Spoiled Only Child

The Pillars of the Earth, By Ken Follett

I have read so many books since I last posted about one here, I can't even remember what they are. But I do remember this one. My mother has been pleading with me to read this book for years. But it is so long (over 1000 pages) and it's about cathedral building in the Middle Ages. I can't imagine anything I'd be less likely to commit 1000 pages of leisure reading to. But I have recently become a believer in reading whatever book crosses my path (within reason), and I discovered a copy buried in the corner of the bookshef in the spare room. I was in need of something to read, so I went for it.

All I can say is, I could have read 2000 pages. It was great. It's one of those epic historic novels that stretches over decades, through many wars and disasters. It's everything you would expect of a novel about the middle ages — knights and lords and peasants, castles and dungeons and chainmail and lots of bloody death — but it is so much more. It's just an amazing story full of characters that jump off the page. I was amazed at the way they still loved and pursued ambitions and reached for happiness, despite living in what truly was a bleak time. It reminded me that people, no matter how long ago or foreign or different from myself, are always just people.

Most of all, it made me think about what it took to build a cathedral in that day and time. I spent some time in France and England as a college student, and I walked through too many cathedrals to count. I learned about gothic and romanesque and the nave and the apse, but I never once thought about what it would take to build such a thing in a time before cranes or earth movers or factory made bricks or, really, anything but hand tools and buckets and strings. One cathedral could take 50 years or more. The massive foundations were dug by hand, the dirt moved in one small load after another. Every stone was quarried and cut and laid by hand. Every detail carved by hand. And after that incredible effort by hundreds of men over years and years, it might have fallen down or burned before it was finished. To think that I looked at all those cathedrals and never thought once about what an incredible testament they are, not to God's power, but to the power of the human spirit.

My Detachment, by Tracy Kidder

This book rocked. Possibly the most honest and unflinching memoir I have ever read. This is the story of Tracy Kidder's year as a lieutenant in Vietnam.

From the facts on the surface, you might think of Kidder as a sort of hero. He studied at Harvard, volunteered for the Army, spent the war in heading up an intelligence unit that intercepted top secret radio transmissions and won a medal for his service, then returned home to become a famous author. But the real story, according to him, is less glorious. He signed up only because he was graduating and concerned about the draft. A friend convinced him he could avoid ever leaving the United States if he signed up for ROTC and went in as an officer.

Much of his time in Vietnam was spent drinking beer, sleeping and generally killing time in a remote outpost. His most valiant efforts went to appeasing his superiors so they would leave him alone. And what work he did that directly influenced the war, picking up transmissions that helped the Army figure out where the enemy was, may have made him an accessory to the killing of civilians and children.

"I felt, increasingly, that everything I did was worse than pointless," he writes. "And still, perversely, I wanted the war, with all else it had to do, to lend my life some meaning." Kidder went to Vietnam hoping the war would turn him into someone interesting and worthy of respect. Instead, it seemed to point up all his weaknesses and moral failings in sharp relief. And when he came home with no harrowing battle stories to tell at drunken parties, he occasionally implied with vague statements that he had killed and watched friends die.

There might be a temptation to judge Kidder as less worthy than other veterans, other men, other human beings. But I think he has simply told the story most of us keep hidden. We are all stumbling through life, failing to live up to our own expectations, screwing up and wanting people to think we're more heroic than we really are. To tell this story with such a complete absence of pride, I think, was an incredible act of bravery.

P.S. There is a new post you might be interested in on my other blog. Leave a comment or send an email if you don't have the address.

Caribbean studies

Ever since our trip to the British Virgin Islands, I've been doing nothing but reading about the Caribbean. I feel like I could read about it forever. Here are the three I've made it through so far:

The Autobiography of My Mother, by Jamaica Kincaid

An incredibly written story about the Caribbean from the perspective of a native of these islands that look like paradise to us well-off vacationers and prison to the impoverished natives who have never known anything else. I enjoyed the book up to a point, but it was almost too negative, too lacking in redemption. And while it was beautifully written, I wasn't entirely sure I got it. It's one of those you wish you had read in a college course and a professor could help you with the tricky bits. I blogged about it on my other site here.

An Embarrassment of Mangoes, by Ann Vanderhoof

A fascinating story of a couple who, at 45, ditch the rat race and spend two years sailing from Canada to the Caribbean and back. Spending an extended period on a sailboat is one of the secret dreams that Mr. SOC and I share, so I found this book especially interesting. She describes the experience so well, and in such detail, that I feel like I would know exactly what I was getting into if I decided to sail to the Caribbean. It reaffirmed my desire to find some way to make this fantasy happen. But she and her husband had a couple advantages I don't: They made a lot of money, so could save a lot, and they have no children. That makes taking off for two years in the Caribbean a hell of a lot easier. But maybe a more truncated version of the trip would be realistic for us. One day, one day...

