Jonah’s Gourd Vine, by Zora Neale Hurston

Posted on February 1, 2010 by Thistle

jonahEvery believer in Christ is considered His friend, and every sin we commit is a wound to Jesus.

A few years ago, I read Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. I loved it to pieces and immediately decided I needed to read more of her books. In the bookstore, however, I didn’t know what to try next. I didn’t recognize any of her other titles. I arbitrarily decided I should try Jonah’s Gourd Vine. It’s taken me a few years to pick it up, though.

Turns out, this was Hurston’s first novel. I hadn’t realized that. It’s about the life of a half-black half-white man named John. John starts out on the farm of his mom and stepdad (we never find out who his father is), but moves to a new farm in his late teens because his stepdad is always fighting with him over his mixed-race heritage. Once on the farm, he goes about learning how to read at the school and begins to court a girl named Lucy, whom he eventually marries. They leave the area and move across the country, and soon John becomes a preacher due to his charisma and great voice. He’s real popular with his congregation, and also with the women around him. John’s always had a problem with women. He’s a lustful man and the women who love him are hurt one by one. All the way up to his death, though he tries, he never learns to control himself.

The book was very well written. It’s written in the same oral-tradition type style as Their Eyes Were Watching God, where dialogue is spelled out how it’s pronounced rather than what the words are supposed to be. Some people find it very difficult to read Hurston because of this style, but for some reason it comes natural to me. Maybe it’s because I’ve grown up in the south. It’s funny, though, because usually I can’t stand books written in dialect. I can’t stand Mark Twain, Lady Chatterly’s Lover, or even Hagrid from Harry Potter because of the dialect. It’s an automatic turnoff. For some reason, though, it’s not the same with Hurston’s writing. I don’t mind the dialect, and it feels natural and right to me. I love it.

While this book is written as well as Their Eyes Were Watching God, I liked the latter better because I really hated John in this book. I could never understand his character and I certainly couldn’t relate to him at all. He’s described as being the epitome of the conflict in man between spiritual and physical self, but I don’t buy that. I don’t believe that anyone, man or woman, simply can’t control their lust and physical cravings. I hate the saying, “A man has needs.” It’s so ridiculous, and it paints the picture that a man is a mere animal, a slave to his passions. Sorry, but I think that’s an outdated and incorrect assumption. John could have controlled himself. Plenty of men do. John just didn’t want to enough.

So because I really didn’t like John, I paid more attention to the other things in the book, particularly the interplay of religion and magic in post-slavery black culture. I hadn’t realized how strongly people believed in magic back then and I thought it was an interesting aspect for Hurston to focus on. One of my favorite passages came from a deacon regarding this subject. One of John’s wives asks the deacon if he believes in hoodoo, and he responds:

Yeah, Ah do, Mrs. Rev’rund. Ah done seen things done. Why hit’s in de Bible, Sister! Look at Moses. He’s de greatest hoodoo man dat God ever made. He went ‘way from Pharoah’s palace and stayed in de desert nigh on to forty years and learnt how tuh call God by all his secret names and dat’s how he got all dat power. He knowed he couldn’t bring off all dem people lessen he had power unekal tuh man! How you recken he brought on all dem plagues if he didn’t had nothin’ but human power? And then agin his wife wuz Ethiopian. Ah bet she learnt ‘im what he knowed. Ya, indeed, Sister Pearson. De Bible is de best conjure book in de world.

(If you’re having trouble reading it, try reading it out loud. That’s what tends to help people unfamiliar with the dialect.)

I love it! There are things in the Bible that each religion explains in a different way, and this is just the same thing. This man understood magic and religion in his own way, and it all fit together for him. I find this completely fascinating, and I love the reference to the Ethiopian wife who probably taught Moses all that magic anyway. 😀

So in the end, I couldn’t like this book as much as Their Eyes Were Watching God because I didn’t agree with the premise Hurston was exploring about the conflict within man. At the same time, though, it is a fascinating look into a culture I’m woefully unfamiliar with, and I really enjoyed that aspect of the book.

