Category Archives: Books

Currently Reading

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This year so far has been a time for service and reflection, but I have also been reading. I was lucky enough to have landed in the bedroom that has bookshelves. The shelves hold a random assortment of Messiah College yearbooks, Encyclopedias, Reader’s Digest Condensed Books, and (most wonderfully in my estimation) a 1901 Collector’s Edition of all of Shakespeare’s plays. The book that I’m reviewing today did not come from these books or the scant number of books I brought, but from a local bookstore, Midtown Scholar.

I had gone there to write. And write I did. But while I was writing (and peering at all the characters in the store), one particular book kept staring me down. The title, What the Night Tells the Day, distracted me so much that I had to get it. I wanted to know what indeed the night tells the day. And how does it tell it? Does it whisper? Does it scream?

The cover describes it as a novel, but the introduction says that it is a memoir. An endorsement on the back calls it an autobiography (which makes me inwardly cringe). Whether you call it by the outdated term “autobiography” or more truthful “memoir,” it is clear it is not a novel.

It is the story of the author, Hector Bianciotti, his childhood in Argentina and his migration to France. He relates his Italian immigrant parent’s difficulty of fitting into Argentina society, his strained relationship with his father, and his time in a monastery, all the while discovering his sexuality and his love for literature.

All memoirs are human, but I find that this one was especially human because it reveals both the good and the slightly disturbing qualities of the author. It also relays memories like we remember them: in short little bits when we are young and then clearer, more tangible moments when we are older. Since our childhood memories tend not to line up in linear order, the beginning of the memoir is a little tangled. And as Bianciotti himself says “Like some children, certain memories like to gather together their most insignificant toys.”

Like all memoirs (and most novels), What the Night Tells the Day does not really end. It has an ending, most certainly, but authors cannot write their own deaths. It does somewhat answer some of my previous questions about the book, but the answers are open for interpretation. But it tells Bianciotti’s version of the truth and that is the most memorable and the most important.

 

 

Recently Read

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A few weeks ago,  I was lent a book that I perhaps wouldn’t have picked up at the bookstore because it isn’t fiction. However, I found that Richard Hooper’s Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, & Lao Tzu: The Parallel Sayings is quite enjoyable and enlightening.

Like many books, it opens with a praise/review section. Often, these praises are generic (the worst is “the next Lord of the Rings, when the book is nothing like the trilogy) and seems like the reviewer did not bother to read the book). Not so with these praises, which are genuine and true compliments. One such review says that it is “bound to nourish those who are soul-weary of combativeness in the name of religion.”

I am one who is weary of religious disputes and those hiding behind religion while attacking each other and found that the book replenished me and continues to do so every time I look through it. You see, Hooper does not focus on how each leader and how each religion/philosophy differs from each other, but how they are similar, reminding me that there can be unity among so much discord.

Hopper begins with explaining the history of each figure, the Buddha and Jesus in particular. Although I have a Christian upbringing and I have a decent knowledge of Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha), I learned quite a lot about both. The introduction was affirming to me as it put in words what I have been feeling for a long time: that Christianity has become a religion about Jesus and his teachings instead of being of Jesus and his teachings.

After the introduction, the book is broken into chapters on topics such as the self, wisdom and knowledge, love and compassion, and death and immortality. Hooper discusses each topic briefly before leaving the reader with quotations from the 4 philosophers that are remarkably similar. For instance, in the section about compassion, a quote from Jesus says “Blessed are the merciful, for theywill achieve mercy” and one from Lao Tzu says, “Compassion and mercy bring victory. Heaven belongs to the merciful.”

Hooper’s words may be challenging to some beliefs and reaffirming to others, but we need to challenge our beliefs in order to find out what they are and who we truly are.

 

Detecting Humanity

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This last semester, I took a Detective Fiction class in which we did not read Sherlock Holmes, but read and discussed Edgar Allan Poe, Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, and Chester Himes, all of whom present detectives and criminals in varying ways and in varying lights.

Before I took this class, I was familiar with police procedural shows like Rizzoli & Isles, Castle, Numb3rs, and more, but for some reason, crime fiction never seemed to stick with me. As it turns out, all I needed was a required list of the right authors.

In our discussions, we often talked about the power of observation, especially when it came to the detectives. In some  novels we read, it was quite difficult to ascertain who was the observer. Was it the detective or the criminal? Neither? And did observing sometimes make someone insane and/or a criminal?