Two on the Isle, by Robb White

This book is out of print, so I feel bad telling you how much I adore it. This is the second time I've read it, and I enjoyed it every bit as much as the first. White and his wife Rodie bought one of the British Virgin Islands, a tiny one called Marina Cay, for $60 in the 1930s and lived on it, alone, for several years. They moved onto this little rock sticking out of the sea without shelter or a water supply or any means of communication with the outside world. Their only mode of transportation was a motorless sailboat.

For a while they lived a beautiful life there, until Rodie got sick, the British Empire stole their land and Robb had to go fight in World War II. They never returned, even though they both lived another 50 years. This book is full of humor and fabulous anecdotes and illuminating stories about the natives and nuggets of BVI history and flashes of insight, and it captures the true love that he felt for his wife, despite their eventual divorce. His story about their failed attempt to catch an octopus with their bare hands, an effort that ended with the live octopus sucked onto both their faces at once, is priceless. We got this book through interlibrary loan, and it's not due until September. It is only about 150 pages, and I'm thinking of reading it over and over until the due date. I just love it so much.

The Help, by Kathryn Stockett

This was one of those books that I was stealing furtive moments to read, that I was thinking about longingly whenever I wasn't reading it. Completely absorbing. But I'm still not sure if it was a guilty pleasure or a truly weighty book about race relations in the South.

The book is set in Mississippi, and it is told largely from the perspective of the "colored help" who worked in virtually middle class home in the 1950s and 60s. (It sparked a bit of controversy, because the author is an upper middle class white woman and she writes in the dialect of poor Southern blacks, but I don't see that as a major issue. She did it very believably.) It explores the power dynamics of the situation. Blacks were still economically enslaved and one wrong word or even facial expression could be financial suicide. These women spent their days polishing silver and cleaning toilets, swallowing insults and pretending to be invisible.

The book also exposes the incredible hypocrisy of the segregated South. Most whites at that time felt that blacks were too dirty and frightening to share the same restrooms, schools or restaurants. Yet, they had black people living in their homes, preparing their food and raising their children. And it explores the true love felt between some black servants and their young white charges, and the way they were often cruelly ripped apart.

I don't think this novel is great literature, because its characters feel more like stereotypes than real people. Most of the white women in the book are drawn as shallow, cold and virtually incapable of love, even for their own children. And the black women are wise and loving, uneducated but smart, the sort of noble savage cliche. But I do think it exposes some real truths about the culture of the Deep South and the legacy of racism. And a book that is fun to read and makes us think about the unbelievable way that black people were treated in this country just a few short years ago cannot be a bad thing.

My Life in France, by Julia Child

Yes, I know, Julia Child fever is gripping the nation. It is so cliche. But, you see, all the stupid people are reading "Julie & Julia." It's only us smart people who can say we read Julia Child's memoir. I am deboning a duck as I type.

Actually, I read "Julie & Julia," and it was one of those guilty pleasure kinds of books. Yes, I liked it. I devoured it. The movie was the same way. See it. It's fun. But Julia Child's memoir? That's something that will stick to your ribs, kind of like her filet of beef stuffed with foie gras, wrapped in bacon and braised in veal stock. She did love her meat. Though most people think of Julia Child as a cooking expert, I can't say I'll be following her recipes anytime soon. She writes with a straight face of soaking tuna in vinegar for five hours before cooking it. She had clearly never heard of ceviche. What a travesty.

But this lovely book has nothing to do with recipes. It was written, with the help of her nephew, shortly before her death in 2004. It's about her beautiful romance with her husband, Paul. But it's mostly about her move to France in her late 30s, and her subsequent awakening to the many pleasures of food and life. I'm sure Julia believed, as I do, that the way you eat reflects the way you live. Eat with gusto and a sense of adventure, and you will live the same way. She never had children and spent much of her life hosting dinner parties and writing cookbooks. And yet, what an incredible contribution she made to this world. Just goes to show that the purpose of life is to live--to eat and drink and laugh and love and enjoy. Bon appetit.

