and ask them to write your story. To write the whole truth about you… Takes such an amazing amount of trust.  And that is what Robert Mapplethorpe asked of Patti Smith.  He asked her to love him, and stay with him, inspire him, and, eventually, write him.  And my goodness, did she write him well.

I adored every page of this book.  This is a love story that is really about friendship.  It isn’t overtly romantic or passionate.  It is instead honest and trusting.  Two people who needed and depended on one another as they changed and turned into other people.  Do I think she left out some of the dirty details in order to reinforce her poetic existence?  Absolutely.  And I do not care one little bit.  I think we could use a bit less of dragging up the ugly details of days gone by in favor of thanking those people who have touched our lives in some way.

I always wanted to be an artist.  I longed to be able to sketch out all of my feelings, or paint a scene that only existed in my mind. I have countless art supplies: paints, papers, tools. Sadly, I don’t have the chops.  This book has made me see that art isn’t about having the chops, or feeling you were born to do something, it is about living and creating until you find yourself where you are supposed to be.  In the next few weeks I vow to pick up some of those pencils and paper and see what happens.

Can You Outrun the Past?

“Sometimes we do bad things without knowing the reason.” Truth.

24.12 Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

The description of this book reads:

“In the 1970s, Larry Ott and Silas Jones were boyhood pals in a small town in rural Mississippi. Their worlds were as different as night and day: Larry was the child of lower-middle-class white parents, and Silas, the son of a poor, black single mother. But then Larry took a girl to a drive-in movie and she was never seen or heard from again. He never confessed . . . and was never charged.

More than twenty years have passed. Larry lives a solitary, shunned existence, never able to rise above the whispers of suspicion. Silas has become the town constable. And now another girl has disappeared, forcing two men who once called each other “friend"” to confront a past they’ve buried for decades.”

Sounds like a pretty standard mystery, right? Well, you figure out the various mysteries easily as they unfold, and you are meant to.  It gives you time to focus on Larry and Silas and their experiences.

They couldn’t be more different, but every bit of their existence is linked to the other. They barely know each other, but they have each shaped the others current circumstances without even knowing how much. It is fascinating to read as all of the connections unwind, even though it is not done in a shocking way like I was expecting. 

But man, it is a terribly sad book. Achingly so. It was hard to read for the recognition of the unfairness of life. It made me really sad.  It is a really well written book that took me up and carried me along.  It reminds you of those things you learned as a kid and will always remember in that way, like the way I sing the Halloween song every time I write the word. The assumptions we hold about people and places and never let go of even though new realities are at the forefront.  We are always so much who we were as children.  Even though we grow up and become someone else, that other person is never far behind. 

Trust the Rooster

Clearly, I am new to this whole blogging thing, and I am sure that I am doing it all wrong, but it is fun to come here and write about what I read even if no one reads it.  Basically, it provides me with an odd form of adult talk.  Anyway, since I started writing the blog I also started reading others and that is how I discovered the Tournament of Books.  March Madness for nerds, folks!  It exists, it is awesome, and I can’t wait until next year.

Every year, nearing those Ides of March, I am subjected to "The Bracket."  My husband hands me a sheet of paper, tells me to fill it out, and then proceeds to get mad at me when I do better than him, even though my general strategy is to pick the superior mascot (thus, Ohio State never wins!) But now I have this Tournament, in which 16 books are pitted against one another and fight for the championship. 

Here are the deets of the 2012 event:

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• In December, 16 book titles were announced along with the names of 16 judges; a veritable who’s who of authors, bloggers, editors, and, this year, one Wil Wheaton. The books were then seeded into a bracket to be played out in March. Each judge selects a winner in one round, and then all select in the final round.

• There is also a “Zombie” round, in which two books knocked out in previous rounds are brought back by popular vote to rise again and take on the front runners in the second to last round.  This years zombies were The Sisters Brothers (which went on to win) and The Art of Fielding (which is sitting on my shelf).

• The winner of the 2012 tournament was The Sisters Brothers, and past winners include: Wolf Hall (which I loved!), A Mercy, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, The Road (which is devastating, but amazing), The Accidental, and Cloud Atlas (also, on my shelf). 

