We have all had "fat" days. Days where we wake up chewing on the cat's tail, after dreaming that we were eating a cheeseburger. Where we stumble out of bed and wander to the bathroom only to find ourselves staring longingly at the toothpaste, wanting to swallow the whole tube, or wondering what the lipstick on the counter might taste like. When we find ourselves, hours later, on the couch under a blanket of foils, wrappers, and plastic bags, littered with crumbs. On these days, we have a love-hate relationship with food. We need it, we desire it, that pizza shop on the corner looming like a shirtless Brad Pitt - but at the same time, we hate it. It's disgusting. Greasy, congealed. Stay away from me, empty calories.
My journey through Marya Hornbacher's Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia echoes that same love-hate relationship. It began as a fat day. I devoured page after page, taking a break only to burp after each chapter. I scoured over her witty, sometimes shocking phrases with a bright yellow highlighter, sometimes leaving less than half the page its original white. I couldn't get enough. But then, the sugar hangover set in. I started to feel full. Those last three bites were making me nauseous.
There is no doubt that Marya (I feel like I knew her well enough to speak of her on a first name basis - after all, I was there for the binging, the purging, the counting of ribs and bones in the spine) is a lot of wonderful things. She is brave, talented, unflinchingly honest, and has an incredible capacity for self knowledge that long term therapy clients would kill for. She has been to hell and back, and has an unbelievable amount of knowledge and experience to share with the world. But should an admittedly obsessive compulsive, manic, control-obsessed woman be allowed to compose a 289 page memoir? I'm not sure.
There are true gems hidden within Wasted. Even though I gave up highlighting about 100 pages in - her prose is already thick and complex enough, stopping to color-code made my pace almost unbearably slow - there are countless dog-eared pages and pencil scribbles marking the statements that left me open-mouthed, reconsidering everything I thought I knew about my body image. In fact, the mere fact that she is able to write after living through what she did (a euphemistic synopsis includes the onset of bulimia at age nine, anorexia setting in not much longer, three hospital stays and a long stint in a mental hospital/"Treatment Center", the inability to graduate both high school and college, reaching 55 pounds in her darkest days, at one point being given a week to live, and damaging her body and psyche so badly that she will never fully recover) is remarkable. But there was still something about Wasted that left a bad taste in my mouth.
Eating disorders are a dramatic subject. They have to be. Most addicts are tempted by something concrete - a needle, a cigarette, the seductive figure of a glass bottle. But the eating disordered are tempted simply by imbalances and distorted images in their own minds. In order to really starve yourself, you have to be a little bit nuts. So how could a book detailing an eating disorder be mundane? Black and white? I didn't expect facts and figures. But I also didn't expect wave after wave of tired metaphors, expletives, and end-of-the-world statements ("And then the other shoe dropped," "And then I lost my mind," "I knew I was dying"....). The same thoughts repeat over and over, the same situation is examined from a few too many angles. After awhile, I started to get fed up. When Marya leaves Interlochen in 1990 at the age of 16 and is checked into her first hospital stint, the reader is convinced that we have collectively reached rock bottom. But then the carpet is ripped out from underneath us, and we tumble again. After the second and third hospital stays, we are again convinced that Marya is so unhealthy that things can't get any worse. But then - ah hah! A trap door to fall through! It is appropriate that quotations from Lewis Carrol's Through the Looking Glass and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland are sprinkled throughout the book, because we just keep tumbling down the anoretic rabbit hole. And things keep getting curioser and curioser.
I must clarify. I enjoyed the book. Well, maybe enjoy is the wrong word. Hornbacher's honesty and ability to reveal the darkest, most unattractive aspects of her character (similar to what I admired in Frey's A Million Little Pieces) made a gut-wrenching story. Like every other woman in the universe, I have struggled with eating and my weight, and I learned things about myself and my own personal struggle through Wasted's chapters. The mixture of research, opinion, and firsthand experience shines a light on the reasoning behind eating disorders, the fuel that keeps these poor girls calculating and controlling, and the inexplicable turning points that (sometimes) bring them back to Earth that I never really understood. Plus, the girl can write. She's funny, she's clever, and she can spin a phrase with the best of them (which is pretty amazing, because around 60 pounds, she apparently lost her ability to read and speak correctly, as her starved body began to break down her major muscles and organs for food, including her brain). She's got undeniable chutzpah. And the book got its point across - it made me really think about the messages that I take from the way I was raised, the people I surround myself with, the media, and even my own inner monologue about my body image and self esteem.
Additionally, Marya, the author of three published novels, a successful journalist and a literary fanatic (while in the mental institution, the staff takes her collection of books away, stating that they are allowing her to distance herself from her issues, and she cries for three weeks straight), includes an eerily appropriate collection of poems within Wasted's chapters. Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Theodore Roethke, Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson are a few of the all-star cast to accompany her words.
Marya's journey began, officially, at the age of nine. "One minute I was your average nine-year-old, shorts and a T-shirt and long brown braids [...]. The next I was walking, in a surreal haze [...] down the stairs, into the bathroom, shutting the door, putting the toilet seat up, pulling my braids back with one hand, sticking my first two fingers down my throat, and throwing up until I spat blood." Her life is a twisted juxtaposition of excess and limitation, that isn't completely limited to food; she cycles in and out of fears of and addiction to sex, work, intimacy (physical and emotional), exercise and physical activity in general, and literature (a heroine addicted to writing and reading! A little part of me cheered - then I remembered that this was part of her disease and sat on my hands). We follow as Marya learns to express her pain through vomiting, starving, binging, fornicating, withdrawing, screaming, crying, cutting. We journey with her across the river Styx and watch her flesh melts away, leaving a skeleton, both inside and out.
