Review: Under the Wide and Starry Sky by Nancy Horan

I enjoyed Under the Wide and Starry Sky quite a bit.  This is the story of Fanny Osbourne and her relationship with Robert Louis Stevenson. 

 

Before reading this, I didn’t know much about Robert Louis Stevenson, other than what he’d written.  This story though paints such an attractive picture of him as a young, determined writer.  He was the only son of parents with very high, specific expectations for him.  Being a writer was not part of their plan for him. 

 

Stevenson met Fanny after she left her philandering husband in America and moved to Europe with her children.  She was there to learn art.  She wanted to live a creative life because she’d already spent too much of her life being trapped in a miserable marriage. 

 

She’s older than Stevenson, with a daughter closer to his age than she is, but that doesn’t seem to bother either of them. 

 

Their story is very romantic.  I told my friends as I was reading this that I was developing quite the crush on Robert Louis Stevenson.  He’s so sincere and devoted to Fanny.

 

But after a while, reality sets in, and things are far from perfect.  But throughout it all, I think despite any problems they had, the two remained devoted to each other. 

 

I felt like the author did a very thorough job with her research, following the couple from the time they met until Stevenson’s death.   As I was reading this, I felt like I knew these characters and understood what they were going through.  At times, I felt that maybe they weren’t entirely good for each other, that maybe they’d have been better off if they had tried to go their separate ways early in the relationship.  (Actually they did go their separate ways, but Stevenson nearly died trying to make his way to her as soon as he got the word that she wanted to see him again.)  Seeing the flaws in their relationship though is what made this story seem so real.

 

My only complaint is that toward the end, I felt as if we got too much information.  I didn’t need to know every conversation and every island they visited and outfit worn and all that.  The details got boring.  I was more interested in the emotional turmoil that was brewing below the surface of their seemingly happy relationship. 

 

Overall though, I liked this book a lot, would definitely recommend it to anyone with an interest in Robert Louis Stevenson and the time period during which he lived.

I received a copy of this via NetGalley. 

Review: Wuthering Nights: An Erotic Retelling of Wuthering Heights by I.J. Miller and Emily Bronte

Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights is my all-time favorite book. I was in high school when I read the book for the first time, and I’ve read the book many times since then, and still it has a powerful impact on me. I claim that Heathcliff ruined me for all men. If I can’t be loved the way Heathcliff loved Catherine, then why bother? I’d rather be alone. And, well, yeah, you get the idea.

I know there are lots of people who don’t like Wuthering Heights. I notice the way people look at me when I mention it being my favorite book. I believe when it was first released it was regarded as quite awful. They say it’s too dark and the characters too selfish and horrible, lacking any redeeming qualities. But to me, they were simply two people who put their love for each other before everything else. Things like social convention, family and marriage are tossed aside in their desperate quest to be together again. The world stood between them, but even death couldn’t keep them apart.

Reading this as a teenager, I found this book to be more sexually intense than the explicit Danielle Steel books my friends and I were reading in secret. My mind had no trouble imagining what Heathcliff and Catherine were doing while alone in the moors. And when he went to visit her in the home she shared with her husband, I doubted they simply chatted and drank tea while her husband was away. This is why I was intrigued by the idea of “an erotic retelling” of this story that I’d loved so much.

But I hated Wuthering Nights. I hated this book so very much. I wish I had not read this book. It disturbed me, it grossed me out and it made me angry. So many times, I put down my Kindle and said to the empty room, “This is so stupid!” This was not the story of my beloved Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw. There was nothing beautiful or passionate about this story. There was plenty of sex, but it was rarely, if ever, associated with love. The sex in this book was there to shock and horrify. It was about control, domination and humiliation. This didn’t turn me on, this disgusted me.

For some reason, Catherine, as a teenager, fooling around with Heathcliff, seems to have transformed into a 90s teen, willing to do “everything but” so as to not violate her purity ring. Not very believable. And Heathcliff is now a rapist, but he’s so impressive that his victims seem to enjoy what he does to them, and keep begging for more. Even with Catherine, who is supposed to be his very reason for living, he simply wants to degrade her, wanting to control her instead of love her. Heathcliff would never have been so coarse with Catherine and Catherine wouldn’t have tolerated that kind of treatment.

