Devon Trevarrow Flaherty's Blog, page 45

Book Review: American Gods

[image error]This is one of the longest waits I have had before reviewing a book, in my—what? eight?—years doing reviews on The Starving Artist. It might even be the longest, but it’s not like I have that info handy to check. I mean, the point of these reviews is to share, sure, but also to remember, so I do try to review a book very soon after reading it. Sometimes my best intentions are not good enough. And the case of my (not) reviewing American Gods by Neil Gaiman (2001) is meandering and not extremely interesting. But the gist of it is that I read the book, it felt a little overwhelming to review, and I let it marinade a second. At the same time, I fell really behind on my reviews, like more than I have at any other point in this blog’s history. After awhile I started catching up, but for some reason this happened backwards, which left the first book read to the be the last I caught up on. Just now.

So because it has been years, I’m not sure I can do this book justice, at least not in the literary details. But the reason I am even bringing this up (besides transparency) is because I can still review it after years, because it is that memorable. In fact, I would claim that it contains several scenes that are stuck in my mind forever. So I’m going to make this review quick, but honest to the memory.

American Gods is rich in detail, written decently well, and horrific. It’s psychedelic, trippy, and smart. It has a lot to say about culture and yanks in various religions, mythology, and a fair smattering of the underground. Which means that this book is also dirty, grimy, and how I would most likely refer to it, gritty. The characters are memorable. Not sure any of them were likable, though several were detestable and some were down-right terrifying, in that super-focused, intensity addled, grody way. We’re talking violence, sex, and all the vices, and none of them with the volume turned down. We’re talking criminals and pawns and an epic battle between the American gods, some of which are transplanted old gods and some of which are ideologically scary as hell, pun intended. Perhaps there are those people who can do a bit of light reading and just enjoy the story behind American Gods, but I was born to take things seriously, I guess. And what’s more, I don’t enjoy the seedy underbelly of things. I just don’t. I’m a grit lightweight. Not ashamed of that, though it has its limitations. And I’ll never be able to wash enough to get some of the more depraved scenes out of my head.

Don’t think you’ll pick this book up and just taste it, because the real mess starts with the first scenes. And then, really, the story and storytelling become addictive. There are some cool things about this book, and it has been enjoyed by many people, though my impression from more reader-ly people that I know is that this is below them. Like it’s trying too hard. Maybe. It was difficult for me to see beyond the flash and the willingness to follow any direction Gaiman wanted to go, no matter how bizarre. I might even say that I like this book, but given the chance, I might go back and un-read it. Not sure. It does have some interesting observations about life, and especially American life, in it. And it underscores what you risk by messing with that which we idolize, or just by idolizing anything, especially the more earthy elements.

In the end, though, it felt like Gaiman just wanted to tell a good story, come moral or high water, even though it might bathe the reader in depravity, and that’s what he did. Not sure the ending was as fulfilling as other parts of the story, but, like a broken record, I’ll say it again: it is memorable.

[image error]SHOW

There is a TV show currently airing on Starz and is in its second season. If the book was scarring to me, though, I don’t know if I can handle it. I’ll say this: just a Google search of the images tells me that it is very true to the original material. I could tell, quickly, who was who and even what scene I was looking at. I expect it to be gritty, psychedelic, and character-based.

Book Reviews: Sixth Grade Medieval Historical Fiction

My son is in a home school co-op this year. I am the fifth and sixth grade writing teacher. I was given my curriculum, which came complete with a list of reading for the year. So I read the novels along with the kids, and there were some mixed results. As you should be able to tell from the title of this blog entry, the theme of their writing course of the year was Medieval times, which was cool because they were also studying the Middle Ages in their history class. So there was a lot of overlap and it worked out nicely. I’ll just start plowing through the book reviews. (Note: We did not get to the last two books, due to Covid-19 and the stay at home restrictions. We missed a book about Marco Polo and one about the Crusades.)

[image error]The first book we read was The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, by Tania Zamorsky. If you know me at all (even just as a blog follower), you know that I enjoy King Arthur stuff. I have reviewed several King Arthur books and series here on the blog, as well as some TV series and maybe a movie. My second novel (a novella, actually) is based in the Middle Ages and has the flavor of Camelot. So I was excited to begin the year this way. I hadn’t read any children’s chapter books about King Arthur, and, well, this would not be the one I would recommend. There must be better out there. (Or not. I am only guessing.)  It has decent ratings, but it just wasn’t very engaging. Sure, it told some of the stories so that kids could follow along, but it lacked cohesion (perhaps on purpose, remaining true to the bits-and-pieces legends) and it just wasn’t a page-turner. I didn’t enjoy it and either did the kids. It fell flat. It may be that I enjoy King Arthur approached with a more modern sense of storytelling, but I kept wondering where all the drama and the energy was. The romance. The adventure. It felt almost textbook-y. I wonder if the Howard Pyle original might have been better.

[image error]And then we went into Robin Hood by J. Walker McSpadden. Again, I rejoiced, because I like Robin Hood stories, although not nearly as much as King Arthur. I also hear Bryan Adams singing in my head whenever Robin Hood is mentioned. And again I was disappointed. And again I was left hoping there was a better version of the Robin Hood stories for children. This book was actually better than the other, though. Written better a little bit. Actually had some life in it, and a sense of humor. It was broken up into stories without a real arc (or at least one you noticed while it was arcing), however, and this made it hard to keep reading. I asked the same questions as last time, except less about adventure and more: where’s the romance and maybe where’s the drama? If you have a kid on your hands who likes short stories and British history, then perhaps this is the book for him or her. I mean, English children have been loving these stories for like a million years, so maybe yours will as well. Sadly, this book (though a Dover classic,) made the stories feel outdated.