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Blankets, by Craig Thompson

Posted on January 29, 2010 by Thistle

Blankets_coverI didn’t plan to read Blankets so soon. I wanted to immediately after reading Darren’s review, but I held back. I have so many other books on my shelf and this was a 600-page graphic novel costing $30 plus tax. I couldn’t really afford it. But then Lu read it and went raving. Then Chris. By that point, I compromised and put a copy on hold from my library. I knew I wanted to own the book one day, but I figured I could wait. Maybe I’d ask for it for Christmas or my birthday or something. And as the library copy sat on my desk, waiting for me to get to it, Ana and Aarti both read it and raved about it all over twitter (and later on their blogs). It was time. I needed to read this.

So I may be the last on the bandwagon here, but believe me when I say that even if you’re tired of hearing about this book, it is well worth getting your hands on a copy. I have to say this rivals Shaun Tan for my favorite graphic novel. Even with all my hopes so high after so many marvelous reviews, Blankets did not disappoint me.

The basic premise of the book: this is a memoir (slightly fictionalized, but mostly truthful) of Craig Thompson’s childhood and teenage years. It talks about his relationship with his brother as they grew up in a strict, religious household in rural Wisconsin. It touches on sexual abuse and bullying in school. It is a coming of age story and the story of first love. It touches on the family life of his girlfriend, Raina, whose parents are going through a divorce and who has two adopted mentally handicapped siblings. The book also deals with Craig’s relationship with God and his sorting through the things he learned at the fundamentalist church every week. All of this is wrapped up in beautiful artwork that is at times almost too intimate to bear. So so beautiful. After reading the library’s copy, I gathered up my coupons and Border’s Bucks and got my own copy. It’s that good.

There were some things that surprised me in reading it, though. I’d gotten the impression from everyone’s reviews that Craig’s parents were domineering, cruel, abusive parents who were religious zealots as well. I was picturing something out of Carrie. However, it’s not like that at all. His father was a little grouchy and distant. His mother was mousy and quiet and very devoted to her religion, but not in a creepy or crazy way. They go to church every week and the church they go to is very fundamentalist. The parents are very conservative. They don’t believe in sex education or teaching evolution in school. This is not uncommon, and it certainly doesn’t make them religious crazies. Their reactions to things their kids did were not (usually) extreme. For example, when they find Craig drawing pictures of naked women, they don’t hit or hurt him, they simply talk to him about how this is something God wouldn’t want him to do. I don’t agree with their beliefs, but they seemed to be very good-intentioned and good-hearted people. They were teaching him what they believed in and there’s nothing wrong with that.

This was far from what I was expecting when it came to the family aspect of the book. The love story aspect was more like what I expected, though I hadn’t known about all the dynamics of Raina’s family. The growing relationship between Craig and Raina was so beautiful and yet so young, inexperienced. I hated the decisions they made, but I understood why they made them. As with all memoirs, I wanted to know more. I wanted to see what happened to both characters years afterwards. But this is real life, not fiction, and in the end, I can only see what the author saw.

Favorite parts:

When Craig holds baby Sarah and says Hello as Raina smiles at them.

When Raina’s father finds the two together in the morning and his face changes from anger to understanding. He never says a word. That made me cry more than anything else in the book. What a marvelous man he must have been.

All the panels that showed Raina while she slept. So beautiful.

The heartwrenching scene where the painted tree is painted over bit by bit.

I could go on and on, but really, just get a hold of this book any way you can. Library, bookstore, heck even sit down for a few hours in a bookstore to read this without buying (if you can resist buying after you’ve finished). This is utterly brilliant. I can’t wait for Thompson’s next book, Habibi, which will hopefully be finished this year.

Posted in 2010, Adult, Visual | Tagged , | 2 Comments

A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle

Posted on January 27, 2010 by Thistle

imagesMr. Murry, Meg and Charles Wallace’s father and a government physicist, has been missing for years. The whole family misses him tremendously, but that doesn’t prepare them for three strangers showing up one night and whisking Meg, Charles Wallace, and their new friend Calvin off on a multi-planet adventure to try to save him.

