Author: gr4c5

I write. I read. I cook. I run. That's me, in a nutshell.

Fifth Chinese Daughter

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Wong, Jade Snow. Fifth Chinese Daughter. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950.

I have to start of with a confession: Chinese culture makes me think Americans are unspeakably rude.

Fifth Chinese Daughter is an autobiography written in simple and straightforward language in the proper Chinese third person. As a result I read it in two day’s time. It covers the first 24 years of a Chinese-American girl, Jade Snow Wong. From the very beginning, growing up in San Francisco, California, Wong struggled with cultural differences between modern America and the Old World Chinese of her parents. Everything from food, physical contact, gender discrimination, mourning the dead & burials, order of names, to education was contradictory and Wong had to wade through it all during her most formative years. While she didn’t mean to disrespect her parents she struggled with independence in a new world, especially when she sought an education normally expected of males in her culture.

I am borrowing this book from a school so it shouldn’t surprise me that someone has drawn in it, and yet it bugs me just the same.

Favorite moments in the book: first, I love the cat in the illustration on page 22. Second, I found the description of the treatment of rice (p 58 – 59) to be very interesting.

Book Trivia: Fifth Chinese Daughter is actually the first volume in a two-volume autobiography. The second volume is No Chinese Stranger but, sadly, Pearl only recommends Fifth Chinese Daughter.

Author Fact: Wong was an accomplished potter and some of her pieces made into museum shows.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called ” Asian American Experiences” (p 26).

Catfish and Mandala

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Pham, Andrew X. Catfish and Mandala: a Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam. New York: Farrar. Straus and Giroux, 1999.

It has been several years since I read a bicycle memoir (the last being Where the Pavement Ends by Erika Warmbrunn). I was very excited to start Catfish and Mandala. So much so that I started it two days before May began. Even though May is Bicycle Month I read this for Memorial Day. I’m glad I went that route because it’s not really about the bike.

Catfish and Mandala is more than an adventure story about biking across Vietnam. It’s a cultural exploration and by turn, an explanation. Comparing American versus Vietnamese differing viewpoints on mundane topics like when a child should move out of his parent’s home after reaching adulthood. And yet. Noticing similarities: we all want our fathers to be proud of us, in any culture.
The story of Pham’s father’s imprisonment in the Labor Camp is brief, but heartbreaking just the same. After reading pages 16-20 I will never look at catfish the same.
Pham’s ability to weave past with present is brilliant. He recaptures his family’s flight from Vietnam to the U.S. when he was a small child seamlessly while recounting his own journey from the U.S. back to Vietnam as an adult. His confusion over what he remembers is intertwined with his inability to articulate what he is really looking for. Pham finds himself asking “what am I doing here?” time and time again. As he faces prejudice and violence and corruption I asked the same question.

Favorite lines: “Somehow they got by on love and rice” (p 17),” Everything could shift, and nothing could change” (p 107), “I have an urge to kick myself in the head” (p 158), and “A stray mutt curls up at my feet and shares his fleas with my ankles” (p 200).

Author Fact: I have to start of by flirting. Pham is a good looking guy! My next fact is actually a question – how can you be a “starving” restaurant critic?
Book Trivia: Catfish and Mandala is Pham’s first book.

Things that need further explanation: what, exactly, are “angry egg-eyes”, and what do they look like? Pham mentions five different types of bananas. Now I want to know their names and characteristics.

Pham mentions Miles From Nowhere by Barbara Savage. I’m so excited it’s actually on my list. Sad to say I won’t be reading it until probably May 2016 though!

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Bicycling” (p 36). Simple enough.

ps~ I enjoyed Catfish and Mandala so much that I added Pham as a favorite author on LibraryThing.

Antigone

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Sophocles. Antigone. Translated by Elizabeth Wycoff. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954.

