The Witches of Worm, by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Posted on May 12, 2009 by Thistle

witchesJessica is a lonely girl of about thirteen years old. She has few friends, and her mother leaves her home alone most nights. One day Jessica finds a very ugly baby kitten and takes him home despite not really liking cats. She and her mother name him Worm, because in his scrawny, almost-hairless, newborn state, that’s exactly what he looks like.

But Worm isn’t a normal cat. He doesn’t play or cry like other cats, and his stare feels hypnotic to Jessica. And one day, she hears him speak. He tells her to do terrible things to the people around her, and she can’t control her actions. Jessica has read all about witches, and knows Worm must be a witch’s cat, but she has no idea how to escape the spell he’s put on her. As she looks for a solution, she has to come to face the truth about herself.

Zilpha Keatley Snyder is one of my favorite children’s authors. I believe this is the fourth book I’ve read by her. She always manages to create a spooky story that borders on the supernatural, without ever really crossing the line. In this book, she’s created a parallel for the Salem Witch trials and Ann Putnam. She explores the psychology of a child always left alone, and the greed of power and attention. The Witches of Worm is one of those books that shows up frequently on banned books lists, and once again, I don’t see why. It teaches a good lesson, and there’s nothing immoral about it. I think this is a great book for kids to read. Maybe those trying to ban it don’t read it all the way through…they hear “witches” and cry foul.

One of the things I’ve noticed about Snyder’s books is that she spends a lot of time talking about children of single parents – single either by divorce, death, abandonment, or having never married in the first place. Some of these single parents are good, and try as hard as they can, and some are neglectful, like Jessica’s mother. Either way, the children in these families often feel different and alone. Snyder wrote a lot in the 60s and 70s, when nontraditional families were different and strange, but were also becoming more common. I think she captures the children’s worries about not fitting in perfectly. While the same rules might not apply today – no one really looks at kids funny for only having one parent anymore – I think the feelings Snyder brings up are still valid. Kids are looked at funny for other reasons. There is always discrimination, teasing, and bullying in school. There are always kids that struggle with fitting in.

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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Posted on May 11, 2009 by Thistle

onedayThis book is exactly what the title suggests: a look at one day in Ivan Denisovich (Shukhov)’s life. Shukhov was arrested on baseless charges – fairly common at that time – and was sentenced to ten years in a Siberian labor camp. The book explores one day in his eighth year, a winter’s day that is a – relatively – good day. It is as much about the labor camp as it is about Shukhov and the other prisoners.

This was an excellent book. I’ve stated in the past that I know very little about Russian history, philosophy, geography, and politics, but that didn’t matter for this book. When you’re standing outside in below-zero temperatures, pre-dawn, with clothes not quite thick enough to keep you warm, what do politics matter? When you have to fight to get your bowl of watery gruel and a chunk of bread a couple times a day, when you have to walk two miles to your day’s labor site in harsh Siberian wind, philosophy doesn’t matter so much. What matters is survival. And not just physical survival, but mental and emotional survival, too. Solzhenitsyn makes it clear multiple times in this book that if you solely looked out for your physical survival, like the scrounger, Fetyukov, you probably wouldn’t live out your years in the camp. Instead, you must learn camp culture. You form alliances with your labor gang; you figure out the most profitable way to get more than you would get alone. You respect your gang boss if he’s a good one, because he’s the one that’ll get you good jobs and good “wages.” You work hard because otherwise you’d freeze to death, plus your rations would be smaller. You keep in line because otherwise your whole gang is punished, and a hoard of angry, freezing men is not an enemy you want.

The Siberian labor camps were horrible, and it would be easy to imagine the prisoners as hateful or miserable or hopeless. And yet, they aren’t any of those things. Sure, they don’t like the life they’ve been forced into. They don’t like the cold or the short food rations or the nearly pointless labor. They don’t like the long hours, the lack of cigarettes, or the inability to go to the hospital when they’re sick. But they don’t dwell on those things. They can’t. Some of them are sentenced to 25 years. If they got caught up in anger or despair, they wouldn’t survive. Instead, the men adapt. They figure out the best way to do things. They learn to treat each day as it comes, to acknowledge good days and bad days, to know that every day that you aren’t dead is essentially a good day. They find little happinesses in unexpected places. A bite of sausage a bunkmate received from home and shared with you, or a spot near the fire for your socks to stay overnight so they’d be warm in the morning. Strange to say, but despite all the horrors happening in the labor camp, this book actually filled me with hope and faith in humanity.

Solzhenitsyn himself served time in the Siberian labor camps. After he was freed, he wrote this book and The Gulag Archipelago, both about the camps. I’ve not read the latter, but I can wholeheartedly recommend this book. It took me over a week to read it, but only because it was the sort of book that felt better read slowly, absorbing and digesting each piece. Even through translation, the writing was superb, and Solzhenitsyn managed to attack the Soviet government and its policies without the book sounding or feeling solely angry or cynical. I really enjoyed it.

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Liza of Lambeth, by William Somerset Maugham

Posted on May 10, 2009 by Thistle

lizaLiza of Lambeth takes a look at life in Lambeth – a poor, working class section of London. Liza is an 18-year-old beauty who attracts a lot of suitors, but she doesn’t get smitten herself until Jim Blakestone moves onto her street. Jim is a 40-year-old married man with several children – including a daughter only a couple years younger than Liza – who is aggressive and somewhat abusive to his wife. The two start an affair, which eventually leads to Liza’s downfall.