I first read this book when I was 10, and there were certain scenes that I always remembered, but it wasn’t a book I read over and over, so there were many things I’d forgotten. Science fiction has never been my preferred genre and as an adult, there were parts of this book that bugged me. I’ll get those out of the way first.

The character development was really choppy. I didn’t notice as a kid, but now I really notice how Meg seems to change her feelings every couple paragraphs, especially in the latter third of the book. The pacing was uneven and choppy as well. Some of the science seemed extremely farfetched, and half the time it was written off as “indescribable.” Then there’s the fact that in all these types of books, the good guys know how to defeat the bad guys, but will only give hints to the person who actually has to do the fighting. That drives me nuts.

On the good side, it was nice to revisit scenes that I still remember clearly. It’s funny, because despite the fact that I didn’t notice the choppy character development as a kid, the characters didn’t stick with me and they didn’t seem very important to the book. Instead, I remembered scenes, concepts, and the places where L’Engle creates pictures of other worlds. I don’t want to talk about it too much, for spoiler’s sake. There are four spots in the book that stood out particularly to me, two involving Camozotz, one involving a bundle of flowers, and one involving blindness. This last one made me think hard for years.

Note: My original review in 2010 spoke about the religious aspects of this book as well, in particular how I didn’t notice them as a child, but bristled at the blatant Christian aspects of the book as an adult. I removed that part of my review due to an excess of flaming comments.

Note: Review date is only an approximate of when this book was read/reviewed in 2010.

Note: Originally read in 1989.

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Keeping You a Secret, by Julie Anne Peters

Posted on January 23, 2010 by Thistle

KeepingYouASecretPicHolland has never really thought about her sexuality before. She lives in an area with small-town mentality and she knows no one who’s gay – until Cece shows up at school for Holland’s last semester of her senior year. Cece is out and proud, which sets off ripples at school, ripples that range from harassment to vandalism. But worse are the ripples set off in Holland, who finds herself falling desperately in love with this girl.

While I didn’t love this book as much as Between Mom and Jo, it was excellent. With each step I found myself more deeply wound into the story. I experienced the wonderful feeling of falling in love alongside Holland. I understood Cece’s fear at the anger all around her. I watched with trepidation as Holland’s mom treats Cece as a child molester or pervert. I couldn’t put down the book. It got so late, and I still kept reading page after page after page. The last third of the book made me shake with anger and cry in pain. Not as much as with Between Mom and Jo, but still, it was enough.

The book, I think, was meant to reach GLBT teens, but honestly I think every parent should read it. They should read it and think about the way they’ll react if their child comes out as gay. They should know what their child faces among their peers, from their teachers, and from the community. They should learn about the hostility and isolation involved. It is eye-opening.

I don’t want to say more and give away spoilers, but I encourage you to read it. It is so good. I have a feeling all of Julie Anne Peters’ books will be good and I’m glad I own so many. I’m really looking forward to the next one.

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Freshwater, by Virginia Woolf

Posted on January 17, 2010 by Thistle

woolf y goreyNot many people know that Virginia Woolf dabbled in drama. Even Wikipedia has the information listed incorrectly for this play. Woolf originally wrote it around 1923 and later resuscitated the play in 1935 for performance with the Bloomsbury group. Jason found this book for me a couple years back. The edition contains both the 1935 and 1923 versions of the play, with notes, and it’s illustrated by Edward Gorey. How much more perfect could it be?

Despite that, I didn’t read it right away, because I was scared of it. I knew it said, “Freshwater: a Comedy” on the front, but I had a hard time imagining Ms. Woolf as comedic. While I love her, her books take a lot out of me. I usually can only read one a year, and I get in a bit of a funk afterwards when I do. But it’s been sitting on my shelf for too long now and I really wanted to get to it.

The play is a spoof about the life of Woolf’s great-aunt, Julia Cameron, who was a famous photographer. It also features George Watts, Ellen Terry, and Alfred Lord Tennyson as key characters. Yes, they all knew each other. It was a small world.

