Dear Jenny,
This book feels like it going to be more of a "medicine" book than a good read -- something I take because I have to and I'll probably be better for having read it, but I'm not going to enjoy the taste of it.
What a totally immature thing to say about a book written by the Dalai Lama, right? Oh, well. I yam what I yam.
love,
kelly
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
2012: What a Year!
Dear Jenny,
I just took a few minutes to poke around our little site here and am shocked to find that books that I read earlier this year seem like I read them years ago! I am usually surprised by how time flies, but this has been a verrrry long year for me. I'll be glad to be done with it.
Read any good "year in review" booklists lately? I was thrilled to see Audible's Best of 2012 list come out (just as I finished listening to the #1 pick: Beautiful Ruins) and I'm sure you're finding plenty yourself -- so what are the experts saying was good this year? I feel absolutely certain I missed a lot.
love,
kelly
PS -- Have you read Gone Girl? Everyone keeps raving about it and it keeps showing up in my Audible recommendations, but when I read the plot, it just seems awful. I don't want to succumb to Marriage Plot-style hype again.
I just took a few minutes to poke around our little site here and am shocked to find that books that I read earlier this year seem like I read them years ago! I am usually surprised by how time flies, but this has been a verrrry long year for me. I'll be glad to be done with it.
Read any good "year in review" booklists lately? I was thrilled to see Audible's Best of 2012 list come out (just as I finished listening to the #1 pick: Beautiful Ruins) and I'm sure you're finding plenty yourself -- so what are the experts saying was good this year? I feel absolutely certain I missed a lot.
love,
kelly
PS -- Have you read Gone Girl? Everyone keeps raving about it and it keeps showing up in my Audible recommendations, but when I read the plot, it just seems awful. I don't want to succumb to Marriage Plot-style hype again.
Completed: Four Spirits
Dear Jenny,
This book was my "8.12" -- I was burning through books last month, so I didn't take time to write my introductory post, which would have said:
This book was given to me several years ago by my mother-in-law, who heard the author speak at some sort of "Meet the Author" lecture series. It says "To Kelly" inside and is signed, which is kind of neat. Other than that, I know nothing about it.
So it's a book I knew absolutely nothing about, given to me by a reader whose opinion I respect. And now I'm done with it, so here's my review/re-cap/whatever these jottings are...
I enjoyed this book, but I think it could have lost about 1/3 of the story and have been a better book, which is something I rarely think about when reading -- I generally trust authors and editors to their work, but this book had me paying a lot of attention to the form.
Set in 1963 in Birmingham, AL, this book is about what you would expect it to be about for that time and that place: civil rights, racism, peaceful protests, violent backlashes, the personal stories of people figuring out how to make it all work. It interweaves the stories of several different characters, both black and white, and it hits the mark beautifully sometimes, but other times are a giant miss.
The best story, by far, was about a white girl (Woman? She's in her early 20s. I guess she starts out as a "girl" and ends up as a "woman" by the end of the book) (Ooh! Go me with the insight!) who goes with her friend out to a school to teach adult (well, post high-school -- late teens, early 20s) black students to get their GEDs. The relationships that develop between her and the students, the other teachers, all of the people in her life -- this story was rich and moving. She takes a journey and I found myself drawn into her story more than any other in the novel.
As it turns out, that character is modeled directly on the author's own experiences. Of course -- that is why they were the most vivid! It was she who had taken the teaching position with her friend, had gone out to the school, had weathered the bomb threats, had experienced the emotional hardships and triumphs, and had forged the unexpected friendships. Honestly, I think she could have just written her own story and had a fine piece of writing. But she had to add more.
The other characters are what you would expect: blacks and whites on either side of the segregation fence, some of them desiring change and some of them clinging to their beliefs. There was this one asshole that ends up getting killed by his wife (he's a real peach -- white supremacist, abusive spouse, rapist, etc. etc) and, while her revenge is satisfying and I was glad that this MF'er got what he deserved, I just thought, "What did that really add to the plot?" It just seemed like low-hanging fruit -- the story of the asshole klansman is the obvious one. I preferred the more nuanced stories in the book: more conflict, more revelation, some kind of growth. His story also ends a little mysteriously -- his wife blew up their house with him in it and there is some allusion that she saw their son running back into the house right before the blast! But that is never confirmed or denied. Ugh! Cliffhanger! Again, I find myself thinking: What exactly did that add to this story?
