Tag Archives: what I’m reading

The Elephant’s Journey

23 Wednesday Feb 2011

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I have such a crush on this book, I hardly know where to begin. I picked it up because Jose Saramago won the Nobel Prize for Literature (although this wasn’t the book that won him the prize). Most of the writers I turn to have won something, although it’s typically the Hugo or Nebula, or some other more niche recognition. Reading Nobel winners’ novels is one of those things I felt like I should do because it would be good for me, not necessarily something I thought I would enjoy. I always expected that the works would be deep and thought-provoking, but I felt like this element would probably come at the expense of entertainment. I’m happy to say that, at least in this case, I was wrong.

How do I explain what makes this book so wonderful? The plot is fairly straightforward: the king of Portugal, regretting having bought an elephant named Solomon who doesn’t do all that much besides eat tons of forage, decides to foist it off on a relative, the prince of Austria, using the Austrian’s wedding as the excuse, because if an elephant doesn’t make a statement as a wedding present, what does? The mahout, Subhro, and a company of assorted military personnel are selected to escort Solomon to his new home, and so they proceed. There are of course multiple encounters with people in various villages along the way, but that’s not why I’m all warm and pink about this book. (Also, while I stand by the fact that the plot is straightforward, when I see it summarized I am struck by its oddities, as well).

What makes The Elephant’s Journey so magical is the way it’s told. Saramago clearly has so much fun playing with what it means to tell a story that it’s impossible not to catch his enthusiasm. There is the moment, for example, when a character disappears—plof—and Saramago is moved to dwell a moment on what a lovely thing onomatopoeia is. “Imagine if we had to describe in detail a person suddenly disappearing from view,” he says. “It would have taken at least ten pages. Plof.” There’s so much playfulness and curiosity in the writing, and I love how Saramago invites us into easy familiarity with him in his act of putting down the story. The other amazing thing is how The Elephant’s Journey looks at what is strange and what is normal. The elephant, Solomon, himself is odd and mundane at the same time–prized by royalty in two countries for being exotic, but spending most of his time eating, sleeping, and leaving steaming messes for his keepers to clean up. Even the people in the villages the company passes through get used to the idea of an elephant in a matter of days. The book often treats human relationships as stranger things, such as the hilarious, absurd exchange between two military officials who essentially want the same thing, but escalate a dramatic list of bluffs, boasts and threats to ensure they can have it on their terms, or Saramago’s shudder at a royal husband who would go on to impregnate his wife sixteen times: “Monstrous.”

Of course, Solomon is the heart of the story, as is fitting for any story that even contains an elephant, and much more so when it stars one. It is beautiful to see the ties between him and the people around him, and to feel all the subtle transformations, and to feel subtly transformed.

This books is ideal for: people who love elephants, people who love stylistic playfulness, Portuguese lit fans, “serious” readers who still want pleasure in their reading

 

The Mendacity of Hope

13 Thursday Jan 2011

Posted by in Books, Breaking Boundaries

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I was a little hesitant to post this for a while. My concept of the What I’m Reading section of this site was to give some insight into what kind of reading material inspires me as a writer, and this isn’t even close. Still, I read it, and that plus honesty in blogging counts for something to me.

A second caveat: I am, I admit, one of those Americans who really doesn’t care about politics. I want to care. I wish I cared the way certain people wished they could stand the taste of coffee. Caring about politics is one of those marks of sophistication; knowing what’s happening in the news is a decent litmus test of savviness, and a kind of adult mentality. I fail every time. I try to watch debates or Presidential speeches, and halfway through I end up shamefacedly reading webcomics, typing the url really slowly in hopes that no one will realize what I’m doing. It’s like inching through a red light in hopes that people won’t recognize that you’re moving til you’re through. Then, as if that isn’t enough, the opinions in The Mendacity of Hope aren’t even ones I necessarily agree with. I like Obama. I voted for him proudly in 2008, and since then I’ve let him be and assumed he’d do a decent job with the country.