What I am saying here is that, while reading is a deeply personal thing, there are certain crowds you can hang with and not be disappointed, and this is my crowd for sure!  I can’t wait until next December when they announce the next contenders; I hope to read them before the tournament starts and fill out a bracket with all my nerdy enthusiasm!  Maybe I will make Chris fill one out too...

Now, back to my reading! As my favorite book of last year, Moondogs, also featured an amazing rooster, I took it as a sign and bought The Sisters Brothers the day it won the tourney (opting to find it in hardback since the paperback cover SUCKS!!!) And is it everything I thought and hoped it would be… Well, yes ma’am!

19.12

 

"Our blood is the same, we just use it differently." Truth.

The truth about family is that blood is powerful, blindingly powerful, and in many cases not blinding at all.  We see the truth of one another better than anyone and we let each other get away with it.  We tend to support each other without fail, but rarely do we trust each other wholly.

This is the truth for Eli, our narrator, as he works with his brother Charlie.  They are paid assassins, and very well known.  We watch them travel from Oregon City to San Fransisco to complete a job for the Commodore.  They are violent men, yet Eli is very sentimental.  He is very effected by what they do but he doesn't stop.  He wants to settle down, and love someone; he wants to be loved by someone.  But he doesn't stop.  This felt so human to me; to get bogged down by what you do and never having the strength to drag yourself out of it and start over.  I found myself liking Eli very much, even ignoring his violence and making excuses for it, as if he were family.  I do wish I had learned more about Charlie though.

A lot of reviews say this book is funny, but I think I a lot of that was overshadowed by sadness.  It is an easy, fast-paced read, that is a western through and through.  As Wil Wheaton put it during judging, "The Sisters Brothers made me feel like I was sitting in a movie house in Red Dead Redemption, watching an episode of Deadwood that was written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by the Coen Brothers."

And Sometimes They Were Very Sad

59. The Marriage Plot

This book was a gut punch for me to read.  It wouldn’t be for other people, but for me it was painful for reasons I won’t write about here.  It made me very sad, but I also read it differently than anyone else would and so I think all of my opinions are going to be skewed.

I identified with Madeline, maybe too much.  I also have spent much of my life escaping into stories and have so many plots and characters floating around in my mind that my realities can never live up to my expectations.  I identified with all three characters as they fell in to the chasm of the “Real World.”  We hear about it during our education, everyone around us pretends that we have done everything right to be prepared for its realities.  We go to school and study in order to Be something.  We believe that we have a handle on who we want to be for the rest of our lives, but truthfully we know nothing.  We have simply been hiding, avoiding.

The book is wonderfully written, Eugenides plays with time in a wonderful way.  His writing shows how two people can share an experience but feel and remember it in excruciatingly different ways.  He highlights again how insecure people truly are with themselves and how the people around them know very little of the truth.  He brings each of the characters to life in a very vivid, though not always happy, way.  I am sure there will be many complaints about the entitled nature of the advantaged youth of the 1980’s.

I keep seeing the story labeled as a love triangle but I didn’t see it that way; it is more about choices.  We all make choices, big and small, every day.  We also constantly wonder what the other choice would have brought us, often believing that the better choice was the other option.  I am so glad that Mitchell gave Madeline a choice, for his sake as much as for hers.

Memories

41. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

It is an acclaimed YA book and so I had high expectations and I did like it but I also thought it was a bit over the top.  It felt somewhat unrealistic in the extremes of the highs and the lows.  But I LOVED the artwork and thought it really helped the plot of the story and that it would be a great discussion point for kids.  It is certainly a quick read and there are many parts that I am sure will get it banned but it gave a pretty real portrayal of life on a reservation and the pressure we all feel to break away yet to also conform.

For me it also brought back memories of the road trips my parents and I would take to New Mexico, and one trip particularly when we stopped to watch a chicken pull.  A chicken pull is exactly what it sounds like: two guys on horses, each one takes a wing, and they pull.  The guy with the bigger piece is the winner.  I think I was 15 on this trip and so was all kinds of grossed out, annoyed, and indignant about going to this thing(and everything else).  I remember standing there with my mom and dad and suddenly my mom was hit in the head by some ice.  She ignored it and then it happened again.  Some people behind us were throwing it to show us we were not in the right place.  It was the oddest feeling.  I should have been angry that they hurt my mother right?  Anyone would be.  But I was too embarrassed to be.  Too embarrassed because I knew they were right.  We were white and on the reservation.  The feeling on the reservation is that if this is what the white men gave them then we should let them be.  I can't remember how much longer we stayed, I can remember being scared.  And I can still see clearly the broken bits of ice sparkling in my mom's hair.