The 1935 version of the play, the one that was performed, was presented in the book first. It was laugh out loud funny, especially the parts with Tennyson. I had no idea Woolf could be so funny. I imagine watching this would be even better, and since it was a family affair, probably even funnier to them. The cast list, written in Woolf’s hand, is included in the book, and even Leonard Woolf’s pet monkey got his own part in the play (“the marmoset”). It only took half an hour or so to read, even with pauses to laugh and read out lines to Jason.

The 1923 version came after all the indexed notes, and it was not anywhere near the brilliance of the later version. It’s easy to see Woolf had no idea what she was doing when it came to writing her first play. Every time someone spoke, it was a long monologue. The play was a weird contrast of serious, tragic, and comic. It didn’t flow very well. She did a lot of work shaping the play up for the performed version.

And then there were the illustrations. Well, it’s Edward Gorey. I couldn’t ask for better. They were just a neat little touch that added dimension to the book and made it that much more enjoyable.

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Crime and Punishment (graphic novel), by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Posted on January 17, 2010 by Thistle

823077I have not read the original version of Crime and Punishment. To be honest, I’m quite scared of it. When I was really young, I heard that C&P and War & Peace were the two long, tough, boring Russian novels (I think I heard this from Charlie Brown, actually…), so that set in me a fear of these two books. Even though I’ve read lots of Russian novels now, including chunksters like Anna Karenina, I’m still terrified of C&P and W&P.

I sort of have a reason to be, because there are very few Russian authors that I’ve enjoyed. I like Nabokov, but he hardly counts. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was good. The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Fathers and Sons were okay. Other than that, I think I’ve hated every other Russian book I’ve tried to read. Dr. Zhivago. Anna Karenina. And so on.

So when I saw this graphic novel adaptation of Crime & Punishment, adapted by the same person as Kafka’s The Trial and published in the same line, I decided to give it a try. I hoped it would induce me to brave the original version. Unfortunately, I think it has done the exact opposite.

The graphic novel adaptation sets the story in modern Russia, but other than that, it supposedly makes no plot changes from the original. Obviously I can’t verify that. I recognize Russian literature traits in it. Sideplots that come out of no where and have very little to do with the main plot. Philosophical discussions and train of thought. Heavy emphasis on politics. None of these things make me want to read the chunkster version of C&P. I also didn’t like the characters – they were all just lowlife criminals – and I’m pretty sure I’d feel the same in the real book, too. I don’t want to waste my time reading about people I’d hate. I know in the end that’s not probably what I’m supposed to feel about the characters, but I do. I just have no sympathy with people who are smart enough to turn their minds in circles in order to justify low living, no matter what their government is like.

Also, though it’s been a week, thinking about this GN still makes me sick to my stomach because it depicted several scenes of drug use (that whole modernization thing) and I have a phobia of that sort of thing. It’s worse in graphic form. I wish I hadn’t read it at all. I’m trying to forget.

That’s all. It’s probably bad of me to dismiss the real book based on the GN, but I am. I’ve never been overly fond of Russian lit and I have a different book by Dostoevsky that I actually want to read. I’ll stick to that one.

Posted in 2010, Adult, Visual | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The Machine Stops, by EM Forster

Posted on January 16, 2010 by Thistle

the_machine_stopsMan, the flower of all flesh, the noblest of all creatures visible, man who had once made god in his image, and had mirrored his strength on the constellations, beautiful naked man was dying, strangled in the garments that he had woven.

This was a powerful novelette. In 1909, Forster outlined a future world where the human race has moved underground. Each person lives alone, breathing artificial air, eating artificial food, and given everything they want or need by The Machine. Their only interactions with the world or other human beings are through “cinematophotes” (essentially TVs) and fuzzy videoconferencing (like Skype). In the story, Forster seems to ask: What happens to man when he becomes dependent on the technology he creates, and what happens if, as the title suggests, The Machine stops?

I really enjoyed this story even though I’m not usually a fan of science fiction, especially early 20th century science fiction. Forster does an excellent job sketching out this world for the reader. He also brings up so many good points. Early on, I was struck with the uncanny similarity of their world to ours today. I mean, of course we don’t live underground and breathe artificial air, but we are so dependent on technology. We have artificial food (of a sort). We are all growing fat with our dependency on machines to take care of us. Instead of going out, more often we are stay right in our comfortable place at home and talk to people online.

