Jefferson's first day of school was a Wednesday, and I of course had a brain meltdown and barely got us out the door in time, so certainly didn't have a lunch packed or a book to read while I hung out in Mecosta and waited for time to pick him up. Plus, on Wednesdays, the library doesn't open until 1:0o (preschool starts at 11:30), but happily the used bookstore was open.
Spring Snow was the first book to catch my eye on entering the store. I suspected at the time and have since confirmed that it sounded so familiar because it was on Bookslut's top 100 books of the 20th century list. And I'm happy to say after reading it I feel it definitely deserves its spot on that list. I loved this book from beginning to end.
Set in early 20th century Japan, this story plays out against a backdrop of a country in flux -- where families with money and families with rank have access to different kinds of power. Where old world elegance clashes with those emulating the tastes and values of the west.
In addition to this intriguing glance into a foreign culture, are the more familiar forms of a young man's coming of age and the tragic tale of a forbidden romance. But almost all of these things seem secondary to the languid, hypnotizing style with which the story is told. One never stops to wonder how the recitation of a dream or a religious discussion or a rumination on law moves the story forward, because every word just seems to draw the reader further into the dream that is this book.
I can hardly recommend this book highly enough. ]]>
I don't remember precisely where or when, but this ook was another impulse buy when I was bored in a bookstore. I'm always willing to take a chance on Salman Rushdie -- even his books that I wasn't entirely crazy about were usually enjoyable or interesting enough in some way that made them feel worth my time and investment as a reader. Also, I confess that I was drawn in by the good cover design -- the rich colors and antiqued gold look. So I bought it.
With my crazy life, it's difficult to ever give a book my undivided attention, and that was definitely a detraction in this case. For Enchantress sprawls across continents and generations, with unfamiliar names that sometimes seem to blend together. I often found myself having to flip back to remind myself which character was which.
On the other hand, there were portions of this book that were absolutely entrancing, when the story called to me every time I had to put the book down, and these sections flowed beautifully with Rushdie's magical lyricism.
But there was so much in this book that it was occasionally weighed down by its riches. Transitions from story to story, place to place and time to time sometimes seemed abrupt. Some details never seemed to connect to the tapestry and left me wondering why they'd been included at all. Then there was that ending -- strange, troubling and lacking in poetry.
In balance, I'd say that the strengths of those delightful passages were enough to earn The Enchantress high marks in my book. Had the rest of the novel lived up to these moments, it could have been near perfection. ]]>
by Eavan Boland
So far I've been very conservative about adding books to my to-read list for just that reason -- I can easily see it spiraling out of control! But then how else will I remember all the things I want to read? ]]>
Hey, thanks for adding me! :) ]]>
Jennifer added 6 books to this list. Add your votes »
add a comment
]]>
Jessa lent me this book years and years ago. I picked it up this summer as I suspected it might be on the short list of books she would want to take with her to Germany -- she's mentioned Boland a few times as an author whose work it is difficult to find in the United States.
Anyway, I enjoyed this poetry well enough, Boland is clearly a very accomplished writer. However, I felt that I was really missing most of it. Much of Boland's earlier poems were based heavily on mythology and traditional stories that were largely unfamiliar to me. (Darn my lack of a classical education!) Then later poems were informed by the history of Irish-English conflicts, which really I just know nothing about at all.
There were quite a number of poems more generally on womanhood, motherhood and relationships. Those, of course, I could relate to, and were lovely, some biting, and all very intelligent and skillful. But it's easy to see why Jessa, with her interest in mythology and Irish history, would get a lot more out of this collection than me. ]]>
The midwife lent me a whole stack of books (and is always pushing me to take more), but so far the only one I've read cover-to-cover is this one. And I'm wishing I'd read this before I had Jefferson.
Roughly the first half of this book is birth stories. Almost all of them are midwife-assisted births at The Farm, a village/commune in Tennessee, mostly just in homes without a lot of special equipment. Very few of the births had to be transported to the hospital, though those are represented as well. The stories are testament to what a calm and experienced birth assistant, a trust in the power of a woman's body, and the natural process of birth itself can do -- even when the mother gets temporarily hung up by fear, even with extremely large babies, and even with some fairly troublesome complications.
The second half of the book is a collection of essays by Ina May on the current state of birthing in the United States. (Primarily it's about this country anyway, there is also a lot of data from other countries for comparison.) The latter chapters are sometimes hopeful, sometimes chilling, but mostly make me glad we're trying for a midwife-assisted home birth this time.
But this book is mostly famous in our house for two pictures of a face-presentation. Jefferson was looking over my shoulder one day as I was reading this book and liked all the pictures of babies. So I started flipping through it with him looking for the pictures. Most were standard mom and baby post-birth posed shots, but on page 58 there is a picture of a baby where only the face has emerged from the birth canal, and then another of the baby right after delivery, with its poor face all smooshed and swollen. I was a little worried about Jefferson's reaction, as I hadn't intended to give him quite such a graphic introduction to "where babies come from," but he loved the pictures, and for a while developed a nightly routine of wanting to see the baby pictures before bed. At one point he even indicated the face presentation and told me he wanted me to have that baby. I told him no matter how much I loved him and wanted him to be happy, I would never wish for a face presentation.
Anyway! I loved this book. Very authoritative and informational. Would recommend to anyone interested in a more natural version of childbirth. ]]>
I think a good deal of the reason I got so behind in reviewing my books is my reluctance to write about this one. There was a fair amount of pressure to do so -- I got this book free as a part of a publicity giveaway in advance of publication, and they even followed up with a postcard to remind me to post a review (before I'd even read the book.) So, dutifully I moved the book to the top of my to-read pile, finished it fairly quickly, then... stalled.
I simply have no strong opinions on this book. I enjoyed it enough to read quickly, yet was almost always conscious that if this book hadn't been free, I never would have read it. Based on real life peole (which I actually didn't realize while reading it), it tells the stories of two brothers who become increasingly cut off from the world, Homer by blindness and Langley by his bitterness caused by his wartime experience. They hole up in their massive house (left to them by their parents) in New York City, interacting with outsiders only rarely (but usually very memorably), and slowly boxing themselves in with Langley's growing compulsion to collect and hoard.
Now, I have some hoarding compulsions myself, but I was never able to really connect with Langley. And while the novel said some interesting things about the value of community, they were said rather obliquely, and were never in focus. So, to the reader with no previous exposure to the Collyer brothers legend, what was the point? ]]>