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How to Read Literature Like a Professor: In honor of Professor Foster’s impending new book, How to Read Novels Like a Professor, I’m doing a casual rereading of the original. What a lovely book. The Introduction captures, for me, the feeling of sitting in an actual college literature class.
The Book of Lost Things: I requested this book from my library on the recommendation of several bloggers. The beginning of it just breaks your heart. I’m now only about 100 pages in and the plot is quickly moving towards fantasy – what with the weird wolf/humans created by Little Red Riding Hood’s more illicit activities appearing on the scene. I’ll be posting a review of this pretty soon, I’m sure.
Bible: Still plugging away at Numbers. And, for those of you wondering, the numbering of the people ends around chapter ten. Now we are into a lot of whining and striking by lightening.
The New Yorker: I currently have the May 26, 2008 issue stashed in my purse. Not too much has grabbed my attention as yet. I’m halfway through a short story by John Updike called “The Full Glass.” The story didn’t quite capture my full attention. We’ll see if the ending can rescue it. I also skimmed through an article by Jeffrey Toobin on a McCain Court. I was a bit offended by its extreme liberal tone, so Mr. Toobin lost a little of his credibility (earned by most of The Nine) with me.
BOOK CLUB REPORT
Both of my book clubs met last week. First up was a small book club that consists of myself and two other women. We read The Alchemist. I think everyone liked it. Discussion centered more around the individual ramifications of the message, rather than the writing itself. I like the concept of a Personal Legend. The problem is that everyone’s Personal Legend is, well, personal.
Next up was my regular book club. I hosted. About five people attended. We read The Shell Seekers. Unfortunately, I read the book back in January and had loaned out my copy, so I couldn’t review. I wasn’t much help in the limited discussion that ensued. Though I wasn’t much help on specifics, this much I know: READ THE SHELL SEEKERS! Goose Girl, by Shannon Hale is up for June.
Since I haven’t finished a book in the last few days and I have an itching to post, I’m going to write about my recent reading activities.
Bible: I’m currently working my way ever so slowly through the Old Testament at the rate of one chapter per day. I recently made it to Numbers. So far there is a lot of counting and census taking. I’m pretty sure that’s where the name of the book came in. My only question is how the numbering is going to be sustained for the next thirty chapters. Stay tuned.
So Brave, Young, and Handsome: Leif Enger’s latest book has recently been relegated to the bottom of the TBR pile. Please don’t think that it has anything to do with the quality of the book. Instead, it has been relegated only because I purchased it and I have a pile of library books to get through before the weekend. With that as a preface, the first one hundred pages were compelling, if a bit slow. More on that soon.
The Gathering: One of the library books with a deadline, this book, which I have heard about in almost every possible medium, is amazingly readable. Though depressing and pretty crude, I am fascinated by Veronica and her Irish Catholic world. Veronica is probably the most disillusioned, cynical heroine I’ve ever read.
The 3 A.M. Epiphany: Ironically, this is the book I read most nights right before I turn out the light. I like to read one or two of the prompts and ruminate on them whilst I fall asleep. The prompts in this book are original and thought provoking. I’d recommend it for writers and for anyone who needs a good bedtime story.
An interesting reading journal guide can be found here.
I am getting towards the end of Divisadero. This book has taken some serious time and effort to get through. I can’t exactly pinpoint what about it is so difficult. Some of it is that it takes place in several different places in several different eras and has several different narrators. In fact, the narrator sometimes changes from third person to first person, which can be disconcerting.
I don’t know yet where all of the characters are going to wind up. There are still the three main characters: Claire (in CA), Coop (in NV and CA), and Anna (in France). However, some of the other characters (like the dead French author that Anna is researching and Anna’s French-gypsy lover) have begun to feel like main characters because of all the back story. Right now, Claire has an amnesia-stricken Coop, and they are on their way to see the farmer/father. I don’t know what it is all building up to, but I’m excited to find out.
Maybe “excited” is overstating it a bit, but I am ready to find out and have the book be done. Maybe the ending of Divisadero will change my mind, but I would recommend reading In the Skin of a Lion rather than Divisadero, if you are going to read just one of Michael Ondaatje’s books.
OTHER READINGS
Old Testament: I’m just past the part where Esau sells his birthright to Jacob (Genesis 25: 29-34) and then Jacob dresses up as Esau to trick Isaac into giving him the father’s blessing (Genesis 27). I know that there are several explanations for Jacob’s obtaining the birthright and blessing by cunning and trickery, but it is still hard to swallow. Next up is the material from Genesis that spawned Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Good times.