[image error]I had no idea what to expect from The King’s Shadow by Elizabeth Alder. Turns out it is a book about a Welsh boy who is orphaned and maimed and then betrayed into slavery among the Anglo-Saxons. In the Middle Ages, of course. His tongue is cut out near the beginning of the book, so I had to warn parents about this. Not that it was especially graphic, but the idea is a little intense. Evyn, the boy, is resilient and has just enough luck and intelligence to be able to make himself useful and be promoted over and over until he is, as the title says, the King’s shadow. Since the children had already learned about King Harold and the Battle of Hastings, it was nice to make connections to history. On the other hand, I used this book to teach the kids a couple of things that they should NOT do when they write. (Among other things, they should not use physical attributes as sure indicators of characteristics. Just because someone is tall and muscular does not make him a great king, etc. or just because someone is wearing black and has a scar does not make him a villain. The author does this regularly. There’s also a whole lot of telling and not showing going on, so we learned about that.) While the book was useful as a tool for teaching writing pitfalls, again we found ourselves not enjoying a book. Though I had one or two who did like this book and reviews online are pretty good. I really didn’t like it.

[image error]And then we read One Thousand and One Arabian Nights by Geraldine McCaughrean and I felt very happy. My mind had been trained by now not to expect much from this reading list, though it kept to topics that I normally would really enjoy. One Thousand and One Arabian Nights was a book that I had been meaning to read for many years. This is, obviously, a version of the Islamic classic adapted for children. Which makes it a bit awkward, because the premise is this: King Sharyar is jilted and spends years in bitterness, marrying a new woman every day to have her executed the next morning. The clever Shaharazad “sacrifices” herself by marrying the king and uses storytelling to keep him from executing her day after day after day.  We, as the reader, get to listen in to all the tales. Again, I had to warn the parents about the sadistic king. Containing within it some real classics, like Aladdin and Ali Baba and the forty thieves, I was blown away by the humor and the voice of this rendition. In the end, I would probably recommend it for an older audience, but I really had a great time reading this and marveling at the cleverness of the story itself. Maybe one day I’ll get around to reading the original, but I also wouldn’t mind giving this one another read on my own.

[image error]The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli felt like déjà vu. It’s about a boy who loses everything, including his future plans and his legs (instead of tongue) to the Plague. Robin finds himself at the mercy of the monks and with his personality and his ability to learn, he works his way up and finds a new future for himself. So, very similar to The King’s Shadow. While this one tends to get lower reviews than the other, I can’t agree with that. I thought that this book had a charm that the other was lacking, even if it still wasn’t my favorite. A Newbery Award winner, it is a bit heavy on the morals and perhaps suffers from a lack of action, but I still liked it alright and would recommend it for the right child.

[image error]Before Covid-19 forced us into quarantine, we read Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray. Another Newbery Award-winner, this was my second-favorite book of the bunch because it contained a levity and tenderness that I enjoyed. It’s about yet another boy who suffers a loss and has to be strong, keep going, and use his wits to overcome. In this version, he loses his dog and his father, both of which he pursues for the duration of the book. Part of why this book is so interesting is because of the sheer otherness of Adam’s experiences in contrast to a child today. As a minstrel’s child, Adam had almost complete free-range and he lived on the road, which could mean sleeping on the side of it. While we can see a little around it, Adam adores his father and his life as the son of a minstrel, and I was intrigued by what this life might have looked like in the Middle Ages. The book gives you a glimpse into life at the time and also gives you a handful of characters to love.

Here are a few titles in middle grades Middle Ages, which I have not read, that might be worth a try. (They are also more diverse.):

The Inquisitor’s Tale, Hatem Ally
Cathedral: The Story of Its Construction, David Macaulay
The Sign of the Chrysanthemum, Katherine Patterson
Possibly The Shakespeare Stealer Trilogy
The Crystal Ribbon, Celeste Lim
The Mad Wolf’s Daughter, Diane Magras
The Ugly One, Leanna Statland Ellis
I might recommend trying Crispin: The Cross of Lead (Avi) or Leonardo’s Shadow (Christopher Peter Grey), but I’m tired to stories of boys in the Middle Ages who lose everything and have to be resilient and have their wits about them to succeed.

Memoir Review: Angela’s Ashes and ‘Tis

[image error]Okay, okay, so I know there’s another memoir in this series. Written in 2005, Teacher Man picks up the story where ‘Tis leaves off in Frank McCourt’s life, and tells the story of the teacher who would become a writer. I don’t feel compelled to read this book, largely because it focuses in on teaching high school in New York City, and that is about the least interesting thing in the world to me. Becoming a writer? Sure. But I’m making an educated decision based on the way I feel about books one and two.

Most everybody has heard of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Angela’s Ashes (1996). It is one of the more famous memoirs in recent history, or maybe even ever, and has been made into at least one successful movie. Less people have heard of ‘Tis, the next memoir in the series.

Ashes begins with Frank’s mom and dad in New York City and the poverty, alcoholism, and struggle begins immediately. They start having kids, they lose one child, and then they head back to Ireland. They have more kids, lose more kids, and all the while their eldest, Frank, is growing up. Frank’s got troubles. Daddy troubles. School troubles. Finding-the-next-meal troubles. Figuring-out-who-he-is troubles. He makes friends. He navigates Irish Catholicism. He tries to work. He discover his sexuality. And everything rotates around his family, his brothers, his mother, and whatever disastrous home they happen to be in at the time. Dad eventually disappears into his alcoholism and Mom ends up is a compromising situation with her cousin. Frank gets desperate to save up and leave for the U.S. of A.