One of my creative writing professors in college constantly urged us to observe everything. People watch. Nature watch. Watch everything.

In some ways, I already do that. I am constantly people watching, trying to get into their heads and imagining their lives. But at the same time, I think that I could improve my observation skills. I think I could become a detective (not a real one with a badge or a PI license; rest assured, I am not changing my career path), someone who detects all aspects of humanity in every person and someone who can detect hope and goodness in all things.

Currently Reading

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It is Spring Break a.k.a. reading for fun time (as well as supposedly getting ahead on homework). The book that I have been recently devouring is A Book of Silence by Sara Maitland. It is listed under philosophy/spirituality, but I was drawn towards it simply because it is creative nonfiction.

As the title suggests, Maitland discusses silence. She brings the reader through her experience of silence in first the Isle of Skye and then the Scottish hills and the Sinai desert. Her book is exactly the kind of creative nonfiction that I want to write: one that relates personal experience while simultaneously drawing from history, literature, and philosophy.

Her discovery of silence, especially when she is on Skye, is beautifully relayed and all encompassing. That is, she described the good as well as bad (in fact, there is a whole chapter entitled “The Dark Side”). In all honesty, I felt a bit jealous of her. I have become extremely aware of all the chatter and noise around me, so much so that I’ve become irrationally irritated at those who are contributing to the noise.

As she pointed out, there is no such thing as complete silence. I am not currently listening to music and my roommate in the apartment is keeping to herself right now, but even so, I can hear the fridge, the tapping of my fingers on the keyboard, and every once in a while my feet or my bones somewhere else in my body make a noise as I fidget. It’s funny that I call that silence.

I know full well that since I am a student and I have definite plans for a least my near future, I cannot suddenly become a hermit. Instead, I can make room for silence. I have already made two moves toward doing so: I uninstalled Facebook on my phone and I removed Pandora. And when I drive to church for the Maundy Thursday service this evening, the radio will not be turned on. It will not be the kind of silence that will drive me crazy (which has happened), but it will be the silence that keeps me whole and hopefully sane.

Poetry Perusing

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A while ago, I was given an anthology of poetry entitled “I Feel a Little Jumpy Around You,” edited by Naomi Shihab Nye and Paul B. Janeczko. I remember flipping through it briefly and then placing it on my shelf, where it sat for quite a few years (sorry to whoever gave it to me). Because of the cover, which has a drawing of two newlyweds dancing off a tiered cake, I thought it was a volume of love poetry… and I wasn’t particularly interested in reading love poetry at that moment in my life.

Picking it up today, I was pleasantly surprised by the little bit that I have managed to consume. “A Little Jumpy” is an intriguing volume in which the editors  grouped poems into pairs to illustrate the similar as well as dissimilar ways that men and woman view the same topics.  The title seems to suggest that the topic is mostly romantic love, but that is not the case. The first section, “Heads on Fire” contains poems about family relationships. The second, “Foreign Exchange,” is about the beginnings of adolescence and figuring our romantic relationships. The third, “The Real Names of Everything” seems to be poems discussing the everyday life of adults who have found more settled, solid lives. And lastly, “Separate Longings”is about, well, longings.

In other words, the anthology is about life.

Poetry is difficult. Quite a few people don’t like it. Quite a few people don’t understand it. I stand in an in between place. I don’t hate it… but it is certainly not my favorite. In middle school, I wrote quite a lot of poetry. And then I realized that prose fits me better.

Flash forward to college and adulthood, where I’m starting to encounter events and issues that I  have not dealt with before. I am still attached to prose, but I have found myself writing poetry in my journal or sometimes in class. These poems are different than the ones from my past. Not only are they usually better (in my estimation), but they are written about my hardest issues. Therefore, they are extremely private. I have no trouble sharing most of my prose, but no one has seen any of these intensely personal poems.

I imagine that the poems included in the anthology are as personal for the author’s as mine are for me. It is amazing that they were able to share them with the public. Maybe I’ll be able to do that one day.

I’ll end with sharing one of my favorite poems of the collection:

“Travelling Together” by W.S. Merwin

If we are separated I will

try to wait for you

on your side of things

 

your side of the wall and the water

and of the light moving at its own speed

even on leaves that we have seen

I will wait on one side

 

while a side is there.

Currently Reading

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Happy New Year!

