The Meaning of Consuelo, by Judith Ortiz Cofer

Posted on May 1, 2009 by Thistle

consueloSet in the 1950s in rapidly-modernizing Puerto Rico, this is a coming of age story similar to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Consuelo Signe is growing up in a four-person home, with parents who cannot get along and a younger sister who needs watching over constantly. Far from being a normal bildungsroman, however, Consuelo’s growing up is disrupted by several factors. She can’t figure out how she’s supposed to treat the neighborhood transvestite, who is always around. Her best friend, a cousin who lives next door, is driven away from her family because of his “deviant” sexuality. Her sister retreats further into herself as she ages, until eventually her schizophrenia is so pronounced everyone can see it. These factors punctuate a normally neat story with all its regular trials, and make Consuelo’s story far more interesting.

The microcosm of the Signe family represents the conflict in Puerto Rico as a whole: Americanism and new technology (Dad) versus Spanish culture and nature (Mom and grandparents). Consuelo’s grandfather rants and raves against anything remotely American. Consuelo’s father thinks that America is a miracle land and can fix any problem. He’s constantly getting new American products to bring home to his family. Consuelo’s mother is caught in the middle, torn between her childhood life in a small Pueblo community, living off the land, and her marriage to a man who likes new toys. She loves the convenience all these new toys give, but is simultaneously ashamed to be defying her roots. The choice is difficult and painful – lose your heritage for the sake of better stuff, or deny advancement for the sake of heritage?

This was a really enjoyable book. So much was woven in, with little glimpses into Puerto Rican culture in the 1950s. It only took me a few hours to read, and the ending surprised me. I loved Consuelo. Though she’s not noticed much by her family and the community as a whole in the beginning, she eventually makes a name for herself and shows that she’s a strong young woman who can get past obstacles thrown in her path. She makes mistakes and pays for them, but doesn’t let herself become beaten down by them. In her culture, the old rule was that man’s word was law, and obedience to her husband was a woman’s highest priority. That changes slowly over the generations, and women grow stronger and more independent, but Consuelo is the first (in her family) to question her supposed role as a woman.

Unlike other modern adult fiction, this one was tasteful and clean, even when dealing with controversial subjects. I really appreciated that. I don’t often like modern adult fiction, but this was very good. I nearly gave this book back to the library before reading it because the stack on my desk was too high, and now I’m so glad I didn’t. Highly recommended, particularly for women and for those who enjoy books like A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

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Mansfield Park: Revisited, by Joan Aiken

Posted on April 30, 2009 by Thistle

mp revisitedMansfield Park Revisited picks up four years after Mansfield Park ends. The plot primarily revolves around Fanny Price’s younger sister, Susan, who comes to Mansfield at the end of Austen’s book. As you’d imagine for an Austenesque sequel, there is love and an eventual happy ending. I won’t say anything more, plotwise, than that.

This book was okay. Aiken attempts to copy Austen’s prose style, and does a fairly good job of it, though she periodically throws in present-day idioms, which was jarring. She also seems unaware of the social customs in Austen’s time, or like she didn’t have a problem disregarding them in places in order to appeal to more modern audiences. The story itself was light, fun, and easy to read, as long as I divorced it from the original Mansfield Park. Many of the same characters are around, and Aiken changes personalities and storylines, making good guys bad and bad guys good. I didn’t like that. I felt like Austen did a better job making everyone a well-rounded character in MP than in any other book of hers that I’ve read, and Aiken took those characters and flattened them. The plot felt contrived and manipulated in places, rather than easygoing the way it is in original Austen.

Bottom line – if you read this to compare to Austen, it’s no comparison. If you read it on its own, without expecting anything deep, without expecting the social commentary or statements on gender and class, then this is a fun book. A girly book, yes. Not really a romance so much. There was far less romance than I expected. But very girly anyway.