[image error]In ‘Tis, we see Frank with the struggles of an immigrant and as someone on the bottom rung in New York City. He longs to be a famous writer and to be a beatnik and have money and power and to, well, just fit in and understand this strange country. He works crappy jobs, goes to war, moves from flophouse to flophouse. He meets a woman, loses her, meets another one. He goes to college, becomes a teacher (starting at the way-bottom), struggles with alcoholism, starts a family. And then, to round out the series (without moving on to the last book), he deals with the death of each of his parents.

There is some merit to these books, which many, many people will tell you about. The view of the world from McCourt’s perspective is interesting and can contribute to a more well-rounded world view. He also has moments of brilliance, sentences that cut to the quick or shine out in lyrical beauty. He has that Irish tragi-comedy thing going, a strong Irish voice, and some dark humor. But not enough.

No, I did not find these books to be good enough. Again, the subject matter was interesting and enlightening. But I really struggled with the writing and the plotting. I know that memoirs are not always plotted like novels. But McCourt kept jumping around, dangling, leaving huge questions unanswered. Where are the threads in this story? That wind their way like a dancer from the beginning to the end? There are themes, but like I said, they come and go, duck and weave, and then sometimes just disappear altogether. I would have preferred that McCourt made some sense of his memories before he turned it into a book.

I also found McCourt to be confusing. I felt like I was reading through cotton, some of the time. What was happening? What had I just read? And it seemed like much of the wool-like quality of his writing stemmed from a wooliness in his own mind. Like he isn’t that bright, really. On the other hand, the author and his other characters seem to be telling me that McCourt was smart and he did manage to accomplish a lot in the end. But this just confused me further, because Frank was always so bumbling in his own stories, so confused about his own self, life, and surroundings. He seemed eternally daunted by all things non-Limerick. Or just all things.

And the depravity. Because, in the end, Frank is no moral hero. He ends the first book with a scene of, well, sexual awakening (maybe?) on the level of a brothel encounter and this is supposed to be the golden opportunity he worked so hard for? The shining pinnacle of the American experience? For a young man with no spiritual ties to his religion, I guess so. What I’m saying is that I was never on the same moral page as McCourt and so I found many of his tales to be disturbing and lacking in redemptive quality. The memoirs felt bumbling and bleak and dirty, without a poignancy to lift them up. For me, anyhow.

But there is something in my intuition that tells me a lot of my gripes are with the way that McCourt tells his story, not in the story itself. There are certain authors that make me feel fuzzy in the head, and McCourt is definitely one of them. I don’t like reading fuzzy-in-the-head authors. I relish clarity and honesty so sharp that it zings like a knife’s edge and makes me forget betimes that the writing—or narrator—is there at all. I slogged through Angela’s Ashes and ‘Tis because I simply couldn’t lift off into it. Who was this strange man who couldn’t seem to figure anything out? Was he even to be trusted as a narrator? And why-oh-why were his eyes always in such terrible shape?

So, I guess we’re going with this: if you dig memoirs, this is one that you’re going to encounter. And perhaps you should read Angela’s Ashes. I actually liked ‘Tis more, but since I struggled through both, don’t ask me. Read them both, but don’t blame me if you don’t totally like them.

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QUOTES FROM ‘TIS

“I wish there was a little panel I could slide back to release the clouds but there isn’t and I’ll have to find another way or stop collecting dark clouds” (p64).

“It’s not enough to be American. You always have to be something else, Irish-American, German-American, and you’d wonder how they’d get along if someone hadn’t invented the hyphen” (p113).

“It’s a book about growing up poor in Dublin and I never knew you could write things like that. It was all right for Charles Dickens to write about poor people in London but his books always end with characters discovering they’re the long-lost sons of the Duke of Somerset and everyone lives happily ever after” (p198).

“In all my years in Ireland no one ever asked me such questions and if I weren’t madly in love with Mike Small I’d tell her mind her own business about what I’m thinking or what I do for a living” (p263).

“It’s hard to think I would have missed the same tea and bread every day, the collapsed bed swarming with fleas, a lavatory shared by all the families in the lane. No I wouldn’t have missed that but I would have missed the way it was with my mother and brothers, the talk around the table and the nights around the fire when we saw worlds in the flames, little caves and volcanoes and all kinds of shapes and images” (p263).

“…Horace offering me another chunk of sandwich telling me I could use a few pounds on my bones and his surprised look when I nearly drop the sandwich, nearly drop it because of the weakness in my heart and the way tears are dropping on the sandwich and I don’t know why, can’t explain it to Horace or myself with the power of this sadness that tells me this won’t come again, this sandwich, this beer on the pier with Horace that makes me feel so happy all I can do is weep with the sadness that is in it…” (p268-269).

“…I walk west towards Fifth Avenue for a taste of America and the richness that’s in it, the world of the people who sit in the Palm Court of the Biltmore Hotel, people who don’t have to go through life carrying ethnic hyphens. You could wake them in the middle of the night, ask them what they are and they’d say, Tired” (p361).

“It didn’t matter that we had a mortgage on a Cobble Hill brownstone, that we kept in step with out gentrifying couples, exposing our bricks, our beams, ourselves …. Alberta would talk about Queen Anne tables, Regency sideboards, Victorian ewers and I didn’t give a fiddler’s fart” (p473).

“But there are powerful days in room 205 at Stuyvesant High School, when discussion of a poem opens the door to a blazing white lights and everyone understands the poem and understands the understanding and when the light fades we smile at each other like travelers returned” (p476).

“I thought I’d know the grief of the grown man, the fine high mourning, the elegiac sense to suit the occasion. I didn’t know I’d feel like a child cheated” (p486).

“She’d say no matter what he did to us he had the weakness, the curse of the race, and a father dies and is buried only once. She’d say he wasn’t the worst in the world and who are we to judge, that’s what God is for, and out of her charitable soul she’d light a candle and offer a prayer” (p492).