Some of the scenes were so very horrible. For no clear reason, Heathcliff decides to start chopping wood outside of Catherine’s house – this is after she’s married. As he’s chopping wood, Nelly, Isabella and Catherine are all in the window – three different windows — watching and masturbating. Catherine strips and presses her naked body against the glass door, in full view of Heathcliff, who simply keeps chopping wood. Then all three of the women orgasm at once at the sight of him taking a piss. Really? Gross.

But it gets worse. Heathcliff has a dungeon that would rival that of Christian’s Grey’s. It’s in this dungeon that he says to his wife, “My cock controls you.” Oh good grief. Then we’re treated to a three-way between him and Nelly and Isabella. This is the point in which I put down the Kindle and said, “Why am I reading this trash?” But for some reason, I kept reading.

The odd thing was, after reading something horrible, eventually I’d get to a part that I loved, and I’d think, “oh, okay, this is getting better” and then I realized every time that happened, it was because I was reading a part directly lifted from the original Wuthering Heights.

I suppose that lovers (or haters, for that matter) of Wuthering Heights all have their own opinion of the true nature of Heathcliff and Catherine. The characters in this story were not at all the way I imagined them to be based on my many readings of Wuthering Heights. My Heathcliff would never, ever do these things. Oh, I admit, he had a fierce temper and the potential to be cruel, but it was fueled by his anger at being separated from Catherine. He would have never treated Catherine the way he did in this book and he wouldn’t have cared enough about the others to torture and control them in this manner. None of that behavior came close to getting him what he wanted, and he wasn’t the sort of man who got sidetracked from his main goal. Now while I do admit to always thinking there was something controlling and maybe a bit kinky going on between him and Isabella – because why else would she have so readily abandoned her family for him? – I refuse to believe it reached the level of dungeons, whips and dog collars.

Clearly, someone who viewed Wuthering Heights as a love story did not write this book. It seems to be more the result of someone who was forced to read it in school and felt the need for vengeance.

I wish I’d not read this. Not only did it make me angry and disgusted, but it also gave me horrible nightmares. How dare this ruin the years of sweet dreams I’ve had of Heathcliff! This book might be enjoyed more by someone who doesn’t have a strong attachment to the original, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who loved Wuthering Heights. In fact, if you loved the original, stay far away from this re-telling.

I reviewed a review copy of this book via NetGalley.

Review: Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness

I loved Deborah Harkness' Discovery of Witches so much, so very, very much.  When I was reading it, I couldn't stop thinking about it, had to talk about it to anyone who would listen - and a few who probably weren't listening.  I was broken hearted when the book ended because I hated the idea of being away from these characters.

This summer I visited Oxford with the specific purpose of visiting the locations mentioned in the book. 

I was anxiously awaiting the release of the sequel - Shadow of Night.  I even re-read Discovery of Witches right before getting my copy of Shadow of Night. 

Maybe my expectations were too high.  I'm not sure how any book could live up to my love of Discovery of Witches.

I will admit to having a few concerns about the sequel, a few things happened toward the end of Discovery of Witches that worried me, as you can see from the review I wrote last October.  I'm not a fan of time travel and I'm not a fan of stories that involve babies -- and it was those two things that bothered me the most about Shadow of Night.

In this book, Diana and Matthew travel back in time so that Diana can find a master witch to teach her how to use her powers.  I assumed they would travel back to work with one of Diana's ancestors.  But no, instead, Matthew decides they should go back to Elizabethan England.  He had a well established life in England during this time period, a group of close friends, a home in London, and connections with some very important people.  

Harkness, a historian as well as was a novelist, is an expert on this time period, so trust that the details are accurate.  The setting is rich in details.  But I have trouble with time travel stories, this is a problem I often have.  Can't get my head around the idea.  The way this one was set up didn't help at all.  The Matthew in the past disappears with the arrival of Matthew of the future.  What?  Where did "past Matthew" go?  And he's just going to show up again after "present Matthew" leaves the past?  Oh, my head hurts just thinking about it. 