The Cliff/Spark version of Antigone is this: Two sisters want to bury their dead brother. One wants to bury him admirably and the other doesn’t want to break the law. The brother in question cannot be buried because he was executed for a crime and must be left to rot in the courtyard as an example for the community. Defiant sister must go against the king alone as everyone who is anybody refuses to help her. True to Greek tragedy nearly everyone, including the king’s wife ends up committing suicide. The end.

Of course there is much, much more to the story and, depending on which version you read, you get it. In my version of Antigone translated by Elizabeth Wyckoff the language is watered down and somewhat pedestrian. It’s not as lyrical as other translations. A small example: from a 1906 Oxford Clarendon Press version (translated by Robert Whitelaw): “Ismene: There’s trouble in thy looks, thy tidings tell” compared with the 1954 University of Chicago Press version (translated by Elizabeth Wycoff): “Ismene: What is it? Clearly some news has clouded you” (p 159). Ismene is basically saying the same thing in each line, but the Whitelaw version has more animation, more movement. In the end Antigone is a simple story about the man against The Man, no matter how you read it.

Note: I’m note sure how many other versions have this, but I appreciated the biography of Socrates in my version.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Alpha, Beta Gammas of Greece” (p 9).

A Child’s Life

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Gloeckner. Phoebe. A Child’s Life and Other Stories. Berkeley: Frog, ltd., 2000.

Nothing could have prepared me for Gloeckner’s A Child’s Life. I don’t know what I was expecting – maybe something along the lines of Robert Louis Stevenson or Kate Greenaway. Something really benign and cute, perhaps. I was prepared to be bored. but sweetly so.

Not so. To put it bluntly, A Child’s Life is a visual assault that needs to happen. When there are news reports of sexual abuse, rape, incest, drugs either on television or the radio we viewers are shielded from what that really means. We allow our imaginations to blunt the sharp edges of reality. We cringe, but we don’t go there with the truth. Gloeckner doesn’t allow for this numbing of truth. With Gloeckner you don’t have permission to soften this horrific reality. As a graphic novel the pictures tell the stories of an abused childhood better than any words in a novel. In a word, it was painful. When I finished I had words of my own; words like harsh, gritty, shocking, tragic yet truthful rang in my ears.

Author Fact: If you pick up the 1583940286 version of A Child’s Life you will find hints that this is semi-autobiographical. Gloeckner denies it.

Book Trivia: In addition to being called semi-autobiographical, A Child’s Life was also once called “a how-to for pedophiles.”

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter “Graphic Novels” (p 103).

Out of Control

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Brockmann, Suzanne. Out of Control. New York: Ivy Books, 2002.

Here is the quick and dirty plot: Couple #1: Savannah von Hopf needs Navy SEAL Ken “WildCard” Karmody to help her save her kidnapped uncle somewhere in Indonesia. Couple #2: In Jakarta, missionary Molly Anderson is inexplicably drawn to silent, brooding “David Jones” who reminds me a little too much of the famed Indiana Jones. Couple #3: Back at FBI headquarters Alyssa Locke is trying to walk away from ex-lover Sam Starrett while avoiding walking into the arms of her boss, Max Bhagat. All three relationships will come together when Savannah’s rescue attempt goes horribly wrong.

The best part of Out of Control was the clever placement of Double Agent, a book written by Savannah’s grandmother, Rose. It’s on the best seller list so even missionary Molly is reading it.

The worst part about Out of Control was the corny sexiness of it all. If the three couples weren’t having sex they were imagining it at the most unrealistic moments. A helicopter just blew up and there are no survivors. That sucks, but boy would I like to lick that hard chiseled body of yours…
My favorite eye rolling line: “And as for getting a strenuous workout, his heart was not the primary organ he wanted to exercise” (p 23).

