Tag: may

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.

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.

Zorba the Greek

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Kazantzakis, Nikos. Zorba the Greek. Trans. Carl Wildman. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1952.

I will be the first to admit it wholeheartedly. I did not enjoy Zorba the Greek. There, I said it. I am beginning to feel I have a built in prejudice against translated stories because this is not the first time I have said this. Something gets lost in the translation. I am sure of it. Not only that, but this time I was bored. Supposedly, Nikos Kazantzakis’s Last Temptation of Christ is more exciting. I can only wait and see.

Lines I did happen to like, “And I’m making it snappy so I don’t kick the bucket before I’ve had the bird!” (p 36), and “The mischievous demon in the wine had carried her back to the good old days” (p 37).

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

Wobegone Boy

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Keillor, Garrison. Wobegon Boy. New York: Viking, 1997.

It is strange to (finally) read something written by Garrison Keillor. For years and years and years I have heard wonderful things about Lake Wobegon Days and it seems,  for even longer, I have heard Keillor on NPR radio. Yet – nothing in print has been before my eyes or in my hands. Ever. Go figure.

John Tollefson is the manager of an academic public radio station. He has an idyllic life that is boring him to tears. His job, his home, his relationships, all are going well – so well that he no longer feels like he is in the drivers seat. Coasting through everything his life lacks depth and more importantly, it lacks meaning. John, with the help of his can’t-commit-to-marriage girlfriend Alida, sets out to make his life more interesting by opening a farm restaurant and other daring risks. John is perpetually guided by history, the life stories of his ancestors – a butcher, publisher, politician, among a wild cast of others, and a philosophical slant unlike any other.

While the plot of Wobegon Boy is a little slow and laborious, the voice is exceptional. As John Tollefson tells his story you cannot help but often laugh out loud. The sly wit and juicy humor radiate from every page. I wanted to quote line after line until I realized I what I really wanted was to quote the entire book.

Here are a few of my favorites: “Lake Wobegon was a rough town then, where, all on one block, for less than five dollars, you could get a tattoo, a glass of gin, and a social disease, and have enough left over to get in a poker game” (p2). See, by page 2 it’s funny! Here’s another one, “You could romp naked in periodicals and copulate on the carpet, and the librarians would be grateful if, after climax, you took down a magazine and thumbed through it” (p 7-8). Knowing the importance of circulation statistics, yes. Yes, we would be grateful.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Big Ten Country: The Literary Midwest (Minnesota)” (p 28).

Samuel Johnson is Indignant

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Davis, Lydia. Samuel Johnson is Indignant: stories. Brooklyn: McSweeney’s Books, 2001.

I always love it when I get a collection of short stories to read. For some reason I like idea of the simplicity of keeping something short when sometimes, nothing could be further than the truth; especially when it comes to a short story. A short story might be short on words or sentences or even paragraphs, but long on meaning and, in the end might turn out to be a little thought provoking or dare I say didactic? In other words, I might learn something!

Lydia Davis is funny. But, more importantly she has an amazing range of subject material. So much so that I found myself asking what subject does Lydia Davis NOT cover in a short story? What’s more, Lydia Davis has a wide range of writing styles. Everything she writes has a common theme: strange and wonderful, but no two stories could be characterized as “the same.” Her stories are eerie and contemplative, funny and sad, wise and irreverent.

Favorite lines, “You can’t tell everyone the truth all the time, and you certainly can’t tell anyone the whole truth, ever, because it would take too long” (p 7).

BookLust Twist: From  Book Lust in the chapter called simply, “Short Stories” (p 221). Duh.

You Make Me Feel…

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Newman, Judith. You Make Me Feel Like an Unnatural Woman: Diary of a New (Older) Mother. New York: Miramax Books, 2004.