Other than the author's character, the other strong character in the book was a black woman who also taught at the school. In some ways, she was well-drawn (perhaps based on someone the author actually knew) -- she was reluctant to get to know this white woman, but they came together in the end, united against something bigger than the two of them, as they held hands together in a lunch counter sit-in that starts peacefully and ends in bloodshed. But in other ways, her story really lacked. Perhaps in comparison to the richness of the author's own story? Maybe because we can never truly know what another person in a totally different set of circumstances goes through? I guess it's the job of a good fiction writer to be able to put themselves inside of the character, but perhaps this story was too close to home for this author. And, sometimes, authors just fall flat -- for instance, I can think of several horribly drawn female characters written by men.
The "Four Spirits" were a strange plot device -- these were the spirits of the four girls killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing and they appeared to an old black lady who lived in a cabin in the woods. We see her at the beginning of the book and at the end of the book and her life is connected to a white man that she was a nanny to when he was a boy. Later in the novel, I think his daughter becomes one of the supporting characters that interacts with the main ones. I say "think" because there were a lot of characters in this book and it was hard to keep them all straight. In fact, the more I think about this book, the more I find myself thinking, "Oh, yeah -- that guy! Oh, yeah -- that woman!" And then, "What the heck happened to them...?" which isn't great. I would have liked to have all of these different characters "come together" more. And, if that's not possible, let's just eliminate them.
I understand the reference to the bombing -- the book contained many historical facts (the murders of both MLK Jr. and JFK are covered, as well as the story of Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth) -- but bringing ghosts in was just a little weird and felt like it was the original seed for the story that probably should have gotten tossed when it was outgrown.
I think if the author had pared this story down to the two main women in the book, she probably could have addressed the other character's stories peripherally, without actually "seeing" things their eyes. And the story could have been a lot stronger.
One interesting note -- when the author originally goes to teach out at the school, she goes with a childhood friend. This friend was wheelchair bound and went on to become an advocate for people with disabilities in real life. I thought this part was especially poignant, as it is her indignation at racial prejudices that leads her to realize: "Hey! Why am I, a disabled person, not allowed the same rights as able-bodied people?" Oh, yeah -- we all deserve equal treatment! (Goooooo, Civil Rights!)
I feel like all I've done is bag on this book, but some of the stories really were moving. In a nutshell: It was a good, quick read that tells about a tumultuous time in our country's history through personal stories, but I think it could have been even better with a little more focus on fewer characters.
love,
kelly
This book was my "8.12" -- I was burning through books last month, so I didn't take time to write my introductory post, which would have said:This book was given to me several years ago by my mother-in-law, who heard the author speak at some sort of "Meet the Author" lecture series. It says "To Kelly" inside and is signed, which is kind of neat. Other than that, I know nothing about it.
So it's a book I knew absolutely nothing about, given to me by a reader whose opinion I respect. And now I'm done with it, so here's my review/re-cap/whatever these jottings are...
I enjoyed this book, but I think it could have lost about 1/3 of the story and have been a better book, which is something I rarely think about when reading -- I generally trust authors and editors to their work, but this book had me paying a lot of attention to the form.
Set in 1963 in Birmingham, AL, this book is about what you would expect it to be about for that time and that place: civil rights, racism, peaceful protests, violent backlashes, the personal stories of people figuring out how to make it all work. It interweaves the stories of several different characters, both black and white, and it hits the mark beautifully sometimes, but other times are a giant miss.
The best story, by far, was about a white girl (Woman? She's in her early 20s. I guess she starts out as a "girl" and ends up as a "woman" by the end of the book) (Ooh! Go me with the insight!) who goes with her friend out to a school to teach adult (well, post high-school -- late teens, early 20s) black students to get their GEDs. The relationships that develop between her and the students, the other teachers, all of the people in her life -- this story was rich and moving. She takes a journey and I found myself drawn into her story more than any other in the novel.
As it turns out, that character is modeled directly on the author's own experiences. Of course -- that is why they were the most vivid! It was she who had taken the teaching position with her friend, had gone out to the school, had weathered the bomb threats, had experienced the emotional hardships and triumphs, and had forged the unexpected friendships. Honestly, I think she could have just written her own story and had a fine piece of writing. But she had to add more.
