The Chosen

I had a tough time with this one.  It’s a National Book Award Finalist, so it feels like one of those books that you’re supposed to get something deep from, or appreciate, or something.  I hate it when I feel like I’ve missed the boat.  And the truth is, it’s not a book I ever would have picked up on my own, but Kevin, my 15-year old, is being required to read it for his freshman honors English class, and he’s really enjoying it (more than he enjoyed The Good Earth!), and he urged me to read it.  And I love it that he’s reading more grownup literature these days and that he wants to share his love of books with me, so I obliged him.

Originally published in 1967, The Chosen is the story of an unlikely friendship between two teenaged boys living in a predominately Jewish town in New York during WWII.  Narrated by one of the boys, Reuven, an Orthodox (or observant) Jew who lives with his widowed father, he tells of his friendship with Danny, a Hasidic Jew and the son of a tzaddik.  I’m still not exactly sure what a tzaddik is, but it seems to be a person of great importance in Hasidism due to the belief that they possess a direct line to God.

The story managed to hook me by starting out with a suspenseful baseball game between Reuven and his apikorsim (a secular Jew, or a Jew educated in secular matters who may reject basic tenets of Judaism) teammates and Danny and his Hasidic teammates.  The game ends violently when Danny, up to bat, deliberately hits the ball aiming at the Reuven’s head, successfully smashing the ball into his face and nearly blinding him.  Reuven ends up hospitalized for several days, and during that time, the friendship between the two boys is born.

What was difficult for me was the confusing aspects of the different Jewish sects.  Apparently, Hasidic Jews hate non-Hasidic Jews, and non-Hasidic Jews are contemptuous of Hasidic Jews.  (Hence, the unlikeliness of the friendship between Reuven and Danny.)  I don’t understand the first thing about Hasidism or Orthodoxy, or really very much at all about even your run of the mill Reformed Jews (even though I’m married to one), so a great deal of the scholarly discussions in the book between the characters about Talmud, the Torah, etc. just went right over my head.  The baseball game which comprises the first chapter is the most action that takes place in the entire story; the rest is a lot of conversations and reflection.  I’m still not sure what the point of the baseball game was; both teams seemed passionate about it, and yet, baseball is never again mentioned in the story.  I also didn’t get the point of Reuven’s hospitalization after the ball game.  It takes up several chapters, and during his hospital stay, he meets several intriguing people: Billy, a little boy left blind after a car accident in which his father was driving and his mother was killed; Mr. Savo, an ex-boxer who loses an eye; and Mickey, a little boy with stomach problems who has spent most of his life in the hospital.  When Reuven is discharged from the hospital, these other people’s fates are left a mystery, you never hear another word about them, and I was left wondering what the point was in developing their characters in the first place.

Anyway, the story spans about five or so years, during which time we learn how Danny is in line to take over his father’s position as tzaddik, only Danny doesn’t want to.  He wants to become a psychologist, but is too afraid to tell his stern father who is “raising him in silence” (another confounding concept).  Reuven, on the other hand, has a close, loving relationship with his gentle, scholarly father, who would love nothing more than to see Reuven become a university professor, only Reuven wishes to become a rabbi.

I guess the real question is: can friendship transcend fundamental differences in beliefs?  And how can people break out of the molds created for them by those who came before them, and remain intact in body and soul?

Ahhh, it was work, this book.  I was glad when I was finished with it.  And surprised that my 15-year old is enjoying it so much!

The Hunger Games

I was not going to read this book.  In fact, I kind of dug my heels in about it.  I’m a grownup – I don’t need no stinkin’ trendy YA books.  I finally relented, very reluctantly, under pressure from both my book club and my 15-year old son.

Fine, I’ll give it a shot.  But I won’t like it (just like Twilight . . . pfft.)

Well, you can probably guess what happened.  I liked it.  In spite of myself.  Which just goes to show, don’t judge a book by its cover – or its genre, for that matter.

As I may be the last person standing to read this book, the following synopsis is probably unnecessary, but humor me:

It is an unspecified time in the future.  North America has been wiped out following war, flood, famine, etc., and a new land called Panem has taken its place, with the Capitol running things surrounded by twelve districts.  Each year, just to keep the people in line, the Capitol requires each district to offer up two children – a boy and a girl – between the ages of 12 and 18, chosen by random drawing at a ceremony known as the Reaping, to enter into a bloody death match that typically lasts a few weeks and is televised to the whole of Panem, live.  This death match is known as The Hunger Games, and each “tribute,” as the child contestants are known, is dropped into a carefully chosen arena, which typically consists of some sort of vast wilderness, and must try to kill as many of his or her opponents as possible while avoiding being killed him- or herself – using wits, weapons, and whatever else is available.  The game continues until only one tribute is left alive, who is then named the Victor of that year’s Hunger Games.