Perhaps my favorite aspect of Wasted was the Afterword. While the main thing I hated about Nic Scheff's memoir, Tweak, was its ambiguous closing, this is oddly enough what I loved about Marya's. Perhaps it's because I'm more familiar with body issues, more versed in eating disorders, that a clean ending would have disappointed me. Because I wasn't looking for a neat little package or a goody-goody happy ending. I was looking for the truth, no matter how unnerving or disappointing. Mayra knows that this is what her reader wants, and deserves, and so she delivers it. She states over and over again that there is no single treatment plan to "fix" an anoretic. What worked for her will not work for everyone. She does not claim to be cured, to be a role model. She admits that she still struggles everyday.
"I make it sound so simple; I say it got boring, so I stopped. I say I ahd other things to do, so I stopped. I say I had no other choice but to stop. I know all too well that it is not that simple. But in some ways, the most significat choices one makes in life are done for reasons that are not all that dramatic, not eartshaking at all - often enough, the choices we make are, for better or worse, made by default. Its quite true that there was no revelatory moment. Mostly what happened was that my life took over - that is to say, that the impulse for life became stronger in me than the impulse for death. In me, the two impulses coexist in an uneasy balance, but they are balanced enough now that I am alive."
In admitting this, at least for me, she makes Wasted a beautiful book, a tiny step in the battle against eating disorders, an inspiring (although imperfect) piece of writing. I laughed, I cried, I learned (well, I didn't actually cry. But the girl inside of me still aching to swallow the whole tube of toothpaste may have). Did I love it? Perhaps not. But it was a worthwhile literary experience. A twisted vacation into a sick Wonderland that many of us visit, but few of us live; and a critical reminder of why we buy our return tickets.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Saturday, April 24, 2010
On the importance of bookmarks
I have two incredibly geeky things to report this evening. I'll get the most embarrassing out of the way first. I'm sure that after hearing this half of you will be jealous, and half of you will be laughing too hard to read the rest of the entry.
My collection of books is getting... well... difficult to control. In a small, college town apartment (Bowling Green, Ohio doesn't offer the posh real estate one might expect) with a roommate and three cats, space is limited. I have managed to fit two rather large bookcases into my bedroom (who needs space to walk, really?), but I still have to shuffle around my desk chair, golf clubs, and a cat or two when I'm searching for a specific book. The other night, I decided that I had had enough. I purged the shelves of their books entirely, categorized them, and organized them into genres, eventually labeling them with Post-it notes. Perhaps this is an early warning sign that my career as a librarian is going to carry dangerously into my home life - Brett, be warned - but I'm just so gosh darn proud of them. I think its the only thing in my apartment that is neatly compartmentalized.
Now that that's out in the open, I'm not nearly as embarrassed to announce that this afternoon, my friend Monica and I decided we wanted to make bookmarks. When you think about it, your bookmark is the first thing you see when you sit down to read, and often the last before you close it. You lay it down on the table in the library or in class, hold it out for everyone to see on the bus. Does it make you a less dedicated reader to use a receipt or an old candy bar wrapper, rather than a "real" bookmark? I'm not sure. But Monica and I decided we didn't want to take any chances.
And so we spread out on the living room floor surrounded by all of my craft supplies (let your imagination run wild here), patiently turning index cards into masterpieces. My favorite is my double-sided project:
My collection of books is getting... well... difficult to control. In a small, college town apartment (Bowling Green, Ohio doesn't offer the posh real estate one might expect) with a roommate and three cats, space is limited. I have managed to fit two rather large bookcases into my bedroom (who needs space to walk, really?), but I still have to shuffle around my desk chair, golf clubs, and a cat or two when I'm searching for a specific book. The other night, I decided that I had had enough. I purged the shelves of their books entirely, categorized them, and organized them into genres, eventually labeling them with Post-it notes. Perhaps this is an early warning sign that my career as a librarian is going to carry dangerously into my home life - Brett, be warned - but I'm just so gosh darn proud of them. I think its the only thing in my apartment that is neatly compartmentalized.
Now that that's out in the open, I'm not nearly as embarrassed to announce that this afternoon, my friend Monica and I decided we wanted to make bookmarks. When you think about it, your bookmark is the first thing you see when you sit down to read, and often the last before you close it. You lay it down on the table in the library or in class, hold it out for everyone to see on the bus. Does it make you a less dedicated reader to use a receipt or an old candy bar wrapper, rather than a "real" bookmark? I'm not sure. But Monica and I decided we didn't want to take any chances.
And so we spread out on the living room floor surrounded by all of my craft supplies (let your imagination run wild here), patiently turning index cards into masterpieces. My favorite is my double-sided project:
The first side is one of my favorite quotes, by Shel Silverstein. The other side, well, speaks for itself. The pink in the background is my yoga mat. I am, quite obviously, a big fan of all that is pink and/or kitchy.