The other characters are what you would expect: blacks and whites on either side of the segregation fence, some of them desiring change and some of them clinging to their beliefs. There was this one asshole that ends up getting killed by his wife (he's a real peach -- white supremacist, abusive spouse, rapist, etc. etc) and, while her revenge is satisfying and I was glad that this MF'er got what he deserved, I just thought, "What did that really add to the plot?" It just seemed like low-hanging fruit -- the story of the asshole klansman is the obvious one. I preferred the more nuanced stories in the book: more conflict, more revelation, some kind of growth. His story also ends a little mysteriously -- his wife blew up their house with him in it and there is some allusion that she saw their son running back into the house right before the blast! But that is never confirmed or denied. Ugh! Cliffhanger! Again, I find myself thinking: What exactly did that add to this story?
Other than the author's character, the other strong character in the book was a black woman who also taught at the school. In some ways, she was well-drawn (perhaps based on someone the author actually knew) -- she was reluctant to get to know this white woman, but they came together in the end, united against something bigger than the two of them, as they held hands together in a lunch counter sit-in that starts peacefully and ends in bloodshed. But in other ways, her story really lacked. Perhaps in comparison to the richness of the author's own story? Maybe because we can never truly know what another person in a totally different set of circumstances goes through? I guess it's the job of a good fiction writer to be able to put themselves inside of the character, but perhaps this story was too close to home for this author. And, sometimes, authors just fall flat -- for instance, I can think of several horribly drawn female characters written by men.
The "Four Spirits" were a strange plot device -- these were the spirits of the four girls killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing and they appeared to an old black lady who lived in a cabin in the woods. We see her at the beginning of the book and at the end of the book and her life is connected to a white man that she was a nanny to when he was a boy. Later in the novel, I think his daughter becomes one of the supporting characters that interacts with the main ones. I say "think" because there were a lot of characters in this book and it was hard to keep them all straight. In fact, the more I think about this book, the more I find myself thinking, "Oh, yeah -- that guy! Oh, yeah -- that woman!" And then, "What the heck happened to them...?" which isn't great. I would have liked to have all of these different characters "come together" more. And, if that's not possible, let's just eliminate them.
I understand the reference to the bombing -- the book contained many historical facts (the murders of both MLK Jr. and JFK are covered, as well as the story of Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth) -- but bringing ghosts in was just a little weird and felt like it was the original seed for the story that probably should have gotten tossed when it was outgrown.
I think if the author had pared this story down to the two main women in the book, she probably could have addressed the other character's stories peripherally, without actually "seeing" things their eyes. And the story could have been a lot stronger.
One interesting note -- when the author originally goes to teach out at the school, she goes with a childhood friend. This friend was wheelchair bound and went on to become an advocate for people with disabilities in real life. I thought this part was especially poignant, as it is her indignation at racial prejudices that leads her to realize: "Hey! Why am I, a disabled person, not allowed the same rights as able-bodied people?" Oh, yeah -- we all deserve equal treatment! (Goooooo, Civil Rights!)
I feel like all I've done is bag on this book, but some of the stories really were moving. In a nutshell: It was a good, quick read that tells about a tumultuous time in our country's history through personal stories, but I think it could have been even better with a little more focus on fewer characters.
love,
kelly
Monday, December 3, 2012
Completed: Double Fold
Dear Jenny,
Ack! Until a couple of weeks ago, I had been sticking to my 20-pages-per-day goal and have finished three more books! But I still need to write about them and, of course, I still have three to go and now only have 28 days left. Gah! Well, let's get to it...
This book was exactly what I was expecting: Nicholson Baker delivering a very long and well written shit-fit about the fact that our nation's libraries have been scanning all of our newspapers (and a lot of books too!) to microfilm and then... discarding the originals.
While I was reading the book, I must admit I kept thinking: "Who cares?" Or, more accurately: "Wow. I cannot believe Nicholson Baker cares so much about this issue." I mean, everyone cares about something, so I should not judge him for this, but... he just cares so much about something that... well, so very few other people seem to care about.
