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August 12
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Cat
gave
 
to:
Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories (Hardcover)
by Philip Roth
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Cat said:
"Philip Roth is important, and I know this story was important when it was first published, but - frankly - I was bored. Sorry mom!
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August 06
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Cat
gave
to:
The Year of Magical Thinking (Paperback)
by Joan Didion
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in August, 2008
Cat said:
"I was terrified of reading this book. I heard it was very, very sad and I've felt for a while that I couldn't handle realistic discussions about death and life.
All that said, I'd like to think that someday - with a great deal of study and practi...more
I was terrified of reading this book. I heard it was very, very sad and I've felt for a while that I couldn't handle realistic discussions about death and life.
All that said, I'd like to think that someday - with a great deal of study and practice - I might be able to write a sentence as beautiful as one written by Joan Didion.
So, I decided to take an objective approach to this memoir. "She's not me, the people I love are not sick and they are all alive," I told myself, and I started reading.
It's true: the plot is a bummer. But in terms of technique, there's a lot to be learned. I would venture to say that I've never felt such grief reading a book. And that is the marvel of Didion's writing. Without great overstatement or flourish, her writing tricks the reader into feeling every ounce of sadness, every moment of deep confusion and every flash of loneliness along with her.
And that, my friends, is why this book is depressing and that is why it is also so amazing. ...less
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New comment on Sarah's review of
When You Are Engulfed in Flames
reply to this comment
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Cat
gave
to:
I Am Charlotte Simmons: A Novel (Paperback)
by Tom Wolfe
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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recommended for: People who were as uncool and as clueless as I was in college.
read in July, 2008
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Cat
gave
to:
The Time Traveler's Wife (Paperback)
by Audrey Niffenegger
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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recommended for: people who are going to the pool or beach
read in July, 2008
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July 10
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New comment on Cat's review of
The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel
(see all 4 comments)
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July 07
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Cat
gave
to:
The Maytrees: A Novel (Hardcover)
by Annie Dillard
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in June, 2008
Cat said:
"I really love Annie Dillard. I cannot express how "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" shook my world, only to say that I refuse to let anyone borrow my worn paperback copy not because I'm worried about not getting it back, but because I am so mortifi...more
I really love Annie Dillard. I cannot express how "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" shook my world, only to say that I refuse to let anyone borrow my worn paperback copy not because I'm worried about not getting it back, but because I am so mortified by some of the 18-year-old thoughts I scribbled in the margins the first time read it. That's how bad it is.
So, it's hard to express my level of disappointment with "The Maytrees." It's a book that is far to contemplative to be fiction, let alone a story about love. Furthermore, the characters are so far in their heads that it's difficult to imagine they are real. (I don't know about you, but good fiction means characters that I can believe in, no matter how fantastical they are.)I say leave the big thoughts for the creek, Annie.
The saving grace of this story, and the reason I give it three stars, is because there are beautiful moments that remind me of why I think Dillard is such a brilliant writer. For example, the main character Lou Maytree is one day thinking about her grown son, Petie. Dillard writes that if Lou could have it her way, she would collect all the Peties that ever existed, ages 0, 2 years, three days and five hours old, 22 years old, and so on and put them in a room together. I can imagine that for most parents, it is difficult to let go of all the incarnations of their children and this passage I found touching and well written.
In the meantime, I've decided to give Tinker another round...
...less
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Cat
gave
to:
The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel (Hardcover)
by Michael Chabon
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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June 12
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Cat
gave
to:
One Hundred Years of Solitude (Hardcover)
by Gabriel García Márquez
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Cat said:
"A story that is both grotesque and hilarious, that is both about progress and the lack thereof, and about the eternal draw of home. It's taken me 27 years to pick this book up, and I'm very glad I finally did.
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May 03
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Cat
gave
to:
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia (Paperback)
by Elizabeth Gilbert
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in August, 2007
Cat said:
"I am embarrassed to read this book in public.
The title and the flowery, pasta-y cover screams, "I'm a book that contains the relentless rants of a neurotic 34 year-old-woman."
So, I'm afraid that the strangers on the Metro will think I ...more
I am embarrassed to read this book in public.
The title and the flowery, pasta-y cover screams, "I'm a book that contains the relentless rants of a neurotic 34 year-old-woman."
So, I'm afraid that the strangers on the Metro will think I identify with her.
But in the comfort of my own bed, I am totally falling for this memoir. Yes, Gilbert is emotionally self-indulgent (are we supposed to feel bad that she lost both houses in the divorce?), annoying (she's just tickled when she gains 23 pounds after eating her way through Italy) and often really immature (oh! The endless, endless crying).
Then again, this is a memoir and when the writing is just so clever, so hospitable, so damn funny, it's really hard to hold that against Gilbert in the end.
The plot goes something like this: A 30-year-old writer has everything she wants, including several successful books, a husband and two houses. When she realizes she doesn't want to have kids and that she's not happy after all, she has a breakdown and leaves her husband. In the process, she realizes she has no identity.
Boo-hoo.
But instead, Gilbert decides to pack up and visit Italy, India and Indonesia, three places she hopes will ultimately bring her the inner balance she's been longing for. (And on the surface, this book is a really entertaining travel essay. Gilbert has this wonderfully quirky way of describing everything: A piece of pizza, a gelato. And the people.)
It's on her travels that I start to identify with Gilbert. When I was 21, I spent four months traveling in Australia. Just like Gilbert during her first weeks in Italy, I was totally elated by my freedom.
But about two weeks in, the loneliness came around and so did the anxiety.
My typical day started with this inner monologue: "I have to get to the museum before noon, so I can fit in the sea kayaking trip at 2. And then I have to rush to the grocery store to get food to make dinner in the stinking hostel kitchen because god forbid I go out to eat causeIHAVETOMAKETHEMONEYLASTFORTHREEMOREMONTHS!!!!"
Yikes. How I envied the Eurotrash who could just sit by the hostel pool and read all day. But if I didn't do everything, then I would have failed at traveling.
In retrospect, Australia was a turning-point in my young life. I had no idea that this "go-go-go" attitude was how I had been living for years. No wonder people thought I was uptight. Relaxing had never come easy to me, and it never will, but I'm getting a lot better at letting go and not worrying about seeing every last museum... so-to-speak.
Gilbert ruminates on this topic quite a bit in her book. Her first moment of true, unfettered happiness comes when she poaches some eggs and eats some asparagus on the floor of her apartment. So simple, but so fulfilling.
In India, she writes that "life, if you keep chasing it so hard, will drive you to death." Gilbert is living in an Ashram, a place where people come to meditate and experience divinity. She's not very good at it, and she wonders if all the energy she's spent chasing the next experience has kept her from enjoying anything. At this point in the book, I find myself wondering if Gilbert wants to be there at all. Perhaps going to an Ashram was the thing she thought she should do, not what she wanted to do. I sure as hell wouldn't.
What I really love about "Eat, Pray, Love" is that it's all about asking the simple question, "what do I want," a question that would have come in handy in Australia and numerous other times in my life. It's so hard for some people, including me, and it really shouldn't be. I think that when you can honestly answer that question ("No. I don't want to go to that discussion on post-modernism, even though I realize that I should be interested in it and it would make me a lot cooler in your eyes. Really, I just want to watch back-to-back episodes of "Scrubs") you're well on your way to realizing your own identity and being ok with whoever that person is.
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