This year for Christmas, I asked for Cosmos by Carl Sagan. My mom was taken aback by this request, but she got it for me anyway. I do not particularly like reading nonfiction (different than creative nonfiction) and I’m not usually invested in science related subjects. I had two reasons for this request. 1. My astronomy professor quoted from it at the end of the last class and I liked the quote and the quote’s diction. 2. I’m determined to read books from every genre, especially the ones that I typically avoid (I even signed up for a detective fiction class for this reason).

My progress in the book has been rather slow due to me reading other books and listening to three others simultaneously, but I have enjoyed. I have enjoyed it more than I thought I would, actually. For those with a heavier science background than me, some of Sagan’s explanations may seem a little dumbed down. However, they are perfect for me, the English major. Where I am in the book now, he is mostly just explaining the origins of the concept of Martians (which is thoroughly interesting and engaging), but he every once in a while, with the grace and grasp of language I don’t often associate with physicists, makes his topic relatable and accessible to all.

A few passages that I particularly liked:

“What does seventy million years mean to beings who live only one-millionth as long? We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.”

“I am a collection of water, calcium and organic molecules called Carl Sagan. You are a collection of almost identical molecules with a different collective label. But is that all? Is there nothing in here but molecules? Some people find this idea somehow demeaning to human dignity. For myself, I find it elevating that our universe permits the evolution of molecular machines as intricate and subtle as we.”

“An extraterrestrial visitor, looking at the differences among human beings and their societies, would find those differences trivial compared to the similarities.”

What is astounding about this work is that Sagan devotes much of the pages to helping the reader learn about the cosmos and places in the universe that we are extremely lucky to know about, but particularly emphasizes the importance of other human beings and the earth that we live on. He shows that science is not simply about cold facts, but about warmth and solidarity.

 

 

 

Recently Read

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The minute that I stepped into the dining room on my first day of Thanksgiving break, my eye fell on a paperback with a yellow cover. “Who’s reading this?” I asked my dad. He replied that, at the moment, no one was. And with that information, I snatched up the book and proceeded to gobble up the first few pages. I, unfortunately, had to eat and then sleep, but as soon as I could the next day, I continued with my latest adventure… and I finished it that same day.

This book that caught my attention so immediately was Still Alice by Lisa Genova. Some may recognize this title from the recent film adaptation starring Julianne Moore. I have not seen the movie, but I have been long curious about both the novel and the movie, especially since the main character has Alzheimer’s, a disease that I have watched my grandmother go through for many years.

The difference about the protagonist, Alice, is that she has Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease (sometimes referred to as EOAD in the novel). The book begins right before her fiftieth birthday when she starts noticing strange memory lapses. At first, she thinks that it is menopause because of her age, but after visiting a neurologist, she discovers the unexpected and beyond life-changing diagnosis. The rest of the novel spans the next two years during which she becomes more and more lost to dementia.

When I first picked it up, I didn’t have high hopes for the quality of the writing because I expected it to be a typical illness story, like ones that I have read about cancer. But I was very wrong. My breath was almost taken away by the beauty and simplicity of the first scene in which Alice’s husband is looking for something and she notices how all the clocks in the house do not tell the right time. Not only is it written well, but it is magnificent symbolism and foreshadowing.

I do not know how well Genova portrays Early Onset Alzheimer’s, but I do know how familiar the symptoms that are described sound like from watching my grandmother, especially the wandering, the asking to go home, and the eventual forgetting of who her loved ones are.

Please read this book. It will ruin you (in a good way, I promise).

Recently Read: Books that Wrecked Me

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My fiction professor asked us last week if we have read any books that wrecked us. Everybody raised their hands. The first two books that came to mind were The Book Thief and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. Now I can add two others to those books: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr and The Book of Secrets by Elizabeth Joy Arnold.

Of course, I don’t mean that they completely destroyed me. What I, and my professor, mean is that I felt sad, moved, and most of all, changed in some little way.

All the Light We Cannot See follows Marie-Laure, a French blind girl, and Werner, a German orphan, before and after WWII. It often seems like there are too many WWII/Holocaust books. And to be honest, when I first picked it up, I thought it was going to be yet another casting of that horrible time period.

But it isn’t. It isn’t a typical war book because it actually follows the life of one who became a Nazi because he didn’t have much choice and also because it speaks at length about what happened afterwards to each character and how the war affected them.

It wrecked me because: Its brutal honesty. Its realism. Its simple and beautiful language. And because it showed how much human beings impact each other for better and worse.