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I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, by Joanne Greenberg

Posted on April 29, 2009 by Thistle

ineverpromisedThis book is a fictionalized autobiography (along the same lines as The Bell Jar) of Greenberg’s years in a mental hospital as a teen. Greenberg’s character is called Deborah Blau, and is diagnosed with schizophrenia. In those days (late 50s), that diagnosis was vague at best, and treatments – like being wrapped and restrained in a wet-sheet ice pack for hours at a time – weren’t exactly all that helpful by modern standards. Deborah lives in a fantasy world called Yr and struggles to come to terms with reality over the course of three years in the hospital.

Unlike The Bell Jar, I couldn’t relate to this book or to Deborah as a character. I didn’t feel like she was really schizophrenic (according to online sources, modern doctors reading this book also don’t feel she was schizophrenic). I didn’t understand or feel her illness or pain. That made the book a little dull and difficult to read. Now maybe my lack of connection was due to the fact that I’ve never been schizophrenic, or whatever her illness was. I’m not saying her pain and illness weren’t real. I personally just couldn’t relate to it. I can relate to Esther in The Bell Jar because I’ve experienced the same sorts of things Plath had. Maybe I wouldn’t relate if I wasn’t bipolar. I can’t say for sure. But one way or another, this book didn’t live up to my expectations.

On the bright side, Greenberg did better with her life after hospitalization than Plath did. She’s still alive, and I know she was a college professor for a long time. No head-in-the-oven suicide. So that’s good. She conquered her demons. All the same, I much preferred The Bell Jar.

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Fathers and Sons, by Ivan Turgenev

Posted on April 27, 2009 by Thistle

fathers-and-sonsI have never been a big fan of Russian literature. Granted, I’ve never read Dostoevsky or Solzhenitsyn. Either of them might turn out to be quite good when I finally get around to their books. As for now, though, I’ve been turned off Russian lit by books like Anna Karenina and Dr. Zhivago. The Russian fiction I’ve read has been dry, scattered, and a thin excuse for writing philosophical debate. I’m glad to say Turgenev offered something outside this narrow world. While the book was still dry in places and had a section in the middle devoted primarily to philosophical debate, it actually had an interesting and follow-able plot. The characters felt real. The book moved. This was a huge relief to me.

Plot outline: Arkady just graduated from college and comes home to his father and uncle’s farm. He brings along a friend, Bazarov, to stay with him for awhile. Like many new graduates in their early 20s, Arkady and Bazarov are arrogant and think they know everything there is to know about the world. Bazarov claims to be a nihilist, and has pulled Arkady along this life. While Arkady is less adamant and still adheres to some social traditions, Bazarov takes advantage of the fact that he’s living in someone else’s home to treat everyone with the indifference he claims to have for everything, which naturally causes problems with the adults. Conflicts break out, and the two graduates leave the house. They travel to several different settings, including the home of a fashionable and rich woman named Anna, and later to Bazarov’s parent’s home. Their friendship, relationships with others, and philosophical standpoints are all tested during this time.

Okay, so this doesn’t sound like the most exciting book in the world, and it’s not. It was easy to read (except for getting used to the multiple variations for each Russian name), but didn’t really pick up until the second half of the book, when tension begins to spring up between the two graduates, and between them and other characters. There is romance, dueling, typhus, infidelity, and class conflict. By the end, I just hated Bazarov, and was glad for what happened to him and to Arkady. I won’t say anything more than that, though.

The book seems to me to be about two things. First, the conflict between generations, as detailed by the title, Fathers and Sons. Arkady and Bazarov come home from school with the nihilist philosophy in their heads, and think they are better and smarter than everyone else for it. Each of the three male middle-aged characters (Arkady’s dad and uncle, Bazarov’s dad) have a different way of reacting to this arrogance. Arkady’s dad is saddened and tries to comply with his son’s new lifestyle by giving up his books by older philosophers and reading newer books of Arkady’s recommendation. The uncle maintains that because he’s older and has more experience, he is inherently right, while the kids are wrong. Bazarov’s dad has my favorite reaction, and probably the one that is most reasonable and wise. He says:

Of course, gentlemen, you’re better informed. How can we keep up with you? After all, you’re here to take over from us. Even in my time a humoralist like Hoffman or a Brown with his vitalism seemed very comic, although in their time they’d been famous. Somebody new has taken over from Rademacher in your view, you worship him, but in twenty years, no doubt, they’ll be laughing at him as well.