Is it violent?  Yes, but actually not terribly graphically so; killings and deaths are described in rather general terms, so a lot is left to the imagination.  I’m not sure what about this appeals so much to the young adult crowd – is the actual violence, allowing teens to live out their hormone-driven anger vicariously?  Is it the competition aspect?  or are the characters real enough that teens are able to connect on some level?  In any case, I thought the storyline was very imaginatively conceived and executed, and it was well written.  It really is quite suspenseful (although some of it is predictable from an adult’s standpoint, I think), and I found myself cringing and gasping throughout the story, wanting to know what was going to happen next.  Also, I really love the fact that the protagonist/hero in the story is a female – an excellent point to make to both male and female adolescents.

This is the first in a trilogy, and the end compels one to read on in the next book.  Hopefully I will get around to it before too long, but for now, I’m committed to several other books first.

It was quite a thrill.  Lisa See is a bona fide author – a bestselling author!  For me, this was like meeting a rockstar.

The room was packed – standing room only.  Ms. See was a wonderful speaker, very down to earth and funny.  She talked not only about Dreams of Joy, but also Shanghai Girls and how she developed the story and characters.  She also talked quite a bit about On Gold Mountain, as it’s the historical account of her own Chinese-American family.  And she mentioned that she’s working on a new novel that should be released next year!

Afterwards, she took questions from the audience (I didn’t work up the nerve to ask her a couple of questions I wanted to ask her, but I just might shoot her an email since she said she personally answers every email she receives), and then the long line formed for everyone to have copies of their books signed by her.

I nearly broke the bank buying up several of her books that I haven’t yet read, including On Gold Mountain, Dreams of Joy, and her entire mystery trilogy. I really enjoyed the whole thing, and hope to get to attend more of these!

Lisa See, my friend Caryl, and me

The Shape of the Eye by George Estreich

[Note: This review originally appeared here in August, 2011 in my former book blog, Book Lust.  I'm republishing it here because it's that important a book; you can also read my interview with the author, George Estreich, here.]

Life Itself

I really wanted to like this book, and I’m reluctant to say anything negative about something written by a man who has made his living at writing for over 50 years.  It wasn’t the writing that I had trouble with, however; it was the content.  I guess I was initially drawn to buy this book because I love a good memoir, and this one is authored by someone who battled and survived cancer – a topic near and dear to me.

If the book could be broken into three parts, I would say that I really enjoyed the first and last parts – dealing with Mr. Ebert’s childhood and late adulthood.  The middle part, however?  Not so much.  The filling of this particular sandwich is a very esoteric recounting of his career in the newspaper business and his encounters and relationships with various Hollywood personalities he met through his career as a film critic: Lee Marvin, John Wayne, Martin Scorsese, and Robert Mitchum, to name a few.  I had a lot of difficulty paying attention throughout the middle portion of the book and found myself doing quite a bit of skimming (which always makes me feel like I’m cheating, for what it’s worth).

I had hoped for more about his battle with cancer; but the book isn’t about cancer, and he hasn’t allowed cancer to define him, so it makes perfect sense that his battle with cancer is but a chapter in his life.

He writes beautifully and introspectively, and despite being bored with a good deal of his book, I was moved by parts of it:

[On his relationship with his mother] -

“My mother was a good woman, and I loved her.  I had a happy childhood and was loved and encouraged.  Alcoholism changed her, and I should know as well as anyone how that happens . . . . Alcoholism is a terrible disease and I am glad I had it because I can understand what happened to her, and how it damaged my own emotional growth.  I buried myself in movies that allowed me to live vicariously.

“There’s nothing unique about my behavior.  There is everything wrong with it.  There must come a day when parents and children approach each other as adults or simply break off ties.  This is in the nature of things.  That day never came for me.”

[On coming to terms with his current disfigurement resulting from cancer] -

“I’ve written before about how I’ve come to terms with my current appearance.  The best thing that happened to me was a full-page photo in Esquire, showing exactly how I look today.  No point in denying it.  No way to hide it.  Better for it to be out there.  you don’t like it, that’s your problem.  I’m happy I don’t look worse.  I made a simple decision to just get on with life.  I was a writer, and so I was lucky.  I wrote, therefore I lived.  Another surgical attempt was proposed, but I said no.  Enough is enough.  I will  look the way I look, and express myself in print, and I will be content.”

[On life itself] -

“‘Kindness’ covers all of my political beliefs.  No need to spell them out.  I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do.  To make others less happy is a crime.  To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts.  We must try to contribute joy to the world.  That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances.  We must try.  I didn’t always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.”

All in all, it’s worth the read . . . even if you skim parts of it.