The Book of Secrets begins when Chloe Sinclair, after twenty years of marriage, comes home to find that her husband, Nate, is gone. As Chloe tries to figure out what has happened and what is troubling her husband, she revisits her memories of meeting and growing up with her husband and his family.

Throughout the book, Arnold alludes to a plethora of books in telling how Chloe and the Sinclairs grew up and coped with the difficulties of life and each section is named after a book, not necessarily because that particular book is featured in that section, but because of themes and ideas that they share with each section.

It is difficult to say what wrecked me without giving up any specific plot details. It wasn’t the language because while it flowed and was beautiful, it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Instead, it was the realistic, albeit tragic events that were relayed. It was the feeling that everything could have happened in reality.

Recently Read

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Last Christmas I asked for memoirs and I got a plethora of them from my brother. My favorite one was The Girl Got Up by Rachel M. Strauss, but I’m not writing about it today. Instead, I am writing about A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband “Master” by Rachel Held Evans.

I heard about this memoir a couple years before on NPR. Then, I misinterpreted her intentions and thought of her as a woman who was playing into outdated notions of the subservient and house-keeping woman. When my brother gave it to me, I sadly still held that position and so refused to read it at the same time as I devoured the others.

Last weekend however, I needed something to read on a plane trip and I picked it up.

To my surprise, I fell in love with it during the introduction. Her language is extremely witty and near perfect. Her experience of living a year of trying to live like a biblical woman would have is well executed and researched heavily. Ethos and logos down. Now for pathos: her experiment, or journey if you will, and her struggles on that journey are surprisingly relatable and are at some times profound.

I don’t feel myself changing with every book, but I did with this one. I didn’t change dramatically, but I now have a different view of many of the women of the bible and I have an even greater appreciation for the different cultures she encounters.

I will not say much about this amazing, spectacular, and beautiful book because it deserves to be read instead of written about.

I will share my favorite quote from the end of the book after she attended a Quaker meeting: “In silence, I had found a reservoir of strength that, If I could just learn to draw from it, could make my words weightier. In silence, it seemed, I had finally found my voice.”

I hope that like her, I will find my voice. I hope that like her, I will undergo a project/experience that will change my life as thoroughly as her journey did for her.

Recently Read

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I love public libraries. I love the thrill perusing the shelves gives me. I have a plethora of childhood memories of me returning a fair pile of books and then walking out a few minutes later with another pile of books. Some of them were books I’ve already read before, but at least one of them was new. Now that I’m a college student, I’m not able to go to the library as much as I when I was a kid. But this summer, I am taking liberty of my library card, which is handily dangling on my key ring.

Libraries have a variety of books available, which means that they have both good and bad literature. Last week, I had the unfortunate pleasure of picking up and starting The Living Room by Robert Whitlow. While the novel has an interesting premise of a novelist whose dreams starts becoming reality, it is not written well in the slightest. I made it through 100 pages before finally giving up (and I don’t typically give up on books). A critic’s praise on the back cover says that Whitlow has “deft sleight of hand, wonderfully characterization, and carefully layered plots.” It seems like the author of this statement didn’t actually read the book because the characters are weak and one-dimensional, the language is often cliche and exaggerated. Whitlow doesn’t have deft sleight of hand in anything. The book has a Christian message, which I’m all for, except that it is constantly shoved at the reader, so much that its holding back the plot from continuing on.

For a contrast, I also read a terrific book at the same time that I could finish: A Thread of Sky by Deanna Fei. In her novel, she tells of three generations  of women who take a tour of  China. At the center of the novel is Irene, who emigrated from China when she was young and whose husband has just died, and her three daughters who all have varying emotions toward their mother as well as secrets of their own. Joining them are Irene’s sister and mother. Through the tour, they attempt somewhat unwillingly to reconnect with each other.

The novel is separated into chapters told in each woman’s perspective. Sometimes when an author attempts this narrative of style, they have a difficult time making every voice sound different. Fei does not seem to have this struggle, though sometimes the voices did sound slightly similar at times, if only because the characters are family and share some characteristics, whether they like it or not. What I loved most about the novel was its realism. Its dialogue was realistic and the events which happened also quite realistic. Fei did not try to make every thing seem beautiful and orderly, but she somehow told her story in a lyrical and striking fashion.

An author (it might have been Mark Twain) once wrote that to be a writer, one needs to read both awful and wonderful fiction (I am paraphrasing). I wholeheartedly agree with that statement. And while I don’t want to read bad literature, I will continue to take healthy doses (small doses, hopefully) of it because it could help me improve.