Tired and Overwhelmed

I haven't read anything for pleasure since probably last Thursday. I need to read for my sanity, and it's really starting to show now. So, what have I been doing if I haven't been reading? I took off work Friday to finish getting my son ready to go to college. I spent all day Friday shopping and packing. Then we got up at 4:30 AM on Saturday to drive the four hours to arrive during our assigned check-in time. The actual moving in was painless because they had volunteers to take all of his stuff up to his room. That was great! He's in a traditional dorm with just two beds, two desks, and two dressers on the fifth floor of a high rise building. His roommate seems fine although I know it will take some getting used to for my son. He's so used to having his own space. It still took most of the day to put his stuff away and make a couple runs to the local Wal-Mart to pick up things we didn't even think about him needing. We ate dinner together Saturday night and then had orientation on Sunday. The students went in groups to their own sessions while all the parents attended sessions together. Since I've done this all before, I really didn't learn anything much from the sessions so it was pretty boring. All I did was sit there and think motherly thoughts. How can he be this old? How is he going to like it? Will he be homesick? Will he be safe? The rational part of my brain knows he'll be fine, but it's always hard letting go. He's smart, strong, and has a good head on his shoulders. He's going to have a ball. Meanwhile, I'm going to miss him terribly just like I still miss his older brother. Sure, I see him some on weekends, but it's not the same.

On the positive side, I'm kind of looking forward to some me time and of course spending some time with the hubby. We had our children when we were pretty young, and now we're going to have our time together. I'm still trying to get over lack of sleep, but hopefully in the next couple of days, I'll be back to normal. For those of you without kids, I know this probably seems pretty silly, but I assure you it's extremely difficult to watch your kids grow up and leave home. It's rewarding and I'm happy for them, but just a little sad, too. They have been wonderful kids, and I'd love to do it all over again. O.K., the pity party is officially over, and I'll be back to reading and talking about books soon!

Sea Glass by Anita Shreve

This was a selection for my book club, which met on Tuesday night. I really enjoyed the book and was looking forward to a good discussion. However, I ended up not going. I actually got off of work early on Tuesday and decided to mow the yard. The weather has been absolutely beautiful around here lately, and I love being outdoors. So, I really don't mind mowing at all. But, that meant that I didn't have time to get to book club and see what everyone else thought about this book. So, I guess you're stuck with my random thoughts.

The only other book by Shreve I've read is The Pilot's Wife, and that was years ago. I don't remember too much about it, but I know I liked it at the time. So I came to this one with few expectations. Each chapter is devoted to one of the main characters, and I usually like this style when all of the characters are well-developed. In this case, it works. The story is set in the Northeast during the early 30s just after the Stock Market Crash. We meet Honora and Sexton as newlyweds. I liked being able to see how Honora and Sexton each perceived things. It shows a great deal how differently men and women think sometimes. They're both young and naive and don't really know what to expect from marriage. In fact, they don't really know each other all that well because they didn't date very long. The other characters are woven into the story as their lives intersect with Honora and Sexton. McDermott works in the mill and becomes involved in union organizing. Alphonse is a little boy from the town who also works in the mill. Vivian is a socialite that vacations on the coast each year. It's interesting to see how Shreve brings all these characters together.

I really enjoyed the setting, and I love this time period. Though I'm thankful I didn't live through it, the Great Depression is fodder for some really interesting books. The reader can tell that Shreve did her research into this time period. In letters from her mother, Honora gets advice on how to make the little they had go a long way. Her mother included recipes that took very few ingredients and told her how to make her own cleaning supplies, etc.

I enjoyed this book and would recommend it. It's a quick read but not fluffy. It deals with relationships, but it's not overly sentimental. The author seems to have the knack of hitting that middle ground, which provides a glimpse into what makes us all human and how we interact with each other especially during difficult times.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

I've read several reviews of this book, and they've all been favorable. I'm throwing my lot in with the rest. I absolutely loved this book. It's written as a series of letters and is set just after the end of World War II. The main character, Juliet Ashton, is a writer in search of her next book idea when she receives a letter from Dawsey, a resident of Guernsey (Channel Islands). He's in possession of a book that originally belonged to Juliet, which had her name and address in it. Dawsey writes to Juliet who lives in London to find out how he can get more books by and/or about this author -- Charles Lamb. Other Guernsey Island residents begin writing Juliet and she soon becomes obsessed with these people who lived through a Nazi occupation during the war. Thus begins a correspondence that leads to life-changing events for everyone involved.