I don’t personally think technology is a wholly bad thing. I think in some ways, Forster and other writers like him were just paranoid and frightened of change. The technology we have expanded in the last 100 years has done amazing things for our society, even if it has hurt us in some ways. I think about all the friends I have made through blogging, for instance, people who I connect with more than I’ve connected with anyone in years, and I can’t think the internet is a bad or dangerous thing. It is a wonderful thing, to connect with so many people in so many places. I honestly believe it brings us all closer together, even if we don’t have to leave our living rooms in order to connect. For example, I can talk over Skype with my sister in Palestine or my in-laws in Wisconsin, which wouldn’t have been possible a decade ago.

And sometimes, every once in awhile, we do get to leave our living rooms and connect in person. I met 4 different bloggers in person for the first time in the last 6 months, and I hope to meet more this coming May. In 2007, I met up with tons of different friends I’d made on myspace when I traveled twice to NYC. It was a wonderful experience. I think sometimes those people so scared of technology were afraid that we would take it and no longer need anything else, and I think that fear is unfounded. Nevertheless, it still was eerie to read his predictions, especially when they tended towards a Wall-E like society. One character, for instance, expressed how strong he’d made himself by exercising in his room. His proof: he could hold his pillow up in front of him for 10 seconds. !!!

Moving on. Forster also made really interesting points about religion, which had been abolished as superstition by the culture who moved underground. The thing about humans, though, is they tend to like to worship, and when one god is destroyed, they invent another. They worship the thing that gives them life, and in this case, that’s The Machine. Unfortunately, The Machine is just a machine, and a man-made one at that, so it’s not infallible. And if you believe it’s a god, then how are you going to react as it slowly deteriorates (I’m having Ella Minnow Pea flashbacks here)? When it is such an enormous part of your life, how are you going to escape its destruction?

The story is not without its flaws, flaws that seem to be common in turn of the century science fiction (from my experience anyway). There is a lot of telling when I would have preferred showing. There is heavy emphasis on specific aspects of the technology without any clarification of how they worked. Little things. But for the most part, the story was gorgeously written and really made me think. Since I was a little disappointed in reading Forster’s A Passage to India last fall, this has renewed my faith in him. Must go read Howard’s End or A Room With a View now.

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Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens

Posted on January 15, 2010 by Thistle

great expectationsA couple years back, I read A Christmas Carol. It was my first encounter with Charles Dickens, and I was not impressed. In fact, I absolutely hated the book and it took me weeks to get through it. His language was convoluted, arcane, and lifeless. His characters had no depth. I couldn’t hear his voice. If I hadn’t needed to read it because I was moderating a book club discussion about it, I would have quit. Since then, I’ve been scared of Dickens, though I was determined to one day read both Great Expectations and Bleak House.

For my family book club this month, Jason chose Great Expectations for me. I was a little scared but at the same time resigned. I went into the book knowing just about nothing. I’d heard of Miss Havisham in her worn out bridal dress with her rotted wedding cake and her stopped clocks, but that was all. I’m not going to say anything more about the plot. I liked not knowing anything. It made the book all the more interesting once I began. It was not at all what I expected.

I found out I was wrong about Dickens. Maybe A Christmas Carol was dull, convoluted, arcane, lifeless, and all the rest, but not this book. Great Expectations was surprisingly easy and fun to read. It was like an adventure novel much of the time. A pot-boiler. While there’s depth in studying the book, it’s really quite easy to read just surface level for plot. I can see why people waited month after month for the next installment. I wish I could have read it like that, actually, because I think some of the book’s flaws would have been less apparent to me if it was segmented out.

The flaws were all ones that you always hear about Dickens. There are unbelievable coincidences. People are rescued at the very last second. Everyone turns out to be interconnected. There was also a problem with the middle third of the book being a little dull, as if Dickens got a bit of writer’s block but had to keep producing. But the book went beyond its flaws. I expected there to be a certain amount of caricature in characters such as Miss Havisham, but Dickens did really well to flesh all the main characters out (I won’t comment on side characters). They had life and personality. They experienced a myriad of feelings and they grew as people over time. There was less moralizing than I expected, and less chauvinism.