_______________

[image error]MOVIE

Angela’s Ashes (1999) was much cleaner, clearer, and straight-forward than the book. It’s hard to watch, just like anything with this subject material would be. And it seems to follow the books so closely that it loses a bit of life or depth. Like it should have been adjusted to reflect the truth more than the literalness. It’s an okay movie and it won’t waste your time. Kind of like the book, but different.

Movie Review: Knives Out

[image error]I’m allowed to review this movie because it has something to do with writing. The inciting character is an (uber-successful and famous) writer and the whole plot takes place securely in the genre of murder mystery, which is what Harlan Thrombey wrote. Nevermind that he had the kind of fame and notoriety (and also quirkiness) that gets put into stories and movies way more than it actually happens. A real writer’s life is almost never like the one in this movie. If it weren’t this way, though, there would be no quirky mansion for the murder and investigation to take place in and there would be no millions to give a motive. And there are also reasons for the characters to be familiar with the “game,” in order to react to a real-life potential murder in the ways they do. And for the murder mystery writer to become the center of a murder mystery, he has to be filthy rich.

Knives Out was billed as a typical murder mystery but with all the bells and whistles of big-name actors and a setting comfortable in a Wes Anderson movie. It’s sleek. It’s got a big marketing machine behind it. And did I mention the actors? Billing it that way–though it got the audience through the doors–did not do the movie justice. The most unconventional of the many conventional twists was that the main character is the private duty nurse. It’s like Clue told from the perspective of the maid. (There’s also a maid in this movie, but she plays a different role.) And what a Millenial-relevant nurse she is. She’s an immigrant. She’s young and hip in an un-hip way. She’s so real that she has this weird thing where lying makes her puke. Which is another unconventional twist in the typical murder mystery: a suspect who is incapable of lying. Flawed heroes, humanized villains, a parent trying to un-helicopter himself. Like I said, relevant.

This is my general assessment of the movie: great movie to watch once. It hooks you, engages you with the characters (including the family house), and keeps you guessing whodunnit. With its quirks and twists, the outcome isn’t totally obvious, or if it is to you, at least there are some details that will surprise you and some cinematic eye candy in the final scenes. The main character is so darn cute you just have to root for her. Some of the acting is pretty good, some of it is mediocre. I think it’s only fair to tell you now that there’s not nearly so much of the big names as you might expect from all the still shots. In the end, though—once you know all the twists and turns—you don’t need to watch this one again. Just enjoy it thoroughly the first time.

If you’re a writer and your husband is a nurse (hey! like me), then this is perfect date night pick. If you enjoy a good murder mystery or just a good, popular movie, like Orient Express, again, a perfect date night pick.

Book Review: The UltraMind Solution

[image error]This is a loooooong book. For me, it was life-changing and made it onto my list of Books That Changed My Life. But Dr. Mark Hyman could have written it with a lot less words, and this comes largely from repetition (and also from technical details, but that might be necessary). Not everyone is going to want to read a rather thick book filled with case studies about managing one’s mental health with lifestyle changes. But it’s an important book, and has definitely been life-changing for people besides me.

Dr. Hyman has an empire of Functional Medicine which includes several books and a clinic. I heard him just last week on The People’s Pharmacy (on NPR). His Ultramind Solution is just a variation of his whole body and whole life solution, though I believe it started with his approach to mental health. The idea is that most of disease can be tracked back to what we’re doing to our body and also that any part of our health functions as part of a whole. In this particular book, Hyman argues mental health (including autism, ADHD, bipolar, etc.) back to the body. He doesn’t dismiss genes (although sometimes he seems to make light of them) but says that they can be “turned on” or “turned off” by what is happening to the rest of our body. As for the “Solution,” Hyman resists magic bullets and instead outlines the Seven Keys to UltraWellness and even a six-week UltraMind program (Ultramind Solution) to help cool down the body, identify stressors, and move you into a lifetime of great choices and health (The Ultramind Lifestyle).

The Seven Keys to UltraWellness are:

Optimize Nutrition (food and supplementation)
Balance Your Hormones
Cool Off Inflammation (including identifying allergens)
Fix Your Digestion (not just probiotics, but cofactors, etc.)
Enhance Detoxification
Boost Energy Metabolism
Calm Your Mind

Which includes, obviously, eating well, resting well, and exercise, the triumvirate of healthy living. He also addresses many environmental toxins and stressors—some of which may just happen to us and some which we may be able to eliminate or at least reduce.

I like Dr. Hyman’s multifaceted approach, which rings true with me. I am hesitant to believe that our modern mental woes are over, though he has had many successful cases. And let’s face it: he’s not promising anything except better health and pointing out the connection between and complexity of our body’s many systems. He’s kind of saying, “This is what we’ve got to work with in our currently toxic and stressful world full of pitfalls and dangers galore. What do we know about the human body that can help us feel and operate better?” And then here comes the respect for the whole body and its communications and sensitivities, as well as long-term damage and various symptoms for more universal problems (as well as several digs against the DSM-whatever-number-we’re-on, traditional diagnoses and medication, and medical specializations).

Hyman’s other books are:

Food Fix
Food: What the Heck Should I Eat? (alternately, Food: WTF Should I Eat?)
Food: What the Heck Should I Cook? (cookbook)
10-Day Detox Diet
The Blood Sugar Solution (series of three)
Eat Fat, Get Thin (and the Eat Fat, Get Thin Cookbook)
Ultra-Metabolism
The UltraSimple Diet
Ultra-Prevention

[image error]

There’s also plenty of information at his WEBSITE, including a podcast.