Dreams Change

I’m not sure why I keep reading every memoir about having a child with Down syndrome that I come across.  I’ve read many, and only a very few stand out as anything that had a lasting, positive impact on me, or one that I would recommend.  At this stage in my own journey in raising a child with Down syndrome, I guess I’m not so much looking for stories that comfort me and make me feel less alone; I’m farther down the path than that, and so I think I tend to look at these memoirs with a much more objective, critical eye than I might have earlier on.

This book is only available in digital format through Amazon’s Kindle.  However, at $1.99, you can’t beat the price.  It’s only 60 pages long, and so a very quick read.  It’s also another self-published book, and in all honesty, I have yet to read a self-published book that wasn’t hugely lacking in substance, writing quality, and/or editing.  This one is no exception; it feels very quickly thrown together, as if the author (who admittedly never had any interest in writing until she started blogging about her experience having a baby with Ds less than two years ago) impulsively decided to publish a book because self-publishing opens that door to every Tom, Dick and Harry out there.

Who am I, though, but yet another aspiring writer with dreams of having my story about having a child with Down syndrome published?

In 60 pages (consisting mostly of posts from her blog), Ms. Smith manages a lot of repetition and swinging wildly back and forth between despair over her daughter’s diagnosis and complete acceptance, and back again, and forth again.  So it goes with many of us, perhaps, but I guess I didn’t get anything unique or special out of her very condensed story.  I think she was extremely brave to be so candid about feelings and thoughts she has experienced along the way – things a lot of people might never admit to – but she’s not an especially talented writer, and so I didn’t find her story especially compelling.  Her “voice” is very much that of a very young woman trying to write like a grownup.

And she is young: she was 25 when her daughter, Addison, was born not quite two years ago (something that confused me was the final “entry” of her book being dated February 6, 2012, when obviously the book was published before February 2012 has even rolled around).  Diagnosed with Down syndrome prenatally, Ms. Smith falls into complete despair, even wishing her baby would just die.  Her Christian upbringing prevents her from aborting (and she says in the book that had it not been for her strict Christian upbringing, surely she would have aborted.  I’m not sure how to take this; does she assume that non-Christians are aborters?), and her daughter is born with a host of serious health problems, spending five weeks in the NICU, nine months on supplemental oxygen, an undefined time with a G-tube, and undergoing multiple heart surgeries, to name a few.  It’s understandable that her emotions would run the gamut during all of this, but I’m not sure what’s particularly inspiring about it.  I don’t think this is a book I’d give to a new parent facing a diagnosis of Down syndrome.  Also, this is yet another memoir with a strong Christian slant to it . . . sigh.  It just doesn’t resonate with me.  We need a memoir about having a child with Ds that is completely devoid of the whole God slant!

Kudos to Ms. Smith for putting a story out there that’s not polished and shiny, but rather, candid and honest, and kudos to her for wanting to be a “serious writer.”  I think she has some work to do, though.

I thought this was an interesting choice for Martin Scorsese to direct (add Best Director and Best Film to the movie’s Oscar nominations); it’s a far cry from his usual controversial and often violent adult movies like Raging Bull, Cape Fear, and Goodfellas.  Ben Kingsley plays the part of George Melies to perfection, and Sasha Baron Cohen adds comic relief as the overly stern and socially awkward Station Inspector – and for once doesn’t play a bizarre character that makes one cringe.  The real stars are the kids – Asa Butterfield as Hugo, and Chloe Grace Moretz as Isabelle.

My two older boys and I really enjoyed this movie.  I think it can definitely stand on its own, but is even better if you’ve first read the book.

Maybe it’s all the holiday madness finally catching up to me after the fact.  Maybe it’s having sick kids and being pregnant and tired.  Who knows?  I should cut myself a break, I guess, but on some level I feel guilty for not currently being entrenched in a book.  (Confession:  I’ve already decided to take a pass on my book club’s first two selections of the year; I just don’t wanna read ‘em.)

Maybe this is why I feel guilty:

That’s my bedside table.

That’s my to-read shelf.  I have a book buying problem.  No libraries for me; I need to own the book.  Which is silly, because unless it’s a book that I really, really love, I don’t keep them when I’m done with them, I give them away.  Plus, as you can see, I buy more books than I can possibly expect to read.

I love Barnes & Noble.  More than any other kind of shopping, I like book shopping.  And unfortunately, I’m a sucker for an interesting cover, and what attracts me in the store often isn’t enough to actually compel me to read it.  Many of these books have been sitting on this same shelf, unread, for years, I’m ashamed to admit.  I really need to go through it and purge.  I also need to resolve to stop buying so many books and just make my way through the ones I already have.