Then there is the baby thing.  In the first book, I felt as if Diana was a character to which I could relate on some levels.  She's single, she's focused on her career, she's independent and intelligent and a little hesitant about falling in love.  In many ways, she is exactly the person I wish I could be.  (And I don't mean a witch in love with a vampire, though...)  But in Shadow of Night, she suddenly becomes fixated on having babies and there she kind of lost me.  The desire to reproduce is not something I understand at all, and for that reason, I tend to avoid traditional romances because too often they end with a marriage and/or pregnancy, signifying that life is now "perfect."  But to me, that seems to signify that their life is over.  So in this book, I felt this disconnect with Diana, and that made me sad.  Why couldn't she and Matthew have had some time together, to get to know each other - I mean, what was the rush, he's immortal?  They'd known each other, for what, maybe a month?  I was okay with love at first sight, but this intense desire to start making babies immediately -- while you're still in the 1600s?  I don't know, maybe wait until you're in a safer, more hygienic environment, where your husband -- who happens to be a doctor in the 21st century -- has access to modern technology.  Whatever.  This probably bothered me more than it should have.  I'm sure that this was the sort of thing the more mainstream, target-audience loved.  Again, that made me sad, realizing this is becoming a story for the more traditional female reader, not for a wanna-be academic weirdo like me.

Another minor complaint -- I grew a bit tired of all the extra family members. Brothers, sisters, nephews, parents. Enough already! I wanted to read about Diana and Matthew.  Again, this is based on my own life experience, in which I have no strong family ties of any sort, making it difficult to relate to stories of people who do.

But in spite of the above complaints, I thought this was a well written story and I still enjoyed reading it.  The book sucked me in immediately, I did nothing but read it for two days.  The characters are people that I care about deeply.  That sounds absurd because, well, they're fictional, but to me they're more real than most people I encounter in my so-called real life.  I want only good things for Diana and Matthew.  I don't think I've ever loved two characters more than I do these two.  But I wasn't entirely happy with the way their behavior was affected by their surroundings.  This didn't lessen my love for these two characters, but made me anxious for them to hurry up and return to their present day surroundings.  Enough with playing house in the past, let's get back to living in present times. 

Maybe my biggest problem is that I have become entirely too attached to these characters and this story.  I'm unable to simply read about them, I feel too much toward them.  I think the ability to elicit this much emotion is the sign of a great book.  So even if I wasn't entirely happy about what was happening, it doesn't mean there's something wrong with the book.  I hate for it to seem like I'm giving this book a bad review.  I still think people should read the book.

When I finished the book, I found myself suffering from something of a "book hangover" -- I saw that phrase used on facebook, and it fits perfectly for this situation.  The real world seemed so dull compared to the world created by Harkness.  I'm looking forward to the third book, but I suspect I'll be re-reading the first two a few times before it's released.

In fact, I have the weekend before Halloween reserved for a re-reading of Discovery of Witches.  If I have time, I suspect I will continue with a second reading of Shadow of Night.

Review: The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

This is such an usual story.  A childless couple build a snowman one day, and then a child appears.  Sounds absurd, but the story is written in such a way that I kept expecting an explanation.  At times there seems to be a logical reason for all of this, and at other times the only explanation is magic.  As I've said many times, I like stories that include a heavy dose of magic. But every once in a while, there's a bit of reality in the story that threatens the existence of magic.

The child appears during the winter and disappears when the snow melts.  They don't know where she goes and she provides no information.  She can't stay inside for too long or she grows too warm and starts to feel ill.  Each year, she ages, as a normal child does.  Then one winter she falls in love with the neighbor's son and things begin to change. 

I liked this story because it was so different.  This is beautifully written.  But I wanted more.  When the book was over, I still had so many unanswered questions.  I wanted some of my friends to read this book so we could discuss it, but no one did.  Maybe I need to read it again to see if I missed something. 
 

Everything Beautiful Began After by Simon Van Booy

I was drawn to this book because I love the title and it's set in Athens. Years ago, I visited Athens.  It was my first international trip.  I fell in love with the city, so I looked forward to reading a story set in that city.

