A Week of Duds. . .

So, I usually pick up about five or six books when I'm at the library because chances are, I may not like one or two of them; and it gives me four or five others to fall back on.  If there was ever a jackpot for duds, then I definitely hit it.  And I hit it hard.

After having already read two of my choices, I started my week with Jose Saramago's Blindness.  The book had an interesting concept, a bit of suspense, and an overwhelming dose of edginess.  But I just could not get past the writing style.  It was chock full of run-on sentences and contained no breaks nor punctuation for the dialogue.  Mind you, had one of my students passed in a paper looking like this, it would have been handed right back to him.  So it's a little disturbing that a published author can get away with this, even if his purpose is creativity.  I was constantly confusing the characters ~ who did not have names, by the way ~ and had trouble visualizing parts of the setting.  Since I found myself blinded by the story and the writing style, I gave up on it at about page 72.

Then I picked up The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow.  I was really looking forward to this one.  I needed a "feel-good" story about a quirky somebody who builds a spectacular life for himself out of virtually nothing but his own gumption and determination.  I needed a little inspiration for my own never-ending, fruitless job search that I killed myself in college over and invested my life's savings in.

Strike 2!

If a book is going to be over 500 pages long, then it better keep me entertained, enlightened, intrigued, and glued to the pages.  The first eight pages contained so many characters; and quite frankly, I was not in the mood to care or keep up with them.  It was unfair ~ I usually give a book a good 50 to 100 pages before I decide to jump ship ~ but I willingly walked the plank and bailed out on Page 11.

I also tried Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop.  Since I only read the introduction and the first two pages of the story itself, I clearly didn't give this one the chance it deserved.  Classics usually draw me right in.  But I think by the time I finally got to it that I was completely frustrated and needed a book that would instantly hook me in and take me for the ride.

It was quite the unfortunate week for reading.  Perhaps each of these books are stunning and dazzling in their own right.  However, I failed to find it in any one of my choices this week.  But that's one of the fun aspects of reading ~ it's very subjective.  I guess it's back to the library for another round of choices . . .

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Jane Eyre is one of my all-time favorite novels.  So when I discovered that there was actually a book about Mr. Rochester's infamous, attic-dwelling wife, I had to read it.

The first time I read Jane Eyre was about eight years ago as a requirement for one of my literature courses, and it instantly became a hit with me.  Of course, I loved Jane's story.  But it is completely impossible to read this classic without feeling haunted, bewildered, and affected by the madwoman in the attic.  A short, quick, and creative story, Wide Sargasso Sea cleverly explains how Antoinette Bertha Cosway goes from being a Creole heiress to Mr. Rochester's insane wife.

I remember feeling outraged when I learned that the woman in the attic was actually Rochester's wife.  What would possess a man to lock his spouse in an attic and keep her a secret from the outside world?  But as I've recently learned, Antoinette Bertha Cosway came from a troubled and tragic past which led to her insanity.  By the end of Jane Eyre I developed a sense of pity and favor for Rochester; but in Wide Sargasso Sea my initial feelings of distrust were ignited once again through his authoritative dominance over his wife.  Granted, "Bertha" clearly has a genetic predisposition to mental illness and a seduction to Creole obeah (a type of voodoo or witchcraft); but Rochester's behavior and attitude certainly contribute to the problem, a problem that becomes wildly out of control in both novels.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

My niece Kayla made me laugh the other day.  We were taking a walk, and she asked me if I walk every day.  I told her yes.  Then she slightly cocked her head to the side, pointed her nose to the sky, placed her hands on her hips, and replied, "I am marveled by you."  Coming from the mouth of an eight year old who pronounces the word "Portuguese" as "pork 'n cheese," I found myself marveled (and humored) by her comment.  Ever the doubtful aunt when I hear something embellished and out of the ordinary from a habitual story teller, I had to pry further into how and where she obtained this new word before my socks were truly blown off by this sudden command of new-found vocabulary.

So I asked Kayla if she knew what the word "marvel" meant.  And she said, "Yeah, you know how when someone is painting a sculpture?  They use marvel."

Huh.  Well, I guess we were 1 for 2 on this one.  She knew how to use the word in a sentence but had no idea what it meant.