By the end, I will admit that I did feel a sense of "Yeah! Let's do something about this!" but... it quickly faded. Everyone has their pet cause. Baker's is antique newspaper and book destruction, mine is plastic bags. Other people? Literacy, breast cancer awareness, water conservation, etc. We can't all care about everything and sometimes things speak to us more than others.
I am going to shamelessly grab the description of this book from Amazon:
There are several illustrations in the book that compare the clarity of the original work to the hideous reproductions via microfilm. If you remember using that crap when we were kids, you know he's got a point. Microfilm sucks. Also, it deteriorates. Also, many mistakes were made when the books and newspapers were originally scanned. So they're incomplete. Again, he's right: It's bad news. But when he gets into the "secret history" described above, the book kind of goes off the rails for me. It's probably interesting to other conspiracy theorists -- I just don't really have that bent.
The Double Fold Test
The name of the book comes from a completely terrible method that libraries use to test the "brittleness" of a book. They fold a corner of the page back and forth several times until it breaks. If it breaks right away, the book is "brittle" and is therefore going to "fall apart soon!!" (said in Chicken Little's best Voice of Panic there).
Of course, pages and books are not actually handled that way -- who's bending the pages back and forth when they read? (I mean, except as a book-destroying way to bookmark a page.) (I am totally guilty of this.) (But only on paperbacks and only books that I own myself!) Baker describes his revised idea for a test:
The Durability of the 100+ Year Old Page: I've Seen It!
Coincidentally, I can tell you from personal experience that Baker is totally right that it is pure and utter bullshit that paper will not last for over 100 years. Several months ago, I had the pleasure of reading some 100+ year old letters written by my great-grandmother (seriously!)
We held them with our bare hands and no one in the family had every "preserved" them -- they were still in perfect condition. This was before I had read Baker's book, and we were all remarking on how fresh and new the paper still seemed and how surprised we were by that. So I guess the Chicken Little propaganda is working -- we assumed those pages would be disintegrating, but nope.
And Now? What's Going on Today?
At the end of the book, Baker ends up cashing out a good portion of his retirement to buy a bunch of full newspaper runs that were being sold off post-microfilm. He kept them in a warehouse and allowed people to come and use them. In poking around the Internet, I have just discovered that Baker has donated that collection to Duke University who, of course, has agreed to never destroy the original media.
The reason I was poking around in the first place is because I was looking for some sort of followup to this epic journey. This book was originally published in 2001 and a shit-load of technological advances have been made since that time! Surely there are super-awesome-fantastic scanners that exist now that can scan/photograph books and newspapers and still allow them to be preserved in their original form, right?
Unfortunately, I couldn't really find any followup information about this story. Apparently, Baker is the only one interested in bringing this topic to the mainstream (I'm sure it's discussed behind closed library doors every day) and he has since shelved it. (Har har.) I did find many, many librarians who still hate him for this book because he holds librarians accountable for standing by while the travesty happens (in fact, there is a library association that has an entire page on its site devoted to rebutting this book. I'm not linking, as they kind of scare me.) He wrote, "The library has gone astray partly because we trusted the librarians so completely" [104] which, I'm guessing, kind of pissed 'em off.
But other than the Angry Librarians and reviews from when the book came out, I cannot really find much new information. It just seems like... 11 years later, it's time for Baker to re-address the issue that he had so much passion about then. What is happening now? Are all of the materials destroyed, as predicted? Is there a new solution to the problem? The new panic in the book world seems to be "eBooks are going to put pBooks out of business!" so perhaps that's where all the outrage now lies? I don't know. Just felt like I wanted an update/epilogue/follow-up, etc. which I couldn't seem to find anywhere.
Holy crap, I wrote a really long re-cap of this book. And I didn't even scratch the surface!The premise was so basic, but Nicholson Baker (and now I) had a lot to write about it. Whew!
love,
kelly
PS -- One absolutely fantastic thing about this book? It had over 60 pages of endnotes that Baker does not reference within the text at all. Meaning that I could happily burn through this book without being distracted by all of the tiny numbers and the flipping to the back of that book! Thank you, Nicholson Baker, for sparing me the flipping!
Ack! Until a couple of weeks ago, I had been sticking to my 20-pages-per-day goal and have finished three more books! But I still need to write about them and, of course, I still have three to go and now only have 28 days left. Gah! Well, let's get to it...