A Gate at the Stairs, by Lorrie Moore

I don't know what to say about this one. In some ways, this is a story about a young nanny who forms a bond with her charge, only to have the relationship torn apart by the dysfunctional parents. It is a story about the perils of adoption. It is a story about life in post-9/11 America. It is the story of a disaffected teen who cannot make sense of the world. It is about authenticity of rural life and, conversely, the falseness of urban life. It has a very interesting story line, a really cool plot twist, and some very interesting characters. It encompasses all kinds of compelling themes, and Moore is an incredible writer. Yet, I still didn't love it. I had to wade impatiently through long stretches of what felt almost like writing exercises, descriptions of the dreamy protagonist floating disconnectedly through existence, to get to the story. By the end, I realized that a lot of her words sounded pretty, but that I really didn't know what they meant. I don't know what the whole book added up to. I think it's the kind of book you need to discuss in a college lit class. I'm glad I read it, and I mostly enjoyed it, but I don't think I completely got it. Oh well.

Cost, by Roxana Robinson

The theme of heroin addiction has been done to death in books and movies. I get it, it's horrible. Don't do it. It will ruin your life. But somehow, this book managed to add something new to the heroin-addiction story line. It is told mostly from the perspective of the artist/professor mother who realizes her 20-something son has spiraled to the depths of heroin addiction. This book made me see that finding out that your child is on heroin is as bad as finding out they have terminal cancer. Class or privilege doesn't insulate you from it, and fixing it is completely out of your control. This boy was completely lost to his family, a different person from the one his mother raised, a ball of animal instincts with no capacity for love. That is what heroin does to you, before it kills you. I understood it in a way that none of the previous books or movies have shown me.

If nothing else, it reminded me to watch my own children closely, to talk to them. I think we tend to forget the influence of drugs in the lives of teenagers when we have reached the stage of responsible 30-something parent. This book prompted a dinner-table discussion with the teenager in our house about why you should never, ever, ever try heroin. It was a good conversation, and maybe it will make no difference, but it's better to have it than to pretend drugs don't exist. Because it became very clear from our discussion that the opportunity to try drugs is all around him.

But I'm not saying you should read this book because it is public service announcement about kids and drugs. Roxana Robinson is a fabulous writer, and it is a great read. I couldn't put it down.

Zeitoun, by Dave Eggers

Dave Eggers is becoming one of my heroes. As traditional journalism is falling apart, he is finding ways to tell important stories in innovative ways. The best example is his wonderful book "What is the What," which he calls a novel, but which conveys more truth about the experience of the Lost Boys of Sudan and the experience of being a refugee in America than any non-fiction account ever could. Zeitoun is his latest venture, and this time, he went with non-fiction, although not in a traditional sense. It is not a workmanlike research paper. It is the story of one family, written largely from their perspective, and it reads like a novel. It has dialogue, written from memory, and is clearly not an exact record. But it reveals a lot of truth about what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

The husband, a Muslim immigrant from Syria who lives in New Orleans, gets caught up in the chaos after the storm and is wrongly imprisoned. Now, I kind of missed Katrina because I had a newborn in the NICU when that all went down, so maybe other people already knew this. But I had no idea that New Orleans was basically operating under martial law for several weeks, that people arrested for petty crimes were being thrown into a makeshift outdoor prison similar to Guantanamo and not given the most basic legal protections. That people, some of them innocent, ended up stuck in maximum security prison for months because the government basically lost track of them and gave them no way to contact their families. That a failure of this scale took hundreds, thousands, of people working together to do the wrong thing. It was a stunning breakdown of the American system, and it allowed abuses that most of us believe could not happen in this country. It is a cautionary tale that should not be forgotten.

This book is not as good as "What is the What." Eggers beats you over the head with stuff that you could have easily figured out yourself from reading the story. In the last few pages, he is basically preaching. Also, there was something that felt a bit dishonest to me about the story. He presents the two main characters as people with no faults. By his account, they are perfect people, perfect victims. Nothing is this way in real life, and it makes me wonder what he left out, how much he bowed to the wishes of his subjects. But overall, I believe this book. I believe that some awful things happened after Katrina, and that many of them were not caused by crazed mobs of poor black people (as media accounts would have you believe), but by people in power--cops, attorneys, politicians--and that very little has been done to right those wrongs. I think Eggers deserves credit for putting that story into the world.

The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger

Oh my. That was intense. I finished this book just before going to sleep last night, and for a while I thought it was going to keep me up. It broke my heart. It confirmed my deepest fears. It was fascinating and wonderful and sexy and completely unbelievable and totally true. I hardly know what to say.