So why in the world did I pick up this book to read, if it’s such a literary and political anomaly for me? A couple reasons. I realized an election is coming up in the not-too-distant future again, and since I refuse to vote blindly, I’ll need to put together some idea of what’s going on if I want to participate again. I miss my college Sociology classes. With my double major, I got to spend plenty of time writing creatively, but also plenty of time reading the works of great social theorists, and arguing, living in logic as well as creativity. Nowadays, I’m just in the one program, the MFA. Sure, I’ll read a few articles on spiked.com from time to time, but I missed reading something big, something I didn’t always understand, something that would force me to think hard just to keep up. Jumping into politics with a book on why Obama is disillusioning the country seemed like a great way to get a mental argument rolling. Mostly, though, expanding my horizons is incredibly important to me. I am never happy with how much I know right now, and as long as I can squeeze any amount of time from my schedule and energy from my mind, I’m determined to find a way to learn things. Now, on to The Mendacity of Hope:

The book itself is very well done, I have to say. What I appreciated was how self-aware the author strived to be of his own leanings. The introduction establishes that yes, clearly, Obama is miles better than W., no matter what complaints still exist. Hodge acknowledges that in his quest for directness, he may come off rude, which is nice, and for the most part he doesn’t. He comes off as someone who is frustrated with the American political system as a whole, and frustrated anew by the fact that a president who swore to change how that system operated is not, in fact, doing so. A large portion of the book explores political thinkers when America was a baby: Jefferson and Hamilton and so on. The question of The Mendacity of Hope is less about whether Obama lied to/misled his voting audience, and more about the patterns of power and, inevitably, money in American politics. The great lie at stake isn’t any campaign promise, but the idea that the country can operate according to the “by the people, for the people” dream it was built on at all. It’s not the most hopeful stuff, but it is really interesting. I don’t understand most of the details of what he’s saying, but the whole piece he’s putting together here has some neat questions wrapped in it.

That said, I do have a few complaints. There’s one instance where he basically comes out and says he thinks Christianity is belief in a bunch of fairy stories. I think there was no call for that. He wasn’t talking about voters’ religions influencing anything, or Obama’s, or even the founding fathers. It came off as a stab from his own personal agenda against religion, and without having a properly justified context in the book, I don’t see it having any result other than alienating readers. Religion is still overwhelmingly the norm, and even if many intelligent people are atheists, I doubt they’d stop reading a book if an author failed to make a crack at Christians. There are plenty of other analogies out there that don’t strike at the most important aspect of many people’s lives, and I’m sick of people insinuating that I’m less intelligent because of what I believe.

Besides that, which is admittedly a pet peeve, although also a sloppy moment in a mostly crisp book, I wasn’t convinced by Hodge’s arguments that Obama is to blame for what he feels is a rather toothless health care reform. I seem to remember, even from the political hole I usually live in, that for about a year, anytime Obama mentioned the topic, it would go like this:

Obama: Health care–
Opponents: You want to murder my grandparents!
Obama, No, I just wanted to say that health–
Opponents: You’ll club them to death like baby seals!!!
Obama: Hea–
Opponents (jamming fingers into their ears): BABY SEALS!!!!!

There were people who didn’t make it easy to pass things, is what I’m saying.

At any rate, this was still supposed to be more book review than political rant. Expanding horizons is all very well and good, but if you want to stay smart when you talk, probably stick with what you know! So: did I enjoy The Mendacity of Hope? Yes. Will I become involved in the political news du jour from now on? Almost certainly not. Will I pick up another political book to read sometime soon? Maybe. I’ve only seen the one side now, after all. There’s another story out there.

One More Theory About Happiness

19 Sunday Dec 2010

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In the spirit of honesty, I read this a few months ago, so it’s more of a “What I Read.” But it is still worth talking about, so the current books can wait a moment.

I don’t read a lot of memoir; I’m primarily a fiction girl. But I also pride myself on being open to anything that looks good, and the premise of Paul Guest’s story was dramatic, to say the least. When he was twelve, he crashed his bike, breaking his neck and irreversibly paralyzing him. The memoir follows his life from that event through college, and a little after, and the more I read, the more I liked and admired the man.