This book was exactly what I was expecting: Nicholson Baker delivering a very long and well written shit-fit about the fact that our nation's libraries have been scanning all of our newspapers (and a lot of books too!) to microfilm and then... discarding the originals.
While I was reading the book, I must admit I kept thinking: "Who cares?" Or, more accurately: "Wow. I cannot believe Nicholson Baker cares so much about this issue." I mean, everyone cares about something, so I should not judge him for this, but... he just cares so much about something that... well, so very few other people seem to care about.
By the end, I will admit that I did feel a sense of "Yeah! Let's do something about this!" but... it quickly faded. Everyone has their pet cause. Baker's is antique newspaper and book destruction, mine is plastic bags. Other people? Literacy, breast cancer awareness, water conservation, etc. We can't all care about everything and sometimes things speak to us more than others.
I am going to shamelessly grab the description of this book from Amazon:
The ostensible purpose of a library is to preserve the printed word. But for fifty years our country’s libraries–including the Library of Congress–have been doing just the opposite, destroying hundreds of thousands of historic newspapers and replacing them with microfilm copies that are difficult to read, lack all the color and quality of the original paper and illustrations, and deteriorate with age.
With meticulous detective work and Baker’s well-known explanatory power, Double Fold reveals a secret history of microfilm lobbyists, former CIA agents, and warehouses where priceless archives are destroyed with a machine called a guillotine. Baker argues passionately for preservation, even cashing in his own retirement account to save one important archive–all twenty tons of it.So there you have it. Libraries are destroying newspapers and books after scanning them to microfilm. In many cases, the material needs to be destroyed in *order* to microfilm it -- it gets "disbound" (also gruesomely called "guillotined") to scan and rebinding is, well, yeah. Not easy.
There are several illustrations in the book that compare the clarity of the original work to the hideous reproductions via microfilm. If you remember using that crap when we were kids, you know he's got a point. Microfilm sucks. Also, it deteriorates. Also, many mistakes were made when the books and newspapers were originally scanned. So they're incomplete. Again, he's right: It's bad news. But when he gets into the "secret history" described above, the book kind of goes off the rails for me. It's probably interesting to other conspiracy theorists -- I just don't really have that bent.
The Double Fold Test
The name of the book comes from a completely terrible method that libraries use to test the "brittleness" of a book. They fold a corner of the page back and forth several times until it breaks. If it breaks right away, the book is "brittle" and is therefore going to "fall apart soon!!" (said in Chicken Little's best Voice of Panic there).
Of course, pages and books are not actually handled that way -- who's bending the pages back and forth when they read? (I mean, except as a book-destroying way to bookmark a page.) (I am totally guilty of this.) (But only on paperbacks and only books that I own myself!) Baker describes his revised idea for a test:
Late one night, after the children were in bed, I began some random experimentation at the household bookshelves. My wife asked me what I was up to.He then develops a new "procedure" that night -- one where he simply turns the pages of the book -- you know, like you do when you are, say... reading it? And he stops after 400 turns back and forth. Of the same page. And that page has not broken off, disintegrated, turned to dust, etc. -- all of the claims that the "Double Fold test" would have supported. So, you know... he's right. But, of course, this fact doesn't really get him anywhere. The Double Fold test continues on.
"I'm --- performing the fold test," I said.
"Please stop breaking the corners off our books," my wife said. "It can't be doing them any good."
[he goes on here to expound on the fact that this book has actually failed the Double Fold test -- one bend and a corner breaks off -- but it's long, so I've cut it out... ]
This was the sort of book over which preservation people shake their heads and say, "it's got one read left in it." Or, in a sad but firm voice, "We've got just one change to turn these pages, and it better be when they're under the camera." [more expounding...]
And yet this was clearly a usable book: I was using it, and not gently, either. I don't cover books with plastic sleeves; I pile them on the floor around my chair, and sometime the piles topple. Any manual procedure that woudl conclude that my book was "unusable" or "unserviceable" was a flawed procedure. [159]
The Durability of the 100+ Year Old Page: I've Seen It!