So it's about this guy, Henry, who time travels, and not in some metaphorical sense. He actually disappears from wherever he is in the present and materializes, stark naked, in some other place and time. He has no control over when or where he goes. It's also about Clare, the woman who marries him and loves him completely and puts up with all the annoyances of being married to a guy who might not be present for the wedding day with nary a complaint. I know, it sounds ridiculous. But it works. Their love is so beautiful and palpable and hot, it will make you swoon. 

But here's what I think this book is really about. The fact that everything has already happened and is always going to happen, that none of it is under our control. We all like to think that if we work hard and make the right decisions and have the right intentions, we can bend life to our wishes. But it is all an illusion. Henry visits his past, but he cannot change his future. He knows he is going to be shot, and yet he cannot move out of the way. Everything is happening just as it was always going to. Clare knew that marrying this guy was probably going to be a disaster, and yet their marriage was something that simply was. It was not a choice. It was a fact. That's kind of how I've always felt about my own marriage. (Not the disaster part. Just the idea that this person had become my family, and that I had no choice in the matter.)

This book is also about the impossibility of holding onto anything. No matter how solid, how permanent, this moment might seem, it will vanish. Everything does. Last night, I held onto my husband and was terrified. It could happen at any moment, the vagaries of time and fate could take him from me. Solid flesh and bone can turn to vapor in a heartbeat. Anything, anyone, can be taken from us. Henry could look up his own obituary, know the exact moment of his death, but really he is just like all of us. We all live with the knowledge of death hanging over us. Sometimes I don't know how we do it.

These are realizations I came to well before reading this book--and they scare the hell out of me. And so does this book, because it does not give me a window into a place where I can be OK with this stuff. Henry's death is unhappy and violent, full of regret about all he is losing. Clare never gets over his loss. Is this life all about losing things, gradually, piece by piece, until we are broken and limbless? Our parents die, our spouses, sometimes even (oh god please no) our children. Our bodies whither. Our physical pain increases. I have developed this fear recently that things are only going to get worse from here. I have come all the way up. I have married and found my career and bought my house and had my child, and now I am at the top of the roller coaster, as Clare says. Now all that is left is to start losing things.

I know my mind is in the wrong place. I need to bring it back to the here and now. I know that suffering is the space between where we are now, this moment, and where our minds are. My fear is an illusion, created by me. I'm trying to stop, but this book did not help. I love it still.

The Brooklyn Follies, by Paul Auster

At 60, Nathan Glass has decided there's nothing left to do but wait to die. And then, he reconnects with a long-lost nephew and embarks on a series of adventures and friendships that show him that, as long as you are still breathing, there is always another chance. This book was kind of silly, definitely not the best book I've ever read. But it was incredibly readable. And it was full of flashes of truth and beauty that blew me away. Paul Auster is a man who knows the secrets of the universe, and they come through in everything he writes. I don't think I will ever forget this beautiful passage:

I want to talk about happiness and well-being, about those rare, unexpected moments when the voice in your head goes silent and you feel at one with the world.
I want to talk about the early June weather, about harmony and blissful repose, about robins and yellow finches and bluebirds darting past the green leaves of trees.
I want to talk about the benefits of sleep, about the pleasures of food and alcohol, about what happens to your mind when you step into the light of the two o'clock sun and feel the warm embrace of air around your body. I want to talk about Tom and Lucy, about Stanley Chowder and the four days we spent at the Chowder Inn, about the thoughts we thought and the dreams we dreamed on that hilltop in southern Vermont.
I want to remember the cerulean dusks, the languorous, rosy dawns, the bears yelping in the woods at night.
I want to remember it all. If all is too much to ask, then some of it. No, more than some of it. Almost all. Almost all, with blanks reserved for the missing parts.

—Paul Auster

UPDATED TO ADD: I give up. I just have to add this. I cannot stop thinking about a section of the book involving a mentally ill person. She has figured out that a person is born about every 40 seconds, and a person dies about every 50 seconds. So every 40 seconds, she shouts out "Rejoice!" and every 50 seconds she shouts "Grieve!" And I guess this is insane behavior, but it sums up this crazy world of polar opposites so perfectly. A world in which death and birth can both can exist. A world full of hate and love. A world in which a battlefield and a serene mountain lake can exist, in all their horror and peace, at the same time. When you sit down and really think about that, it is stunning, unbelievable. And this way of putting words around that experience is extremely powerful for me. I find myself perceiving the world now in these terms. My unending bronchitis nightmare? Grieve! My daughter's unstoppable zest for life? Rejoice! My fear of death and calamity? Grieve! The perfection of a crisp fall day? Rejoice!