My experience with this book has changed over time. I first read it about twelve years ago. I was unable to use it to completely get everyone in my house off of meds, which is what I really wanted. But we have used it as an occasional detox and to check periodically for allergies and sensitivities. I read it most recently because I have been reigning in my diet to deal with some symptoms from vitamin deficiencies while also going through a series at church that encouraged body, spirit and soul wellness. Re-reading UltraMind Solution was really helpful. It re-educated me on things that I had forgotten. It underlined the importance of many of the things I had been implementing (like exercise and resting) and reminded me that there is still work to be done (like taking all those vitamins, and meditation). I actually feel tremendously better, with only my sinuses still really bugging me. My only hang-up, really, is getting to someone who will actually test me for things (like hormone levels and whatnot), but I did get a mediocre vitamin, heart, and thyroid panel done sort of on accident, so that helped. I really just feel like I don’t have the resources (including money) to manage everything it would take. And yet, I love implementing the majority of what is in Hyman’s books. And while my kids complain that there are no pretzels or chips in the house, I have lost ten pounds “on accident.”

I also want to note that the book is structured nicely and is fairly user-friendly. You wouldn’t even have to read the whole thing, though I found it interesting. There are quizzes to give you ideas where you (or your family members) might be having a struggle. There is a section for implementing the six-week plan and a section for practical steps to take for the long haul, as well as specific sections based on what you specifically need to work on (like inflammation, detox, etc.). There are no recipes here, but there are some online (along with a six-week meal plan) and obviously in his new cookbook. I’m far from done with this book, and I think next I will get Food: What the Heck Should I Cook?

And if you already know this book (or one of his other books) isn’t going to be your thing, I can leave you with his advice: if you do nothing else, stop ingesting high fructose corn syrup and trans fats. Those two things alone could make quite an impact.

____________________

QUOTES:

I underlined like half the book. Here are a few highlights.

“A very few fundamental problems exist that explain nearly every disease” (p42).

“Our goal in medicine should be to find the right ‘medicine’ for each person, without prejudice, whether it is a drug, a nutrient, diet change, detoxification, a hormone, exercise, or exorcism!” (p46).

“Interestingly, one of the reasons most people eat refined carbohydrates or sugars is to boost serotonin levels temporarily … then they crash, which sends them out hunting for something starchy or sugary. Unfortunately, this ultimately makes us feel more depressed and causes us to gain weight—not a very effective strategy” (p104).

“There is really no such thing as junk food—there is just food, and then there is junk” (p113).

“Many of the day-to-day complaints we think we have to live with as we age are the result of nutritional deficiencies” (p117).

Book Review: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

[image error]One of the reasons I hadn’t ever read this book before (besides the thousands of other books I want to read) is the title. Another reason was the cover. It just didn’t make me want to pick it up (and it turns out, the copy I have is also not very representative). As for the title, to some it may sound poetic or deep. To me it sounds like it’s trying too hard. And after reading it, I can confirm that it’s too high falutin’. It doesn’t really fit the book. There is also a newer cover with art by Kadir Nelson (pictured here in the review), and that is much better. In fact, it’s beautiful. Get that one if you can. But once you get past that…

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry was written by Mildred Taylor as part of a six-book series. Even though it is number four in the series, it is usually read as a stand-alone and frequently as assigned reading for children in elementary school. Published in 1977, It takes place in Mississippi in the 1930s, and while it is during the Depression, there are other issues besides financial struggles that take center stage and have earned it a Newbery Medal. The story is told from the perspective of Cassie but tells the story of her family’s farm, including the life and times of her parents, uncle, and three brothers. Cassie learns why her father fights so hard to protect their farm and insists on their independence while racism and social injustice ravage around them, threatening their happiness, stability, and even their very lives.

As an African American in the Jim Crow South, Cassie doesn’t understand the nuances and how dangerous her behavior and her speaking out is, which is where much of the tension in the novel comes from. Her parents, meanwhile, are raising her with dignity while also aiming to protect her (and some readers find their behavior inconsistent, while for me it read as flawed and realistic). The story is a coming-of-age for both Cassie’s older brother, Stacey, and Cassie. It is a great history read, dealing with black history and the Jim Crow era, yes, but also with the 1930s, the South, and small town America. It’s also a story about family and about relationships. About growing up. And has plenty of beauty along with the heart-breaking injustice. It makes for a good introduction for children to the concept of the between-slavery-and-freedom, to the gray in the space between enslaving people and giving them their freedom on paper. Though I wonder if kids will find it less terrifying for exactly the reason Cassie kept walking into danger: they don’t see the unspoken yet. They may need to be taught this book while reading it.

The number one complaint by other reviewers is that it vilifies white people and puts black people on a pedestal, since the characters tend to be shiny-good or evil-bad and they fall pretty much along race lines. It wasn’t something that jumped out at me, though I could see how this could be a complaint. I mean, no one in the book seems perfect to me, and if Cassie sees her family in a golden light that would be normal for a child. As far as all those white villains, well some black people just didn’t have many positive encounters with white people. And Taylor gives us two nuanced white people, anyways. As far as actual story goes, there may be some issues with the narrator’s perspective, with sudden lurches in the story, and with plotting and ending. But overall, we get to step into Cassie’s shoes and watch her grow up in the haze of obliqueness which is childhood, constantly worried about how she’ll fare because we do care about her.

In a nutshell: Roll of Thunder is an award-winning children’s classic about land and unequal treatment, about family and the Jim Crow South. The development is deeply internal and Cassie is a strong and betimes naïve narrator, causing the reader to experience a lot of suspense.

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[image error]Other books to read about the subject matter:

The Help, Kathryn Stockett (I have read it, but before I was reviewing here.)