Coincidentally, I can tell you from personal experience that Baker is totally right that it is pure and utter bullshit that paper will not last for over 100 years. Several months ago, I had the pleasure of reading some 100+ year old letters written by my great-grandmother (seriously!)
We held them with our bare hands and no one in the family had every "preserved" them -- they were still in perfect condition. This was before I had read Baker's book, and we were all remarking on how fresh and new the paper still seemed and how surprised we were by that. So I guess the Chicken Little propaganda is working -- we assumed those pages would be disintegrating, but nope.
And Now? What's Going on Today?
At the end of the book, Baker ends up cashing out a good portion of his retirement to buy a bunch of full newspaper runs that were being sold off post-microfilm. He kept them in a warehouse and allowed people to come and use them. In poking around the Internet, I have just discovered that Baker has donated that collection to Duke University who, of course, has agreed to never destroy the original media.
The reason I was poking around in the first place is because I was looking for some sort of followup to this epic journey. This book was originally published in 2001 and a shit-load of technological advances have been made since that time! Surely there are super-awesome-fantastic scanners that exist now that can scan/photograph books and newspapers and still allow them to be preserved in their original form, right?
Unfortunately, I couldn't really find any followup information about this story. Apparently, Baker is the only one interested in bringing this topic to the mainstream (I'm sure it's discussed behind closed library doors every day) and he has since shelved it. (Har har.) I did find many, many librarians who still hate him for this book because he holds librarians accountable for standing by while the travesty happens (in fact, there is a library association that has an entire page on its site devoted to rebutting this book. I'm not linking, as they kind of scare me.) He wrote, "The library has gone astray partly because we trusted the librarians so completely" [104] which, I'm guessing, kind of pissed 'em off.
But other than the Angry Librarians and reviews from when the book came out, I cannot really find much new information. It just seems like... 11 years later, it's time for Baker to re-address the issue that he had so much passion about then. What is happening now? Are all of the materials destroyed, as predicted? Is there a new solution to the problem? The new panic in the book world seems to be "eBooks are going to put pBooks out of business!" so perhaps that's where all the outrage now lies? I don't know. Just felt like I wanted an update/epilogue/follow-up, etc. which I couldn't seem to find anywhere.
Holy crap, I wrote a really long re-cap of this book. And I didn't even scratch the surface!The premise was so basic, but Nicholson Baker (and now I) had a lot to write about it. Whew!
love,
kelly
PS -- One absolutely fantastic thing about this book? It had over 60 pages of endnotes that Baker does not reference within the text at all. Meaning that I could happily burn through this book without being distracted by all of the tiny numbers and the flipping to the back of that book! Thank you, Nicholson Baker, for sparing me the flipping!
Friday, November 30, 2012
December: Let's do this thing!
Kelly,
Well, I have to read 2 books this month, so I'm a little worried, but I also have the last 10 days of the month off, so I'm going to keep positive and tell myself that I can do this!
The first book I'm tackling is Cutting for Stone, a novel that has a lot of fans out there. Every single solitary person I know that has read it, and I'm not exaggerating that, has sung its praises. I'm a few chapters in and I think I will like it. It's seems like a sweeping generational story of two brothers, both doctors. One brother is the narrator, and it starts with him describing the lives of his mother, a nun! and nurse at a hospital in Africa. The father (although there seems like the potential for that to be a contested title) is a surgeon and friend, Dr Stone.
Nuns, doctors, twins, globe hopping, multiple cultures, Abbis Ababa? I'm in!
I'm not sure what I'll do after that one. I have one novel left, The Book of Night Women and two books of non-fiction, The Best and the Brightest and Embracing Defeat. I'm *hoping* to tackle The Best and The Brightest, since it's a book I've wanted to read for years. We'll see how it goes.
How are things looking for you? Not like this has been a busy year or anything. Heh.
Jenny
Well, I have to read 2 books this month, so I'm a little worried, but I also have the last 10 days of the month off, so I'm going to keep positive and tell myself that I can do this!
The first book I'm tackling is Cutting for Stone, a novel that has a lot of fans out there. Every single solitary person I know that has read it, and I'm not exaggerating that, has sung its praises. I'm a few chapters in and I think I will like it. It's seems like a sweeping generational story of two brothers, both doctors. One brother is the narrator, and it starts with him describing the lives of his mother, a nun! and nurse at a hospital in Africa. The father (although there seems like the potential for that to be a contested title) is a surgeon and friend, Dr Stone.