According to my research, bookmarks have been sold since the medieval period. They have developed, changed, and become more widely available at basically the same rate as printed books themselves. The bookmarks that we know today (small, detatched, and "collectible") came about in the 1850's. For quite some time they were used widely by companies for advertising, and it is only within the last hundred years or so that fashionable, collectible, and themed bookmarks have become widely popular. Now they can be made with plastic, cardboard, paper, silk, fabric, or even silver and gold. Or, if you're like me, with robots.
Our work with bookmarks today made me wonder - do the little things really effect the overall reading experience? Are we more likely to get involved with or truly involve a story if we are someplace warm, dry, and quiet? If we have a pair of loving robots greeting us every time we open our books, to begin the experience with a positive attitude, will that chapter go differently than if we had used a McDonalds receipt to mark the page? What do you think? Do the details of the reading experience matter, or the book the only important variable?
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
The Secret of Hurricanes
In these recent days of careless, almost accidental book deals (think Sarah Palin's Going Rogue), it is increasingly rare to find a book that seems like it has been written on purpose, with purpose. And even more rare than that is to find a book that shows effort and love in every sentence. Enter Theresa Williams' novel The Secret of Hurricanes.
"I read a story not long ago in the Scout. About a man that killed a Canada goose.
One of the world's few respectable brids. When they mate, they mate for life. And when they lose their mate, they grieve. What capacity for love.
The goose nested in a swamp next to a factory where automobile parts are made. In a flatland state, an industrial town. A town where unemployment runs high every time the country must tighten its belt. The factory was going to be shut down.
Each spring the employees took their sack lunches outside. Waited for her to arrive. To nest. Hatch her young. Waddle to the bald parking lot for food. I think she was like their poetry.
The man that killed her took a baseball bat where she nested. She nested there in the open. For everybody to see. Although here and there were scattered fragments of wrecked machines she couldn've hidden among.
Afterwards, people asked him why. Why did he do it? He said he didn't know why.
'How?' one of his co-workers asked. 'How with only a child's toy has he murdered our dreams?'
I read how her mate staggered over the factory grounds for days, searching. That a factory worker said, 'He looks like a sad man who's missed his bus.'"
The Secret of Hurricanes is scattered with moments like this, that make your heart stop and catch in your throat. It is laced with metaphors that stir emotional responses from tears and heartache to nausea and physical discomfort. I mean this in a good way - the writing is so unadulterated, so unapologetic, that it hits you almost like a slap in the face. There is no skimming through The Secret of Hurricanes. To read the miniature, intense novel is to take your heart in your hands.
"And when they come back, shouldn't I tell them I prefer the silence of fish to this prattling world? The way fish regard their world without blinking their eyes? Shouldn't I say, 'I like carp, who tolerate drought. Who bury themselves in mud while other fish quiver and die. And there, in the dark, patiently wait for the world to flow about them again.' Beneath all that muck, something. Flesh hearts, waiting to be revived."
Somehow Williams fits a lifetime of pain and tragedy into a mere 209 pages (not to mention that the book is tiny, as far as average book sizes go, and the font quite large). The story is told by Pearl, who is speaking to her unborn child (she assumes it is a girl - "'I know she's a girl,' I say, 'Because I felt her soul.'") Through simile, metaphor, and cloudy memory we learn about Pearl's life and the misfortune that follows her, much like a loyal dog. Thanks to a tumultuous relationship with her father, Pearl spends her life searching for love and affection from other men to fill the void, often in the form of sex or physical abuse. We've seen this storyline before, and it's true that in terms of plot, Williams doesn't cover any new ground. It's not what she says but the way she says it that truly sets the novel apart from others in its genre.
I am a lover of words, in case you haven't noticed. I spend my days waging a never-ending battle to keep my word count down. I never seem to win. My short stories drag on, and my poems are constantly being handed back during workshops with "unnecessary" words and lines crossed out. The Secret of Hurricanes is concrete proof that writers can win the war against wordiness. Although it is accredited to Faulkner ("Kill your darlings"), it was originally Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch that said, “Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it – whole-heartedly – and delete it before sending your manuscripts to press. Murder your darlings.” I personally believe that The Secret of Hurricanes is a flawless example of a bare skelleton of a novel. All of the unnecessary flesh has been cut away, and we are left with only critical, phenomenal words. You won't find a spare adverb in the entire book. Every single word has fought tooth and nail to be included. It is truly a book of poetry - sparse, flowing, and aching.
Often books that deal with obscene and grotesque topics (included within Williams' pages are murder, incest, statutory rape, and suicide, to name a few) will handle them loosely. Authors can become careless and allow generalities or cliches to get their point across. The reader will find none of these within Hurricanes. Even the most brutal scenes are written lyrically and precisely. It may not always be easy or pleasant to read. But Williams doesn't bother to patronize the reader with sunshine or bullshit. She assumes that if you're mature enough to pick up the book, you're mature enough to handle the truth, which is refreshing.
The Secret of Hurricanes is a haunting story of love, loss, and the scars that stay with us years after the physical wounds of tragedy and abuse may disappear. This is undoubtedly one of the most powerful novels I have ever read. The book seeps slowly into you and clings the way that smoke lingers on your clothes - no matter how much time passes, the second you pull that shirt over your head and inhale, the emotion of the moment envelops you and takes you back.
"I read a story not long ago in the Scout. About a man that killed a Canada goose.
