Two or Three Things I Know for Sure
Dorothy Allison
94 pages
Copy: mine (used)
Read: April 13, 2015 (for school)
Spoilers: vague details, but nothing specific
I read this book this morning, in one sitting. It was homework for my Feminist Rhetoric Pedagogy class (wow, that sounds elitist, doesn't it), and I'm very pleased it was assigned. I'll admit I've struggled with this class a bit. I'm a feminist in practice, but not so much in theory (more on that soon--I'm planning to write about my feminism in the near future). This class has, obviously, been heavy on feminist theory (and feminist rhetorical theory...). At any rate, I appreciate Allison's book, and I'm glad that I had this chance to read it.
This slim volume is not for the faint of heart. Allison details her traumas, her sex life, and her mental health, all of which is heart-wrenching. Understand that when you read this book you will encounter rape, sex, and rage. I'd be careful about recommending (or assigning) this book--this is not an easy book to read.
That being said, Allison does a glorious job. The book is expertly crafted. It loops in circles--or perhaps squiggles. We don't quite get the same scenes over and over; rather we move through time, looping between different eras in Allison's life. These loops always make sense and it was only at the very beginning, when I was still meeting people, that I was at all confused.
I think my only complaint about the book is its brevity. I finished it still wanting more. That being said, I would never want to force Allison to dwell on her life events for longer than she wants. I just wish she had taken the opportunity to talk about her mom and her aunts more--and her sisters. The inclusion of pictures definitely helps, but overall I put down the book with very little sense of the other women in Allison's life. I might understand her better, but I'm not sure I know anything substantial about the other women in her life.
I am not entirely sure who I would recommend this book too. It is intense and it is painful. It is also shockingly well-written. Certainly anyone interested in Allison ought to read it. Perhaps people who have suffered from trauma (especially sexual trauma) might find Allison's example helpful. She struggled with her experiences, which might be of help to anyone struggling with their own experiences. Honestly, I'd take this book on a case-by-case basis. I would talk to the person, explain what the book is about, and let them decide.
Showing posts with label Books on Sisters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Books on Sisters. Show all posts
13 April 2015
13 November 2012
Is Marriage Really Worth It?: "Middlemarch"
Book: Middlemarch
Author: George Eliot (or Mary Anne Evans, if you prefer)
Pages: 802, including endnotes
Copy: a Barns and Noble Classics I bought years ago (it's pretty ugly and it has tons of typos--find a better copy to read)
Read: I read this for book group, so I started it the middle of October and finished it November 11th
Spoilers: exceedingly minor ones--don't worry, I don't give away specifics
This book came with such high praise, I should have known I wouldn't love it. Almost without fail, whenever a book comes with recommendations, I dislike it. That being said, I didn't hate this book. I can see myself reading this book again in 20 or 30 years and having it make a huge impact on me. That's not to say that this book is meant for 40 or 50 year-olds. I think it has a lot to say to young people, especially young people who are in a relationship for the wrong reasons.
One of the reasons I didn't overwhelming enjoy this book is because I just ended a relationship I was in for the wrong reasons. This meant I read most of the book cringing and yelling at the various characters who marry exactly the wrong person for exactly the wrong reasons. That being said, I think this book has one of the most important quotes any young person could read:
Now to the plot. This is a book about marriage. Unlike Jane Austen, who traces the courtship of her characters but ends the novel at the marriage, George Eliot explores the actual marriage. Courtship is basically skipped, but the marriage part is meticulously detailed. This is both tedious and endlessly fascinating. There are two marriages that are explored in great detail, and one was a great deal more interesting to me than the other, but I think the two different marriages need to be contrasted against one another. No matter how annoying I find Dr. Lydgate and his foul wife, his marriage contrasts sharply with Dorothea's marriage to Mr. Casaubon. If one or the other were missing, the novel would fall apart.
Eliot does have a few side issues she wants to explore, though, which means that several chunks of this novel discuss marriage only indirectly. One of these side issues is medicine in the 1820s and 1830s, a topic that is about as exciting as it sounds. A great deal of medical reform began around this time, but even Eliot can't make it that interesting. Instead, it boils down to petty bickering between the old guard and modern interlopers. Perhaps to those interested in medical history these sections will be funny or more interesting than the marriages, but to me they distracted from the main plot and slowed the novel down. There is also a blackmail plot, which is marginally more interesting than the medical history. However, the bad past doesn't seem that bad and the victim suffers what I thought was an unrealistic punishment. However, I think my reaction may be a modern one; it certainly seems plausible that people of the 1800s would have been horrified. Finally, there is the issue of the Reform Act, a historical event that seems fascinating but Eliot treats the subject unevenly. In several sections, the Act comes to center stage, but Eliot never really looks at the subject in depth. Perhaps the original audience of the novel would have known all the circumstances surrounding the Act, but I think Eliot could have fleshed out the debate more and made it more central. It certainly seems more interesting than the medical subplot.