Nuns, doctors, twins, globe hopping, multiple cultures, Abbis Ababa? I'm in!
I'm not sure what I'll do after that one. I have one novel left, The Book of Night Women and two books of non-fiction, The Best and the Brightest and Embracing Defeat. I'm *hoping* to tackle The Best and The Brightest, since it's a book I've wanted to read for years. We'll see how it goes.
How are things looking for you? Not like this has been a busy year or anything. Heh.
Jenny
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Take 2: The Warmth of Other Suns
Kelly,
Sorry to leave you hanging there! It's been a busy week, what with the traveling, the movies, and the turkey avoidance* and all. But through it all, I've been thinking of The Warmth of Other Suns because it is just a tour de force. This story just had propulsion and velocity, and it dragged me along for the ride.
I guess I should start with the basic overview. This book of non-fiction was written by a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist (and total hottie, at least according to Darius) named Isabel Wilkerson. The book created a big buzz when it came out, and I bought a copy right away. The book tells the mostly untold story of The Great Migration, which was a period of time from after WW1 all the way up through the 1970s when over 6 million African-Americans left the South for a better life in the North.
The book primarily follows the lives of 3 "migrants": George Starling, who leaves Florida for New York; Ida Mae Gladney, who leaves Mississippi for Chicago, and Dr. Bob Foster who leaves Louisiana for California. However, it's clear from the extensive footnotes that Wilkerson interviewed thousands of people for this book. Through the stories of these 3 individuals, she traces the major migratory paths from North to South and tells the story of the migration: what caused it, what ended it, what happened to those left behind, and the unexpected challenges of life in the North.
The book is just amazing on so many levels, I hardly know where to start. Of course, the drama of the book is the human lives and stories that the author portrays with such dignity and care. Each character's story begins when they are still in the South. It's one thing to know in theory what it was like to live under the tyranny of Jim Crow, but reading these stories...it's heartwrenching and awful.. It's humiliating and embarrassing. It's shocking to think how recently this happened. As the book continues, each character escapes the South for the freedoms of the North and West...only to find that they are not too much better. Yes, jobs are available, but African-Americans are given the jobs with the lowest skills and the poorest wages. They are sequestered into certain parts of the city. And yet, their lives and opportunities are still better than what remained behind.
I couldn't help but read this book with a sense of awe, both for the craft of the storytelling and for the stories themselves. I just feel so grateful that these people shared their lives with the author, and that she created this book. It's amazing how strong people can be in the face of such adversity. Parts of the book were so moving that I doubt I will ever forget them. Here's Ida, describing what it was like to vote for the first time:
Back home, no one dared talk about such things. She couldn't vote in Mississippi. She never knew where the polls where in Chickasaw County. And even if she had had the nerve to go, she would have been turned away for failing to pay a poll tax or not being able to answer a question on a literacy test for which there was no answer, such as how many grains of sand there were on the beach or how to interpret an obscure article of the Mississippi constitution to the election registrar's satisfaction. She and most every other colored person in the South knew better than to even try....
On Election Day, Ida Mae walked up to the fire station around the corner from her flat...to vote for the first time in her life...Ida Mae was not certain what to do. She had never touched an election ballot. She walked in, and a lady came over and directed her to where she should go. Ida Mae stepped inside a polling booth for the first time in her life and drew the curtain behind her...and tried to remember what the lady has told her about how to punch her choices for president of the United States and other political offices. It was the first time she would ever have a say in such things. "She showed me how to do it," Ida Mae said.
...She did not see herself as taking any kind of political stand. But in that simple gesture, she was defying the very heart of the Southern caste system, and doing something she could not dreamed of doing--in fact, had not allowed herself to even contemplate--all those years in Mississippi. (303-305).
Needless to say, reading those passages right after an election in which voting was purposefully made so difficult for so many people made me sad and angry. If this book shows anything, it's both how amazingly far we've come, and how far we still have to go.
This book is not only the amazing story of heroic Americans, but also an important correction of the historical record. For years, people seemed to think that the Great Migration was accidental rather than purposeful. Historians assumed that people left because the draw of jobs in the North was so great, when in fact it was desperate people fleeing from the oppression of Jim Crow South. The book is simply astounding.