I fell in love with these characters, especially Juliet, Dawsey, Sidney, and Isola. I laughed out loud more than once at the shenanigans of Isola. The book is full of wit and charm, but there are also passages that tear your heart out as you read about what it was like for the islanders during the Nazi occupation. In the end it's a look at life, love, and the humanity and inhumanity of people during the most difficult of times. Like the old saying about hardship either bringing out the best or the worst in people -- it's all here in this book. One of the things that I really liked is the way that the author made some of the German soldiers on the island human -- instead of portraying them all as monsters. Governments start wars, and it's the ordinary citizens as well as the soldiers that have to deal with the aftermath of those decisions.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society of the title is a book discussion group that began in an unexpected way and allowed the members to find solace in the pages of great books and in each other's company. This book was over way too fast. I wanted it to go on.

Another Reading Coincidence

I love it when things like this happen. I just finished reading and writing a post about The Sea by John Banville and discussing it through comments with some of you. Now, this morning I come across this book review in which Banville explains the difference between his writing as himself and his writing as Benjamin Black.

Benjamin Black, of course, is Irish novelist - and Man Booker Prize-winner - John Banville. The difference between the two, Banville explained to the LA Weekly in May, is that John Banville writes "first-person narratives of obsessed, half-demented men going on and on and on and on," while Benjamin Black's work is "completely action-driven, and it's dialogue-driven, and it's character-driven."

This describes perfectly the narrator in The Sea. Now, I really need to try one of his mysteries.

The Sea by John Banville

I didn't know what to expect with this book when I first picked it up. Some how I missed all the earlier buzz when it won the Booker Prize. That's not always a bad thing. I like to come to a book without hearing a great deal about it ahead of time. I can honestly say that I liked the book, and I understand why it won (although I don't remember which books it was up against). Banville is obviously a talented writer. Grief and memory are the two major themes of the book. Max Morden is the narrator who tells us the story of how he loses his wife to cancer. Following her death, he returns to a seaside cottage that he visited as a child to deal with his loss and the ghosts of something that happened long ago. The reader doesn't really know what it is that draws Max back to the beach until close to the end of the book. He introduces us to the Grace family, but at first I really couldn't figure out why he was telling us about them. It simply didn't seem relevant at the time. He just lost his wife for heaven's sake. Why should we care about the family he met as a boy on vacation? I won't say more about that because he does a nice job of answering all the questions for the reader as the book comes to a close.

I usually either like the narrator or hate the narrator. In this case, I seemed to have a fickle relationship with Max. At times, I felt extreme sympathy for him as he struggled to deal with his grief. However, at other times, I felt more like slapping him. I guess he was just being honest about his feelings. But, at times, I wanted to scream at him -- you're wife is the one dying of cancer! He seemed very needy and somewhat of a chauvinist. He even had some unkind things to say about his own daughter. I guess I may be being too hard on him. Everyone grieves differently, and none of us would hold up very well against criticism if the rest of the world could read our minds.

The book does give the reader a glimpse into what it would be like living with someone with a terminal illness and the aftermath of their death. A close family member went through this a couple years ago, and I could relate to some of the things that Max went through. Grief is a funny thing. It can make you feel as if you're losing your mind at times. Overall, I would recommend this book. I had a few quibbles, such as the narrator interrupting the story unnecessarily. However, this wasn't a big deal. Just know going in that this isn't a feel good book.

That's What I Was Trying To Say

In the Sunday New York Times Book Review, I ran across this review of Larry McMurtry's latest book Books: A Memoir. I reviewed this book a couple weeks ago after having won an arc from Stephanie at So Many Books. I was really excited about it because I love this sort of thing -- a book about books and the people who love them. What could be better, right? Well, I was less than enthusiastic about the book and disappointed that I couldn't recommend it. I always hate doing negative reviews, and I really don't do very many. The main reason for this is that I don't usually finish a book if I don't like it after about the first 50 pages or so. With a to-be-read mountain the size of Mt. Everest, I can't afford to waste my precious reading time on books I don't enjoy. Plus, I always feel less than qualified to critique a book. But, I don't pretend to be a literary critic. I just give my honest opinion about the books I read.