I too find myself marveled by certain aspects, situations, and achievements in life.  In her 8-year-old mind, Kayla finds my daily walk to be an astounding and wondrous feat ~ probably because her short legs can't take her as far as mine.  But she is marveled nonethelesss.  She viewed my walk the same way I may perceive the amazement in someone's ability to paint a landscape, climb Mt. Everest, or overcome and survive a personal tragedy.  Everyone has their own perceptions of "wonderful," and we all have goals we'd like to achieve to make us feel like we're living a wondrous life.  But we also have different abilities and limitations toward achieving these goals.  At the core of it, however, don't we all just want to feel love, acceptance, and happiness?

Although his life may have been wondrous, Poor Oscar Wao was doomed from the beginning.  A bookish, overweight, down-on-his-luck, science fiction nerd, Oscar Wao strives to find a girlfriend and fall in love before dying a virgin.  He believes that finding a girlfriend will help him achieve his own goals of love, acceptance, and happiness.  Oscar's tragic and sorry life is told through the perspectives of his sister Lola and their friend Yunior.  The detailed, turbulent histories of his parents, grandparents, and home life are included as part of his biography, which also include the history and political atmosphere of the Dominican Republic at the time.

I wish The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao had marveled me, but I had difficulty connecting to any of the characters.  The stories behind each character were interesting, but I found some of them to drone on longer than was really necessary.  The book is loaded with lengthy footnotes, which distracted me from the story and made me feel like I was reading a thesis paper rather than a fictional biography.  Maybe that was the whole point, and I clearly missed it.  This was just an okay read for me.  I didn't love it; but I didn't hate it.  I guess I was hoping for something "wondrous" and exciting to emerge from all of the tragedy so that I could be marveled.  Unfortunately, it just left me feeling a bit flat.

The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff

Polygamy, murder, scandal, religious and moral disputes, suspense, intrigue ~ what more can you ask for in a novel?  This one had it all and then some.

As someone who is New England born and bred and grounded in Italian roots, I am not familiar with the Mormon or Latter Day Saints (LDS) religions.  I'm sure if I dig far enough, I could find temples and churches in the area with people practicing these faiths; however, this is not something that is prevalent around here.  And as far as I know, neither is polygamy.  Polygamy, of course, is illegal here ~ so is drug use, homocide, theft, and the like.  But it doesn't mean that people refrain from these activities.  Such is the case in The 19th Wife. . .

Two parallel and connected stories comprise this novel ~ one set in the 19th Century, the other in the 21st.  Ebershoff takes us through the history and formation of the Mormon and LDS religions and beliefs by weaving Ann Eliza Young's biography (the purported 19th wife of Brigham Young) with that of modern-day fictional character Jordan Scott.  As Ann Eliza Young makes a daring and dangerous escape from the Mormon church and her marriage to Brigham Young in the late 1800s, she becomes a public activist against plural marriage.  She travels the country lecturing about the inequities and cruelties encompassing polygamy before mysteriously disappearing.  Intersecting her story, Jordan Scott is on a mission of his own ~ to find out why his mother, a 19th wife herself, is sitting in jail for the murder of his father.

The 19th Wife exudes an extremely distinct impression that Ebershoff is as dead-set against polygamy as his two protagonists.  The details he provides conjures such graphic pictures of the lifestyle of these women, their children, and their husbands.  The book alludes to this lifestyle as being wrought with injustice, brainwashing, and crime with its negative implications particularly imposed upon the wives and children.  Ann Eliza Young and Jordan Scott's experiences really put this practice into perspective and makes you think:  Just how practical is this belief?  and Can anyone really be happy this way?  Because this lifestyle and practice is so far removed from my own, I found it completely fascinating to explore its history through the eyes of a former plural wife and to see why women in particular would subject themselves to polygamy.

Thank you to Kerry McKibbins's recommendation for this book.  After reading her review of it on her Curly Girl blog, I had put it on my "To Read List."  I'm so glad I did because it was a real page turner!

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

I know that it's only the beginning of April, but People of the Book is by far the best book that I've read this year.  My list of Top 10 All-Time Favorites will now have to be a list of Top 11.

Library books, as we all know, get passed from hand to hand.  And on occassion (more often than I'd appreciate), I'll turn a page and some unexpected, unidentifiable substance will be staring back at me.  I would care not to know what most of these items are, but the obvious food stains, crumbs, water damage, coffee, and beach sand have made their presence known in many a library book.  These little pieces of evidence left behind by previous readers have sometimes caused me to wonder what they were eating or doing while this book was in their hands.  What caused this person to spill his or her coffee?  What beach is this sand from?  Were these Ritz crackers or Saltines?  And the question that usually leaves me cringing:  Is that what I think it is?