This book is divided into sections, or rather "books."  I liked the first book and thought I was going to really enjoy the entire story.  But I didn't like the second book.  This is the section I remember most about the book.  I believe this is the point where the narrator is trying to deal with his loss.  I understand that he was grieving, but his behavior seemed so bizarre and selfish.  He cuts off the rest of the world and begins to travel from city to city with no plan at all.  It seemed so indulgent.  I think I was supposed to be struck by his profound loss, his inability to move on.  But instead I thought of how the rest of the world has to "suck it up" and move on when they lose a loved one.  How nice to be able to take a year or so off.  Maybe I was jealous because I wish I could do that when I hurt, but I can't.  I have to get up and go to work the next day.  I found it impossible to feel any sympathy for this character.  At that point, I began to lose interest in the book.

I found it difficult to like the book because I didn't like the characters very much.  I felt no connection to them.  It's been a few months since I read this book, and mostly what I remember about it is that I didn't like it as much as I thought I would.  I remember the story getting complicated and the character finding the sister of his lover and a diary.  At that point, I simply didn't care all that much about what happened to these people.  The book didn't live up to my expectations.

Review: Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

I loved this book. I love everything about it: the setting - New York City, 1938; the characters - an interesting variety of working-class citizens trying to make it in the big city alongside some trust fund babies; the way the story flowed - As I was reading it, I had no idea what was going to happen next and kept finding myself surprised and intrigued. I didn't want this story to end. Too often books start out well, and then disappoint me in the end. I was bracing myself for that because I couldn't believe that a book that started so well could continue in that manner - but it did.

What I liked most about the book were the strong women characters. The story is about Katherine Kontent (what a great name), and how she chooses to navigate her life in a city that will "turn you inside out." But as she's making her decisions, readers are also made aware of other women in the city, and the choices they make, determined to live on their own terms. 

I will confess to being somewhat sexist in what I choose to read.  I generally avoid books written by men.  That's a terrible thing to say isn't it?  But seems like anytime I read a book written by a man, I find myself annoyed by the portrayal of women, so I started to avoid them.  But Amor Towles has created characters that ring truer than just about any I've ever read.  Very, very glad I decided to go against my "rule" of not reading new male authors.

I realize this review is vague with regard to the content of the novel, but I don't want to give away too much, because as I mentioned earlier, one of my favorite things about the book is that I had no idea what to expect with each page.

This is one of those books I'm going to recommend to anyone who asks what they should read next. Actually I'm probably going to go ahead and recommend it to those who don't ask for recommendations.

I checked it out from the library, but recently, I bought a copy for my Kindle because I liked it so much I'm certain I'll be reading it again a few more times.

Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman

When I first heard about this book, I thought it sounded amazing.  Alice Hoffman is one of my favorite writers, and this book is all about history and religion, and I assumed it would have a heavy dose of magic.

I was on the waiting list at the library before the book was even released.  But after I checked it out, it sat there for three weeks and then had to be returned - untouched.  I was reading other books.  It looked so heavy and it was around the holidays when I needed my reading to provide somewhat enjoyable escapes from reality.

I decided to check out the audio version of the book.  I spend so much time in the car, time wasted listening to crappy pop music.  Might as well be productive with my time.

While I'm glad I listened to it because I don't know that I would have stuck with it had I been reading it, I am also concerned that listening to it versus reading it might have effected my impression of the story.  There were four different narrators for this book, as the book tells the story of four different women in the days before the siege of Masada.  At times I found the characters to be so annoying, and I'm not sure if it was because of what the characters were saying and doing or because of the voice.  I know that at least one of the voices annoyed me horribly.  I found myself mimicking her words as I drove along listening to the story.

I didn't find this book as amazing as I'd expected it to be.  I found it very interesting, and listening to this prompted me to learn more about what happened in Masada.  Reading about the remains discovered at the sight made Hoffman's ending particularly interesting.

