Reading Who We Know and Who We Don’t

February 11, 2013 / still a dreamer

There’s something very exciting about discovering an author we’ve never read before. Sometimes we are drawn to this author by personal recommendation, subject matter or from our simply having heard of him or her along the way and wanting to check them out. It’s also often exciting to return to an author we do know and read something fresh. Clearly, we can be surprised in either instance.

I picked up House Rules by Jodi Picoult at a friend’s book swap, a chance to try a new-to-me but very well-published author. House Rules is about a family which includes a single mom, a teenage son, Jacob, who has Asperger’s syndrome and his younger teenage brother, Theo. The father had walked out when Jacob was a toddler. He was unable to cope with the demands of a child whose symptoms were on the higher spectrum of autism, and who required enormous amounts of time and attention to continue to grow and function. Theo, who by necessity must often take back seat to Jacob, is longing for a more “normal” home and has begun to engage in dangerous behavior – breaking into people’s homes just to see what “normal” feels like. Jacob is obsessed with forensics and sometimes crashes local crime scenes, instructing the detectives on what they’re missing at the scene. When Jacob’s like-skills tutor turns up dead, he sets up the perfect crime scene to challenge the detectives, but then becomes the focus as her possible murderer.

This was really a very good read. At first, I was bothered by a little too much educating on the subject of Asperger’s, but as I read on, I realized the necessity of this baseline to truly understand Jacob’s behavior. I have some small knowledge of the subject, but Picoult’s extensive research brought a character to life who was worth a little schooling at the beginning of the book. So in House Rules, we have a family wrestling with the numerous complications of a child with Asperger’s, a murder mystery, a burgeoning love story and some great character development. I think anyone who has an Aspie child of any age in their family or works with one will appreciate this book best, but I wouldn’t limit the audience to that. It’s an engaging story on its own merit by an author with a good, clean style, a perpetually twisting plot, and an excellent grasp of her characters.

The I picked up Bleachers by John Grisham. I read a number of his legally-oriented novels quite some time ago, but the book by Grisham that really impressed me was A Painted House. It’s a story about a family in the Arkansas Delta who owns a cotton farm and hosts migrant workers in the summer for cotton picking. This particular summer, two dangerous men were among them, and life became deeply complicated for all, especially Luke, the seven year old farrner’s son. I found A Painted House to be a very powerful book that was exceptionally written and also refreshingly outside the legal genre in which Grisham usually writes. I wish I could say I was as excited about Bleachers. It was a fast read and centered around football players returning to the town of Messina because their coach was dying. The man’s brutality was experienced by the players in every year ‘s teams but because football was the life blood of the town, it was often overlooked or justified. Coach Rake was a hero to many, as were the high school Spartans, but his methods affected those around him in many ways. The premise of Bleachers is good. Maybe if I loved football, I would have liked it more, but I don’t think so. It just lacked something that A Painted House really had – a depth, conflict, that real make-you-want-to-see- what-happens-next quality. Not there for me in this book.

So I’ve picked up The Smoke Jumper by Nicholas Evans. He is the author of two books that I recommend highly, the acclaimed The Horse Whisperer and The Loop. about the return of a pack of wolves to a ranching community in Montana and the ensuing conflicts between a biologist who wants to save the nearly extinguished species and the ranchers who hate them. Evans is an outstanding writer, and I think he could write about football and mesmerize me. I don’t know anything about smoke jumping – those who descend into forest fires to put them out – but he already has me sucked in in the first chapter. In Evans’ case, I suspect he could use almost anything as the backdrop and still draw in the reader. I’m ready.

Toni Morrison’s Paradise

January 15, 2013January 15, 2013 / still a dreamer

Paradise is the first book I’ve read by Toni Morrison, and I can assure you I will read more. In fact, it’s hard for me to not go back and re-read this book right now.

Here’s a couple things I can tell you – do not read this book late at night when you’re tired; do not put it down for extended periods of time and think you will be able to easily jump right back in; and do not read it when distracted. Here’s why. Toni Morrison assumes you’re paying attention. Her characters are complex as is the storyline … there’s a lot to remember … a lot you want to remember when you’re reading Paradise. This is not light reading, but it is a truly amazing read.

Toni Morrison’s use of language is exquisite; I was thrilled repeatedly with the beauty of how she chooses and uses words. Her characters are so real I wanted to either step in the pages to be with them or have them come and sit down by me and talk; tell me about their lives and how they changed being in Ruby, OK; how they changed living in the Convent with Connie and the other women; tell me more.

The storyline of Paradise is of a group of ex-slaves freed from Louisiana and Mississippi who, rejected by their fairer skinned brethren and terrified by whites, set up their own community deep in the Oklahoma country, self-sufficient and proud. The history of their forefathers was revered and their insular lives safe. Safe except for the women who had come to live at the Convent – women whose lives had been torn apart by suffering at one time or another and who made their way, tried to heal, in this isolated home outside town. Paradise is, in part, about what happens when people come to see others the same way they once were viewed and what they do about it. And, in part, about redemption and finding one’s place in the world.