There are three reoccurring themes in You Make Me Feel Like an Unnatural Woman. Judith likes to portray herself as an over-forty, unhappily married,  yet wealthy woman with a moral on parenting: be careful what you wish for. While she is extremely funny about it, she is constantly criticizing her husband, John, for not being around more to help with twins, born after seven years and & $70,000 worth of IVF procedures. As an over-sixty man living at a different address, what exactly did she expect? He’s not about to change. Judith handles the trials and tribulations of raising twins with more aplomb and name dropping than any new mom I know. Having a $250 a day nanny certainly helps!

Favorite funny lines, “If he’s like most men I’ve known he’ll spend the rest of his life thinking of his dick as a masterpiece anyway. “Yes, honey, that’s art,” I said” (p 215).

My only complaint? Newman tries so freakin’ hard to be funny all the time that the tenderness of what she has (supposedly) longed for for so long gets lost. There were glimpses of caring at times, like, when she describes thinking her babies are beautiful. But, on the whole, it was if Newman was constantly “on” all the time. I never really thought I saw the real mother because she was veiled behind a thousand jokes.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Nagging Mothers, Crying children” (p 172). Appropriate for Mother’s Day, don’t you think?

Endless Love

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Spencer, Scott. Endless Love. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987.

At the center of Endless Love is David Axelrod. David starts his story remembering how, as a 17 year in love, he set fire to his girlfriend’s house. Not as an out-of-anger act of revenge but more of an uncontrollable response to an all-consuming love for his girlfriend, Jade Butterfield, and her family. Having been banished from the Butterfield home David’s plot is to ignite the house in the hopes the fire will give him the perverse opportunity to become the hero and ultimately rescue the entire family from the inferno he started. His desire to be needed by the entire family is blinding. Of course David’s plot doesn’t work out so smoothly…and thus begins Unless Love. It is a dark and tangled tale about obsessions and the inability to see past them. It is about dysfunctional families that use one another to seem normal. It is about struggling relationships set against the ever turbulent late 1960s. In the middle is confused, young, obsessed David Axelrod. He reminds me of Llyod Dobler from ‘Say Anything’ – an all-around nice guy with little direction and not much more ambition who can sum up his life in one sentence, “I just want to be with your daughter….sir.”

My favorite quotes are on the subject of love: “Love gives us a heightened consciousness through which to apprehend the world, but anger gives us a precise, detached perception of its own” (p 40) and, “If endless love was a dream, then it was a dream we all shared, even more than we all shared the dream of never dying or of traveling through time, and if anything set me apart it was not my impulses but my stubbornness, my willingness to take the dream past what had been agreed upon as the reasonable limits, to declare that this dream was not a feverish trick of the mind but was an actuality at least as real as that other, thinner, more unhappy illusion we call normal life” (p 162).

I think the reason why I liked Endless Love so much is because every character was a head-scratcher. It wasn’t just David Axelrod who had a personality worth paying attention to. the story of his parents held mysteries to be explored. Every member of Jade Butterfield’s family kept the story alive and buzzing with intrigue. The questions most asked – who would defend David? Who would forgive him? Who wouldn’t forget?

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in two different chapters. First, in the chapter called, “First Lines to Remember” (p 87), and again in “Sex and the Single Reader” (p 218).

Terms of Endearment

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McMurtry, Larry. Terms of Endearment. New York: Signet, 1975.

I really should have a “on a whim” category because this was not on my list to read this month. In fact, this was not on my list to read until May 2010. Here’s what happened. I was home, had no desire to slog through Herzog, saw Terms of Endearment on my mother’s bookshelf (saw it there for years and years), knew it was on The List somewhere, and in a split second decided to read it. I don’t regret the decision. I was able to read it, start to finish, within two days.