One of the world's few respectable brids. When they mate, they mate for life. And when they lose their mate, they grieve. What capacity for love.
The goose nested in a swamp next to a factory where automobile parts are made. In a flatland state, an industrial town. A town where unemployment runs high every time the country must tighten its belt. The factory was going to be shut down.
Each spring the employees took their sack lunches outside. Waited for her to arrive. To nest. Hatch her young. Waddle to the bald parking lot for food. I think she was like their poetry.
The man that killed her took a baseball bat where she nested. She nested there in the open. For everybody to see. Although here and there were scattered fragments of wrecked machines she couldn've hidden among.
Afterwards, people asked him why. Why did he do it? He said he didn't know why.
'How?' one of his co-workers asked. 'How with only a child's toy has he murdered our dreams?'
I read how her mate staggered over the factory grounds for days, searching. That a factory worker said, 'He looks like a sad man who's missed his bus.'"
The Secret of Hurricanes is scattered with moments like this, that make your heart stop and catch in your throat. It is laced with metaphors that stir emotional responses from tears and heartache to nausea and physical discomfort. I mean this in a good way - the writing is so unadulterated, so unapologetic, that it hits you almost like a slap in the face. There is no skimming through The Secret of Hurricanes. To read the miniature, intense novel is to take your heart in your hands.
"And when they come back, shouldn't I tell them I prefer the silence of fish to this prattling world? The way fish regard their world without blinking their eyes? Shouldn't I say, 'I like carp, who tolerate drought. Who bury themselves in mud while other fish quiver and die. And there, in the dark, patiently wait for the world to flow about them again.' Beneath all that muck, something. Flesh hearts, waiting to be revived."
Somehow Williams fits a lifetime of pain and tragedy into a mere 209 pages (not to mention that the book is tiny, as far as average book sizes go, and the font quite large). The story is told by Pearl, who is speaking to her unborn child (she assumes it is a girl - "'I know she's a girl,' I say, 'Because I felt her soul.'") Through simile, metaphor, and cloudy memory we learn about Pearl's life and the misfortune that follows her, much like a loyal dog. Thanks to a tumultuous relationship with her father, Pearl spends her life searching for love and affection from other men to fill the void, often in the form of sex or physical abuse. We've seen this storyline before, and it's true that in terms of plot, Williams doesn't cover any new ground. It's not what she says but the way she says it that truly sets the novel apart from others in its genre.
I am a lover of words, in case you haven't noticed. I spend my days waging a never-ending battle to keep my word count down. I never seem to win. My short stories drag on, and my poems are constantly being handed back during workshops with "unnecessary" words and lines crossed out. The Secret of Hurricanes is concrete proof that writers can win the war against wordiness. Although it is accredited to Faulkner ("Kill your darlings"), it was originally Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch that said, “Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it – whole-heartedly – and delete it before sending your manuscripts to press. Murder your darlings.” I personally believe that The Secret of Hurricanes is a flawless example of a bare skelleton of a novel. All of the unnecessary flesh has been cut away, and we are left with only critical, phenomenal words. You won't find a spare adverb in the entire book. Every single word has fought tooth and nail to be included. It is truly a book of poetry - sparse, flowing, and aching.
Often books that deal with obscene and grotesque topics (included within Williams' pages are murder, incest, statutory rape, and suicide, to name a few) will handle them loosely. Authors can become careless and allow generalities or cliches to get their point across. The reader will find none of these within Hurricanes. Even the most brutal scenes are written lyrically and precisely. It may not always be easy or pleasant to read. But Williams doesn't bother to patronize the reader with sunshine or bullshit. She assumes that if you're mature enough to pick up the book, you're mature enough to handle the truth, which is refreshing.
The Secret of Hurricanes is a haunting story of love, loss, and the scars that stay with us years after the physical wounds of tragedy and abuse may disappear. This is undoubtedly one of the most powerful novels I have ever read. The book seeps slowly into you and clings the way that smoke lingers on your clothes - no matter how much time passes, the second you pull that shirt over your head and inhale, the emotion of the moment envelops you and takes you back.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Corelli's Mandolin
Ask, and ye shall receive. Just as I prayed to the literature gods for a true page-turner, they delivered one right into my lap.
I will admit that at the beginning, Corelli's Mandolin was difficult to latch on to. There is a review on the cover of the book that says, "An exuberant mixture of history and romance, written with a wit that is incandescent." (Los Angeles Times Book Review) Although the statement about the humor is true - the book is hilarious in an subtle way - the brief mention of history is a bit of an understatement. It feels like the entire history of Greece is discussed, in depth, to the point that I found myself skipping forward paragraphs praying for dialogue. But after about 100 pages, I realized why it was so important for this painstaking history to be established.
Pelagia, the daughter of a Greek doctor living on the island of Cephallonia, is first betrothed to a Greek man from the town. However, at a later point in the novel, she falls in love with an Italian soldier. I thought I knew quite a bit about WWII, through school and synagogue, but I had no idea about the relationships between the Greeks and the Italians. In fact, I didn't know much about any of the tension that went on in that part of Europe. So I'm not sure about the "common reader," but seeing Pelagia fall in love with an Italian soldier would have meant nothing to me if not for the careful world that De Bernieres built at the beginning of the novel.