I noticed a few interesting things about this novel. Eliot seems to have some sort of economic or capitalist critique going on, but it's hard to tease out. It's hard to say if she's actually critiquing industrialism and the other trappings of capitalism, or just noticing their effect on the lives of people. I think it would take a great deal of research to figure out just what she's saying (research that I don't want to engage in, primarily because I find this novel just tedious enough that actually spending that sort of time with it would probably make me want to stop reading altogether). Also interesting is the way Eliot uses babies as a way to characterize marriage. This is so unrealistic that it's endlessly fascinating. One marriage is childless, but the rest of the marriages result in at least two children. Somehow Eliot uses children to reflect on the strength of a marriage, while also using children to reflect on the parents. I don't want to give too much away, but if you read this book, pay attention to the babies. They seem loaded with symbolic importance, the sort of symbolic importance that is absolutely impossible in real life. In an otherwise realistic novel, this symbol is striking.
Eliot's real power lays in her asides and in the voice she gives her narrator. She has some of the finest insults in 19th century literature and some of the strongest observations in literature. The narrator of Middlemarch comes and goes unpredictably, but whenever the narrator is present, you're privy to some of the funniest observations (or drolly accurate summaries) I've ever read. That being said, this book is going to appeal to very specific people. People who like classics could attempt this book, but I'd recommend reading it in a group. Otherwise you might not have the strength to force yourself through it. Because this novel looks particularly at marriage, I'd recommend it to classics readers who are marriage or are in a committed relationship (not because I want to cause problems, but because I think it's always good to think about your relationships and what you're sacrificing). This is also a classic in feminist literature (if it isn't, it should be). Eliot looks directly at the limited choices women have (marry or don't marry, and even if you do marry your choices are incredibly limited) and how those limited choices destroy women. Finally, to any young people who feel ambitious, I'd suggest you read this book. Suffer through some of the dull parts and you'll learn all you need to know about adult relationships--their pitfalls and their joys.
--Benvolia
Author: George Eliot (or Mary Anne Evans, if you prefer)
Pages: 802, including endnotes
Copy: a Barns and Noble Classics I bought years ago (it's pretty ugly and it has tons of typos--find a better copy to read)
Read: I read this for book group, so I started it the middle of October and finished it November 11th
Spoilers: exceedingly minor ones--don't worry, I don't give away specifics
This book came with such high praise, I should have known I wouldn't love it. Almost without fail, whenever a book comes with recommendations, I dislike it. That being said, I didn't hate this book. I can see myself reading this book again in 20 or 30 years and having it make a huge impact on me. That's not to say that this book is meant for 40 or 50 year-olds. I think it has a lot to say to young people, especially young people who are in a relationship for the wrong reasons.
One of the reasons I didn't overwhelming enjoy this book is because I just ended a relationship I was in for the wrong reasons. This meant I read most of the book cringing and yelling at the various characters who marry exactly the wrong person for exactly the wrong reasons. That being said, I think this book has one of the most important quotes any young person could read:
She was not in the least teaching Mr. Casaubon to ask if he were good enough for her, but merely asking herself anxiously how she could be good enough for Mr. Casaubon. (Chapter V)That is the sort of advice everyone should get quite early in their lives, especially women. I think women spend much of their lives changing themselves to fit whatever they think their men want, and never pause to wonder why their men aren't trying to do the same. That's why I think this quote is so important to many young person, not just women. I don't think many men realize just how much women feel the pressure to change. (I'm sorry to hold up society's emphasis on heterosexual relationships--if anyone wants to chime in about how this dynamic works in relationships I haven't experienced, please do. I'd love to hear if it's different, the same, more complex, less complex...however it works.)
Now to the plot. This is a book about marriage. Unlike Jane Austen, who traces the courtship of her characters but ends the novel at the marriage, George Eliot explores the actual marriage. Courtship is basically skipped, but the marriage part is meticulously detailed. This is both tedious and endlessly fascinating. There are two marriages that are explored in great detail, and one was a great deal more interesting to me than the other, but I think the two different marriages need to be contrasted against one another. No matter how annoying I find Dr. Lydgate and his foul wife, his marriage contrasts sharply with Dorothea's marriage to Mr. Casaubon. If one or the other were missing, the novel would fall apart.
