peg's comments
(member since Sep 02, 2007)
peg's comments from the The Random Person's Book Club group.
(showing 1-20 of 51)
If you could,or were forced to be a ficticious character and live his/her life as your own,character flaws and all, who would it be? Why?
I would choose to be Chieko,the protagonist in Kawabata's The Old Capitol. At nineteen Chieko is on the verge of adulthood having been raised in the old Japanese tradition by loving parents. Chieko is a romantic and loves the arts and has all the time in the world to enjoy them. She sees the beauty in nature and spends much time out of doors enjoying it. Although her parents are traditionalists,Chieko is excited by the possibilities of modern art and technology and seems to be able to reconcile the old with the new. Chieko is a very intelligent 19 year old and seems to have all the attributes of a young woman destined to make wonderful decisions in life.
You Can't Go Home Again - Thomas Wolfe
Bitter Harvest - Ann Rule
Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
My club's December read is A Thousand Splendid Suns. I'm really looking forward to reading this.
No Erica, you are not alone. Pi seemed a little too pedantic for my taste in the beginning, a little preachy.But now that I am into the book I am enjoying the description of the animals and a very unique argument in favor of animal captivity in zoos.
Diane - You are more disciplined than I. Suite Francois is on my TBR list but I don't know when I will get to it. I'm back to The Life of Pi. This time I won't get sidetracked. I have to have it read by Thurs! I'm worse than the three-toed sloth in the book:)
Accordian Crimes - Annie Proulx
Diane - Thanks for checking. I can't believe you didn't buy anything!!
Heidi - Just a few thoughts about your comment on The Glass Castle. First of all, I agree with everything that you stated. The family relationships are very complex and there is no easy explanation as to why the Walls' lived as they did. In my opinion the common denominator in the parents' behaviors was mental illness. The father was affected by alcoholism and sexual abuse in his past and Jeannette's mother had incredible mood swings with periods of depression that would send her to bed for days on end. She was also out of touch with reality in many respects. Neither parent could be relied upon when the other was incapacitated.
Popper - Let me know how you make out:)
After I recover from Jeanette's horrific childhood I would like to read Robinson's book,"Look Me in the Eye: My Life With Asperger's." Has anyone here read it? The author is the brother of Augustin Bourroughs who wrote Running With Scissors.
Kate - I am a big Murakami fan. Let me know what you think of the Wind-up Bird Chronicle:)
Diane - I think that Jeannette cherished the time when her father took her out to the desert and gave her a star. Years later she wondered if she would be able to see Venus in the urban sky.
The paternal grandmother was disgusting. From what I was able to read between the lines, I suspect that she may have been sexually abusive to Jeannette's father as well. Did anyone else sense that? The father's brother living in the basement was also incestuous with Jeanette. Since it is a fact that most sexual molesters have been sexually abused as children, I wonder if the grandmother may have contributed to his problems. In spite of the author's apparent candor, I imagine that there are still a lot of skeletons in that family's closet.
Popper - Several years ago I logged onto Oprah's website and found a list of "Oprah's book clubs" in my area. I joined one that started out as an Oprah book club but also read books other than what Oprah listed. The group was/is quite successful but I eventually stopped going because the meeting time conflicted with my work schedule. As I recall, I had several groups to chose from at the time.
I found my current book club on the meetup web site. It is an international listing of many different types of groups. Just google meetup groups and you will be taken to the official web page.
Goodreads might be another place to start. Someone I know started a book club by contacting people on goodreads who live in her area.
Also - My daughter started a very successful book club by advertising on Craig's list. You might want to check that out as well.
Good luck!!
(Can you imagine telling your son to hold his nose while eating so that the spoiled food won't taste so bad?)
The Brothers Karamozov - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Diane-
I believe The Glass Castle is dedicated to Jeannette's second husband, John. I have no way of checking at the moment as my copy has been visiting several of my friends since I finished it:)
Yes, Jeannett was 3 years old when she burned herself cooking hotdogs and 6 years old when she promised Maureen that she would always take care of her. Jeannette adopted the maternal role at a very young age.
I agree that it was a blessing that the children had each other. I doubt that an only child would have survived that situation. I think that Maureen's demise can partially be attributed to the fact that she was significantly younger than her sibblings and was alone with (or without) her mom most of the time. The children definitely saved each other's lives when they decided to move away from home. I give Lori a lot of credit for mothering her sibblings so unselfishly.
I always consider the fact that a memoir is not always 100% reliable when it comes to accuracy. After all,our memories are very subjective. I did think that the scene where the piano was dragged from one end of the house to the other and out the back door was a little hard to swallow. Was there anything in The Glass Castle that you found hard to believe?
Diane -
I do admire the author for not criticizing her parents. However, the book seems to be written in the style of a journalist. The story lies in the showing rather than the telling. The reader can only conclude that the parents were mentally ill and incapable parents. I wonder what the book would be like if Jeannette were the only living family member at the time the book was written. Maybe we would have another Mommie Dearest on our hands. Someone told me that Lori objected to the writing of the book. I'm sure that that fact alone affected the writer's style.
The parents never physically deserted their children but they deserted them emotionally.The children's mother was so self absorbed that she didn't even have the wherewithall to work so that the family could eat. And their father, ugh! I couldn't believe that he put Jeannette in the situation where she could very possibly have been raped. Ruining Lori's art project, stealing the piggy bank, etc turned my stomach. When the parents joined the kids in New York they had nothing left. They took advantage of Lori and trashed her apartment and, in spite of the fact that they lived separately from their children, they knew that they could visit them and take advantage of being offered a hot meal and a roof over the heads when they became desperate on the streets. So my question is, who parented who?
In retrospect I was a little disappointed that Jeannette didn't convey more of her personal thoughts and emotional reactions to what was happening. She was especially guarded while talking about her first marriage. While I was reading about that I wondered if there was any connection at all between Jeannette and her husband. In playing a little armchair psychology I think that Jeannette is very guarded emotionally. In lieu of her horrific childhood I wonder if she is able to form many emotional attachments. She has to have a lot of internalized rage. Regardless, it is a miracle that the children became reponsible adults. Little is told about the youngest child but I found it encouraging that she is in touch with the family and was planning to visit at the end of the story.
Even if only half of the story is true,everyone involved has a lot to tell their therapists!
The Random Person's Book Club