Once the setting and characters are established, Corelli's Mandolin travels down a beautifully winding path. Through De Berieres wordy but whimsical prose, the reader is pushed to reconsider what they know about music, love, mortality, and loyalty. The characters are unusual and realistic in a wonderfully touching, relatable way. I saw pieces of myself in Pelagia, in Corelli, in Carlo, in the doctor. Every time I had to put the book down I was disappointed, and couldn't wait to pick it back up again. I ignored my boyfriend for about four straight days.
The love story between Pelagia and Corelli was one of the best in my recent memory. Towards the beginning of the book, as I mentioned, we see Pelagia engaged to a man from the village. This love story seems unsure, strained, rushed; at first, I thought it was just my odd opinions on love and marriage that tainted their storyline. But once Corelli came into the picture, I realized that De Bernieres, the crafty man, built the story this way on purpose. Consider Pelagia and Mandras that friend that you have that met her boyfriend six months ago and is already shopping for engagement rings (don't lie, you know you have one. We all do). You know they're moving too fast, that it won't last, and that things will go straight to the gutter once the sex appeal wears off.
And, of course, you're right. Pelagia and Mandras come to an uncomfortable and nauseating close, leaving the reader to wonder exactly where poor Pelagia is headed. But then we meet the force that is Antonio Corelli. The relationship between Pelagia and Corelli is almost the exact opposite of what we saw with Mandras. The two get to know each other slowly, almost painfully so. They travel gradually from enemies to acquaintances, from acquaintances to friends, and from friends to more (I will leave the description simply at "more" - anything else would give too much of the story away). Through these steps I felt truly lucky to travel with them, and more than once I caught myself grinning like an idiot at the pages. A slow, genuine, and beautifully real love forms between the two characters. The kind of love that gives you hope and makes you never want to watch reality dating shows again.
Perhaps even more inspiring than the love between Pelagia and Corelli is the love that Corelli has for his mandolin, Antonia. It made me nostalgic for the days that I loved to play my clarinet - before a scholarship to music school beat the love for the instrument right out of me. De Bernieres writes about music in a striking, gentle, almost fantasy-esque way. It seems to peel itself right off of the pages and dance around inside of your head, longing to be heard. He also creates a wonderfully funny and sweet comparison between a woman and a mandolin, which perhaps explains the way every musician understands the dating world. After finishing the book, I now desperately want to learn to play the mandolin.
There is also a fantastic little guest role by a pine martin named Psipsina ("kitty" or "cat" in Greek, I don't remember which") that made me melt. But that is probably because I'm a cat lady.
And so, from 100 pages on, Corelli's Mandolin was attached to my hip. I didn't want to put it down until I knew how it resolved, and fell asleep with my face in the pages more than once. Once I reached the last 150 pages, I went as far as to ban my boyfriend from the apartment for the night so I could finish the book in peace (after two years, he is thankfully more understanding about this than he used to be). I fully suggest the story to anyone who doesn't mind getting bombarded a bit by the details of history, who appreciates a thoroughly realistic and solid world behind their characters. I suggest that you read this book with an open mind and let yourself get swept away by the honest, imperfect love between Pelagia and Corelli. Also, be sure to note their experiences with life and death, with religion and politics, and let them help you reconsider the way that you live your own life. We could all use a lesson on appreciating the things that we are given, whether big or small.
"I feel guilty about leaving alive, when all my friends are dead [...]."
"In the Odyssey, Achilles says, 'Put me on earth again and I would rather be a serf in the house of a landless man than kind of all these dead men who have done with life,' and he was right" offered the doctor. "When loved ones die, you have to live on their behalf. See things as though with their eyes. Remember how they used to say things, and use those words oneself. Be thankful that you can do things that they cannot, and also feel the sadness of it. This is how I live without Pelagia's mother. I have no interest in flowers, but for her I will look at a rock-rose or a lily. For her I eat aubergines, because she loved them. For your boys you should make music and enjoy yourself, doing it for them."
I will admit that at the beginning, Corelli's Mandolin was difficult to latch on to. There is a review on the cover of the book that says, "An exuberant mixture of history and romance, written with a wit that is incandescent." (Los Angeles Times Book Review) Although the statement about the humor is true - the book is hilarious in an subtle way - the brief mention of history is a bit of an understatement. It feels like the entire history of Greece is discussed, in depth, to the point that I found myself skipping forward paragraphs praying for dialogue. But after about 100 pages, I realized why it was so important for this painstaking history to be established.
Pelagia, the daughter of a Greek doctor living on the island of Cephallonia, is first betrothed to a Greek man from the town. However, at a later point in the novel, she falls in love with an Italian soldier. I thought I knew quite a bit about WWII, through school and synagogue, but I had no idea about the relationships between the Greeks and the Italians. In fact, I didn't know much about any of the tension that went on in that part of Europe. So I'm not sure about the "common reader," but seeing Pelagia fall in love with an Italian soldier would have meant nothing to me if not for the careful world that De Bernieres built at the beginning of the novel.
Once the setting and characters are established, Corelli's Mandolin travels down a beautifully winding path. Through De Berieres wordy but whimsical prose, the reader is pushed to reconsider what they know about music, love, mortality, and loyalty. The characters are unusual and realistic in a wonderfully touching, relatable way. I saw pieces of myself in Pelagia, in Corelli, in Carlo, in the doctor. Every time I had to put the book down I was disappointed, and couldn't wait to pick it back up again. I ignored my boyfriend for about four straight days.