I thought the book was a little long.  I think the same story could have been told with a few less words.  There were times when I found the story dragged, too much repetition.  Also, I didn't like the characters very much.  I understand that as readers we're supposed to view them as strong, fierce women, but I wasn't that impressed.  I grew tired of hearing the first woman go on about her love for a man who simply used her because he'd grown tired of his wife and there was no one else around.  She kept referring to him as if he were the great love of her life, but from my perspective he didn't seem like a great man at all.  He took advantage of a young girl, got her pregnant, all while his wife and other children are sleeping in the tent next to them.  This happened to the first character in the story, and that might have set the tone for the rest of the book. 

Several of these women seemed to be okay with getting involved with married men.  I didn't find their actions to be strong or admirable, but rather pathetic.  Were we really supposed to feel sympathetic for them?  How are we supposed to feel for the wives being betrayed?  They're also women, suffering through these same harsh circumstances.

Mostly, I was disappointed by the lack of magic.  Oh, there were bits and traces, but much, much less than the typical Hoffman book.  This was, for the most part, a historical novel.  I'm glad I listened to it, but I didn't love it.

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

A while back, during a drive to and from Austin, I listened to the audio book, The Paris Wife, about Hemingway's wife in Paris.  That sparked my interest in Hemingway.  After I finished The Paris Wife, I went to Half Price Books and bought a copy of A Moveable Feast, with the intention of reading it right away.  But I got distracted and the book remained on the floor next to the couch for the next two months.

Then I recently started hearing about the new Woody Allen movie, Midnight in Paris, and I kept hearing about how bits of the dialogue were taken from Hemingway's Moveable Feast.  I figured before I watched the movie, maybe I should read the book (though I've been told the movie is completely enjoyable without having read Moveable Feast.) 

Today, I wanted to spend some time out in the sun reading, so I decided to pick up this book off the floor where it has sat since I went out that night and bought it -- so much for having to have it right then.

I've only read one other book by Hemingway, that being A Farewell to Arms.  I love that book, but a lot of people I know do not enjoy Hemingway's work.  But I have to say, I like Moveable Feast quite a bit.

The writing is very sparse, very to the point, which I know is what some of the complaints are with regard to Hemingway's writing.  But it works so well with these stories.

These are his memories of his days in Paris, as a young writer, before he became well known or successful.  (Same time period covered in the book The Paris Wife which is why I initially had wanted to read it.)  In the preface he explains that the stories could very well be fiction.  (They're being written about 40 years after the events happened.)  During the time period this story covers, he was very young and ambitious and very poor.  He was newly married, with a baby.  He spent his days in cafes, working on his writing.  He spent his evenings drinking with other famous writers and artists - the Lost Generation.

Most of all though, it's the story of Paris.  His writing details the streets he walks, the restaurants and parks he visits.  Having been to Paris a few times and being very much in love with the city, I enjoyed remembering these locations and visualizing them as the stories unfolded.  This was after the war, when Paris was rebuilding and people could live there, and live well, for very little money.  He emphasizes that he didn't make much money on his writing as a reporter, but they still had a place to live, money for bread and good wine and time for fun.  They could afford to travel and gamble.  They hiked and skied and they enjoyed their life despite being rather poor financially.

In the end, it was success and the money that came with it that destroyed the happy world of Paris in which he and his wife lived.  "I wish I had died before I ever loved anyone but her," he writes of his first wife, forty something years after he fell in love with someone else. 

There are so many beautiful lines in this book.  Had I not been lying outside in the sun reading, I would have been obnoxiously underlining passages.  From his descriptions of his own writing process, I get the impression he did a lot of self editing, which is probably the result of what is considered his stark prose.  But it's beautiful in this context.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in writing, because he writes quite a bit about what it took to become a writer, or anyone interested in Paris and especially to anyone interested in the so-called Lost Generation of Paris in the 20s.  This book is full of mentions of people such as Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound, Sherwood Anderson and Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald.

And on the subject of Fitzgerald, the story about him and Hemingway taking a trip to a from Lyon would make a hilarious movie.  Why hasn't that been done yet?  Hemingway gets on the train, thinking Fitzgerald is on it, only to have the train leave without Fitzgerald.  They finally meet up in Lyon, and go to retrieve the Fitzgerald's car, which has had the top removed because, "Zelda doesn't like tops on cars."  They have to keep stopping because it keeps raining on them, and then Fitzgerald decides he's dying of a fever and expects Ernest to take care of him.  Then he's upset because he's never spent a night away from his wife (except, as Ernest can't help noticing, he wasn't with her the night before because the two of them were in Lyon together.)  Very funny.

Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky

I bought a copy of this book last year, after I returned from a trip to Paris.  When I take trips, nice trips, I tend to want to continue living them.  Several people on a travel forum recommended this book so I went and bought a copy, not knowing much about it.  Honestly, with regard to extending my time in Paris, it wouldn't have been effective.  This is more about the effects of World War II on Paris and France.  I didn't get around to reading it last summer though because I suppose school started and once I realized it was about the war, I was afraid it might be a bit heavy and emotional for escaping the classroom stress - which is why I read books during the school year.

This summer, I packed the book in my suitcase before my trip to Paris.  I had another book to read, and was carrying this as my "backup" book.  I didn't start the book until I got on the plane leaving Paris.  It's divided into two parts and I read the entire first part on the plane from Paris to Boston.  Then I set the book aside and didn't return to it for a few weeks.

In order to fully appreciate the book, it's important to know a bit of background about how this story.  It's unfinished and is only two parts of the author's intended five.  The story wasn't published until almost sixty years after it was written.  The notebook in which it was written was in a suitcase belonging to her daughters, and it traveled with them for years as they hid from the Nazis.  Her daughters assumed it was a journal, and they didn't read it, thinking it would be too painful.  When they did finally read it, they discovered what became Suite Francaise, as well as notes about how the author wanted the story to progress.

The story takes place in occupied France.  The first part, Storm in June, is the story of people fleeing Paris as the city is claimed by the German army.  The city is in a complete panic.  Nemirovsky introduces several different characters, from various backgrounds, with different interests.  She doesn't paint a very flattering view of the people in her city.  There are the rich people more concerned about their possessions than they are their neighbors.  They're driving around with a vehicle loaded down with dishes and bed linens while people are walking along the roads, with no other means to escape.  Some of the people are quite horrible, arrogant and cruel, others kind and generous, doing all they can to assist those in such a desperate situation.

I thought some of the stories were a little strange and melodramatic, which I assume is the result of the story being the author's first draft.  (At the end of the book, it describes her writing process, how she'd write everything she could think of, then go back and edit.  Even in her notes she mentions not liking an event that I found a bit too awful.)

One thing to keep in mind about this is that the author wrote these stories as she was living the experience.  This is not a case of a someone writing a story based on history or family stories.  Nemirovsky was in Paris as this was happening.  She saw the people around her going through this.

The second part, Dolce, takes place in a village occupied by the German army.  Again, this story is based on the author's experience of living in an occupied village.  I think what's most interesting about the story is the way she objectively views the French and the German citizens.  She paints a very sympathetic view of the Germans, pointing out that these soldiers are in some ways in as dire a situation as the people who's homes they are occupying.  She describes them as young men, far away from home, in a place where they don't speak the language, living among people who hate them.  Also, it's clear that she is not especially proud of the way the French behaved during this time, so eager to tell on each other if they thought it would benefit themselves.

The story ends with the German army leaving the village and moving on to fight in Russia.

I liked the second part of the book better than the first.  There was more of a continuous storyline.  The characters were more developed and more likable. 

She never finished the story, and in her notes even mentioned that she wasn't entirely sure how it would end, that it was in God's hands.  Because, of course, she didn't know how the war would end.

Before she finished the book, she was taken to a concentration camp, where she died.

Knowing that made me so sad, because here she'd written this story in which she clearly didn't hate the German army.  She seemed to understand that it was a war, they were only following orders.  And yet, these men that she portrayed so kindly are the same ones who took her from her family and led her to her death.

My copy of the book had notes in the back and a series of letters from her husband to others, trying to get her returned to her family.  It's clear that the family didn't know the full horrors of what was happening at the camps.  He kept writing and trying to find her, long after she'd died.  He eventually met the same fate, never knowing what happened to her.  It says that after the war their children would go meet the trains that had the survivors on it, hoping to see their parents return. 