The remarkable thing about this book is that Guest manages to be both honest & serious without falling into the trap of self-pity. There’s a moment, for example, where he talks about an episode of rehab in the hospital. The paralyzed patients had to watch a series of videos explaining how their injuries would affect different systems of the body, and they had come to the inevitable question of sex. For  12-year-old boy, this would have been awkward in the best-case scenario, and there is something almost cruel in making a child watch what amounted to low-grade porn (the video featured a couple demonstrating sex acts that could potentially be an option for paraplegics). Guest acknowledges the futility of the video for most of the audience and the absurd humor of the situation, and strikes an excellent emotional balance. Later, when he wrote about the end of his first adult relationship, I was impressed to see that he didn’t even begin to pull the “she left me because I was a cripple” card. He admits frankly that he was inexperienced at relationships, and tended to say the wrong thing. The reader understands that the injury can easily explain why he may have had less relationship experience than his peers, but you’re left to draw your own conclusions, which is mature, and thoughtful. It makes the book an open communication about life as a paraplegic, rather than a sermon.

All in all, One More Theory About Happiness seeks to show Guest’s life as a whole: the injury, his discovery and pursuit of writing, the process of developing relationships, friendships, independence (yes, even that). It’s thoughtful and funny and sad and refreshing, and if he ever comes to Baltimore for a while, I hope Paul Guest would want to be friends with me.

The Hunger Games

04 Monday Oct 2010

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The most common, trite pieces of advice writers tend to give aspiring writers are:

1. Just write!

and

2. Read, read, read (why they must say this in triplicate I do not know. Maybe once I become a Famous, Successful Writer this power of three will become clear to me, but for now it just seems condescending).

I’m just starting out, myself, and am still experimenting with the best structure to help me achieve #1 most effectively. I’ve always been a good reader, though, and it occurred to me that in a very you-are-what-you-eat way, you may be able to get a sense of what I would like to write by seeing what kind of brain food inspires me. Thus, I present to you the first installment of:

What I’m Reading

I just finished the Hunger Games series, by Suzanne Collins, and it is amazing. This is the kind of work that stops being YA and starts being the kind of books people should talk about, and hopefully are, more and more. The series takes place in a future where the 12 Districts of Panem are governed by the Capitol. Every year, each district must send a boy and a girl, chosen by lottery, to fight to the death in a televised reality series called the Hunger Games. When Katniss Everdeen’s little sister is picked, Katniss volunteers to take her place. Years of illegal hunting to feed her family have given Katniss a certain competitive edge, and she finds herself standing a good chance of winning.  From there, the series dives into all kinds of huge questions, taking a sharp look at blame and responsibility, the cost of life, and how much anyone is able to lose.

The first thing I love about this series is Katniss. I’m going to have to raise my hand at this point and confess I did read three of the four Twilight novels, so believe me when I tell you Katniss is the Bella antidote. She’s strong to the point of being abrasive, has a tendency to insist on answers to uncomfortable questions from friends and enemies alike, and is (gasp!) not even especially pretty. She is wholeheartedly committed to protecting people she cares for, though, and takes responsibility for all that she does, and manages to be good at things without being either self-deprecating or boastful. Augh. Katniss is the only person I could see making it through this series without breaking beyond repair or becoming a monster, which shows how well Collins chooses her characters.

Collins also — I swear I am not making this up — manages to pull off a love triangle that isn’t rigidly fixed in one side’s direction, and stays interesting throughout the books. This is because she knows the romantic line is secondary to the main plot, which is another beautiful thing.

I love the pacing of the series. There’s a constant flow of suspense and release, but it feels organic. There’s nothing forced enough to break you out of the rhythm. Also, the fact that the Games are broadcast as a televised reality series in Katniss’s world lends another layer of credibility to the cliff-hanger-driven plot. Viewers want action, so the Gamemakers would shape the tributes’ surroundings to fuel that need.

Finally, Suzanne Collins is a risky writer. She doesn’t back down from any of the typical challenges: her love triangle is fair to both boys, her main character doubts her own motivations and therefore whether she is acting from a good place at all, and the deaths in her final book push the limits of what Katniss can take without crumbling. It’s a breath of fresh air to see someone treat her work so rigorously, and expect her readers to come to terms with so much ambiguity, and Collins does a tremendous job.

This book is best for: YA readers, people who love strong female leads, people who love tough questions, people who are sick of Twilight and other submissive-female stories, people who always suspected there was something even sicker about reality TV than meets the eye