The love story between Pelagia and Corelli was one of the best in my recent memory. Towards the beginning of the book, as I mentioned, we see Pelagia engaged to a man from the village. This love story seems unsure, strained, rushed; at first, I thought it was just my odd opinions on love and marriage that tainted their storyline. But once Corelli came into the picture, I realized that De Bernieres, the crafty man, built the story this way on purpose. Consider Pelagia and Mandras that friend that you have that met her boyfriend six months ago and is already shopping for engagement rings (don't lie, you know you have one. We all do). You know they're moving too fast, that it won't last, and that things will go straight to the gutter once the sex appeal wears off.
And, of course, you're right. Pelagia and Mandras come to an uncomfortable and nauseating close, leaving the reader to wonder exactly where poor Pelagia is headed. But then we meet the force that is Antonio Corelli. The relationship between Pelagia and Corelli is almost the exact opposite of what we saw with Mandras. The two get to know each other slowly, almost painfully so. They travel gradually from enemies to acquaintances, from acquaintances to friends, and from friends to more (I will leave the description simply at "more" - anything else would give too much of the story away). Through these steps I felt truly lucky to travel with them, and more than once I caught myself grinning like an idiot at the pages. A slow, genuine, and beautifully real love forms between the two characters. The kind of love that gives you hope and makes you never want to watch reality dating shows again.
Perhaps even more inspiring than the love between Pelagia and Corelli is the love that Corelli has for his mandolin, Antonia. It made me nostalgic for the days that I loved to play my clarinet - before a scholarship to music school beat the love for the instrument right out of me. De Bernieres writes about music in a striking, gentle, almost fantasy-esque way. It seems to peel itself right off of the pages and dance around inside of your head, longing to be heard. He also creates a wonderfully funny and sweet comparison between a woman and a mandolin, which perhaps explains the way every musician understands the dating world. After finishing the book, I now desperately want to learn to play the mandolin.
There is also a fantastic little guest role by a pine martin named Psipsina ("kitty" or "cat" in Greek, I don't remember which") that made me melt. But that is probably because I'm a cat lady.
And so, from 100 pages on, Corelli's Mandolin was attached to my hip. I didn't want to put it down until I knew how it resolved, and fell asleep with my face in the pages more than once. Once I reached the last 150 pages, I went as far as to ban my boyfriend from the apartment for the night so I could finish the book in peace (after two years, he is thankfully more understanding about this than he used to be). I fully suggest the story to anyone who doesn't mind getting bombarded a bit by the details of history, who appreciates a thoroughly realistic and solid world behind their characters. I suggest that you read this book with an open mind and let yourself get swept away by the honest, imperfect love between Pelagia and Corelli. Also, be sure to note their experiences with life and death, with religion and politics, and let them help you reconsider the way that you live your own life. We could all use a lesson on appreciating the things that we are given, whether big or small.
"I feel guilty about leaving alive, when all my friends are dead [...]."
"In the Odyssey, Achilles says, 'Put me on earth again and I would rather be a serf in the house of a landless man than kind of all these dead men who have done with life,' and he was right" offered the doctor. "When loved ones die, you have to live on their behalf. See things as though with their eyes. Remember how they used to say things, and use those words oneself. Be thankful that you can do things that they cannot, and also feel the sadness of it. This is how I live without Pelagia's mother. I have no interest in flowers, but for her I will look at a rock-rose or a lily. For her I eat aubergines, because she loved them. For your boys you should make music and enjoy yourself, doing it for them."
Saturday, April 10, 2010
What makes a page-turner?
A good friend of mine just finished reading Sara Gruen's novel, Water for Elephants. She spent almost two days straight in bed, unable to put the book down. Hearing her talk about how she had to tear herself away from the novel to go to class or go to sleep at night made me stop and think of the last time I read a book that I couldn't put down. And by stop and think, I clearly mean pout with jealousy - after all, who doesn't love being swept away by a piece of writing?
I am currently plodding slowly (and somewhat painfully - as much as I enjoy the humor, there is an awful lot of wordy, over-indulgent history to wade through) through Corelli's Mandolin, as I did with The Power of One, Franny and Zooey, and Into the Wild. I suppose my stint with memoirs could have been torrid enough for them to be considered "page-turners", but I'm not sure that they really count as fiction. If we leave them out on a technicality, the last book I remember being truly captivated by was The Time Traveller's Wife. This left me wondering. I didn't think that Time Traveler was anything impressive - an odd but interesting storyline told through passable writing with ordinary characters. But I read it quickly, hungrily. And yet The Power of One, which I think anyone would agree is a better book by almost all standards, didn't entrance me in the same way. I can't help but ask...
What is it that makes a book a "page-turner?" What is it exactly that gives a piece of writing that ability to keep you from setting it down, picking up another book, or clearing the plotline from your head long after you've turned off the lamp to go to sleep?
When I look back at the books that have really held my interest recently, there isn't much of a pattern. The Time Traveler's Wife, Water for Elephants, and The Raw Shark Texts (a fantastically creative, modern and unprecedented novel suggested by a friend this summer - if you haven't heard of it, take the time to check it out here) are three in recent memory, and I'm not sure they could be more different. Also, although this might get me booed out of any book club, when I read the Twilight series, I couldn't put the books down. The same goes for Harry Potter. Are the characters the fuel that keeps the fire burning? The plot twists? Suspense? Curiosity? Excitement? Romance? Is it a matter of good writing, or of popular writing that caters to the reader?
