Gerald Camp read and liked Ruth's review of Paradise:

"This is the first Toni Morrison book I've read, and so the review is with the caveat that I can't, like so many others, compare it the all the "much better books" that she has written!

I found this a very thought provoking story ...more This is the first Toni Morrison book I've read, and so the review is with the caveat that I can't, like so many others, compare it the all the "much better books" that she has written!

I found this a very thought provoking story about our tendency, as humans, to build structures that are unsustainable, about the futility but also the danger of tight control over communities (particularly religious and ethnic communities), and about the multiple shades of grey of every character. People have said to me in the past that Toni Morrison does not speak to them, because she speaks so strongly to the black experience in the US. I can't comment on her other books, but Paradise certainly speaks to a universal experience of minority communities and the fear of the other, or even the fear of people being too honest about who they are.

Even if these themes do not resonate, the book is worth reading for Morrison's mastery of the English language and of the novel form. It is an incredibly compelling read. The language is best described in Morrison's own words:

"each detail was a jolt of pleasure, erotic as a dream, out-thrilling and more purposeful than even the war they had fought in" (16)

The language is incredibly poetic and descriptive without being boring; each detail carries the narrative along. I don't think I have ever read an author who manages this so successfully.

I have read a few books recently which use the technique of changing the perspective of the narrator as the story progresses. Morrison does this better than any of the others I have read. Each chapter is told from the perspective of a different woman, but not by the woman in question. That is, Morrison takes one woman's story as the anchor for the broader story, while including elements that the woman in question would not be aware of. In the subsequent chapter she continues the story, but anchors the narrative around another woman's experience. It works incredibly well, and it is only by the end of the book that you become fully aware of the complexity and richness of the story that has unfolded.

I handed it on to mum for various reasons, but largely because it became clear to me that Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees was heavily influenced by this darker and more complex story. Many of Monk Kidd's motifs, including the abundant food, unorthodox spirituality and even beekeeping derive from Morrison's story. However, I feel that Paradise was more satisfying, giving a more realistic treatment of how we succumb to and can rebel against controlling structures and rife injustice and warns against how, in our rebellion, we risk hurting others more than we have been hurt ourselves. Paradise also speaks more sucessfully to the danger of judgment because of assumptions we make on the face of the evidence, when what is really going on is much more complex. To understand requires much love.

Mum also thought it was very compelling and beautifully written. She found it a little heavy towards the middle, but also found that it contained a lot of truth, and a very positive and lightly handled message in the end, bringing to mind what effective spiritual guidance might look like:

"Lack of words... Lack of forgiveness. lack of love. To lose a brother is a hard thing. To choose to lose one, well, that's worse than the original shame, wouldn't you say?"
...
[X:] looked down at his feet for a long time. [Y:] stayed quiet with him. Finally [X:] raised his head and said:
"I got a long way to go..."
"You'll make it", said [Y:]. "No doubt about it." (303)(less) "

Gerald Camp liked a trivia question:
In Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series, Thursday's pet is see if you know the answer »

Gerald Camp read and liked Kate's review of A Round-heeled Woman:

"The cover of Jane Juska’s book features a newspaper personal ad that reads: “Before I Turn 67—next March—I would like to have a lot of sex with a man I like. If you want to talk first, Trollope works for me.” This personal ad reveals muc...more The cover of Jane Juska’s book features a newspaper personal ad that reads: “Before I Turn 67—next March—I would like to have a lot of sex with a man I like. If you want to talk first, Trollope works for me.” This personal ad reveals much about what lies between the covers of A Round-Heeled Woman: My Late-Life Adventures in Sex and Romance: a sexual romp and an exploration of aging and womanhood, imbued with a literary sensibility and a boisterous sense of humor. Juska’s candid memoir is a lively read that draws you in for the sex and has you stay for the wisdom, charm, and poignancy—well, okay, you might be staying for the sex, too.

As the ad that Berkeley-ite Juska places in The New York Review of Books implies, she may have retired from high school teaching, but she’s not ready to retire from life. “Retirement” to Juska means teaching at San Quentin State Prison and at U.C. Berkeley, volunteering for Planned Parenthood, and singing in a classical chorale. Indeed, retirement seems to have breathed new life into Juska: she loses a substantial amount of weight and clears out the psychic cobwebs through extensive therapy. Yet something is missing from the life of a woman who is “easily aroused,” one who “adores” penises. Through placing the ad, she gives herself permission, after years of celibacy, to have sex. More than that, though, she authorizes herself to be a sexual being.

As a woman in her late 60’s, claiming her desire is an empowering move. After sending in the ad, prior to receiving a response, she feels buoyant, playful. She wonders about people who don’t know what she’s done; they see her as a short, elderly, graying, intellectual woman. In her mind, she speaks to them: “Could you even imagine what I have done? Do you know that I am not at all what you think I am? That I am more? . . . The world was fun. And so was I.” Sexuality and identity play are not just for adolescents.

Of course we continue to read because we want to know how many men respond to her ad. And do any women? And we’re curious about how much sex, if any, she ends up having. And does she find love? Does she want to? The book answers these questions and does not skimp on the erotic details, offering a fascinating glimpse into a sexual world usually reserved in popular media for the under-40 set.

But Juska’s writing offers other pleasures, as well: Berkeley and New York lovingly are depicted; and she explores how music and literature enrich her life. She paints complex portraits of her mother (an alternately angry and loving woman), her father (with whom the adult Jane attends strip clubs), and her ex-husband (who, when they are newly married, teaches her to check out football players’ back-sides to determine their field position, unintentionally providing her with an opportunity to be a sexual spectator, not just the object of a man’s gaze).

The book also includes teaching scenes at the prison, high school, and university. Many writers teach, but not many write about the realities of the classroom. Juska provides a frank, humorous and, at times, complex examination of the vicissitudes of teaching and learning. With a series of stories about students and curriculum, Juska demonstrates how classrooms are drenched in sex, although we pretend they are not. And Juska does not shy away from the terrain of teachers as sexual people, such as when she writes about her enjoyment of a sixteen-year-old’s “ass.” Of course, the sixteen-year-old is a boy, and she’s a heterosexual woman. While certainly her desires are far from socially sanctioned, my one quibble with her book is that she fails to acknowledge the likely higher stakes for a gay or lesbian teacher.

Nevertheless, Juska’s book does demonstrate that aging can beget a certain kind freedom: the freedom to speak out about one’s desires, to tell one’s “risky” stories. We root for her strengths, and empathize with her weaknesses. For she is not all humor-and-spunk. When she falls for (and stays too long with) a man who does not reciprocate, we wince at her vulnerabilities, hoping she’ll give him the what-for. If Juska teaches us anything, it’s that, as she says, we are not always the hero of our stories; sometimes we are the villain. Those are the rhythms of life.

Indeed, other memoirs of women that explore sexuality, aging, and the literary life—such as works by May Sarton, Anais Nin, and Virginia Woolf—can be appealing because they help us see how others live life in all its permutations. These women are authors on two levels: authors of books, and authors of their lives. They don’t necessarily provide answers, just permission.
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