On Keeping a Book a Secret: A Small Dilemma

Writing this blog, like all activities, has its unanticipated small (very small, and fortunately very manageable) dilemmas. For example, sometimes I read a book and decide it would be perfect for one of my friends or family members for a birthday, Christmas, or other occasion, or "just because." (As regular readers of this blog know, many of my gifts to others tend to be books.) I also plan to write a blog post about that book. But if I know that the recipient in question reads my blog, I don't want to post before I give the person the book, in case they go out and buy or borrow the book themselves. The solution, of course, is simply not to post about the book until after I have given it to the person. This is not a problem, but sometimes it involves waiting days or even weeks before being able to post on that book. In that case, I usually write the post while the book is fresh on my mind, and save it to post a little bit later. (I am smiling a little as I write this, thinking that if this is the biggest problem I have all day or all week, I am extremely fortunate!)

"A Mercy"

Over the years, I have read all of Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison’s novels, as well as some of her nonfiction, and have admired and learned from all her work. For several semesters, I taught the novel “Sula” as part of my Women’s Literature classes. Morrison’s writing is both very realistic and at the same time lyrical, even transcendent. It is not always easy to read, in two ways: because of the difficult and sad subject matter (most often slavery and its consequences) and because of her allusive, nonlinear style of writing. I have just read her most recent novel, “A Mercy” (Knopf, 2008), and those two difficulties are as present in this novel as in most of Morrison’s. We read of the rather convoluted story of two European Americans in the North in the late 1600s, Jakob and Rebekka, reluctant “owners” of a young black girl, Florens. We also learn about two servant women –- Lina and Sorrow -- whose situation is less transparent: they are not slaves, but some aspects of their lives and employment are slavelike. We learn the stories of these characters, and of others such as the free black blacksmith and two men who are in a sort of serf-like position, Will and Scully. As each chapter begins, it usually takes the reader a few paragraphs to ascertain who is speaking, as each character tells overlapping stories, each in her or his own style, both about themselves and about the other characters. The wrenching ending explains what we suspected about why a mother was willing to give up her daughter at the beginning of the story. This novel, like all Morrison’s novels, is a piercing reminder of the oppressiveness of slavery, but also of the difficulty of life for so many humans throughout history; the pioneers – no matter what their race -- in the northern part of the United States have hard lives. Jakob and Rebekka are not bad people, and circumstance makes most human decisions less morally clear than they might initially appear. Yet finally the idea of any human being owning another is obviously indefensible, even for someone such as Jakob who took Florens to protect and save her from her former owner. This novel, like many of Morrison’s, is written in indirect, almost dreamlike, almost poetic prose, in which the lines between the “real” and the imagined are often blurred. There is always a thread of the spirit, of the unknown, running throughout the novel. Although I sometimes put off reading Morrison’s latest novel, because I know it will be demanding and painful, I always read her novels eventually, because I know they will also be rewarding and beautiful, and I know that once I have read them, they will stay with me forever.

Learning More About the Chinese People

The university where I teach, along with most American universities, has seen a huge surge in Chinese students over the past four years or so. Much of this surge -- after many many years of having few if any Chinese students -- is due to the new affluent upper class in China. It has been very interesting to learn from and about these students, and to learn more about China. To learn even more, I have been "reading up" on China a bit, albeit in a rather informal way. One interesting article I read recently was titled "The Grand Tour," and appeared in the April 18, 2011 issue of The New Yorker. If you are interested, you can read it at the web address below (or just Google it).

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/04/18/110418fa_fact_osnos?currentPage=1

This article tells of the increasing number of Chinese tourists around the world (a relatively new phenomenon, with the aforementioned increase in affluence allowing more world travel), but particularly in Europe. The author of the article, Evan Osnos, joined a Chinese tour group (most Chinese tourists travel in groups) in Europe, and writes astutely and informatively about what he learned during the tour. The tour guide seemed to do a good job of orienting and advising his travelers, although he passed on a few questionable stereotypes about Europeans. The tour tended to pack a lot of cities and a lot of sightseeing into a short time period. The group members were genuinely interested in learning about differences between China and Europe regarding culture, thinking, and lifestyles. Among other things, they compared the benefits of China and of the West; some felt that China's one-party system allowed the government to get things done quickly, something that didn't always happen in the West. On the other hand, some travelers felt that the Western system allowed young people more freedom to choose their futures. The travelers were an interesting mixture of being frugal and being willing to pay for luxury goods that would be much more expensive in China. Osnos had some conversations about the United States with some of his fellow travelers, in which it was diplomatically but clearly intimated that China would soon overtake the U.S. as a world power. This eight page article just describes one author's experience over a short time period, but I found the article very interesting and revealing. I will continue to read about China, in academic journals, magazines, memoirs, and fiction.

Guest Post: What My Nephew is Reading

After I posted on “Books In My Family” on 4/24/11, my nephew Eric, who is in his late 20s, responded with an interesting email, portions of which -- with his consent –- I am posting below as a guest blog. I love that he feels the same way about our family heritage of reading, and I am so appreciative that he is kind enough to give me credit for having a part in his being a lifelong reader. (Readers of this blog won’t be surprised to learn that I was the auntie that always read to the kids, took the kids to bookstores, and gave them books for every birthday and holiday and sometimes just for the fun of it.) I also always like hearing what people are reading, so I appreciate Eric’s eclectic list of what he has read this year, and what he is planning to read. You can see his interests in the environment and in religion, among his many areas of interest, both alternative and mainstream. I remember, for example, that when he was in college he once called me to tell me he was taking a course in Russian literature, was reading "The Brothers Karamazov," and wanted to discuss it; as you can imagine, that made me happy! So, without further ado, here is Eric’s email.

