Working backwards

With Henry, the holidays, and Rome, my reading has slowed. So I thought I could work backwards and offer some mini-reviews of books I've read pre-blog.

Since August 2008:
Good Good Pig - Non-fiction selection from my friends' book club. Life lessons from a pig. Not great, so I'll summarize: savor life.

Happiest Baby on the Block - This is the most-recommended newborn book among our friends - because the 5-S technique (swaddling, shushing, sucking, swinging, side) works.

Stumbling on Happiness - A Harvard psych prof on how the human mind makes decisions and and how these processes can lead to happy/unhappy outcomes. Fascinating. The kids-make-you-unhappy section makes for interesting conversation.

Team of Rivals - DKG's biography of Lincoln and his cabinet. Much in the news these days since Obama has cited its influence. One of the best biographies I've ever read.

Handmaid's Tale - While this feels somewhat dated to its early 80s influences (Iranian Revolution, abortion wars, rise of the religious right), it is a good read. Thought the post-script didn't fit at all.

Killer Angels - The classic fictionalized version of the Gettysburg battle. (E & I visited Gettysburg a couple years ago when we attended a friend's nearby wedding, and I got into the Civil War.) This is book is a page-turner that really involves you in the battle. Team of Rivals provided some of the larger historical/political/military context that is lacking from this.

(Then The Sparrow, etc.)

The Sparrow - 2

I finished reading The Sparrow, which Jesse wrote up a couple months ago. I figured I better make a new post rather than a comment, since the original Sparrow post rolled off the first page of the Blog into some semi-lost archive!

I liked this book better than Jesse seemed to - he described the plot very nicely, referring to the parallel stories told pro- and retrospectively, leading up to the reveal. Unlike Jesse, I was not disappointed in the reveal - rather, I was disappointed in the conclusion to the reveal! Without serious spoilers, it's sufficient to say that the main character, the Jesuit priest Emilio Sandoz, and his friends all experience the events leading up to their expedition to meet the alien species on a relatively nearby planetary system as a series of extraordinary "coincidences" that seem clearly to represent the will of God. These events nurture Sandoz' tentative faith, but his horrible experiences on the alien planet shatter it. After his return, some really likable members of The Society of Jesuits nurse him to some physical and emotional health, seeing his plight summarized in Matthew 10:29

Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it.

I guess this says more about me than the book, but I found the shattering of Sandoz' faith more powerful and convincing than his semi-redemption. Still, I felt this book was very interesting and I liked grappling with this age-old question of why bad things happen to good people.

Jesse's review here

Lauren's review here

Erica Jong Votes for Stoats: Random Story of the Day

Hi All- thanks for having me here as a guest on your blog! The joys of being done with grad school is that I've got the same hunger for literature, but have the time to read fun things now and follow up on all the great things I learn. I could (and will) write a long post about my new-found appreciation for Vonnegut (he's dead, so I can't write to him. I just missed him) and the fits of outloud giggles that Gabriel G. Marquez gives me. But my most favorite literature moment came on election day when I decided that Erica Jong herself must hear, from me, what I'd learned that day and how it related to her book. I looked up her email and wrote to her. This is what we'd had to say....

On 4, Nov 2008, , at 11:09 AM, Jillian Krupski wrote:

Ms. Jong,

This past weekend after a devastating breakup I was nursing my sore ego in the kitchen of my favorite aunt (editor's note: yes, ALMP, that's you! Hooray!) She handed me Fear of Flying and said “enjoy”. It is my first experience with your literature and I can’t put it down!

Today I read while standing in line to vote, attempting to pay no attention to the republican behind me reading over my shoulder. I assume he caught a dirty word and was intrigued. I was reading the chapter where Isadora and Goodlove are about to consumate their relationship for the first time and he calls her a stoat. “What is a stoat?” I thought. I had no clue. Then I followed a link that someone had sent me to a random website and found that a stoat was the featured animal of today. http://www.cuteoverload.com/

What a random set of coincidences. I highly doubt that this stoat has anything to do with the stoat to which Adrian referred, but it was funny nonetheless! Mystery solved!

Happy election day.

Jillian Krupski

*************************************************************

From: emjongburrows@mac.com [mailto:emjongburrows@mac.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2008 11:32 AMTo: Jillian KrupskiSubject: Re: vote.....a stoat?

Dear Jillian--

I'm thrilled by your letter.

I wrote "that book" (as people call it) throughout my twenties--and when it was acquired by Holt in 1970, I was a baby (and a babe). I had no idea what I'd wrought.

The reactions were ecstatic, mean, unprintable, hateful, horrid and wonderful. The "official" lit'ry types called me "a mammoth pudenda" (Paul Theroux in the New Statesman), but Henry Miller of Tropic of Cancer fame loved it and so did John Updike in the New Yorker. Thus my first novel (third book) was SAVED!

And here we are in 2008 & you have just found it at a time in your life you need it. The wonder of books!

So--read it and remember that men are compelling but another one always comes along (like a bus).

Remember who you are! Fantastic, individual, beautiful inside and out. If one creep doesn't get it, a wise man
will come along who does.

I've had 4 marriages and my 4th husband is my soulmate. We are now married 19 years--a record for us both.

The others were just warm-ups.

BE WELL!

EJ

So I guess the moral of the story is....I shouldn't plan on being happy in love until my fourth marraige!! We're just warming up!

More time-travel

Leading up to October the First is Too Late, I am on an inadvertant time-travel kick. Over Thanksgiving, the Wilde clan had a multi-generational movienight, watching Back to the Future.

But I just finished Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. It also has time travel as a major plot element, though it is used to juxtapose events for satire. And the "time travel" is probably actually just one character's delusion.

In high school, I read Player Piano by Vonnegut. Our teacher assigned PP to give us exposure to an author's first novel (to demonstrate the room for improvement?). That was my only previous Vonnegut exposure, so I thought it worthwhile to try his most well-known work. S5 is humorous, but it didn't stir me - in this way it reminded me of The Crying of Lot Forty-Nine, which is nearly contemporaneous.