[image error]To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

There is also a 1978 movie with Morgan Freeman in it, which you can catch on YouTube. It doesn’t look like it’s that great, but perhaps one of you could let me know what you think.

Book Review: The Glass Castle

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This was a tough read. I’m not the first to say that, and maybe not even the first person to begin their review with that exact sentence. And looking at the other reviews, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is fairly polarizing, even to people who like it (and they are minion). “It was well written” “It was sparsely written.” “She loved and sympathized with her parents.” “She wrote without any emotion at all.” “It’s a factual reality.” “It was clearly exaggerated.” Oh, bother.

For me, this book came at the wrong time and as the beginning of an inadvertent foray into similarly depressing childhood stories. It’s been a few months, and it still sits in my mind. So it’s memorable: there’s that. But for me, it’s difficult—or perhaps impossible—to separate the story from the memoir, here. It’s like I can’t just rate the read, but also have this gut-level reaction to what the book contains, narratively. I hate family dysfunction at this level, no matter how redeeming in the end or how forgiving the children may be. I hate what happened to Jeannette for her, which might be part of the point of the book. I’m not sure, because I’m not exactly sure what the point of the book is except to get it off her chest and make money in the process (which I’m not judging, by the way).

I know we’re in the age of villain-empathy (which I wrote about years ago HERE). But there is a point. This really happened and it’s painful to read because I love children and I instinctively want to save and protect them. In fact, I love people, and to read about another person treating a human in the way Jeannette was treated by her incompetent, broken, and terrible parents (and other neighbors, etc.) is just plain upsetting. I don’t have much sympathy left, by the end, if any. Lock ‘em up and throw away the key. They were given enough chances to whip a decent life together, just look at their kids. I’m certainly glad I’m not starting from their messed up amalgam of problems (bipolar, alcoholism, childhood abuse and more) and habits (narcissism, bizarre child-rearing theories, etc.), but we’ve got to draw the line somewhere. I’ve been proud, all my life, of people I know who have risen above their circumstances, like Jeannette, and at some point villain empathy ends and social justice steps in (thank God!). When everyone has their own truth, is justice becoming a four-letter word? Let’s hope not. Part of the pathos of this story is that no one stepped in to exact justice on behalf of the children. Not their teachers. Not their neighbors. Nobody.

Which is a lot to put on this one memoir. The degradation of truth and morals in modern society is, it turns out, not all on Jeannette Walls’ shoulders. And in the end, this memoir gets great reviews. I dare say it’s even changed some lives and certainly will continue to populate book club lists for years to come. It’s interesting (although often in a morbid sense). It’s engaging. It is memorable and the characters are memorable. It is instructive, in that it is a memoir and kids really can go this under the radar in modern America. Most people claim it is a page-turner (though I was so disgusted by what was happening to these kids that I sometimes wanted to do anything but keep reading it). It was not gratuitous or graphic. There was clearly an attempt at reporting on the good, great, and beautiful as well as the tragic and deplorable. The language was clear and concise. The narration was straight-forward and event-packed, though it was not shaped into a more novel-esque story.  As another reviewer said, it reads like journalism because Jeannette is a journalist and essentially this is journalism.

I would not discourage anyone from reading The Glass Castle unless they were struggling with depression. I dare say I may even recommend it to people through the years, as it promises to be a book I won’t soon forget. I have no idea if I should give it three stars or four (which would mean adding it to my recommends on The Starving Artist) and writing the review hasn’t helped me any. Some scenes were brutal. Some scenes will stick with me for a long time. I can even imagine re-reading it as a sort of research. But I won’t be running back to it or enjoying it, really.

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MOVIE

[image error]I don’t know if I can handle this movie right now. It does look good, though. If I get around to it soon, I’ll give ya’ll a review. Just know that the movie is out there and it’s supposed to be pretty decent.

Book Review: Their Eyes Were Watching God

[image error]I have been out of commission since October, which is a little extreme. I attended that wonderful writing residency and finished a novel, but within weeks of returning I came down with something like the flu and destroyed my Thanksgiving season. I struggled with recovery until I decided that I had a secondary sinus infection. Worked on healing that when I concluded that I was also suffering from my seasonal allergies—in December!—because of an unseasonably warm winter. Back on my meds but by then I was a mess of symptoms and circumstance-induced-cortisol and I landed at the doctor’s office with a diagnosis that was linked to a vitamin deficiency or two. That’s when I grabbed my schedule and meal plan by the, ahem, balls and reworked it all. After four weeks on mega-vitamins, a fresh “diet,” and a valiant attempt at relaxation, I managed a book review last week. And here comes another…

I don’t think this will be a long review, as I’m not sure I have that much to say about Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. There’s a lot that has been said about it. It’s just that, like another reviewer I found on GoodReads, I wanted to like it but I just didn’t really.

[image error]The short of it is: Zora Neale Hurston struggled in her life in the early twentieth century. She was an African American writer (as well as odd-job-er) who received no fame and fortune in her time. A later famous, female African American author (Alice Walker) gave her unmarked grave a headstone and revived her work, in the 1970s. Now, her books, especially Eyes Were Watching, are considered important classics of American literature and great novels.

There is some debate over Their Eyes Were Watching God. Is the main character an emancipated female? Or not? Did she find love and meaning in her life? Was she ever her own woman? Is the use of local vernacular patronizing? Or is it respectful reportage? (Hurston studied anthropology and the people she was to portray in her work.) Can we view this novel as a novel about race? Or just an early feminist novel? Are politics involved? Or just the universal human struggle for love and perhaps meaning?