Love of a Classic

24. The Tiger's Wife

I always loved the idea of having a worn copy of a literary classic with me at all times.  Having it tucked away in my purse even though I know every word by heart, but still needing it near by.  There is something so romantic about it.  If I did carry one with me it would have to be Beowulf.  The first thing I ever taught; the one I always loved to teach.  The one the kids moaned the most about but took with them with the clearest understanding.  The story that is meant to be heard and not read.  He is a true hero who wanted to be remembered for being good.  Believing that the ultimate honor was to be written about.  Maybe it is time to go buy another copy.

The thing I loved most about The Tiger's Wife was the grandfather.  The thing the author surely loves most about her book is the grandfather.  I had a hard time not believing that this was her memoir because she wrote him so vividly.  I can clearly see the worn spots on his shirt pocket left from his copy of The Jungle Book.  He was a wonderful character, and I enjoyed his story.

This was a very well written and mature book, somewhat startling coming from a 25 year old.  It wasn't flawless but it was so very worth the read.  I look forward to her next outing.

Award Winning

There are a lot of awards for books.  People seem to like the idea of slapping a golden foil sticker on a cover and thus marking it as better than its peers.  Kind of like when, as a child, you cleaned your room or ate your carrots. Some awards I trust: I will pick up the golden foiled P of a Michael Printz award winning book and know that it is smart YA.  The Man Booker prize winners, whose books are emblazoned not with a sticker but with a rather modern looking printed circle claiming the fame, are usually good, maybe because they announce a "short list" first and then the winner, so it feels more like Miss America than the Kentucky Derby.

Then there is the Pulitzer prize: Now this prize is given in many categories, kind of like your local newspaper when it it hands out awards for Best Burger, Best Bookstore, and in the case of Eugene, Best Roller Girl (she is called Bullet Brains if you were wondering).  The Pulitzer is a widely admired prize and again we have finalists and then winners which only seems to lead to a lot of discussion of why someone other than the winner should have won, but I digress.  I have a lot of admiration for many of the past Pulitzer Fiction winners: The Road was a wrenching read but ultimately transportive, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay goes down in my top five favorites of all time! And any list that includes To Kill A Mockingbird has to be considered brilliant.

So why is it that I wish A Visit from the Goon Squad hadn't won this year? Well it isn't for the same reason that everyone else can't seem to stop talking about, it isn't that I think Freedom should have won, for me it is because all these prizes make me expect too much.

23.  A Visit from the Goon Squad

*Didn't take long for them to slap a sticker on that one did it?

We give out prizes for anything and everything these days but that doesn't change the fact that if something has "won" you expect more from it somehow.  And the fact is that reading is subjective.  Its success as a story depends on the many variables of the reader, and so while I think this was a good book, and well written, I do think that with its shifts in point of view and time it takes a certain type of reading to make it really work.  Specifically time and quiet; and wouldn't it be lovely to be on the board of these awards and have it be your job to concentrate solely on reading and evaluating book? But for me, the common reader, it is my job to make sure my 2 1/2 year old doesn't harm himself while I flip a few pages when I can.

Vacation Vortex

What the hell just happened?

Darren and I went to Boulder, Colorado to visit my parents last week and I swear I have no idea where the time went, but I certainly didn't spend much of it reading.  I used to go to my parents and read, watch movies, eat, walk; but now I have a 2 1/2 year old, so I never read, or watch movies. When we eat it feels more like shoveling, and when we walk it is more like meandering.  It is certainly still wonderful to be there but it is different and a bit sad to think that it may never be the same.

However, at the outset of the trip I started reading Visit from the Goon Squad, and since then it has won the 2011 Pulitzer for fiction, so that bodes well for me enjoying it's remaining pages.  So far, I really like it but with it's shifts in time and points of view it would be a much better idea to give it more attention than I have.