That seems to capture the cycle pretty well. The younger generation laughs at the older one, only to be laughed at by the next generation in turn.

The second point of the book, to me, dealt with nihilism and its practical application – whether or not a practical application is possible. Bazarov is painted as completely indifferent to everything. He respects nothing and no one. He has a great disdain towards aristocracy, faith, art, music, or anything else he terms “useless.” He speaks plainly, and expects others to do so, too. With a larger-than-life persona, he captivates many people (his own age) and brings them along for the ride. However, all his talk and supposed action brings no protection when the greatest “bit of nonsense” comes along. He can’t help but fall in love with Anna, no matter how hard he tries to be indifferent. He thinks love is “an overblown emotion” and tries to cut it out of himself, but finds he is powerless against the emotions he claims do not really exist. While the text is ambiguous on this point, I think this helplessness leads to his…conclusion. And in the end, I’m convinced that it’s not possible to live as a nihilist. A fine theory, but I don’t think it’s possible to divorce oneself from the world altogether, nor is it terribly admirable. Though Bazarov is considered the “hero” of the book, by the end, it’s shown he’s completely ridiculous. You see him through the eyes of people he believes look up to him, and discover they see him as the village idiot. I loved the confirmation of his ignorance. The irony was charming.

So it’s not the best book I’ve ever read, and I’m not sure I’ll read anything else by Turgenev, but it’s a million times better than the majority of Russian lit that I’ve read. I’ll keep trying new Russian authors, slowly, and hope one day I’ll find something I really love.

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The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak

Posted on April 23, 2009 by Thistle

bookthiefThe Book Thief is about WWII Germany. A girl named Liesel arrives at her foster parents’ home when she’s nine years old. On the trip there, she lost a brother to tuberculosis and gained a book, The Gravedigger’s Handbook, stolen from the snow at his burial. As Liesel grows, she learns. First to read, then to hide, then to experience life and death. This era is a terrible one for the world, and many aspects of the war are explored. Hiding Jews. Bombings. The Russian front. Poverty. Hitler. All narrated by Death.

I know I’m going to get slammed for saying so, but this book didn’t really impress me. Sure, the last fifty pages made me tear up ever so slightly, but it’s rough reading material, and unless the author did a horrendous job – and Zusak didn’t – I imagine anything about this subject would make me tear up. But this book simply can’t compare to other books I’ve read about the holocaust. Night by Elie Wiesel. The Diary of Anne Frank. Number the Stars by Lois Lowry. In comparison, this book feels…gimmicky. There’s no other word for it. I didn’t mind Death being the narrator, though that should have given me the first clue that it would be gimmicky, but the amount of times the fourth wall is broken, and the repetitive breaking into the novel with the whole bold/stars format really ground on my nerves after awhile. I just wanted to read the story! The story itself was beautiful. It didn’t need all the “cleverness” to spruce it up.

It’s so hard to get noticed in today’s writing world. So many people work so hard to be clever that their stories start ebbing away, losing meaning. That’s how this felt to me. I won’t say it’s bad. Millions of people love this book. Maybe I just read it at the wrong time in my life. Maybe my expectations were just too high because of all the praise I’ve heard. For whatever reason, I just couldn’t get into it. It was kind of dull. Until the last 50 pages, and in a 550 page book, that’s not good.

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Readathon: Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel

Posted on April 19, 2009 by Thistle

180px-FunhomecoverThis is a graphic novel memoir. Alison Bechdel’s father was a hands-off sort of person, the type of dad who favored his restoration furniture over his kids. He was also a closet homosexual who had multiple affairs (sometimes with teenage boys) kept hidden from everyone in his family except his wife. He loved literature and house restoration and girly things like flowers and barrettes. Alison assumed a masculinity her dad didn’t have, and eventually decided she’s a lesbian. After she announces this at home, her mother tells her about her father’s affairs.

