Lory
An early effort that hints at better things to come, after Wodehouse had honed his style and plotting further. This was pleasantly diverting but completely forgettable. In fact, I started to suspect I had read it already and forgotten it (but I'm not sure whether I had, or was just reminded of episodes from other PGW books).
I read Dorothy Dunnett! I'd seen her books highly recommended so I wanted to check them out. I did not get on with the Macbeth one, but I tried again with the Lymond Chronicles. The start was rocky again (Lymond seemed a horrible character to begin with, and I was confused by the history and military strategy) but after a while I finally got into it. The plot remained confusing to me, but I became more engaged with the characters, and it was lovely to see Richard and Lymond finally coming to an understanding. I will try the next in the series and maybe it will be more comprehensible now that I have some orientation.
I didn't feel that the foreign quotations were a huge impediment to understanding, although it would be nice to have a reference with the translations. The outrageously florid style could have been irritating, but somehow it worked and gave a great flair to what otherwise could have been quite a dull and dreary passage of history. Maybe that's why these books are so beloved.
For some reason I thought Laurie Colwin had written a lot of food books, but it seems there is really only this one and the posthumous More Home Cooking. I enjoy Colwin's style – it reminded me of Peg Bracken's The I Hate To Cook Book, with its simple recipes and chatty commentary, except this should be called the I Love To Cook Book. Cooking-wise the book is of limited usefulness to me, since the recipes mostly involve things I can't eat or don't eat or just would never bother to cook. Glad I finally read it, and I'd gladly read more by Colwin, but it won't be one of those books that ends up changing the way I cook. (I'm already too set in my ways I guess.)
Interesting result of the author's investigation into her father's life, which she wanted to understand better after he committed suicide. As his history comes slowly more into focus, along with much that can never be fully comprehended, it creates a touching portrait of a man who struggled to live well, against incredible obstacles, with an end both tragic and uplifting.
Read this to finish off the Narniathon - it was nice to revisit the stories, and Langrish had some interesting commentary to make, but there was way too much plot summary. The book cannot be for someone who hasn't read the Narnia books – they wouldn't be interested in all the sources for something they have not read yet, and reading Langrish's paraphrases would only spoil the experience for them – and for someone who has read them, is it really necessary to go on at such length? It was more of a book-length paraphrase with a few notes scattered within, than an original book in its own right.
And most of the notes were about comparisons to literary sources of similar motifs and plotlines, which were interesting, but there is so much more to say. What about Lewis's life? What about what was going on in history and society? What about theological ideas? The latter is touched on a bit, the others hardly at all.
Some good things:
I had not noticed how full the books are of blood, vs. the bloodlessness of Tolkien, so that was an interesting point. Battles and blood have always been something I skip over and don't imagine very thoroughly though.
“Lewis is most successful when he works within the framework of his imaginary world, not when he tries to break out of it.” (Introduction) True.
“This isn't a story ‘about' repentance and baptism: this is the experience of which repentance and baptism are the symbols.” (Voyage of the Dawn Treader, about Eustace's undragoning) A neat way to put it, and points up the importance of seeing the stories as something in their own right and not just allegories.
Further to that, she quotes Lewis writing of Bunyan, “We ought not to be thinking ‘this green valley where the shepherd boy is singing, represents humility,'; we ought to be discovering, as we read, that humility is like that green valley.” (The Silver Chair) This is why the Narnia books succeed, when they do: they give us an experience of discovery of imaginative realities. When they try too hard to hit us over the head with Messages, as in The Last Battle, they don't work.
“What I drew from the Narnia books has stayed with me for life: the colour, richness and beauty, the breadth, depth, and glory of the world.” (The Silver Chair) My sentiments exactly.
The critique of The Last Battle is good. Again, I didn't notice the inconsistencies or stupid strategic moves of Tirian as a battle leader, because I never care much about battles and cannot keep geography or strategy straight in my head. I must say that I never get bored with Lewis's battles, though, unlike Tolkien's. He keeps up the storytelling pace marvellously.
I entirely agree with Langrish's critique of the treatment of Susan (the worst thing is that her family seems to write her off completely), and Emeth the Token Good Calormene, who really has no likeable qualities and also worships a horrible demon.
Oh, in the Horse and His Boy chapter she points out that Calormene can't have any magical or beautiful qualities, which could certainly well have been borrowed from the Oriental stories Lewis was imitating, because it is conceived of as the Anti-Narnia. An artistic mistake on Lewis's part, I think, which is why Horse is so dull and disappointing compared to the other books – but completely in line with his ideological program, the worst thing about Narnia.