I think this book is especially valuable in the way that it provides a unique perspective of the war and its effects on the people.  This isn't a history book or a tale of famous leaders and soldiers, but rather a picture of the lives of the people who suffer as the result of these leaders' actions.

Life of Pi

My book club selected this book to read. I'd had it sitting by my bed for the past two years and several times I attempted to read it, but got distracted by something I considered more interesting.

I enjoyed the book. I didn't love it. A lot of people that I know absolutely love the book. I found it interesting. I thoroughly enjoyed the beginning when Pi is experimenting with different religions and is participating in three different ones, much to his modern, secular-minded father's horror.

But then Pi's family decides to move to Canada. Pi's father owned a zoo, and he's sold most of the animals to other zoos in America, so they're on a boat filled with animals when the boat sinks. Pi and a tiger named Richard Parker survive. This is when the real story begins. The book details Pi's attempts to survive on this boat in the middle of the ocean with a tiger as his only companion.

In the beginning he fears the tiger, but eventually they come to depend on each other and he regards the tiger as his friend.

This book is steeped in symbolism and probably requires multiple readings, or as the case with me, a thorough discussion involving multiple viewpoints.

To me though, this was a story about the power of one's imagination, and the way a person learns to survive in extreme circumstances. When the world becomes too unbearable to survive, Pi creates a new world in which he can exist until his situation changes.

Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I read this book back in high school because I love Gatsby and I was haunted by the title. So beautiful. And the story that it told was as beautiful as the title.

I decided to re-read it though because while I could say that I loved the story, the prose -- as expected from Fitzgerald -- paints such a captivating pictures of a tragic love affair and Paris and the French Riveria -- I was fairly certain that I was too young to fully understand what all was happening in the story.

So I read the book again. It was as beautiful and tragic as I remember. A doctor falls in love with a mental patient. He seems to be the only person capable of saving her. But he does too well in caring for her -- at least that would be his assessment. After years of marriage and two children, Nicole becomes well -- as well an anyone else at least. And seeing that she is no longer dependent on him, her husband Dick Diver begins to lose interest. Instead he's drawn to young actress, attracted by her youth and her need. Dick doesn't want to be in love, he doesn't want a healthy partner, he wants someone dependent on him. He wants to be the hero, his lover's salvation. He has no use for a healthy Nicole. Therin lies the tragedy.

The story is about their love affair, their marriage and then subsequent disintegration of their relationship. While that could be a story told a million times, one which happens in at least half of all relationships, it's Fitzgerald's prose that makes this story worth reading. This is the kind of writing that makes you ache and you feel their lives falling apart, watch them begin to go their different directions and realize their love was never love at all.

Finished reading: April 20, 2008 (second time)

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

I re-read Wuthering Heights recently. At work I learned that most people in the office had never read the book, so I suggested we start a book club and this be our first book.

As expected, it broke my heart again. I never know what to expect when I re-visit books from my past. When I re-read One Hundred Years of Solitude, I discovered I no longer loved the book. When I went back to Bell Jar, I discovered it meant more to me that it could have ever meant when I was a teenager. With Wuthering Heights though, I loved it just as much as I remembered loving it.

So much passion and desperation, and so much loss. I found myself hesitant to read it though, I kept stopping not wanting to go further because I knew that the situation would only get worse.

Now, almost fifteen years after the first reading, the story still resonates with me. Not because I've ever experienced anything anything like that, but rather because of my lack of passion in relationships. As a teenager I found myself longing for a feeling that intense, assuming it would be in my future. Now as an adult, I find myself facing that awareness that I'll never feel that. It's another sort of fear, my hope has become loss. What if you never find your soul mate? Do you settle for someone less or do you spend the rest of your life alone?

I've always joked that the book ruined me. Too often I find myself in boring, passionless situations which I then quickly end. I'm not happy in relationships because I'm waiting for my Heathcliff. Heathcliff, after all these years, remains as dark and intense as ever... always waiting for my Heathcliff...

my contribution for my book club:
http://prn-da-book-club.blogspot.com/2006/08/why-i-like-wuthering-heights.html

Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Magical Thinking, as used in the title of this book, is the idea that your internal thoughts have some sort of control on the outside world. In this case, it was Didion believing that she had to keep her husband’s shoes because he would need them when he came back, after dying at the dinner table of a heart attack.