In Defense of Food: I just started this book last night. Fascinating stuff. The book is divided into three parts. The first part deals with the history of the food industry. The second part deals with the development of what the author calls the “Western diet” and its relationship to modern diseases. The last part has suggestions for following the book’s mantra: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. I like it so far because it is a realistic way to look at eating and disease and the relationship between the two.
I am finally beginning to see what this book is doing. I probably should have seen it earlier. The story starts out with all of the main characters (Coop, Anna, Claire, and farmer father) in one, not exactly intimate but cozy, place. As the result of violence, the group is splintered and damaged. The rest of the book examines the damaged individuals as they seek solitude and healing in their new lives.
This kind of thing has been done before. I’m sure there are thousands of examples, but I can only think of two off of the top of my head: A Time to Kill and Lovely Bones.
Michael Ondaatje delves deeper than the others, I think. He is able to forge through the characters and show the duplicity that necessarily attends when you hide from the past. It will be interesting to see whether there is a reunion at the end of the book. I’m guessing that there will be a physical reunion but not a restoration of what was.
I guess the point is that you can’t really be restored after something like that happens. You can heal, but there will always be scars.
Other readings:
The Old Testament plods along. Last night, I got to the part where Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt. (Genesis 19:26) These parts of Genesis are not quite as fluid as the retellings might suggest. The instruction not to look back is not told with sufficient notice of the consequences. Also, the Lord/angels (it’s unclear) tell Lot to go to the mountains and he whines about it being to far and remote and uncivilized, so he/they acquiesce to him going to another village (which Lot eventually as to leave for the mountains anyway). If he/they are that lenient with Lot, why not give Lot’s wife the benefit of the doubt? Plus, I’m sure that she had spent a lot of time nesting and making a home there. What if she just wanted one last glance? It doesn’t mean she wanted to go back, necessarily. It just seems a little harsh.
Also, I’ve read this before, but I was shocked that Lot offered his two virgin daughters to the lusty mob of apparently bisexual men “to do ye to them as is good in your eyes.” (Genesis 19:8) And Lot was the most righteous guy in the city. Hmmmm . . .
Even though I haven’t been posting (life is crazy), I have been faithfully reading a bit of Divisadero each night. I love Michael Ondaatje, but his books require exertion. Every time I pick up the book, I feel like I should be taking notes and making charts. That isn’t to say that the book is unreadable. In fact, you could just read it straight through and completely understand the storyline. It’s just that there is so much more under the surface. Also, I frequently reference a dictionary when reading his works. (Check out madrone, for example, which appeared in the first couple of pages.)
Ondaatje is primarily a poet, so the language is very lyrical and visual. For example, in yesterday’s reading, he described a woman’s singing as if the notes had no scaffolding. (I don’t have the book with me or I would quote it exactly.) The description just spoke to me. I could see notes falling off of a treble clef.
Anyway, the first chapter of Divisadero, so far, has set up three major story lines. The first is the family in Northern California that I spoke of in Part I. The second is Coop going off on his own in the gambling world in Las Vegas and other places. The third is Anna, grown up, living in a remote part of France and researching some dead French author. The story goes in and out of different time periods, which gives it an almost timeless feel. It doesn’t really matter when the events are happening in relation to each other.
I expected most of the book to deal with the first story line. Since I’m only 75 pages and one chapter in, I’m excited to see where the story leads me.
Other Readings
Old Testament: I’m working through Genesis. Have you ever noticed that God told Noah to take seven of some of the animals? (Genesis 7:2-3) Also, those poor animals of which there were only two were forced to procreate with each other. (Genesis 8:17) What if they didn’t like each other, especially after months on a stinky ship together? (This may be sacrilegious, but maybe that’s what happened to the unicorns.)
We have turned a corner! I see resolution and falling action in the near future. Gemma has finally resolved to do SOMETHING. Sure, she’s leaning a little toward the evil side, but I think she’s already beginning to see the error in that path. Also, the love story is beginning to come together. At last! Only a mere 200 pages left to go! (I think I’ve used up my daily quota of exclamation marks!)
There are too many questions left to answer at this point, so I haven’t quite arrived at the “lets create thought questions” stage of the book. I believe that may happen on the morrow, though.
I didn’t follow through on the newspaper resolution yesterday, but I did spend some time reviewing the Super Tuesday results at http://cnnpolitics.com. Does that count?
My other reading activities of yesterday included the first chapter of Genesis. I think I’m going to give the Old Testament a looksie. We’ll see how that goes. At a chapter a night, I’ll finish some time around February 2011. That’s a long row to hoe. Indeed.