The Free Dictionary.com defines "page-turner" as "A very interesting, exciting, or suspenseful book, usually a novel." Quite simply, this definition isn't enough for me.
What do you think makes a book a page-turner? Is there a specific formula? Is it a matter of talent, luck, or careful strategic planning?
I am currently plodding slowly (and somewhat painfully - as much as I enjoy the humor, there is an awful lot of wordy, over-indulgent history to wade through) through Corelli's Mandolin, as I did with The Power of One, Franny and Zooey, and Into the Wild. I suppose my stint with memoirs could have been torrid enough for them to be considered "page-turners", but I'm not sure that they really count as fiction. If we leave them out on a technicality, the last book I remember being truly captivated by was The Time Traveller's Wife. This left me wondering. I didn't think that Time Traveler was anything impressive - an odd but interesting storyline told through passable writing with ordinary characters. But I read it quickly, hungrily. And yet The Power of One, which I think anyone would agree is a better book by almost all standards, didn't entrance me in the same way. I can't help but ask...
What is it that makes a book a "page-turner?" What is it exactly that gives a piece of writing that ability to keep you from setting it down, picking up another book, or clearing the plotline from your head long after you've turned off the lamp to go to sleep?
When I look back at the books that have really held my interest recently, there isn't much of a pattern. The Time Traveler's Wife, Water for Elephants, and The Raw Shark Texts (a fantastically creative, modern and unprecedented novel suggested by a friend this summer - if you haven't heard of it, take the time to check it out here) are three in recent memory, and I'm not sure they could be more different. Also, although this might get me booed out of any book club, when I read the Twilight series, I couldn't put the books down. The same goes for Harry Potter. Are the characters the fuel that keeps the fire burning? The plot twists? Suspense? Curiosity? Excitement? Romance? Is it a matter of good writing, or of popular writing that caters to the reader?
The Free Dictionary.com defines "page-turner" as "A very interesting, exciting, or suspenseful book, usually a novel." Quite simply, this definition isn't enough for me.
What do you think makes a book a page-turner? Is there a specific formula? Is it a matter of talent, luck, or careful strategic planning?
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Sunday, April 4, 2010
The Power of One, continued
"Peekay, God is too busy making the sun come up and go down and watching so the moon floats just right in the sky to be concerned with such rubbish. Only man wants always God should be there to condemn this one and save that one. Always it is man who wants to make heaven and hell. God is too busy training the bees to make honey and every morning opening up all the new flowers for business. [...] In Mexico there is a cactus that even sometimes you would think God forgets. But no, my friend, this is not so. On a full moon in the desert every one hundred years he remembers and he opens up a single flower to bloom. And if you should be there and you see this beautiful cactus blossom painted silver by the moon and laughing up at the stars, this, Peekay, is heaven. [...] This is the faith in God the cactus has. [...] It is better just to get on with the business of living and minding your own business and maybe, if God likes the way you do things, he may just let you flower for a day or a night. But don't go pestering and begging and telling him all your stupid litlte sins, that way you will spoil his day. Absoloodle."
A quote from Doc, the grandfatherly, cactus-obsessed, wonderfully puttering German music professor from Bryce Courtenay's novel The Power of One. The book is worth reading for Doc's goofy, beautiful bits of wisdom alone.
Tonight, I was finally able to turn the last few pages of The Power of One. I enjoyed the book, and found myself very attached to Peekay (and a few of his gang of friends). However, I have to admit that I was glad when it ended. Each book (the novel itself is split into three) was a little bit slower and a little bit more difficult to read than the last, and by the time I started the third one, I wanted to be finished.
In the second half of the book, Courtenay resolved almost all of the issues that I mentioned in my last entry. We see the cocky, inexperienced, sometimes bullheaded side of Peekay that I was aching to see peek through. Although he was still a "saint" overall (in the eyes of the People, quite literally), making him a little bit overconfident and giving him the attitude to go against the authorities in his life was a very welcome change. These actions made him a more realistic character, and, in my case, brought me deeper into the story. I finally saw Peekay as a 3-D, fully rounded character, and I was really rooting for him. I have to say that the end caught me off guard (I'll try not to give it away) - it seemed abrupt and out of character for the Peekay that we had grown to know. I was hoping for an epilogue following this final scene, something to clue us in to the next few steps in Peekay's life. We traveled with this boy from an infant to a boy somewhere between 17 and 19, investing faith and hope and emotion into him...I was disappointed to not know more about his life after leaving the mines. Did he continue on to Oxford? We are told, in a roundabout way, that his relationship with Morrie continues, which makes me assume so. But does he continue on to become the welterweight champion of the world, making the endless training and practice worth it?
As much as I wish I knew, I also understand why Courtenay chose to end it where he did. The imagination of the readers will build a million different incredible and wonderful lives for Peekay. And what more could a novelist want, really, than for his character to live and thrive in the minds of his readers?
And so the quest to find a new story begins. I was planning on picking up where I left off with Loving Frank, which has been sitting on my bookshelf (I have a tendency to get so excited about a new book that I'll forget about the one I was reading...), but the other day I ran across a quote that really sparked my interest.