Love,
Jenny
*I have successfully avoided all turkey eating activities again this year. Meanwhile, and this is funny, my Mom's friend Cheryl was also at dinner. Apparently, she doesn't like turkey that much either. When asked, my go-to answer is, "I think turkey is a little too game-y." So I say this to Cheryl, and she said, "Oh yes. To me, it just tastes *dead*, you know what I mean." Of course, that's exactly what I mean when I say gamey! Turns out there is someone in the universe more blunt than me!
Sorry to leave you hanging there! It's been a busy week, what with the traveling, the movies, and the turkey avoidance* and all. But through it all, I've been thinking of The Warmth of Other Suns because it is just a tour de force. This story just had propulsion and velocity, and it dragged me along for the ride.
I guess I should start with the basic overview. This book of non-fiction was written by a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist (and total hottie, at least according to Darius) named Isabel Wilkerson. The book created a big buzz when it came out, and I bought a copy right away. The book tells the mostly untold story of The Great Migration, which was a period of time from after WW1 all the way up through the 1970s when over 6 million African-Americans left the South for a better life in the North.
The book primarily follows the lives of 3 "migrants": George Starling, who leaves Florida for New York; Ida Mae Gladney, who leaves Mississippi for Chicago, and Dr. Bob Foster who leaves Louisiana for California. However, it's clear from the extensive footnotes that Wilkerson interviewed thousands of people for this book. Through the stories of these 3 individuals, she traces the major migratory paths from North to South and tells the story of the migration: what caused it, what ended it, what happened to those left behind, and the unexpected challenges of life in the North.
 |
| In a great scene in the book, Ida Mae & the author drive past a cotton field and pick cotton! |
I couldn't help but read this book with a sense of awe, both for the craft of the storytelling and for the stories themselves. I just feel so grateful that these people shared their lives with the author, and that she created this book. It's amazing how strong people can be in the face of such adversity. Parts of the book were so moving that I doubt I will ever forget them. Here's Ida, describing what it was like to vote for the first time:
 | |
| Ida Mae (can you tell she's my favorite?) |
On Election Day, Ida Mae walked up to the fire station around the corner from her flat...to vote for the first time in her life...Ida Mae was not certain what to do. She had never touched an election ballot. She walked in, and a lady came over and directed her to where she should go. Ida Mae stepped inside a polling booth for the first time in her life and drew the curtain behind her...and tried to remember what the lady has told her about how to punch her choices for president of the United States and other political offices. It was the first time she would ever have a say in such things. "She showed me how to do it," Ida Mae said.
...She did not see herself as taking any kind of political stand. But in that simple gesture, she was defying the very heart of the Southern caste system, and doing something she could not dreamed of doing--in fact, had not allowed herself to even contemplate--all those years in Mississippi. (303-305).
Needless to say, reading those passages right after an election in which voting was purposefully made so difficult for so many people made me sad and angry. If this book shows anything, it's both how amazingly far we've come, and how far we still have to go.
This book is not only the amazing story of heroic Americans, but also an important correction of the historical record. For years, people seemed to think that the Great Migration was accidental rather than purposeful. Historians assumed that people left because the draw of jobs in the North was so great, when in fact it was desperate people fleeing from the oppression of Jim Crow South. The book is simply astounding.
Love,
Jenny
*I have successfully avoided all turkey eating activities again this year. Meanwhile, and this is funny, my Mom's friend Cheryl was also at dinner. Apparently, she doesn't like turkey that much either. When asked, my go-to answer is, "I think turkey is a little too game-y." So I say this to Cheryl, and she said, "Oh yes. To me, it just tastes *dead*, you know what I mean." Of course, that's exactly what I mean when I say gamey! Turns out there is someone in the universe more blunt than me!
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Completed: The Warmth of Other Suns
Kelly,
This was the most amazing book I have read this year.
I feel like I should just let that sit out there for a while, and tomorrow when I'm less tired and can get past the "Wow!" to something more meaningful, I'll come back and say more.
Jenny
I feel like I should just let that sit out there for a while, and tomorrow when I'm less tired and can get past the "Wow!" to something more meaningful, I'll come back and say more.
Jenny
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