Terms of Endearment is the kind of book that makes you feel things. Larry McMurtry has the ability to make you change your mind about the people you meet…several times over. In the beginning I saw Terms as a story about a bunch of miserable people. I was shocked by the hatred these people carried around (see ‘shocking quotes’ below). I didn’t think I would like a single character. I saw Aurora as nasty and Emma as just plain pathetic. By the end of the book I had completely changed my mind about everything and everyone.
The premise for Terms of Endearment is really quite simple. It’s the story of a mother and daughter and the relationships that orbit around them. Aurora is a Boston widow transplanted to Houston, Texas. She has five different “suitors” who tolerate her abrasive tongue and haughty manner and despite all that, continuously vie for her hand in marriage. At first she appears caustic and self-centered. Selfish and conniving, she bends situations to suite her ever-changing needs. Her story takes up the first 324 pages and by the end of it you realize she is a woman of conviction who simply tells it like it is. Emma, her daughter, at first appears to be one of Aurora’s victims – always manipulated and belittled. The strength of their relationship and the depth of their love for one another isn’t readily apparent until life gets complicated for Emma. Emma hasn’t married well. She hasn’t been educated and she has bad hair. On the surface she is poor and pathetic. But, true to McMurtry form, by the end Emma is a strong, defiant woman.
My only disappointment about Terms of Endearment is the inclusion of Book II, Emma’s story. 324 pages are dedicated to Aurora while Emma gets the last 47. I don’t really understand the need for separate “books” when Emma’s story – her bad marriage to Flap, her pregnancy, her lifestyle and relationship with her mother – are all woven seamlessly into Aurora’s story. Emma’s portion of the book seems weak and it’s inclusion, an afterthought.

Shocking quotes: “She was convinced that she could have stood in the driveway dripping blood, both arms amputated at the elbow, and Cecil would still have driven up, said “Hi Toots,” smiled broadly, and squeezed her stump” (p 16).
“She would have liked to have a heavy chain in her hand, and if she had had one she would have hit him with it, right across the lower part of his spine. If it broke his back, so much the better” (p 32).

BookLust Twist: In Book Lust in the chapter called, “Three-Hanky Reads” (p236).

Where the Pavement Ends

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BikesWarmbrunn, Erika.  Where the Pavement Ends: One Woman’s Bicycle Trip Through Mongolia, China & Vietnam. Seattle: Mountaineers Books, 2001.

Reading books such as Where the Pavement Ends has a confusing effect on me. On the one hand, I start to think of my personal landscape as being too small, too confining. The need for movement and travel start to stir within me. On the other hand, I realize I am coddled, comfortable – too careful to conquer the great unknown. The idea of going where I don’t speak the language has always intimidated me. Okay. Scares the pants off me.

Where the Pavement Endsis not only a memoir about one woman’s eight month trek across Mongolia, China and Vietnam. It is also a  compassionate commentary on Erika Warmbrunn’s five (and sometimes sixth) senses. She relates everything she sees (sharing some gorgeous photographs throughout the book), everything she hears, touches, smells and tastes. From learning to enjoy Mongolian tea to ignoring sheep’s tail and demanding to eat like the natives rather than a coddled Western tourist. From the spanning the vast landscapes and bustling cities mostly by bicycle (accepting rides every so often). Every leg of Warmbrunn’s journey reflects the culture she encounters. She relies on the kindness of strangers to have decent meal, a roof over her head and to expand her social awareness. She is eager to learn the language, drink in the customs, and learn something from everyone she meets.

A small sampling of the favorite lines: “…to make things new, you have to keep going further and further away from what you know” (p 11). This is the perfect definition of bravery, “I was completely intimidated, and I was absolutely at peace” (p 13). Another one, “In the absence of language, ritual becomes a way of communication, of making yourself a little less foreign” (p 42).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called simply, “Bicycling” (p 35).

Off Keck Road

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Simpson, Mona. Off Keck Road. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.

I didn’t realize this book is a novella. 167 pages long. A piece of cake to read on a quiet Sunday. The sad thing is I didn’t really get into it, despite it being a quick read. The story starts off being about Bea Maxwell but then veers away to take in other members on and off Keck Road. The character placement seems jumbled. New characters appear without clear introduction or connection to Bea. I felt I needed a chart to keep characters straight. However, character development was brilliant, intimate even. When we first meet Bea, she is a college girl, home on vacation in the 1950s. She has certain definable traits that stay with her throughout the rest of the novella, ending in the 1980s. It’s a portrait of a woman who never leaves her small town. Her life never really takes her beyond Green Bay, Wisconsin’s city limits without reeling her back in.