Also, when I started reading Out of Control I had this weird sense of deja vu. Something sounded really familiar about not only the characters but the plot as well. As if I had read it before. So, I did a little digging and back in 2008 I reviewed an earlier book by Brockmann called The Defiant Hero. Here are the similarities between the two books:

  1. Both plots involve a kidnapping of some sort.
  2. Both plots involve Navy SEALS and by default, both plots involve the FBI
  3. Both plots include a grandmother
  4. Both plots have a terrorist element to them
  5. In both books all lead characters are impossibly good looking
  6. Both books involve three sets of couples in sexual turmoil
  7. The same characters are in each book

There is a philosophy about writing – write what you know. I’d like to think authors take that with a grain of salt. If my third Brockmann book has Navy SEALS, sexy bodies, kidnapping, terrorism and a random grandmother thrown in for good measure I’ve figured out her formula.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Romance Novels: Our Love is Here to Stay” (p 260).

To Sir, With Love

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Braithwaite, E.R. To Sir, With Love. New York: Jove Publishing, 1959.

Confession: whenever I hear the words “to sir with love” I do not think of Sidney Poitier. I do not think of LuLu. I don’t even think of Braithwaite. I think of MTV’s 1993 inauguration ball for President Clinton. Natalie Merchant sang ‘To Sir, With Love” accompanied by R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe. What this says of me, I’m not sure!

E.R. Braithwaite is in the company of a select few: teachers who make a difference. Leaders in education have no trouble touching the lives of one or two of their students. That happens all the time, but to change an entire class is no small feat. I think that’s why they make movies like “Dead Poet’s Society” and “Mr. Holland’s Opus.” Such teachers are an inspiration to the of world education. Braithwaite enters the world of teaching by default. As an out-of-work engineer who cannot get a job due to the color of his skin he is forced to apply for positions outside his area of expertise. A chance meeting with a stranger leads him to apply for a position with the Greenslade Secondary School in London’s ill reputed East End. There, Braithwaite meets children more callous and uncouth than any adult he’s ever encountered. They are defiant and daring, determined to run Braithwaite out of  school, just has they had done before. Only Braithwaite is not so easily cowed. And so begins the odyssey of E.R. Braithwaite and his remarkable story. He is able to turn thieves and would-be prostitutes into respectful, intelligent individuals.

Book Trivia: To Sir, With Love was made into a 1967 movie starring Sidney Poitier.

Author Fact: Braithwaite became a popular teacher by applying two fundamental philosophies to his teaching: treat the children with respect and relate everything they learn back to something they already are familiar with. Both tactics engage the children emotionally and intellectually.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Teachers and Teaching Tales” (p 231).

Note: In the index of Book Lust Braithwaite is listed as Ricardo and not Edward Ricardo. Even though Braithwaite went by “Ricky” or “Ricardo” it would have been a show of respect to list his full name.

Good Daughter

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Darznik, Jasmin. The Good Daughter: a Memoir of My Mother’s Hidden Life. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2011.

There is a third party detachment to the way Darznik tells her mother’s story. It’s cool and aloof, without personal reaction or reflection. The Good Daughter reads like a novel because Darznik does not offer us any emotion. She includes so many fly-on-the-wall details about her mother’s first marriage and first born in such a way that the story could have been about anyone – friend or colleague. But, having said that – this is a story worth telling. In the early 1950s Iran, Darznik mother is barely into her teen years before she marries and has a child. After suffering abuse at the hands of her husband she does the unthinkable for a woman in Iranian culture: she arranges for a divorce. She is forced to abandon her daughter when she remarries moves to America. Upon having a second daughter she drops hints about the “Good Daughter” she has left behind. It’s a passive aggressive tactic to make Darznik behave, but the “Good Daughter” is never explained until Darznik discovers tangible evidence of her mother’s secret past.

Favorite line: “I was often lost those days and almost always the happier for it” (p 314).

Skin of Our Teeth

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Wilder, Thornton. “The Skin of Our Teeth.” Collected Plays and Writings on Theater. McClatchy, J.D., ed. New York: Library of America, 2007.