Not a how-to guide, but more of a memoir about Roth's journey with compulsive eating, helping others to break free of compulsive eating, and unpacking the layers of trauma beneath the compulsion, which extended well past the point where she stopped dieting and started a career as a weight-loss guru. As she was helping others, she had to continue to find out the ways that she still was in need of healing herself. I like that she states that healing is really a never-ending process. I've grown suspicious of any path that suggests otherwise.
The basic message is that compulsions are a way to distance us from ourselves, and the hard but immensely rewarding work is to stay with yourself and not try to escape into food, love, or anything else. I agree.
I was reflecting as I read on how things have changed in the last years; when I was growing up the food obsessions mainly centered around gaining or losing weight, but now in addition to that there are all the health fads, the vegan, raw food, paleo, carnivore diets, the food sensitivities, and so forth. There is so much moralizing around that, the pressure to “eat clean” and so forth. Everyone seems to have their own idea of what is the one and only true way, and many of them are in direct opposition to each other. How can that be? It's just a new version of the religion wars. And as with religion, I believe that the real truth lies beyond all such superficial differences.
The “health-food” variety of obsession is more what I've been dealing with, because although I never got into the weight loss game, I was definitely a compulsive eater. And my guilt was more about eating things that were unhealthy, than things that were fattening. But even though I tried to be “good,” to eat clean according to my best understanding of what that meant, I had urges to binge on things I knew were “bad,” like cookies and potato chips and croissants – and even to eat too much of healthy things, using them to distance myself from my feelings. But I shoved my awareness of the unhealthiness of these urges aside and tried to tell myself they didn't matter, I was good enough, I needed a little fun now and then.
Recently my body started saying “no” and throwing out symptoms that forced me to reconsider my habits. To continue ignoring and abusing my body further, I would have had to ignore really uncomfortable things, and really abandon my true self and its feelings, and I guess I just decided I didn't want to do that any more. I decided to do what Roth says, to make a commitment to staying with myself, instead of going with whatever false savior of the moment was calling for me. To start noticing how I feel, and having faith in my ability to heal, to be nourished, to be filled, instead of panicking that I can never be satisfied and reaching for the nearest comfort food.
Eliminating certain foods was necessary as a step to reduce their hold on me, but it couldn't be just about not eating gluten or sugar or whatever because the real issue was that I was using those things to escape from myself. I could have continued trying to escape from myself using carrots or almond milk and those would eventually have become problematic as well.
Anyway, I think it would be interesting to address those issues – or maybe it's really just another version of the same thing. I am interested to read more on this topic from other angles. Food and psychological health are definitely intertwined and i want to know more about healing practices.
The first 200 pages of this book exhaustively chronicled Billings's turmoil as a therapist and social worker who struggled with mental health issues and psychiatric hospitalizations of her own, then with her adolescent daughter's similar issues plus gender questioning. The author's honesty was admirable and Hannah/Avery's willingness to have their journey described was also impressive. The story of both mother and child may give hope to others who are suffering from similar painful experiences that they feel too ashamed to disclose.
I must say though, to me it felt like only half of the story was told. In comparison to this first part, the section in which Billings and her family came to a kind of stability was abrupt and fleetingly told. It could use more fleshing out, to my mind. Perhaps it was too hard to define those experiences, or to account for the reasons for healing, but more of an attempt could have been made. This also would be so valuable for our understanding.
Overall, the time jumps that frequently happened in the narrative – as flashbacks, or as jumps to a very different time or situation – were not marked well and could be confusing. Even some dingbats to indicate time passing would help!
I liked the ending, which cast a new light on what I had been finding annoyingly abstract, unnecessarily philosophical conversations of the “women talking,” their ruminations over whether to stay in or leave their abusive community. Why all this debate, just leave already! But in the end, the question I should have paid more attention to – why one of the women asked a man to record the conversations in a language they did not understand and could not read – was answered as the purpose for the whole exercise, which was quite a neat narrative trick. It almost made me forgive the absurdity of the style of recording, which was completely impossible; there's no way the transcriber would be able to write down word for word dialogue in the way he supposedly did.
Thematically, the question is how, whether, why one can forgive an unforgiveable act. This also was answered in the ending, which showed that one way, at least, is not to try to pay back the attacker, which only continues the cycle of suffering, nor to get back what he stole from you, which is impossible, but to give, give something positive to another who is suffering, give of yourself without being asked or demanded of or attacked. That is my personal experience as well, that difficult as it may be to open up and be vulnerable and real when you've been so wounded, it is the only way to stop the trauma from having control over you.
I've read this a million times, starting when I was about 13. As an adult, I notice how dull the story really is. There is no true conflict, only the emergence of a human weapon who is unstoppable. But it still holds magic for me as an image of a young woman slowly awakening to her inner strength. My favorite part is when Harry and Corlath turn their war-rage into healing power, something that can only be done through a relationship – ,the real magic that has faded in the long absence of a “damalur-sol,” I believe. Too bad there was never a further volume about the development of this impulse, I would have found that really interesting.