Here’s why I like it: the language. It is lyrical, tactile, beautiful, and honest in its writing. Here’s why I don’t like it: it doesn’t have much in the way of a conventional plot. It’s slow. Meandering. And not exactly fulfilling if you’re looking for Janie to find the meaning of life or for the princess to get the prince or for a standard trajectory of plot points. The truth is, if the story were pruned a whole lot, there are scenes that could have given it—at the least—a structure that would draw the reader into the story more. As it is, we’re relying solely on character and scenery and that’s a hard sell for me, especially when I’m not too sure about the characters involved. Atmospherically, it’s interesting and engaging (and if you want a glimpse into the Southern African American culture of the early 1900s, especially into the woman of that time and place, I can see why you would turn here for its earnestness and immersion), but I’m just not the fan I could be with a sturdier plot and resolution.

I am going to leave you with a more favorable review of the book, or at least an excerpt from a review by Melissa Rudder on GoodReads. It is one that I can agree with, whether or not I enjoy the book or will re-read it. “When I teach Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, I tell my students the Alice Walker headstone story and teach the book as a Black Feminist novel that is far, far ahead of its time. I noticed this year that my introduction made my students expect the protagonist, Janie, to jump from the novel’s pages as a woman warrior, take no shit from anyone, and–I don’t know–burn her bra. But the real beauty of Hurston’s novel is that her heroine is a real character living in a real world–albeit, one that is touched by literary genius and reflective of literary genres as varied and vital as (Hurston’s scholarly focus) African American Folk Tradition and the odyssey of the “high mimetic form”. (A Black woman presented as the hero of an epic journey in 1937–simply amazing.) Janie struggles. Janie submits. Janie silences herself. But Janie grows. And, in my mind, a revolution begins.”

QUOTES

“De way you talkin’ you’d think de folks in dis town didn’t do nothin’ in de bed ‘cept praise de Lawd” (p3).

“Freedom found me wid a baby daughter in mah arms, so Ah said Ah’d take a broom and a cook-pot and throw up a highway through de wilderness for her” (p15).

“Put me down easy, Janie, Ah’m a cracked plate” (p19).

“But folks is meant to cry ‘bout somethin’ or other” (p23).

“Logan was accusing her of her mamma, her grandma and her feelings, and she couldn’t do a thing about any of it” (p31).

“He’s got uh throne in de seat of his pants” (p46).

“It happened over one of those dinners that chasten all women sometimes. They plan and fix and they do, and then some kitchen-dwelling fiend slips a scorch, soggy, tasteless mess into their pots and pans” (p67).

“Here Nanny had taken then biggest thing God ever made, the horizon …. And pinched it in to such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter’s neck tight enough to choke her” (p85).

“Ah’m born but Ah ain’t dead. No tellin’ whut Ah’m liable tuh do yet” (p101).

“Pheoby, ded educated women got uh heap of things to sit down and consider. Somebody done tole ‘em what to set down for. Nobody ain’t told poor me, so sittin’ still worries me. Ah wants tuh utilize mahself all over” (p107).

“…if he love property he ain’t no different from the rest of us” (p107).

“Dis ain’t no business proposition, and no race after property and titles. Dis is uh love game. Ah done lived Grandma’s way, now Ah means tuh live mine” (p108).4

“It was hard to love a woman that made you always feel so wishful” (p111).

“All she found out was that she was too old a vessel for new wine” (p114).

“People don’t die till dey time come nohow, don’t keer where you at. Ah’m wid mah husband in uh storm, dat’s all” (p151).

“If you can see de light at daybreak, you don’t keer if you die at dusk. It’s so many people never seen de light at all. Ah wuz fumblin’ round and God opened de door” (p151).

“…the wind and water had given life to lots of things that folks think of as dead and given death to so much that had been living things” (p152).

“The sea was walking the earth with a heavy heel” (p153).

Book Review: The One and Only Ivan

[image error]I’m not averse to a story in which animals are personified. I’m not averse to a story in which animals are personified but being sneaky about it right under the nose of unsuspecting humans. But there was something about The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate that somehow defied both these categorizations and got under my skin. It was more like Applegate was proposing that animals really do have the capacities that her characters do. But she couldn’t have been? Right?

In the scope of things, this is not what the book is ultimately about, and it’s fairly ignorable (if you find yourself bothered by it, as I did). The reader is expected, like with Stuart Little or Charlotte’s Web, to suspend their belief. As a matter of fact, Ivan is remarkably like Charlotte’s Web¸ which hadn’t occurred to me until just now. Ivan is Charlotte, Ruby is Wilbur, and there you have it: one animal does a miraculous thing to get the humans’ attention and save another animal.

It is a novel, but it is written in freeverse poetry. It is the second juvenile poetry novel we have read this year (the other being Inside Out and Back Again). It is unlikely that my reluctant-reader son will ever fall in love with a poetry novel. Poetry requires a certain appreciation of language itself and with expression as much as story. I, on the other hand, really enjoy poetry. And yet. I don’t seem to have stumbled on a story here that really needed to be poetry. It seemed forced and clunky, in fact. I didn’t find the poetry true to Ivan’s voice and it’s not like it emerged from the story, either. So, perhaps it was disjointed at the expense of author choice.

I also remained curious the entire time about Ivan’s connection with art. That is integral to the story, but it felt forced, too. I had to be told, over and over, that Ivan liked to do art because we never really felt it or were shown it. And we all know how I feel about telling instead of showing. “Unconvincing” is the word I am looking for. Ivan didn’t feel like an artist but Applegate really needed him to be one. And not only do I not feel like he’s an artist, I was left unfulfilled when it all of a sudden connected for him. While he had spent years doing drawings that were disconnected from reality (which is, uh, believable) there was no real reason why he should suddenly be able to make sense of it. It lacked an explaining force, I guess.