Eliot does have a few side issues she wants to explore, though, which means that several chunks of this novel discuss marriage only indirectly. One of these side issues is medicine in the 1820s and 1830s, a topic that is about as exciting as it sounds. A great deal of medical reform began around this time, but even Eliot can't make it that interesting. Instead, it boils down to petty bickering between the old guard and modern interlopers. Perhaps to those interested in medical history these sections will be funny or more interesting than the marriages, but to me they distracted from the main plot and slowed the novel down. There is also a blackmail plot, which is marginally more interesting than the medical history. However, the bad past doesn't seem that bad and the victim suffers what I thought was an unrealistic punishment. However, I think my reaction may be a modern one; it certainly seems plausible that people of the 1800s would have been horrified. Finally, there is the issue of the Reform Act, a historical event that seems fascinating but Eliot treats the subject unevenly. In several sections, the Act comes to center stage, but Eliot never really looks at the subject in depth. Perhaps the original audience of the novel would have known all the circumstances surrounding the Act, but I think Eliot could have fleshed out the debate more and made it more central. It certainly seems more interesting than the medical subplot.
I noticed a few interesting things about this novel. Eliot seems to have some sort of economic or capitalist critique going on, but it's hard to tease out. It's hard to say if she's actually critiquing industrialism and the other trappings of capitalism, or just noticing their effect on the lives of people. I think it would take a great deal of research to figure out just what she's saying (research that I don't want to engage in, primarily because I find this novel just tedious enough that actually spending that sort of time with it would probably make me want to stop reading altogether). Also interesting is the way Eliot uses babies as a way to characterize marriage. This is so unrealistic that it's endlessly fascinating. One marriage is childless, but the rest of the marriages result in at least two children. Somehow Eliot uses children to reflect on the strength of a marriage, while also using children to reflect on the parents. I don't want to give too much away, but if you read this book, pay attention to the babies. They seem loaded with symbolic importance, the sort of symbolic importance that is absolutely impossible in real life. In an otherwise realistic novel, this symbol is striking.
Eliot's real power lays in her asides and in the voice she gives her narrator. She has some of the finest insults in 19th century literature and some of the strongest observations in literature. The narrator of Middlemarch comes and goes unpredictably, but whenever the narrator is present, you're privy to some of the funniest observations (or drolly accurate summaries) I've ever read. That being said, this book is going to appeal to very specific people. People who like classics could attempt this book, but I'd recommend reading it in a group. Otherwise you might not have the strength to force yourself through it. Because this novel looks particularly at marriage, I'd recommend it to classics readers who are marriage or are in a committed relationship (not because I want to cause problems, but because I think it's always good to think about your relationships and what you're sacrificing). This is also a classic in feminist literature (if it isn't, it should be). Eliot looks directly at the limited choices women have (marry or don't marry, and even if you do marry your choices are incredibly limited) and how those limited choices destroy women. Finally, to any young people who feel ambitious, I'd suggest you read this book. Suffer through some of the dull parts and you'll learn all you need to know about adult relationships--their pitfalls and their joys.
--Benvolia
15 October 2012
Flying Home: Katherine Catmull’s “Summer and Bird”
Book: Summer and Bird
Author: Katherine Catmull
Pages: 344
Copy: advanced reader
Read: finished August 27
Spoilers: there isn’t a traditional happy ending: biggest
spoiler
Katherine Catmull’s book is wonderful, from its fairy tale
atmosphere to its snappy authorial asides.
While Summer and Bird is aimed
at readers 10 and up, I think almost anyone could read this book happily (which
means grown-ups can buy a hardcover that isn’t overpriced: yay!). The sisters are realistic and complex, the book
weaves between points of view delightfully, and the writing is beautiful.
I love this book enough that it is difficult to know where
to begin. I think one of the finest
points about this book is its use of fairy tales and mythology. Catmull borrows from multiple stories (I
think—this may be a more straight-forward retelling of a story I just haven’t
read—correct me if you know better), but most of all she captures the
atmosphere. It’s impossible to describe the
proper fairy tale atmosphere exactly, but Catmull nails it. She obviously knows her stuff.
Another important facet of this book is its accurate
depiction of sisters. Summer and Bird
are not simple characters and their relationship is as complex as any real
relationship. There is jealousy, but
there’s also real love and tenderness.
The two girls will always have to struggle to remain on good terms, but
it’s obvious they will always try because they love each other.
The more I think about this book, the better it seems. The ending is not the “Happily ever after” of
Disney movies, but the more difficult salvaging of the pieces. This book displays a deeply disrupted family that
will never completely heal, and that impossibility makes the book all the
better. I think in some ways this book
may help any child with a spilt family, if only because Catmull refuses to
sugarcoat the difficulties of accepting a parent that has (hopefully inadvertently)
caused pain.
Catmull’s use of birds is astounding. She has an eye for details, carefully
differentiating all the different types of birds and their different
habits. (Perhaps this book is a good way
to encourage future birders!) While few
of the birds inhabit their real habitat, that Catmull even bothers to describe
such diversity is refreshing. (Some kind
of environmental reading of this book would be very interesting to read, if
incredibly difficult to undertake.)