On the other hand, an absurdity I did not notice for many years is that Harry never menstruates! She never has to deal with that mess and inconvenience, as she's riding about for days and weeks through the desert, being an intrepid female warrior. But a real female warrior would have to deal with it. Maybe the drug she's given during her six-week training time suppresses her period. Or maybe her blood-letting sword is an image for the menses? At the age I first fell in love with the book, I wanted to forget about my period as well, so this was not an issue for me. But now, I want books that acknowledge all sides of our female physicality.
Perhaps sensing this omission (she once called The Blue Sword her embarrassing fantasy of her 10-year-old idea of the perfect life), McKinley made up for this omission with Deerskin, which goes far in the other direction, dealing as it does with taboo topics like incest and rape, and of course menstruation. I remember how powerful it was for me when I first read it. After that, sadly and strangely, her books became largely unreadable for me, with their convoluted language that tangled up some promising ideas in a jumble of words. But the earlier ones remain some of the touchstone books of my life, and I'll always be fond of this one even as I now see its weaknesses.
Keller writes dismissively that she is not a writer, but there are some really beautiful passages here along with more ordinary, rambling and random reminiscence. It's always fascinating to me to read about her perspective on the world. Although many of her observations must perforce be filtered through the sight and hearing of another, aren't our own senses also filters that mediate the world to us? Keller is just one step removed in that process, and her powers of imagination and integration – which are the really important thing – are remarkable.
She interested me in learning more about Alexander Graham Bell, who sounds like another remarkable person. Inventing the telephone made him rich and famous but what he truly cared about was the education of the deaf. Other “friends” like Mark Twain, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and many more are uniquely seen through her eyes. Keller is unfailingly positive, but she says that this is a choice she has made; it's not that she is never sad or burdened by her limitations. She writes with humor about the stupidity and indifference towards the deaf-blind insofar as she is personally affected, with indignation and moral fervor about the plight of many others who are poorer and more confined than she.
She also touches on some painful personal episodes about which readers are probably curious to know more ... her brief secret engagement, the departure of John Macy. She is so tactful about these episodes, that much will have to remain unknown.
I read this slowly over a period of months, while working on my own spiritual memoir, and found it really helpful. I did not do the exact exercises given but found that the general advice was sound. I especially appreciated being given permission to write my memoir first of all, for myself and not worry about an audience, initially or perhaps at all. That helped me to get going, because there was a lot that I wanted and needed to write that can probably never be published, and it was stopping me from even beginning. In the end it did really prove to be a spiritual exercise that helped me to articulate what I thought but could not cognize without this tool of language.
I also like the advice that Andrew paraphrases from a college professor, who told her to write an essay, then cut off the summary ending paragraph and put it at the head of a new essay. Start again, with the conclusion you came to through the whole process, as your new thesis. I find that that is true of my own writing – I see how what I came to at the end, can form the seed of a new project that maybe will be publishable. Or maybe not. Or maybe it needs multiple drafts to get there. I'm more at peace with the process, now, and this book is partly to thank for it.
“Nothing whatsoever, not even the existence of God to his lovers, can be proved, but...every man, if he is to live at all finely, must deliberately adopt certain assertions as true, and those assertions should, for the sake of the enrichment of the human race, always be creative ones. He may, as life goes on, modify his beliefs, but he must never modify them on the side of destruction.”
A somewhat creaky, old-fashioned, definitely far-fetched tale of a lovely place and of the kind of delightfully varied, human characters which Goudge excels in creating and making completely real to us. Some find it “too pious,” but I find that the piety is couched in bracing philosophical terms like the above, which emphasize the bravery and daring it actually takes to be a person of faith, to place oneself on the side of creation in an age full of destruction. It's not about taking comfort in bland platitudes or fixed certainties, but it does give me comfort to think that (as is said elsewhere in the book) it doesn't matter what happens to one in life, or how long life lasts, as long as one strives to live beautifully.
I feel as though I didn't take this in fully, reading it in a scattered way as an e-book. It would be better to take time to study and reflect on it and maybe someday I will have the chance to do that.
I do appreciate Lewis's logical way of looking at and expressing things and yet spiritually I find it increasingly dissatisfying. He's just so VERY logical. I wish at times for some chaos and disruption to shake up his ordered mind, or for him to reveal more of his personal, inner life than the generalities he tends to stick to. However, also lots to ponder and some lovely lines here. That's why I need to sit down with time and a notebook to really do it justice.