The book was written after Alison’s father’s death. Alison conjectures that the death was suicide, though it’s officially considered an accident. Her coping process is strange and felt incomplete.

Actually, the whole book felt strange and incomplete to me. I felt like there needed to be so much more. Instead, it fell flat. I didn’t grow by reading this book. I didn’t feel like I learned anything at all. And I was rubbed a little wrong by the implications that 1) Dad was gay because he was molested as a child, 2) Dad was a pedophile because he was gay, and 3) Alison was gay because her dad was effeminate. Those sorts of things really irk me, and if this was fiction, I’d blast it to bits. It’s nonfiction though; these things actually happened, and I don’t fault the author for them, so I won’t blast it to bits. All the same, I’m a little uncomfortable with the suppositions put forth, none of which I believe.

I wanted to like this book. The artwork was amazing, though I didn’t like the monochromatic aquamarine coloring, and it was extremely graphic at times. I’m glad I read this when my kids weren’t home, and I’m a little anxious to get it back to the library so they don’t wander by, pick it up, and look through it because it’s full of pictures. There are too many naked scenes in there for me to feel comfortable with when the kids are around. They didn’t bother me on a personal level, given the subject matter, but my kids have wandering hands. I wouldn’t want to own this book.

I tried to go back and read this book again before reviewing it. I read it in the late night/early morning hours of the Read-a-thon, right when I was starting to get tired. (The coloring didn’t help.) I thought maybe I’d missed something in my fatigue. But when I tried to reread it, I just wasn’t that interested. I got through a few pages and gave up. I think once through was enough for me.

It wasn’t a bad book. It was very easy to read, it drew intense emotions, but in the end, I just wasn’t satisfied.

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Readathon: Peeps, by Scott Westerfeld

Posted on April 18, 2009 by Thistle

peepsCal Thompson acquires a parasite during a one-night stand at the beginning of college. Fortunately, he didn’t have to suffer the worst of symptoms that normally come on with this parasite – cannibalism, anathema, gathering a brood – but unfortunately, he passed the disease onto others before realizing he had it. Now, he’s tracking down former girlfriends, trying to make sure they don’t spread the infection.

This is a vampire book, but not a vampire book like any I’ve ever read. It’s very unique. Saying vampirism is caused by a disease is not new or anything. Even Twilight has vampire-disease in it. However, this book is grounded in science, and the disease is made out to be plausible. There is a good explanation for everything. For instance, take Twilight (and I only take this one because I really don’t like vampires and read very little about them, and this happens to be the only book I remember offhand. I’m really not making fun of Twilight here). Once bitten, a person is poisoned and infected. The infection them causes them to 1) become immortal, 2) become very cold and very pale, 3) become gorgeous, 4) hunger after blood, 5) become super strong and super fast, and 6) glitter in the sunlight. There’s also usually a super power involved, unique to each vampire. None of this is explained in plausible, scientific terms.

In PEEPS, however, all the vampire myths and legends are explained: why vampires (known as peeps) are associated with sex, why it’s said they don’t show up in mirrors, why they don’t like sunlight, their issues with garlic and crucifixes, why they are associated with rats and bats, why their strength and lifespan increase, why they are associated – not altogether correctly – with drinking blood. Etc. All of it has a rational, scientific explanation, and more often than not, myths are simply exaggerated and/or misunderstood tales about vampires. Take for example the age-old idea of vampires being warded off with a crucifix. Cal Thompson explains that this is because the parasite causes the host to fear the things they once loved, in order to get them to leave the place they once lived. There is a long, technical, brain-chemicals-and-survival-for-the-parasite explanation (termed anathema) for this that I won’t give here. At one point, crucifixes were a beloved symbol for many people, hence being able to ward off vampires with them. In today’s time, different things would have to be used to ward off a vampire. My favorite quote was regarding this:

…you’re much more likely to stop peeps with an iPod full of their favorite tunes. (With certain geeky peeps, I’ve heard, the Apple logo alone does the trick.)