Considering our own impending “end of the world” in 2012 I thought this was a fitting way to end April’s reading. Indeed, the working title of “The Skin of Our Teeth” was “The Ends of the Worlds.” But, the end of Wilder’s world is the threat of an ice age coming down from the chilly Canadian north (at the end of Act I). In fact, the entire play takes on a chronological time warp through Biblical, prehistoric and postwar environments. George and Maggie Antrobus, their children and house maid are the central characters of this play within a play. While the Antrobus characters remain constant, the house maid, Sabina does not. It is interesting to note that for the first and third acts she remains their maid and yet in the second act she is a femme fatale of sorts. Another inconsistent is the time line. Periods in history are jumbled together and stretched apart. Characters like Homer and Moses come to visit. A mammoth and dinosaur are the family pets. In the end the punchline is Mr. Antrobus, turning the fate of life over to us, the audience of this play within a play.

Play Trivia: “Skin of Our Teeth” won a Pulitzer Prize in 1943.

Author Fact: Wilder has a connection to this area. Two of his sisters attended Mount Holyoke College. Okay, so that wasn’t really about Thornton. Here’s something – Thornton Wilder was born on April 17th, 1897. Growing up, Thornton was ridiculed for his intelligence. Sad.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Oh, Brother” (p 180). This is a little deceiving because “Skin of Our Teeth” isn’t really about brothers, per se. The plot is Biblical, with some Adam & Eve and Cain & Esau elements, but not really about two brothers.

May 2011 is…

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THE LIST:

  • To Sir with Love by Edward Ricardo Braithwaite ~ in honor of National Teacher Day (May 3rd)
  • Out of Control by Suzanne Brockmann ~ in honor of Brockmann’s birth month
  • A Child’s Life and Other Stories by Phoebe Gloeckner ~ in honor of graphic novel month
  • Antigone the play by Sophocles ~ in honor of May being the best time to visit Greece.
  • Fifth Chinese Daughter by Jade Snow Wong ~ in honor Asian-American Heritage month
  • Catfish and Mandala by Andrew X. Pham ~ in honor of Memorial Day
  • Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery ~ in honor of Eeyore’s birth month (I’ll explain that connection within the review). I’m listening to this as a training book.
  • House on the Lagoon by Rosario Ferre ~ in honor of May 5th being Cinco de Mayo
  • City of Light ~ by Lauren Belfer ~ in honor of May being History Month

Lastly, for the Early Review program for LibraryThing – Art and Madness by Anne Roiphe.

I put so many books on my list because a) a few of them are really, really short so I know I can read I can read them in 1-2 days time and b) I don’t have plans to travel anywhere until May 20th so I should have more time to curl up with several good books, and c) AFTER the walk I have ten days of NOTHING to do. I am picturing myself on the back deck, a glass of wine in one hand and a good book in another.

Confession – Catfish and Mandala by Andrew X. Pham looked so good I started reading it on April 28th. Sue me.
May is also (finally) the Just ‘Cause walk. I am not confident I did everything to train (but then again, there is only so much walking one can do), and I know I didn’t fund raise as hard as I should/could have. I am $100 off from the amount I raised last year. I am guessing not asking aunts, uncles, cousins, (mother), grandparents….anyone from my mother’s side to donate played a big part. C’est la vie. Or, to quote mom, “whatever.”

April ’11 was…

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April was a gentle thaw in more ways than one. My grandfather finally passed away. I have to admit, the event was bittersweet. Saying goodbye was easier than I expected, if only because I knew, for him, life on this earth had ceased to be everything it could be. It was time. April was also the end of snow (although Maine still had giant piles of dirty, dripping snow in places). For books it was alot of really good stuff:

  • Flint’s Law by Paul Eddy ~ read in April to finish the series started last month (although there is a third Flint book that is NOT on the challenge list that I want to read…
  • “Two Tramps at Mud Time” by Robert Frost ~ in honor of April being poetry month and Monhegan’s mud season.
  • A Drinking Life: a Memoir by Peter Hamill ~ in honor of April being Alcohol Awareness Month. This was my first audio book for the BL Challenge and here’s the cool thing – I didn’t feel like I was cheating! Yay!
  • “The Exorcist of Notre-Dame” by David Kirby ~ in honor of Poetry month.
  • Alice Springs by Nikki Gemmell ~ in honor of Australia and April being the best time to visit. This was lyrical and brassy. Just the way I like ’em.
  • “The Bells are Ringing for Me and Chagall” by Terence Winch ~ in honor of poetry month. Sexy poem by the way!
  • Great Fortune: the Epic of Rockefeller Center by Daniel Okrent ~ in honor of April being Architecture Month. This was fun to read because it ended up being about more than a building.
  • “At Marlborough House” by Michael Swift ~ in honor of Poetry month.
  • Journey Beyond Selene: Remarkable Expeditions Past Our Moon and to the Ends of the Solar System by Jeffrey Kluger ~ in honor of April being the anniversary month of Apollo.
  • “Blue Garden” by Dean Young~ in honor of Poetry month.
  • Bear Went over the Mountain by William Kotzwinkle ~ in honor of April Fool’s Day and something silly.
  • “Goodbye, Place I Lived Nearly 23 Years” by Dean Young ~ in honor of Poetry month
  • “Skin of Our Teeth” a play by Thornton Wilder ~ in honor of April being National Brothers Month.
  • “By a Swimming Pool Outside Siracusa” by Billy Collins ~ in honor of Poetry month
  • “Dear Derrida” and “Strip Poker” by David Kirby ~ in honor of Poetry Month

For the Early Review Program (LibraryThing) it was The Good Daughter: a Memoir of My Mother’s Hidden Life by Jasmin Darznik.

“Dear Derrida”

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Kirby, David. “Dear Derrida.” The House of Blue Light. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998. pp 16-20.

When I first read “Dear Derrida” I thought of the word childish. Read it out loud and you get the sense of someone who is hopelessly involved with gossipers, someone who is in a group always looking for the next thing to poke fun of and is never really able to escape. For example, the narrator and his classmates make fun of a professor with a stutter. They drop water balloons on an unsuspecting victim. Even when the narrator has “had it” with present company he finds himself in the company of new roommates; individuals with more swagger and bravado.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Kitchen Sink Poetry” (p 138).

Great Fortune

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Okrent, Daniel. Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center. New York: Viking, 2003.

There is something to be said about a man with a vision, especially when that vision becomes the great and unparalleled Rockefeller Center in New York City. Great Fortune captures not only the man behind the vision and the epic journey of John D. Rockefeller and his team, but the society and political arena of their era. The 1930s are the beginning of urban sprawl going vertical in the form of skyscrapers. As the buildings start reaching higher and higher they become more grandiose and complicated; as do the people responsible for this growth at such an unlikely time in history. The founders of Rockefeller Center are egotistic, artistic, ambitious visionaries. Despite being mired in the Great Depression luminaries such as architect Raymond Hood believe in the grandeur of the project with unwavering faith.

The first thing I noticed about the copy of Great Fortune that came to the library was the cover. If you aren’t looking closely you would miss it. The cover with the ISBN of 0670031690 has a collage of four photos, all in tinted black and white. A photograph of a couple dancing. Below that, a picture of the Rockettes standing in a circle. Below that, iron workers presumably working on the construction of RCA building. Along side these three photos is a larger one of the RCA building. In my copy of Great Fortune the dancing couple featured in the upper left hand corner are Mary Rae and Naldi doing a waltz in the Rainbow room…except something is different about them. They do not hold the same pose. Mary Rae and Naldi are nose to nose in my cover shot. I’m not even sure they are the same dancers. Why was this one photo swapped out for another? Curious. For an illustration of what I mean click here. Take note of the photo of the two dancers. Look at their gentle pose. Then click on the cover and see how the photo changes. The dancers become more dynamic, more passionate.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Building Blocks” (p 38).