I love William Somerset Maugham. I’ve read all his famous books and several of his lesser-known works. Few have disappointed me. Liza of Lambeth is Maugham’s first published novel, published when he was 23 and working as a doctor in Lambeth. He tried to capture what he saw of the population there, including the dialect (which is spelled out phonetically throughout the book). However, I’m not sure he really understood the people of that district. Compared to his other books, the characterizations felt very shallow and sensational. The plot seemed a little flimsy in places, and it wrapped up too quickly and a little unbelievable. It definitely seemed like a first attempt at a novel, and wasn’t his most successful book. By the time he wrote Mrs. Craddock a few years later, he’d much improved.

On the good side, it was extremely easy to read – I finished it in about four hours. It was a light break from the heavier books I’ve been reading, and it was an interesting depiction of a population I know nothing about. When I say his characterization was shallow, I only mean on an individual level. He seemed to understand the community and their daily, public interactions, but not the motivations or private lives of individual people. So it did feel like an accurate portrayal of a community, even if the characters themselves were a little two-dimensional.

This isn’t my favorite Maugham book, by far, but it’s not bad, either. I wouldn’t recommend starting with it. I’d say this is really for the die-hard Maugham fans. For first-time readers, I’d recommend Mrs. Craddock or The Painted Veil. Pretty much anything but The Magician, which is the only Maugham book that I absolutely hated.

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The Diary of Anne Frank, by Anne Frank

Posted on May 9, 2009 by Thistle

Diary of Anne FrankAnne Frank began this diary on her 13th birthday, June 14, 1942. A couple months later, her family went into hiding in Amsterdam with two other families. For two years, they lived in tense conditions. The diary closes on August 1, 1944, a couple days before their hiding place was raided and they were all arrested and sent to camps. Only Anne’s father survived.

Technically, this is a reread for me, but it’s been so long it’s like a first reading. I was about 13 when I first read Anne Frank’s diary. At the time, I thought I really could relate to Anne, but looking back, I know I wasn’t nearly as insightful or intelligent as this little girl was. My diaries from that time of my life were far inferior in content, style, and perception. I’m sure part of that was my lack of exposure to the sorts of horrors Anne had to live through, but still, I was blown away reading this by how wise she was. Far beyond her years. Her strength and resiliency astounds me.

At the same time, while I was reading, I couldn’t help feeling like I was intruding on Anne’s privacy. Mostly, this is because of a discussion I had with my sister when she read the Diary in school a couple years after me. She told me how upsetting the experience was for her, not because of the content, but because she felt it was wrong to publish someone’s diary without their permission, no matter the contribution it might make. She maintains this stance to this day, and has expanded it to include letters and other private documents.

Many people don’t want their private papers published after their deaths, and yet the public continues to be hungry for these things. People want to read Jane Austen’s letters and are sad most were burned by Cassandra. We mourn the loss of much of Sylvia Plath’s journals. Kafka might be a little peeved that the people he asked to burn his diaries published them instead. Emily Dickinson wanted all her stuff gone, and yet we have letters and poems and all sorts of things. And people want more. All of these posthumously published papers give us great insights. So the question is, where do we draw the line? If a person does not want their journals and letters published, ought we to do it against their will after their death because of how important said journals and letters might be? Or ought we to respect their wishes and destroy them?

And what if, like Anne, they never had a chance to say what they wanted, one way or another? How can we weigh the importance of her story against exposing all her private thoughts? Was it right to publish her diary?

I don’t have the answer to that. I can see the argument for both sides. I’m very grateful we have this story, but I hope that Anne wouldn’t be mortified that we do. I do admit that near the end (April 4, 1944), she wrote a passage that made me feel much better about reading the diary. Sort of an implied permission:

I want to go on living even after my death! And therefore I am grateful to God for giving me this gift, this possibility of developing myself and of writing, of expressing all that is in me.

Perhaps she hadn’t intended to live on after her death by this diary, but certainly she has lived on. With her life as miserable as it became, and cut so short, at least there is this one compensation: she will never be forgotten.

Note: Review date is only an approximate of when this book was read/reviewed in 2009.

Note: Originally read ~1994-ish.

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We Are On Our Own, by Miriam Katin

Posted on May 8, 2009 by Thistle

cover-smRandom note: This was my first review on The Zen Leaf (original) instead of 5-Squared.

And God said: Let there be light, and there was light…and it was good.

And then one day, God replaced the light with darkness.

We Are On Our Own is a graphic novel memoir about Katin’s childhood (though she names herself Lisa in the book). It is about both her physical and spiritual struggles. When Lisa was very young, she and her mother had to leave Budapest in disguise to escape the Nazis. The book follows them on their journey into Russia, where they come across both good people and bad people, and are constantly trying to escape one harm or another. Though the reader sees what is happening – rape, death, abortion, starvation, etc – the narrative is from the perspective of the child, with all the ignorance and innocence of childhood. But even with all the ignorance and innocence of childhood, Lisa is not protected from pain and loss, and she begins to question her faith in God. Interspersed throughout the story are scenes from Lisa’s adulthood, particularly dealing with identity according to ethnic and religious heritage (like her father, she becomes an atheist Jew).

For the last week, I’ve been slowly reading The Diary of Anne Frank, and this book made a great companion novel. The artwork was stunning, and the story was beautiful. The themes were laid out so lightly that it didn’t feel preachy or pushy. The light tone didn’t lessen the impact of the book, though. I will likely reread it before giving it back the library.

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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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