These short essays combine appreciation of the wonders of nature with reflections from the author's life and experiences. Often they were VERY short and fragmentary, leading to a wish for more depth and continuity. The author is a poet, and they were similar to lyric poems in prose, which gave them a quirky kind of originality, but also sometimes failed to satisfy.
Part of my ongoing project to better understand and heal my own gut issues. The research is very exciting and promising, if somewhat limited and premature. The authors often present not-fully-tested theories (to be fair, they do say when they are doing this) or talk about their personal choices for their own two children, which are not evidence. Along with this filler, though, is a solid case to be made that our gut microbiota has a profound effect on many areas previously thought to be unrelated, and that improvements in gut health can likewise profoundly affect our physical and even mental health. Sadly, this also means that the modern threats to said gut microbiota – especially the fiber-poor Western diet, the astronomic rate of unnecessary C-sections, the compulsion to oversanitize everything and fear dirt, and the dangerous, but seemingly unstoppable overuse of antibiotics – have had a devastating effect that may not be reversible.
“We are a composite organism, an ecosystem,” the authors say at the book's conclusion. The age of the individualistic, atomistic worldview, the prejudice that led us to see things as separate and disconnected, is at an end, a very dead end. In science, as in every other area of life, we must begin to see each part always in relation to the whole. And in terms of our physiology, that means becoming aware of and working in harmony with our invisible microbial friends. Here's to that hope for the future.
After a couple of disappointing mystery reads this month, I enjoyed this one! The “secret staircase” conceit was appealing because I love those kinds of secret rooms. Character and relationship development was minimal, but the characters didn't depress or annoy me at least. I'd read another one in this series, just to see what happens to them all next.
Reviews and more on my blog, Entering the Enchanted Castle I started reading this because I couldn't sleep one night, and then I had to keep going to the end. An odd mixture of comedy of manners, thriller, melodrama, and sentimental romance, veering wildly through various emotional trajectories. I think it would have been more successful if it had stuck more to just one or two sorts of stories; as it is, we are just settling into one when we get taken off in another direction; just after the most gooey sentimental bit, we get a grim, cynical ending as a chaser. Maybe Burnett was making fun of her own genre-writing formulas somehow? Also, very class-conscious and snobby, but that's Burnett for you. In some ways reminiscent of a grown-up A Little Princess, but with a heroine who is much more ordinary than Sara, almost stupid, and notable mainly for her slavish devotion to the man who rescues her from a life of poverty. I remember being disappointed the first time I read it, and so it was again.
Reviews and more on my blog, Entering the Enchanted Castle I got interested in this from the review at annabookbel.net – unlike Annabel, I've never seen Cox onstage or even on film (except in Braveheart, where I must have seen but didn't consciously notice him), and I don't watch TV so haven't seen him in his current hit show. Still I enjoyed his memoir about his life in the theatre, later emphasizing more movies and TV since he chose to go Hollywood and become a successful character actor. The earlier part of the book was more compelling; later on it became very fragmented and name-droppy. Aside from repeated self-castigations for being such a bad husband to his first wife and bad dad (and it seems he really was), there wasn't much coherence to the thoughts his personal life or inner journey. Often reads like he's talking to you over a beer, with his conversational asides and quips. The most interesting musings are about acting as a form of “expiation,” but he's never able to make it quite clear exactly what he means by it, except that he does it and Ian McKellen doesn't.
This was a fun adventure story with a memorable setting and characters, well-crafted language that was by turns evocative, suspenseful, funny and heartwarming. The twists and turns of the plot kept it exciting, ringing some clever changes on the usual “orphan stranded in nasty family” story, and rewarding us in the end with the perfect ending for everyone. The books of Frances Hodgson Burnett are an obvious inspiration–Little Lord Fauntleroy is explicitly referenced, but A Little Princess, The Secret Garden, and even The Lost Prince are in the background too. Ibbotson makes the genre her own, though, with her own excellent storytelling. The romantic, somewhat patronizing view of the “Indians” is an unfortunate flaw, but the powerful sense of the wonders of nature will hopefully make an even stronger impression on young readers.
A fantastically detailled, suitably pointillistic (composed largely of brief interviews with cast and crew of the original production) account of the development of a unique and important piece of theatre. Now that it's become a legend, it's fascinating to look back at its origins before anyone knew it would work, the tensions and conflicts behind the scenes, James Lapine's inexperience as a writer and director. The connecting and sustaining thread throughout is Lapine's close collaboration with Sondheim, who was just coming off a painful failure with Merrily We Roll Along and yet willing to dare again to do something completely different, following an artistic dream, taking a chance on an unknown. The complete script of the show is included at the end, but it's no substitute for watching a performance – fortunately the recording of the original production is available.