This is far, far, far too simplistic a summary of this extraordinary novel. If you want to be immersed in another time and place, in the lives of people so real it can be painful, perhaps Paradise is for you. I’m not sure what I can read right after this that will not pale beside it.

The Restless Reader

January 3, 2013January 3, 2013 / still a dreamer / 2 Comments

Have you ever experienced periods of time in which you wanted to read … well, everything in sight? Yet at the same time, you couldn’t find exactly the book you wanted to read? It’s a special and odd kind of frustration.

Here is but one bookshelf of books all waiting to be devoured … but I can’t make a choice. These are largely from the library’s annual book sale, but a couple are purchased or from a friend, and I really do want to read every single one, but I can’t choose.

But wait – there’s more! Like one of those TV infomercials in which you can get twice as many items for the same price if you’ll just order NOW, there are more books waiting to be read! Some of these are middle grade, some YA and some adult … some from my friends’ book swap … and all are calling to me as well. (And we don’t want to know, there is another small group on top of another bookcase.) Plus I’m still in the middle of another fabulous book, Paradise by Toni Morrison. So what’s with the restlessness? Are you experiencing this, too?

I’m thinking it might be the holidays – schedules are completely off for work, rest, entertainment, visiting … and distractions, wonderful as they are … are at a yearly high. Sometimes we just have too many choices. But if fabulous books that cost me little or nothing are what I have too many of, well … it sure could be worse.

Things are settling back into some semblance of a routine and the evenings have become particularly chilly. Seems like the right time to cozy up with a hot cup of cocoa and open up a good book. That and the sound of so many fabulous authors calling my name is becoming deafening.

A Moment of Peace

December 12, 2012December 12, 2012 / still a dreamer / 4 Comments

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours…. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.”

~Henry David Thoreau

Learning History Backwards

December 2, 2012December 2, 2012 / still a dreamer

History seems determined to find me. I haven’t been looking for history, but somehow I am bring coaxed into looking at periods in time of which I know little or nothing, most recently British colonial rule in Kenya in the 50’s. I know. How did that happen? (Well, one look at the photo, and you may know.)

Like the experience of many others in a time past – and perhaps still the present – history was taught in such a way that it was guaranteed to, at the very least, leave no lasting impression, and at the worst, develop in one a real distaste for it. The latter would be me. I dutifully swallowed the dry rattle of names, dates, places and events and dutifully coughed them back up for tests. Not until I got to college and had a brilliant professor who made history truly come alive did I suddenly realize the fascination of history. And by then it seemed too late; I had such a fragile and spotty framework of knowledge on which to hang any new historical insights.

But history seems to be hunting me down through books and/or movies as of late … Afghanistan before and after the Taliban took over through The Kite Runner; the deep South during the Civil Rights movement in The Help; the Civil War period in Oklahoma in what I’m reading now, Paradise, medieval times in Britain in The Last Templar and so on. History isn’t the subject; it’s the backdrop, but it’s impossible to not be drawn into the history of the time period when reading the book or watching the movie.

Most recently it’s The First Grader, a movie set in Kenya in 2003. It’s based on the true story of an 84 year old villager, Maruge, who, when primary education was made available to all, wanted to learn to read. The story is absolutely inspiring. There he sat, having fought repeatedly for his right to do so, with six year olds, five to a desk, learning the alphabet. His rapport with Jane Obinchu, the instructor, and the children is a testament to the spirit of those who believe in something enough to pursue that dream and love doing it in spite of all odds.

What was far more difficult to watch, shown in sporadic flashbacks, was what happened to Maruge in the early 50’s when he was sentenced to a prison camp under British colonial rule. The Mau Mau tribe, whom Maruge had joined, had risen up against the corrupt British but were defeated and captured. To force him to renounce his vow of loyalty, his captors forced him to watch the execution of his wife and children, (this was not shown onscreen), and tortured him brutally. It was hard to not wake up the following morning flooded with sadness as to what has gone so wrong in human beings that they can treat others as they did.

But in the long run, that does not change my recommendation to see this incredibly rich and touching movie. The First Grader was filmed in Kenya, and all the children are actual attendees of one of the schools in the Kenyan bush. Their glowing faces just light up the screen. One little girl named Agnes, seemed mildly deformed and had a severe limp like Maruge. She told him she wanted to go to school so she could be a doctor … and then she could make him better. The children have almost as much impact as Maruge himself. It’s hard not to smile when thinking about this movie, in spite of the reflection of such a terrible time in history.

Maruge became the oldest recorded person in the world to ever attend first grade and drew his own bit of celebrity for his devotion to education. So much so, that he was flown to New York to speak at the UN. Should you watch The First Grader, be sure to watch the short documentary and you will see the real Maruge, Jane Obinchu and others. You will also see how the director worked with the children who had never seen a television or movie. You may be inspired.