“I particularly enjoyed your post about 'Books in the Family.' I felt the same way the last time I visited, and really enjoyed browsing through Granddad's books. In a way I felt like it brought him into the present, being surrounded by the books that informed and inspired his life. I thought it would be fun to share with you what I have read/been reading so far this year:

PrairyErth (A Deep Map): An Epic History of the Tallgrass Prairie Country - William Least-Heat Moon
Zeitoun - Dave Eggers
Prayer and Modern Man - Jacques Ellul
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology - Neil Postman
All Creatures Great and Small - James Herriot
Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes, and Values - Yi-Fu Tuan
The Naked Anabaptist - Stuart Murray
Walden - H. D. Thoreau
Watership Down - Richard Adams
The Power and the Glory - Graham Greene

My plans for Spring/Summer reading are Flannery O'Connor's Complete Short Stories, her Habit of Being (letters), a theology book about the role of Catholicism in her life and writing, and finally a book on Church history.

Thanks again, Aunt Stephanie, for encouraging me since childhood to be a life long reader; it certainly has enriched my life.”

Unsettling Coincidences

On two occasions during the one and a quarter years I have been writing this blog, I have read a review or blurb about a book that I have just written a blogpost about and found that it used the same adjective or phrase that I used. In both cases, this has unsettled me. I have not been sure whether to feel validated and “on target” or, on the other hand, unoriginal. Worse, I have been concerned that readers of my blog may have also seen the overlap, and may wonder if I am unduly reliant on reviews when I write my own “reviews.” This last question is a concern because I conceive of this blog as a way of expressing my own responses to what I read. Of course my posts are informed, directly or more often indirectly, by all the reading I have done over the years. I do read many reviews of many books in the course of my newspaper and magazine reading, and the reviews help me choose which books to read in the first place. I generally don’t read reviews of those books after I read the book and before I post about it, although I do so occasionally, as often a book is reviewed by different publications over a period of months and even sometimes years. Let me be specific. In my post on Ann Packer’s “Swim Back to Me,” posted just yesterday, I used the term “heartbreaking” but said that the stories offered redemption as well. This morning while reading the 4/24/11 issue of The New York Times Book Review (which had been on my “to read” pile) during breakfast, I saw an ad for the book that included a quote from an “O, The Oprah Magazine” review using the sentence “Ann Packer can break your heart – and she can mend it, too.” I do not read “O,” and I don’t believe I had seen this blurb elsewhere. Granted, neither “O” nor I was being particularly original with this word (heartbreaking) and this concept (breaking readers’ hearts and then mending them, or in my words, offering redemption). And I know that (as I posted about on 1/14/11), there is a limited universe of words and phrases to use in book reviews. Nevertheless, it was an unwelcome surprise for me to see the similarity of phrase and concept, and made me feel that I should be careful not to fall into using the most immediate phrases that occur to me when thinking about my response to a book.

"Swim Back to Me"

“Swim Back to Me” (Knopf, 2011) is a collection of short stories by Ann Packer, author of the well-received 2002 novel, “The Dive from Clausen’s Pier.” That novel was riveting, and these stories are as well. These stories display even more complex, mature writing than the novel did. Every single story is not only compelling but also very real and very wise. The fact that the stories are set in Northern California, especially Palo Alto and Berkeley, is of course of interest to me, and the stories certainly draw on certain aspects of those locales. But really they transcend any certain setting. The longest story (actually a novella) is the first one, “Walk for Mankind,” narrated by a young, insecure boy, Richard, whose mother has just left his professor father and who has become enmeshed in an increasingly complicated and ambiguous friendship with Sasha, a girl who recently moved to his Palo Alto neighborhood, and with her friendly and welcoming but somewhat odd family. The story is beautifully observant and acutely painful in the way the world of early adolescence often is. The last story, “Things Said or Done,” unexpectedly returns some forty years later to the character Sasha and her family, showing us the reverberations of the personalities from, and the events set in motion in, the earlier story. The characters in all six stories are sharply drawn. Marriages and families are the focus in most of the stories. These stories are all heartbreaking, even tragic, in various ways, yet portray redemption, or at least the possibility of redemption, as well. As an aside: I recently heard the author interviewed on the radio, and was quite impressed by her, as I was by these emotionally engaging, insightful, beautifully written stories.

Tribute to a Dear Friend

Today I attended the memorial service for my dear friend of 40 years, C. Her death is a huge loss for me and for so many of her family and friends, as was evidenced by the beautiful and heartfelt tributes and stories at the memorial service. I write about her here today because she was one of my best "reading friends" (among the many wonderful aspects of our friendship); I wrote here about her, and the love for books that we shared, on 2/16/10. She was also kind enough to contribute, at my invitation, two illuminating guest blogs, one on re-reading favorite books (on 10/17/10) and one on her love of Japan and haiku (on 10/18/10). In addition, she was very supportive of this blog, not only reading it regularly and sending encouraging comments, but also recommending it to her many friends. Over the 40 years of our friendship, we mostly lived on different coasts, but were always in close contact, with visits, letters, emails, and phone calls flowing back and forth across the country. We often talked about books, recommended books to each other, and gave each other books. Just a few days ago, I thought about a certain book: "Oh, C. would like this book...I have to tell her about it," and then sadly remembered that I can no longer do so. She was a very special person -- brilliant, high-achieving, kind, caring, talented, artistic, well-traveled, and more -- and a great friend. I miss her -- and will continue to miss her -- more than I can say.