“Strip Poker”

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Kirby, David. “Strip Poker.” The House of Blue Light. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998. pp 3-5.

“Strip Poker” is a story wrapped in a memory. Kirby is donating blood when a picture of Ava Gardiner revives a lost memory. He remembers asking his mother if he would like to play strip poker. He is only eight and yet he knows that the strategy is to begin the game wearing as many articles of clothing possible. He can picture the different layers his mother would don. When she replies, “no, thank you, darling” he is struck by how there was no explanation for this declination. Nothing that would explain what was so wrong with his request. This leads to thoughts of other misrepresentations of the truth, each thought bouncing off another and another until Kirby is brought back to reality by the nurse taking his blood donation. She asks if he is a runner because his pulse is slow.

I liked this poem (the very first one in House of Blue Light because of the train of thoughts Kirby has while donating blood. It reminds me of my meandering ponderings and how when my husband asked what I am thinking about, before I can answer him, I have to ask “Do you want the whole train or just the caboose?”

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Kitchen Sink Poetry” (p 138).

A Drinking Life

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Hamill, Pete. A Drinking Life. Narrated by Jonathan Davis. Prince Frederick: Recorded Books, 2003.

As a first-time audio book listener, here are my perceptions: there are pros and cons to listening to an audio book. For the cons, it is less imaginative when someone fills in the voices and sounds effects of the story. You also can’t take note of a favorite line or phrase. Things that make you laugh out loud are between your ears and not on a page you can quote from later. You miss out on illustrations, photographs, the feel of paper between your fingers as you don’t get to turn the pages…
But here is the benefit to an audio book: you can walk for hours and hours on a treadmill and be thoroughly entertained. Such is my life in the middle of April. But, a review:

A Drinking Life is an odyssey. It is an autobiographical examination of alcoholism where the drinking escalates slowly, sip by sip, drink by drink. For me, it dragged on in places. Hamill spends two thirds of the book setting the stage for his lead performance as an alcoholic. Starting with Hamill’s early childhood in the early 1940s he recounts his formative years living with his Irish parents in Brooklyn, New York. His father’s own battle with the bottle is omnipresent, a constant in Hamill’s life. That lays the groundwork for the excuses Hamill will make and his ultimate drinking downfall. Bars and beer are in the background as Hamill describes other obsessions in his life: comics as a child, newspapers, art and fighting as a teen, sex throughout the ages, and later as an adult, traveling, politics and writing.  Alcohol is the one constant through it all.

I am going to sound like a prim, prissy, panties-in-a-wad puss, but I really believe A Drinking Life should have come with a disclaimer. Rap artists have to slap a sticker announcing “explicit” when they swear, mention drugs or sex, on an album and yet Pete Hamill can do all those things, describe sex scenes with detailed wild abandon, he can use every swear word (included the dreaded “c” word), and remember violent beatings he would receive and give…all without some kind of heads up to the reader.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Lost Weekends” (p 147).

“By a Swimming Pool…”

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Collins, Billy. “By a Swimming Pool Outside Siracusa.” Nine Horses: Poems.New York: Random House, 2002.

I have to start off by saying every time I have a Billy Collins poem on my “read list” I know I’m in for a treat. His poetry is not the stuff of stuffy, if that makes sense. His poetry is the jeans and sneakers variety, hanging out just waiting to be approached. Take, for example, “By a Swimming Pool Outside Siracusa.” Here are the tags I jotted down the first time I read it, “first person, communication, language, weather, Italy.” Here are the tags I added the second time I read it, “vacation, alcohol, drunk, humor.” Because, as I read it, the narrator became less stringent about formality of words to the point of funny. You can almost feel the ooze of relaxation seep into the words.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Kitchen-Sink Poetry” (p 138).