This book is fantastic.
Go read it, immediately, while I try to come up with a review that is
more articulate. Maybe my second reading
will let me describe it in a less dazed fashion.
--Benvolia
21 June 2011
Books for Summer: "Practical Magic"
Title: Practical Magic
Author: Alice Hoffman
244 pages (Hardcover)
Copy: Keene Public Library (Although, I have a copy somewhere in my parents' house.)
Read on: 15 June 2011 (I think I first read it in May or June of 2008, sitting out on the lawn, eating countless pastrami sandwiches. My aunt provided both the book and the pastrami and owned the lawn. It was the right kind of New England summer for it, too, just as it is through most of the book.)
Spoilers: 4ish
Every June, somewhere around solstice, I get the urge to read Practical Magic. Alice Hoffman has a very distinctive voice, one that feels very similar to mine. (No, this is not wholly hubris, people have remarked on the similarity, especially in regards to her work Ice Queen) It is a voice that combines the simplicity of a fairy tale with something much more complex, adult, and ultimately realistic. Practical Magic showcases this voice in the story of the Owens sisters, who encounter almost every kind of love.
I'm usually a little bitter about books about sisters. Sisterhood is much more complicated than books make it seem, especially the books that feature "friends so close they are like sisters". (I have a lot of very dear friends, but I would never wish on them the extremely mixed blessing of being my sister.) Equally as aggravating and inaccurate are the books that take the other direction and feature books about sisters that destroy each others' lives (see, for example, the first three parts of In Her Shoes, by Jennifer Weiner, now a major motion picture! as of five years ago).
But Hoffman maintains a lovely balance and each set of sisters in the novel is believable as sisters. Three generations of Owens sisters, all of then with varying degrees of magical powers, all learn from themselves and from their family how to love. They learn to love each other as sisters, as nieces, as daughters, and mothers, and aunts. With the exception of the elder aunts, who are content in remembering their lost loves, they learn to love the men who wander precipitously into their lives. Almost missing from the novel is fatherly love. Sally and Gillian--the main set of Owens sisters--are orphans. Sally's husband dies early in the novel and in their relationship, leaving the novel without a true father figure.
Despite this minor flaw, this remains one of my favorite summer reads. I'd recommend it for anyone with sisters. Or anyone in a long term relationship. Or anyone between long term relationships. It is a novel that inspires love, second chances. The last phrase of the novel says it all: "Fall in love as often as possible". Fall in love with the book, if not anything else.
-Mercutia
Author: Alice Hoffman
244 pages (Hardcover)
Copy: Keene Public Library (Although, I have a copy somewhere in my parents' house.)
Read on: 15 June 2011 (I think I first read it in May or June of 2008, sitting out on the lawn, eating countless pastrami sandwiches. My aunt provided both the book and the pastrami and owned the lawn. It was the right kind of New England summer for it, too, just as it is through most of the book.)
Spoilers: 4ish
Every June, somewhere around solstice, I get the urge to read Practical Magic. Alice Hoffman has a very distinctive voice, one that feels very similar to mine. (No, this is not wholly hubris, people have remarked on the similarity, especially in regards to her work Ice Queen) It is a voice that combines the simplicity of a fairy tale with something much more complex, adult, and ultimately realistic. Practical Magic showcases this voice in the story of the Owens sisters, who encounter almost every kind of love.
I'm usually a little bitter about books about sisters. Sisterhood is much more complicated than books make it seem, especially the books that feature "friends so close they are like sisters". (I have a lot of very dear friends, but I would never wish on them the extremely mixed blessing of being my sister.) Equally as aggravating and inaccurate are the books that take the other direction and feature books about sisters that destroy each others' lives (see, for example, the first three parts of In Her Shoes, by Jennifer Weiner, now a major motion picture! as of five years ago).
But Hoffman maintains a lovely balance and each set of sisters in the novel is believable as sisters. Three generations of Owens sisters, all of then with varying degrees of magical powers, all learn from themselves and from their family how to love. They learn to love each other as sisters, as nieces, as daughters, and mothers, and aunts. With the exception of the elder aunts, who are content in remembering their lost loves, they learn to love the men who wander precipitously into their lives. Almost missing from the novel is fatherly love. Sally and Gillian--the main set of Owens sisters--are orphans. Sally's husband dies early in the novel and in their relationship, leaving the novel without a true father figure.
Despite this minor flaw, this remains one of my favorite summer reads. I'd recommend it for anyone with sisters. Or anyone in a long term relationship. Or anyone between long term relationships. It is a novel that inspires love, second chances. The last phrase of the novel says it all: "Fall in love as often as possible". Fall in love with the book, if not anything else.
-Mercutia
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