And the book was funny. I didn’t expect it to be so funny. Honestly it reminded me a lot of Jane Austen’s humor, especially in the little digs on individual characters. Compare, for instance, Dickens’ poking fun at Pumblechook and his “May I?”s and shaking Pip’s hand over and over, with Austen’s digs at Mr. Woodhouse and him saying “Poor Miss Taylor” in every single one of his scenes in Emma. The only difference, really, was Dickens seemed to know when to stop the joke, whereas Austen runs them into the ground in every one of her books.

It was not my favorite classic ever, but for the most part I really enjoyed Great Expectations. I’m glad Jason pushed me to read it. I’m also less scared of Bleak House now, despite its length. I actually want to see if I can find out what schedule it was released on so I can read it the way it was originally published. That would be fun.

Posted in 2010, Adult, Prose | Tagged | 1 Comment

Native, by Mona Kuhn

Posted on January 14, 2010 by Thistle

Kuhn_Native_0I spent a lot of January studying and reading about Brazil, and supplemented all this by reading Native, a book of photography by Mona Kuhn. Kuhn is from Brazil and returned to it after being away for twenty years. The book is like a journey. The pictures depict the rainforest at different times of the day, architecture, furniture, running water, and the human body, both male and female. The composition of each picture was stunning, as well as her use of color. I’d read my friend Chris’ review of this book a few months ago and immediately knew I wanted to read it. I couldn’t find it anywhere in town, though, and was so grateful when Chris passed it to me when I was in New Orleans. I’ve looked through it several times now.

Kuhn’s website has so much more information about her and her work all over the world. It includes a couple pictures from Native as well as a huge portfolio of other work. In the Bio section, it has some interviews and information about how she works. I spent several hours going over her website and absorbing. I think I must find some other books of hers.

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Impossible, by Nancy Werlin

Posted on January 13, 2010 by Thistle

impossible_bookHow do I even begin to describe this book without giving anything away? Um…Lucy Scarborough is a seventeen year old girl with two wonderful, loving foster parents and a real mom who is completely crazy and who shows up randomly sometimes. Each time she comes, she sings a version of Scarborough Fair, which she’s dubbed The Elfin Knight. Through a series of events I’m not going to talk about at all, Lucy begins to pay more attention to the ballad. She needs to unravel the puzzle her mother has given her. Her life and sanity depend on it.

I read Heather’s review months ago, but I must not have remembered much from it, because the content of this book came as a total shock to me. In a good way. I sat down to read this one afternoon and couldn’t put it down until I finished near midnight. I’ve had a couple bad experiences with YA lately, books with shallow premises or flimsy plots, but this was nothing like that. The characterization was solid and thick. The plot was slow enough to let me languish over it but also wasn’t dull. I could never guess what was going to happen – in fact, I thought I had much of the puzzle figured out and turned out to be completely wrong. There’s actually one place I wish I’d been right, but I can’t talk about it for spoiler’s sake. Agh! Good thing this is my YA book club selection this month so I’ll be able to discuss it in depth soon. 🙂

I really don’t want to give anything away, but let me just say that while this has fantasy elements to it, it is grounded in reality as well. It deals with some tough subjects, particularly among teens, and does justice to them. At the same time, it delves into old folk legends and mythologies and weaves them into real life. It was beautiful.

No, it wasn’t perfect. There were a couple places that felt contrived, like Werlin was trying to stuff in some backstory and didn’t know how to do it. I felt that particularly when it came to Lucy reading her mom’s diary (the diary format really doesn’t work for me unless it’s extremely well done and believable). But other than these little snatches of forced exposition, the prose is delightful, easy to read, and a lot of fun.

What else can I say? Go read it. It’s a good one! 🙂

PS – If you know the Simon and Garfunkel version of Scarborough Fair, you’re likely to have it in your head all day after reading this. I certainly did. Good thing I like the song!

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