Then there’s the whole animal rights angle of the story. I mean, I do believe we should be responsible and compassionate in how we treat animals, but Ivan’s thought processes could be confusing to kids, who might grow up believing in a higher level of inter-species communication and self-consciousness and advanced deduction, etc.  There are limitations to our likeness to animals, whether we like to admit it or not. And while I believe we can use magical realism or fantasy to make connections that don’t exist to explain reality, I found Ivan to be a bit confusing.

I think there’s depths to the fictional story here to be explored, but it only ends up hinting at it, in the end. Ivan’s few uncomplicated relationships are what makes it sweet. The art and animal rights angles tend to distract from the purity of the story which is ultimately about relationships. In the end, it never ends up exploring very deeply the more complicated relationships in a fulfilling way, like with Mac. There are hints of things which never quite develop. In its brevity, The One and Only Ivan sets you up and expects you to come to the regular ol’ conclusions. But I’m used to literature which explores the blurry areas more, which this could have easily done. I’m no PETA marcher, so I want to explore animal confinement. How do they get there? How are they treated? What does that mean for them? Not to glaze over everything so quickly. And this would be hard to do, considering that Ivan is sitting on a line between reality and personification. So maybe the thing that bugged me from the beginning is that: is Ivan real (he was inspired by the real Ivan)? Or is Ivan a lovable Silverback character with fantastical human traits?

In the end, I’m not going to fault this book too much. It’s meant to be children’s literature, to introduce kids to freeverse poetry and make them think about animal rights, all while enjoying reading and getting lost in a story. I think the book does all that, though my child wasn’t really that interested. Now that I think about it, he never has favored the lighter books. He seems to like some complexities, some dark and light areas, and either realism or fantasy, not an in-between. And I don’t think he’s alone.

This isn’t a bad book for an elementary reading list. There are scads of kids who have enjoyed it. But we didn’t fall in love with it and didn’t hate it either.

Ctl+F Just Changed My Life. Oh, Yeah, and I Finished a Novel.

[image error]Is a writing residency worth it?

For me, it has been the lifeblood to a career that is crowded out by life as a mother, wife, hobbyist, home school educator, and middle class American (Lord, help us).

This is, true, only my second writing residency. It is also the same residency as the one I participated in last year, though in a different season (fall instead of summer). I’m far from being an expert on writing residencies, then. We can agree on that. But I have been twice to a certain type of residency—the kind that’s not overpriced or even very demanding. They say, “Here’s the room, the grounds, the quaint town with room to roam and a bookstore and coffee shop within walking distance. Now spend most of your time writing and a much smaller amount of time cleaning up after yourself in the small kitchen.” No one’s really checking on you, I guess, but it wouldn’t be hard for the groundskeeper to notice that you were doing something else besides being hushed and roaming the haunted halls with a pen and paper or a half-closed laptop on your way to the verandah.

[image error]I have done a LOT of walking, because—let’s be honest—writing is tiring, and staring at a computer screen is also tiring in different ways. Sometimes my butt would actually hurt and I’d think, better be headed down to the Reservoir or at least to the coffee shop. I did go to the one author reading that was scheduled this week, as a bonus to the program (and with the program such a cold mistress, she’ll probably never notice). But I did mostly write, and write, and write, and write, one night until I was literally dizzy and couldn’t see straight. Last time I was here I did the same, and wrote nearly 30,000 words in a week. This time, I finished a novel.

I met a couple writers from the same area as me. In the biz, they call that “making connections,” and it is highly encouraged, which is humorous because we are generally such an isolated, distracted, antisocial bunch that it could make a good Woody Allen film (but that’s a novel that I have to leave in notes for now. The working title is Bleach). I also spent hours researching agents and making lists, and a couple more hours on a handful of regrettably late blog entries. Yeah, sorry about that.

[image error]Wait! Let’s backtrack. Did I just cooly slide over the fact that I finished a novel? Maybe. I was busy typing, like my hands are now on autopilot and can’t seem to stop. When I get home, I’ll have to put some laundry and some pots and pans in them and see what happens. So, the same novel that I pitched to the residency last year—The Family Elephant’s Jewels—was what I pitched again this year, only I said I’d be finishing it up. In all that time in between, I only managed a scene on some of the Wednesday nights (in which I tried to get to Cocoa Cinnamon or Saledelia for a few hours). I was amazed at how slowly a novel moves along when you only give it a few hours about every other week. I knew that what it needed was more residency. And I was right.

Yesterday, I put the last sentence on the page and wrote THE END in bold font, centered, underneath. Then I flopped back on the bed, exhausted, and—what else—picked up a book to read it off. I hesitate to say it, but I do believe it’s okay. It has some edits to go through before the actual soliciting of agents, but I think it’ll be good enough not to become a laughingstock. Whether it’ll be picked up and sell is somewhat in the hands of the gods. Can I be proud of it? Maybe. I think so. Sure, why not? Am I relieved it’s finally been exhumed from my mind and splattered onto the page, in its entirety? Darn it, yes. Now, on to the next 30-something books, half a dozen short stories, and dozen non-fiction projects that are waiting for their exorcism.

[image error]I actually applied, this very week, to another residency. I’m stepping out of this cozy, little box I’ve made for myself and broadening my residency horizons. (I would like to come back here next year, too, and will be applying when that deadline looms.) The project that I pitched is The Journey of Clement Fancywater, a fantasy novel that is, I would say, half written. (I do have just one more novel that is in process, at about a third of the way done.) Whether I could finish it in one residency is dubious, yet to be seen. I really hope that they will give me a chance, see through how terrible I am at pitching myself and see potential in the work submission instead. Because I need residencies. My career needs residencies. As it is, I’ll be scraping the bottom of the weekly barrel of time just to run a red pen over a binder of Elephant’s first draft. My writing depends on you, residencies! For now, anyways.

And I thank you for it.