This book, as most people know, is about the year after Didion’s husband’s death. It is very much about the difficulty of suddenly and unexpectedly losing someone who has always been there. Everything was fine one moment and the next it was over.

Didion does an excellent job of describing the suddenness and the extreme feeling of loss. This is very well written. When I started reading this, I had difficulty putting it down because as absurd as this sounds, I felt as if I was leaving her alone if I stopped reading. And her experience was so awful, I didn’t want to leave her alone. Yet that is what this book is about, being alone for the first time in 40 years.

She describes her marriage as different from the typical marriage. She and her husband were friends and co-workers and they talked to each other in ways that families do not seem to communicate. Maybe this is the trick to being married for so long – not adhering to the stupid ideas society present about marriage – wife stays home and keeps house, husband goes off to the office. Didion and her husband seemed to have a collaboration that worked very well for them. They traveled to places all over the world and they sat down at home and “planned.”
On top of the loss of her husband, the year after his death, she is also dealing with the illness of her daughter, who I believe died after this book was published. This is a sad book, but also, I feel like it is a valuable book. The book provides insight to the process of grief and mourning. It also presents a story of what must have been a happy marriage and loving family, and because of that, I enjoyed reading this.

Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

Read this when I was in junior high or early high school. Loved it them, but couldn’t truly appreciate it until now. Recently watched Sylvia and cried my freaking head off. Read this and did much the same. Knowing Plath wrote it as an adult, reflecting on her youth and college days makes it that much more heartbreaking. There is no place in the world for some of us, we’re broken and won’t fit anywhere. Those of us who shined at school fall flat on our fat faces when stepping into the real world. And watching the movie really opened my eyes, she thought she could be okay, she’d fall in love, have a family and everything would be fine, but it never is. It doesn’t matter how hard you try, it doesn’t get better. Let this be a lesson. Don’t expect someone else to fix you, don’t expect to be repaired. Learn to exist broken, walk on knowing you won’t fit in, make adjustments as best you can, just know that you’ll never feel normal. I’m going to take my most recent reading of this book as a lesson, a lesson to adjust, shape up, learn to fake it, and maybe I can learn from Plath’s shortened existence. I won’t fall for a man, I won’t bring children into this world. And I’ll try not to die, and I’ll try to channel my discontent into some thing of value. I’ll try. I feel so eerily close to Plath. Always have, but moreso now, if possible. I’ll live because she couldn’t. Weird, I know, I’m being weird, but the movie and the book were so profoundly affecting, I need to do something with this feeling. I can’t wallow in my misery, it doesn’t enable me to move forward, and I can’t keep living so very static…

finished reading Dec. 11, 2003

East of Eden – John Steinbeck

Good book. Didn’t change my world, but I’m glad I read it. Great characters. I’d been wanting to read it for a while, when discussing Da Vinci Code I mentioned it regarding the element of Biblical translations not being exact. And then, lo and behold, Oprah announced it as her first book in the return of her book club. I’m a sucker for the Oprah book and for her I break my rule about only reading British women writers… I must say, this was a very male oriented book, said a lot about male beliefs regarding the world. The women were pretty awful, I think I read somewhere that Steinbeck was angry with an ex-wife when he wrote it. Didn’t like the characters a whole lot. I found the “good” people to be overly “good” and a bit stupid and naïve regarding the world. People need to have a bit of common sense in order for me to have any respect for them.

finished reading Sept. 14, 2003

Reading Lolita in Tehran

Read about this book in O magazine. Had to read it. Broke my rule about buying new books, and it was well worth every penny. The value of literature. You have to love books to understand it. Ideas are universal and transcend geography and religion and backgrounds. Eye opening regarding the lives of women in Iran. Gives you a new appreciation for living in the U.S. We tend to be so ignorant regarding the lives of people in other cultures. Loved this book so much.

finished reading June 19, 2003