Favorite lines, “He was the kind of man who ceded his place in traffic. He never asserted himself in conflicts over lanes or parking spaces” (p 80).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter, “Big Ten Country: The Literary Midwest (Wisconsin).
Also in the chapter, “Two, or Three, Are Better Than One” (p 226). Note: in this chapter Pearl suggests reading Off Keck Road together with Our Kind: a Novel in Stories by Kate Walbert; two stories about the lives of women.

Speak

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Anderson, Laurie Halse. Speak. New York: Scholastic, 2003.

You have to admire Melinda. From day one of school she is harrassed and hated. She storms through the first marking period of high school, gnashing her teeth and muttering to herself. She has no friends and is openly tormented by everyone from peers to parents. Melinda has a secret that not only eats away at her little at a time, but by the end of the third marking period, steals away her voice until she is practically mute. While she puts on a good act of wit and sarcastic humor on the outside, inside she is a girl trapped by confusion and fear. As her grades plummet and her family life slowly falls apart, Melinda struggles to keep her sanity. Speak took me only a few hours to read. Anderson does an amazing job capturing the voice of a tormented teen. She portrays the relationships every young adult has to endure: teachers, principals, parents, ex-best friends…with such honesty I found myself cringing…

Favorite funny parts: “Our boys are unbeatable as long as they are the only team on the floor” (p 76). “We are reading The Scarlet Letter one sentence at a time, tearing it up and chewing on its bones” (p 100). And one sad line: “I stuff my mouth with old fabric and scream until there are no soulds left under my skin” (p 162).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter “Best for Teens” (p 23).

Rise of David Levinsky

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Cahan, Abraham. The Rise of David Levinsky. Glouster: Peter Smith, 1969.

Written in 1917 The Rise of David Levinsky is the story of Russian born immigrant David Levinsky and his rise to riches in the garment industry in New York City. Cahan’s depiction of Levinsky remains one of the best accounts of not only immigrants seeking opportunity and fortune in America at the turn of the century, but also the Jewish experience on New York’s East Side as well. Cahan illustrates social attitudes towards poverty, religion, ethnicity and economic status through David’s character. Using his situation as an orphan, David accepts pity from those with means. He has an uncanny ability to sense the heart of others and use it to his advantage. It is interesting to watch his rise to wealth over the course of David’s lifetime.

Good lines: “I had a notion that a married woman, no matter how young, must have a married face, something quite distinct from the countenance of a maiden, while this married woman did not begin to look married” (p 67), and “Shall I turn my heart out to show you how hard it is to live without you?” (p 301). Both of these quotes evoke so much psychology!

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter, “The Jewish American Experience” (p 132).

Flashman

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Fraser, George MacDonald. Flashman. New York: Harper Collins, 1993.

This is one of those giggly books. The main character is so awful you can’t help but laugh at him and dare I say, even like him a little for his brazen attitude. The premise is Flashman is the first installment of the “Flashman Papers 1839-1842” a sort of journal of Harry Flashman’s. Readers get a taste of Harry’s storytelling from the very start: British boy Harry Flashman manages to get himself drunk, expelled from school and into his father’s mistress’s bed in less than the first dozen pages. What first appears as a punishment for another indiscretionary roll in the hay ultimately becomes Harry’s greatest triumph. He is sent to be a secret agent in Afghanistan and manages to emerge a brave hero after the Retreat from Kabul. Harry is so shameless he basks in the honor despite the fact his cowardice is the only thing that saved him. But, his story is told with such honest sarcasm you can’t help but enjoy his villainy.

Two of Harry’s lesser laughed at traits are his womanizing and his racial comments. One has to keep in mind the Victorian era in which these events take place. Women and minorities are not seen as equals on any level.

Typical Flashy moment: “She stood glaring at me. Her bosom was what the lady novelists call agitated, but if they had seen Judy agitated in a negligee they would think of some other way of describing feminine distress: (p 29).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter, “George MacDonald Fraser: Too Good To Miss” (p 94).