When I read this review by James Campbell, a literary critic in the New York Times, I felt completely vindicated. Hey, maybe I do know what I'm talking about after all. It seems we both had the same problems with the book. Of course, he was a little more eloquent in his review. But, that's O.K. Below are a couple of quotes from the review that pretty much sum up my feelings.

“Books: A Memoir” reads like notes waiting to be assembled into a book. Many of its 109 chapters run to under a page, and McMurtry has a fondness for single-sentence paragraphs, a technique that carries a built-in resistance to amplitude.

“Books: A Memoir” has an engagingly conversational style in places, but after a time it comes to seem like mumbling: “As I may have mentioned in an earlier book, ‘Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen,’ the only books I can remember buying at Joe Petty’s bookshop, on my first pass at least, were by the Frenchman Romain Rolland. Why him? Didn’t he win the Nobel Prize? If so, why?” Does he mean: if he did win it, why? Or: if he didn’t win it, why? Hard to say (he did win it).

There is a good book in “Books,” struggling to get past all the “I’m not sures” and “I don’t knows” and the truisms (“choice is a mystery”) that McMurtry’s editors should have saved him from.

Has anyone else read this one? I'd love to know what you think.

By the way, the image is of McMurtry's bookstore in Archer City, Texas, which was used by Campbell in his review.

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

This was the July selection for The Year of Reading Dangerously Challenge. I've always been curious about this book because it can be found without fail on the books most often banned or challenged list each and every year. Because I hate censorship in all of its forms, I try to read as many of these books as possible. So, I was glad to see it on this list. Censorship is a touchy subject for many people. You either feel really strongly one way or the other about the issue. Sometimes the complaints about books are just down right silly. However, there is usually some well-intentioned person or group behind most challenges. They are just misguided in their attempts. The problem with censorship is it takes away the individual's right to choose for him or herself what to read and/or view. In the case of young children, this can be a tricky thing. In my opinion, there are some things that very young children shouldn't be exposed to. However, it is not my job or anyone else's job to decide what that is for ALL children. Instead, parents or caregivers should judge what is or is not appropriate for their children. We all tend to be egocentric and assume that everyone else shares our same values, morals, and religious beliefs. But, that is simply not the case. What one parent finds highly offensive, another parent may not find offensive at all. Censorship is just a slippery slope plain and simple. The funny thing is that these attempts at banning material usually serve to heighten interest in the book or video. I really believe that this is the case with The Chocolate War. It remains in print and popular simply because of the controversy surrounding it -- not because it is great writing.

To be very honest, I expected more from this book. It is not very well-written. I know Cormier was going for a gritty tale similar to The Outsiders. But, for me it just didn't work as well. The language and story line seemed forced. As to what people may object to in the book, there is some violence and many references to masturbation. It almost seems like the author was going for shock value by purposely including these scenes instead of concentrating on writing a good story and developing well-rounded characters.

The basic story is that of Jerry Renault and his experiences at a Catholic high school. Let's face it, high school can be a pretty bad place for many kids. Jerry is bullied, beaten up and shunned because he refuses to go along with the crowd. You're always going to find this, but there was just too much of it here to be believable. Even the teachers were sadistic in this school. There were few other adults in the book and no women to speak of.

I know this book has been popular for years, and I really have to believe that it's because of all the hype, not because it's a good book. Maybe I would have felt differently if I had read this as a teen, but I don't think so. I just wasn't captured by the characters or the storyline. There are plenty of good YA novels out there, but I don't think this one belongs in the same category with A Separate Peace or Lord of the Flies. The quality shouldn't suffer because the book is written for teens. C. S. Lewis wrote a great piece entitled "On Three Ways of Writing for Children," which discusses this very subject. It was his opinion, and I agree wholeheartedly, that authors should not set out to write a story for any particular audience or age group. Instead, the author should have something to say and then use the most appropriate form available to express it. So, if that happens to be a children's story, the author writes a children's story. If not, he writes something else. But, in either case, the quality should be the same. If you've never read this essay, you should read it, especially if you're an aspiring writer.

I'm glad I finally read this one, but I don't see myself ever reading it again. It's not because I was offended by the violence or all the references to masturbation. It simply isn't a very good book.