Of course, Geraldine Brooks doesn't answer any of my questions in her novel.  However, she does take us through the controversial existence of an extremely important and rare book in which particles of past lives have been left within its pages and bindings offering insight into its creators and owners.

As Hana Heath analyzes a rare, illuminated Hebrew codex known as the Sarajevo Haggadah, she finds an insect's wing, a wine stain, and a saltwater stain within its pages along with evidence that the book at one point contained a set of clasps.  Each of these items holds the story behind the existence of the Sarajevo Haggadah and the people who had possessed it dating as far back as 1480 on the coast of Spain.  This is a novel not just about war and the struggle for religious freedoms and acceptance, but it is a novel about survival, the risks we are willing to take to survive, and the interconnectivity of all people.

Had I not had such a busy week, I could have devoured this book in a single sitting.  Inspired by the true Sarajevo Haggadah, each historical flashback is written with such care to detail for its time, place, and characters that I wanted to believe that this was the true story behind this Hebrew codex.  The amount of research that had to have gone into this novel is astounding.  I read it with a true appreciation for the lives affected by these wars, circumstances, and outcomes.

The Ha-Ha by Dave King

Images play in my mind like a movie as I read the text off the pages of a book.  The book is the script.  My mind, the director.  I take full control over the pictures I see, adapting a detail here or there to fit my own experiences and perceptions.  That movie is always playing for me from the beginning of the novel to the end, pausing only when I lose focus of the story or when I put the book down to move onto another part of my daily life.

I was both fascinated and shocked to learn that not all people create images in their minds while they read.  Ignorantly, I did not even consider this to be a skill that some have to learn ~ because for me forming that movie comes innately and naturally.

This revelation came to me after an in-depth conversation with a colleague of mine where we were planning a literary unit on imagery for our fourth graders.  She had stated to me that one of the heads of our own reading department does not visualize.  The conversation really left me perplexed and full of questions and wanting to learn more.  If images are not created, then how does that reader grasp what's happening in the story?  How does she form meaning out of words without pictures to associate them with?  We teach imagery or visualization to our students as a comprehension tool.  Foolishly, I have always gone into this unit with the assumption that all readers do this anyway.  I have always seen these lessons as a way for my students to reinforce this "natural" skill and create more detailed pictures in their minds.  But now I know that not to be true.

The Ha-Ha by Dave King allows for great visualization.  This is a beautiful story full of symbolism and emotion about a broken man who struggles to redefine the meaning of his life through the bonds he creates with a nine-year old boy, Ryan, and his housemates.  After serving 16 days overseas in the Army, Howie suffers a traumatic brain injury leaving him unable to speak or write.  Frustration, anger, and physical violence often surface as consequences of his trauma.  When his ex-girlfriend suddenly leaves for drug rehab, Howie finds himself caring for her son Ryan who brings joy and fresh perspective to Howie's life.  Unexpectedly, Howie finds the love, friendship, security, and purpose that has been missing for so long in his troubled existence; but he knows that this arrangement is short-lived.  Howie commiserates over the eventuality that Ryan will soon be going home to his mother, leading him to make several unwise decisions.

Some of Howie's choices manifest in the form of physical violence, which the author describes in a degree of particularity that easily provides me with a mental picture.  Howie's scar, home, neighborhood, housemates, and experiences all played out for me because I was able to visualize the story based on the detail in the text and my own personal experiences.  One detail, and a major one, that I had trouble imagining was the "ha-ha," which the book defines as "a kind of trick of the eye that conceals a break in the landscape."  Because I have never personally seen nor heard of a ha-ha, I had to form a picture in my mind using only the text as a guide.

Clearly, how I imagine the story is different from how another reader may visualize or not visualize it depending upon what type of a reader we are and what type of experiences we've had.  Because mental pictures from one reader to another vary, perceptions too will vary.  I perceived this novel as a type of rollercoaster, moving from dark moods to lighter ones back to dark again but always with a lingering hope for a positive outcome.  Although I had trouble picturing it, I still perceived the symbolic purpose of the term "ha-ha."  I also perceived the symbolic purpose in a character named Timothy.  More importantly I perceived this novel as a model of acceptance for who we are and for the talents we have been given.