Anyhow, I’m giving myself permission to ditch The Art of Fielding which has been displayed up there in my sidebar as “What I’m Reading Now” for a couple of months, because the truth is, I don’t think I’m going to finish it.  I really wanted to like it, because according to all the reviews, it was one of the It books of 2011.  And it is a well-written story with interesting characters and a unique premise.  So I don’t know what it is – I got about 150 pages in and then just got kind of stuck, as in every time I try to pick it back up, I get distracted.  Which means it’s just not grabbing me.

I’ve moved on to Life Itself by Roger Ebert.  Hopefully with the husband away on business for the next several days, I can carve out some quiet time in the evenings and be a reader again.

The Good Earth

This book has been on my to-read list for quite a while, and I was finally motivated to move it to the top of the list when Kevin announced that it’s been assigned as required reading for his ninth-grade English class.

Originally published in 1931 and awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1932, this enduring classic was written by an American-born woman who grew up the daughter of missionaries, mostly in China; so although she was not herself Chinese, her knowledge of China and its customs were authentic.

The Good Earth tells the sweeping tale of Wang Lung, a humble peasant farmer in pre-revolutionary China.  When the story opens, Wang Lung is a young man, living alone with his aging father on a meager farm, about to wed a slave girl from the great House of Hwang – a slave being the only sort of wife his station and position affords him.  O-lan is a loyal and dutiful wife who works beside her husband in the fields, bears his children, cares for his house and his elderly father, and stoically and silently makes hard decisions for the well-being of the family, even at great cost to herself.  Covering more than fifty years, the family survives famine, flood, and drought, always coming back to the land as the one thing that will never cease to be.

Obviously, as the title describes, “the good earth” is the main thread that runs throughout the story.  A man who can acquire land becomes prosperous (as Wang Lung does); in times of hardship the land may temporarily fail, but it will always come back; all good things come from the earth: sustenance in the form of what can be reaped from the land, prosperity in the form of profits from the harvests that can be sold, as well as status and respect in the community for one’s land holdings, and in the end, the earth is where a man returns in death.

The book has some very adult themes: marriage and subservience, drug addiction, violence, reproduction and childbearing, and most notably, lust.  Lust for land, lust for money, and sexual lust for the sake of its own pleasures.  These themes are mostly allusions and not graphically depicted, but still clear.  I am a little surprised that this book has been assigned to a ninth-grade English class, as some of the subject matter may be a little too mature for some kids in that age group.  Not that I object to Kevin’s reading it, but I do think it warrants discussion with him, and I am very curious as to how the material will be handled as a class assignment: what types of discussions will the class have, what themes will the students be asked to explore and write about?

The story ends more than fifty years after it starts: Wang Lung has borne children and grandchildren, he has buried loved ones, acquired hundreds of acres of land as well as the great House of Hwang, he has taken on young wives to satisfy his lust, and he has become a rich and well-respected man – a far cry from the peasant farmer he started out as.  But what of happiness and peace?  And has he succeeded in passing on his love for the land on to his sons?

I really enjoyed reading this.  The lilting, almost poetic prose was very pleasing, and the story itself extremely satisfying.

BEST:

36 Arguments For the Existence of God by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein – The novel itself is not especially memorable, but the Appendix is: the deconstruction of pretty much every argument fathomable for the existence of God or a divine power.

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand – Amazing story of resilience that keeps the reader on the edge of her seat.

Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God by A.C. Grayling – a philosophical exploration of various subjects ranging from religion to marriage to war to eating meat.  Very thought-provoking.  I loved it.

In The Woods by Tana French – Murder mystery/thriller, this is the first book in the author’s Dublin Murder Squad series.  Couldn’t put it down.

The Likeness by Tana French – The second book in the Dublin Murder Squad series.

Faithful Place by Tana French – Book three of the Dublin Murder Squad series; perhaps the best of the three.

Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy – Deeply introspective, beautifully written account of the author’s experience with a rare form of cancer in childhood, and the aftermath that plagued her for the rest of her life.  Thoroughly engrossing.

The Shape of the Eye by George Estreich – a memoir by a father with a daughter who has Down syndrome, as well as a historical and sociological study of how our attitudes about Down syndrome have been shaped.  A must read for anyone touched by Down syndrome, as well as doctors and educators.

The Diaries of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain – a witty, intelligent retelling of Genesis by a world-class satirist.  Loved it.

WORST:

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand – better than Ambien for a sleep aid, my book club has nicknamed this book “The Gift That Keeps On Giving,” because a year later, the jokes about this epic novel persist.

Face of Hope by Carol Guscott – Fascinating story, but poorly written and too heavily faith-based for my liking.

I Live With Peter Pan by Missy Vaughn – Although the author clearly had good intentions when writing and publishing this children’s book, she only succeeds in promoting an old stereotype of individuals with Down syndrome remaining perpetually childlike.  Really disliked the book’s message.