Imagine warding off vampires with the Apple logo! Nice!

Each chapter of this book is interspersed with information about various parasites. Westerfeld confirms at the end of the book that all this information is true. He obviously did tons of research, and I’m impressed that he was able to make me learn a whole lot about biology and biological processes in a book about vampires. Especially as I’m not a science person to begin with. Through these chapters, he shows that the function of parasites is to live their lifespan out in the most comfortable, efficient, productive way possible. The vampire parasite is no different. It wants to spread itself and live well. That’s not too unreasonable to ask.

[Spoilers for the rest of this review.]

My only complaint about this book comes near the end, when Cal has to fight a big, giant, man-eating, shape-shifting worm that has emerged from deep underground. This struck me as absurdly ridiculous. The whole book is grounded in science – it’s even plausible to think that such a vampire parasite might exist! – and then bam, we’re suddenly in a b-grade black-and-white horror/sci-fi flick. We suddenly need the Mystery Science Theatre gang to come in and make some jokes. It was so out of place. I know there was an explanation given earlier in the book, but it was so thin and weak that it just couldn’t compensate for how ridiculous the climax felt. I’m hoping there will be a better explanation in the sequel, The Last Days. But other than the few pages of cheesiness near the end, PEEPS was great. I am even more impressed with Westerfeld after this book.

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Readathon: Stardust, by Neil Gaiman

Posted on April 18, 2009 by Thistle

Stardust-neil-gaiman-30955753-499-734Stardust is my third book by Neil Gaiman. I liked Coraline, and disliked American Gods. Stardust is by far my favorite Gaiman book yet. I do admit, from things I’d heard before, I expected this to be much more adult than it was. I agree that this feels more like an adult fairy tale than a young adult fairy tale, but I was expecting a lot more sex and gore (more like American Gods) than I got. There were a couple sex scenes near the beginning, but altogether I thought it was actually pretty tame, and I remember very little violence and gore. So that was a pleasant surprise. Indeed my only real criticism is the handful of fart jokes and the like sprinkled throughout. I don’t like that type of thing.

My favorite part about this book is that it flows so naturally. Whereas American Gods dragged on and on forever and Coraline seemed to wrap up too quickly and easily, this one felt like it had perfect pacing all the way through. It’s different from most books. It doesn’t lead up to a final battle or an epic conflict. The biggest conflict/action scene happened 2/3rds of the way through. It’s very different from the movie, which has an entirely made up ending that I was disappointed with when I saw it. With the book, everything happens very softly. A curse ends at its natural terminal point. A witch and some bad guys are thwarted by chance or their own fatal flaws. Love is discovered gradually. Family isn’t perfect. The book mimicked real life far better than most fantasy-adventure novels. There was something oddly comforting about that.

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The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins

Posted on April 16, 2009 by Thistle

woman-in-white-coverThis book is fantastic. Anyone who says classics are dull has never read this! The Woman in White is a mystery, specifically the mystery of a woman…er, a woman in white. Also known as Anne Catherick. Is she a madwoman? Or a victim of foul play? The mystery goes beyond Anne, though, and victim or madwoman, she becomes the key to unraveling a whole host of deceptions involving identity theft, forgery, monetary theft, and possible murder. Every intrigue possible is touched on in this book. It’s too bad – for the characters – that they didn’t have modern forensic technology. This all would have been cleared up in an instant! For the reader’s sake, I’m glad this happens in the 1800s!

I won’t spend a lot of time on the plot. I wouldn’t want to give away any spoilers. Peeling off the layers of the mystery bit by bit was one of the funnest things about this book, so I won’t destroy it for anyone else. I’ll just give my impressions about the book overall, instead.

First, this is a great example of a serial novel done right. I’ve read several serials lately, and haven’t enjoyed them. With Vanity Fair especially, the serial format seemed to lead to plot and character inconsistencies, as well as a lot of pointless rambling. There was none of that in Woman in White. All the details, clues, hints, and plot intricacies were laid out perfectly. What rambling existed was in character, and fairly minimal. I couldn’t tell where one serial ended and the next began. It felt like one cohesive book, and not like a collection of book-parts. So apparently the serial format can be well done!