"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two."
After a bit of investigative Google-ing, I learned that the quote is from a novel called Captain Correlli's Mandolin (it was also made into a movie). I know nothing about the book, and purposefully refrained from researching it further - I like the idea of being completely surprised. I have to admit, though, that I have very high expectations. I connected to that quote very deeply (to the point that my boyfriend and I have tossed around the idea of including it in our wedding vows), so if the novel itself is disappointing, it will be a real let down. But hopefully, the novel will prove just as inspiring and beautiful as that specific passage. I am very excited to trade The Power of One for Captain Correlli's Mandolin at the library tomorrow, and plan on spending the afternoon reading outside. There's nothing better than a good book out in the sunshine!
A quote from Doc, the grandfatherly, cactus-obsessed, wonderfully puttering German music professor from Bryce Courtenay's novel The Power of One. The book is worth reading for Doc's goofy, beautiful bits of wisdom alone.
Tonight, I was finally able to turn the last few pages of The Power of One. I enjoyed the book, and found myself very attached to Peekay (and a few of his gang of friends). However, I have to admit that I was glad when it ended. Each book (the novel itself is split into three) was a little bit slower and a little bit more difficult to read than the last, and by the time I started the third one, I wanted to be finished.
In the second half of the book, Courtenay resolved almost all of the issues that I mentioned in my last entry. We see the cocky, inexperienced, sometimes bullheaded side of Peekay that I was aching to see peek through. Although he was still a "saint" overall (in the eyes of the People, quite literally), making him a little bit overconfident and giving him the attitude to go against the authorities in his life was a very welcome change. These actions made him a more realistic character, and, in my case, brought me deeper into the story. I finally saw Peekay as a 3-D, fully rounded character, and I was really rooting for him. I have to say that the end caught me off guard (I'll try not to give it away) - it seemed abrupt and out of character for the Peekay that we had grown to know. I was hoping for an epilogue following this final scene, something to clue us in to the next few steps in Peekay's life. We traveled with this boy from an infant to a boy somewhere between 17 and 19, investing faith and hope and emotion into him...I was disappointed to not know more about his life after leaving the mines. Did he continue on to Oxford? We are told, in a roundabout way, that his relationship with Morrie continues, which makes me assume so. But does he continue on to become the welterweight champion of the world, making the endless training and practice worth it?
As much as I wish I knew, I also understand why Courtenay chose to end it where he did. The imagination of the readers will build a million different incredible and wonderful lives for Peekay. And what more could a novelist want, really, than for his character to live and thrive in the minds of his readers?
And so the quest to find a new story begins. I was planning on picking up where I left off with Loving Frank, which has been sitting on my bookshelf (I have a tendency to get so excited about a new book that I'll forget about the one I was reading...), but the other day I ran across a quote that really sparked my interest.
"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two."
After a bit of investigative Google-ing, I learned that the quote is from a novel called Captain Correlli's Mandolin (it was also made into a movie). I know nothing about the book, and purposefully refrained from researching it further - I like the idea of being completely surprised. I have to admit, though, that I have very high expectations. I connected to that quote very deeply (to the point that my boyfriend and I have tossed around the idea of including it in our wedding vows), so if the novel itself is disappointing, it will be a real let down. But hopefully, the novel will prove just as inspiring and beautiful as that specific passage. I am very excited to trade The Power of One for Captain Correlli's Mandolin at the library tomorrow, and plan on spending the afternoon reading outside. There's nothing better than a good book out in the sunshine!
Friday, April 2, 2010
Nicholas Sparks interview - not for those with weak stomachs
Coming to the end of The Power of One - this book is moving very slowly. I got the job at the library, so my next choice will be a love story. In the meantime, here is something that should interest you, if you are a lover of books and therefore hate Nicholas Sparks (I have yet to meet anyone who embodies one without the other): Read at your own risk.
Other than the part where he compares himself to Shakespeare and trashes the incredible Cormac McCarthy (somewhere, post-apocalyptic fiction lovers are gathering their weapons), my favorite section in here has to be the following:
Other than the part where he compares himself to Shakespeare and trashes the incredible Cormac McCarthy (somewhere, post-apocalyptic fiction lovers are gathering their weapons), my favorite section in here has to be the following:
'"I write in a genre that was not defined by me. The examples were not set out by me. They were set out 2,000 years ago by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. They were called the Greek tragedies. A thriller is supposed to thrill. A horror novel is supposed to scare you. A mystery is supposed to keep you turning the pages, guessing 'whodunit?' A romance novel is supposed to make you escape into a fantasy of romance. What is the purpose of what I do? These are love stories. They went from (Greek tragedies), to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, then Jane Austen did it, put a new human twist on it. Hemingway did it with A Farewell to Arms." Asked what he likes in his own genre, Sparks replies: "There are no authors in my genre. No one is doing what I do."'
Despite his almost violent trashing of Cormac McCarthy, he states, "I do not like to say bad things about others." When he is prompted about his prior insults, he quips back, "He deserves it." And laughs. Someone please put this cocky, overpaid, literature pulverizing idiot out of his misery. Nicholas Sparks is becoming the Paris Hilton of the literature world. He's like the patchy, smelly stray cat that keeps walking around the neighborhood. And as long as teenage girls keep feeding him, he'll never go away.
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