Second, and more importantly, I was extremely impressed with Collins’ use of voice. There are multiple first-person narrators in this book, and no two narrators spoke alike. The differences were subtle for the most part. It’s not like they each had a different dialect or vocabulary set. But the main narrator, Walter Hartright, was the sort of narrator who rambled on tangents a bit, and who was overly descriptive and poetic about emotions, while Marion Halcombe did a lot more “showing” than “telling,” and was blunt, to the point, precise, and unpoetic. Count Fosco’s arrogance ran through his narrative without hardly a specific word of praise towards himself, the housekeeper’s words were concise and full of Christian influence, and Mr. Fairlie’s narrative was nothing but whining. Each character’s narrative matched their 3rd person characterizations and dialog. It was spectacularly done. I know how difficult it is to create so many different voices, and I don’t know that I’ve ever read it better done than here.

Third, I love Marian Halcombe. She plays the role of an unmarried, never-to-be-married sister, an extremely intelligent and intuitive person who remains steady and clever throughout all her hardships. She is admired or hated by other characters for her perception, intelligence, and strength. She is one of the most interesting and admirable characters I’ve ever read about. Perhaps some may not agree with me, but I feel like she defies female stereotypes in 1800s literature, especially defying the stereotype of spinsters, which she essentially is.

I can’t praise this book enough. It’s fast and easy to read, it’s suspenseful, it’s masterfully planned out, and no part left me unsatisfied. I look forward to reading other books by Collins.

Posted in 2009, Adult, Prose | Tagged , | 5 Comments

The Man Who Was Thursday, by GK Chesterton

Posted on April 13, 2009 by Thistle

book-review-the-man-who-was-thursdayI have no idea what to say about this book. This is the first thing by Chesterton I’ve read, and I can’t tell if I’m overthinking it, or if it’s much smarter than I am. I’m not convinced that it was worth my time, or not worth my time. Ultimately, I’ll probably forget this book and everything in it within a few months. Give it a year, and likely this review will be all that remains of my memory. It’s not that the book was badly written or anything, I just can’t seem to wrap my head around it, so it’s all going to leak away.

A poet-turned-policeman named Syme gets mixed up with an organization of anarchists (how’s that for an oxymoron?). He becomes one of the seven members of the Council. Each council member is named after one of the days of the week. Syme is Thursday. The leader is Sunday. Syme finds that he is not the only policeman on the force, and with his fellows spies, he goes on this wild and completely unbelievable adventure that seemed to be an early 20th century version of a bad car chase movie (Wheels of Terror, anyone?). However, the ludicrousness of this whole thing is so unbelievable, so unreal, that it ceases to be simply a chase scene, and turns into something almost surreal. By the end, there’s suddenly a lot of Christian creationism symbolism and philosophy, not to mention a flurry of nonsensical, whimsical notes never explained…

I don’t get it. At least, I don’t think I get it. I’m sure there’s a point, but either it’s completely escaping me or I’m looking too closely, like staring at an impressionist painting from only inches away. My copy of this book had an extract from an article written by Chesterton, and he said (totally paraphrased here) that people tend not to understand this book because they forget about the subtitle. The book’s full title is The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare. Okay, so if I look at it that way, I can easily see this as a slightly surreal sketch of a nightmare. There was a lot of nightmarish qualities about it in the chases, in the big party at the end, in the shifting of Sunday’s face, in the random notes, in all the symbolism. But somehow, I doubt Chesterton wrote a simple dream-thriller here. I feel like there must be more, and so I keep searching.

I won’t say this is a bad book, but I can’t say it’s a good book, either. I think I’m going to have to be contented with a halfway in-between, at least until I have the opportunity to discuss the book with someone a lot smarter than me, or who at least has a lot more source material! One of my book clubs is meeting to discuss this at the beginning of May, I found out, so hopefully the moderator will be able to shed some light on the deeper meaning here. My apologies for the mediocre review in the meantime.

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