So Brave, Young and Handsome by Leif Enger

After reading Wolf Hall, like a chain smoker I put that book down and immediately picked up So Brave, Young and Handsome, which I'd bought earlier because I'd like Peace Like a River, by the same author. I loved it. Loved it, loved it.

It's very different from Wolf Hall, no historical fiction to it, no list of many characters or family trees, just a great story. In one of her movies, Katherine Hepburn says, "My, she was yar." That's how I felt after reading this book.

The main character is a writer, Monte Becket. He was a postman who wrote a book that became a bestseller so he quite his day job and thought he'd devote himself to writing. His first book was about a pony express rider and Monte Becket loves cowboys. At the beginning of the book he's realizing that he's not going to be able to write another book. He has a wife Susannah and a son Redstart. He can't bear to confess to Susannah that he's unable to write.

He becomes friends with a kind of mysterious man named Glendon Hale who builds beautiful rowboats. Glendon and Monte end up going on an adventure together, meeting up with other great characters including a boy who wants to become a cowboy and an ex-Pinkerton Detective.

I love the story and I love the writing. Here are a few quotes:

"I'm afraid Franco is taciturn." "Well, disappointment comes to us all.")

"You authors, I mean--this world ain't no romance, in case you didn't notice." "So I am discovering," I replied...but now I am taking it back. I take issue with Royal, much as I came to like him; violent and doomed as this world might be, a romance it certainly is.

"...You were never in jail, I suppose." "Not yet." "Well, it ain't any good. You don't ever wake up and say to yourself, What a pretty day, I feel good today. No," he reflected, "a jail ain't nothing but a collection of corners."

"Of course it's been years, but I doubt forgiveness is the sort of fruit he cultivates."

At this we heard a sharp metallic lurch and Hood roared a string of impolite adjectives. He might even have cried a little. It wasn't his fault. I've looked under a car or two myself, since then--it's bedlam down there, no beginning no end, and a consequence for everything you touch.

That's just from flipping through the first several chapters. I thought the book was enchanting.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

The librarian at Sinaloa recommended Wolf Hall to me, and then so did several other people. It's about Thomas Cromwell, a novel but historical fiction.

When I first opened the book I was worried I might not be able to keep track of things. It starts with a list of characters and also some family trees. This is during Henry VII's time. I decided to read slowly and not skim things, which I often do otherwise, and so far so good (I'm a little over halfway through the book). The only thing that makes it a little difficult is that the author often doesn't use Cromwell's name as she's describing his actions, just "he" and since the sentence before often is about a different male person, I sometime realizes after several sentences that this must be Cromwell and not the other person. It's rather annoying. Why would she do that?

But, besides that minor complaint, I'm very much enjoying the book. The writing is good, and you really feel like you're in England in the 1500's. It's incredible what life was like then. It's horrible the way they burned people at the stake and tortured them in the Tower. She writes about Tyndale and Luther, not as main characters, but several people are killed or tortured because they have Tyndale's book in their possession. Sir Thomas More is rather obsessed with finding those people, it seems. How we take things for granted -- these people were killed for believing that we should be allowed to read the Bible in our own native language.

The peoples' belief in what the Roman Catholic church proclaims is also remarkable. It's a novel so you don't know how exactly right this is, but she writes about King Henry being very worried about whether he'll go to hell if he divorces his wife Katherine and marries Anne Boleyn, although that is most definitely what he plans to do. He, and those who are helping him, do all kinds of things to try to get the church to declare Henry was never married to Katherine in the first place. So far the book's been during that time -- when Henry's trying to get Anne Boleyn. Since I'm over halfway through, I wonder if it'll end when he finally does. The author is working on a sequel.

..............................
later addition
My sister wrote the following about this book. Thought it would be good input to include. She knows her stuff:

I liked Wolf Hall but I was disappointed at the portrayal of Thomas More. He may not have been as wonderful as he was portrayed in "A Man for All Seasons" (or maybe he was), but Hilary Mantel goes to the opposite extreme to make it seem like he really didn't have a redeeming feature--even his martyrdom was just showing off for his European fans. It seemed spiteful. I looked her up on Wikipedia and it seems she grew up in Catholic schools; maybe she's one who has turned against her upbringing.
 
From what I've read elsewhere, I could buy her portrayals of Anne Bolyn and Henry VIII.
 
I'm not sure I believe in her Jane Seymour, however. From what I've read, Jane Seymour did her best to turn Henry back toward Catholicism. She also did her best to bring his daughter Mary back into his favor, while trying to undo Anne Bolyn's legacy. On the other hand, her brother who was regent for her son, Edward VI, promoted more Protestant reforms than Henry VIII had ever implemented.
 
It was interesting to learn anything at all about Thomas Cromwell, the central character of the book. I'd read his name in reading biographies of other figures of the time, but never knew much about him. I was always curious if he was an ancestor of Oliver Cromwell. I looked that up too, and it seems Oliver Cromwell is a descendant of Thomas Cromwell's sister.
 
One thing I was dubious about as a part of Thomas Cromwell's life was the description of really brutal abuse by his father. It seems unlikely to me that someone whose dad beat him up regularly and neglected his education as described in this novel would grow up into the cultured, multi-lingual, Latin-speaking, and humane person Mantel shows Cromwell to be as an adult.
 
Just a few thoughts. And, below, a poem by Thomas Wyatt, reputed to be about Anne Bolyn.

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
But as for me, alas, I may no more;
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,
I am of them that furthest come behind.
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind
Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow; I leave off therefore,
Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,
As well as I, may spend his time in vain.
And graven with diamonds in letters plain,
There is written her fair neck round about,
"Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame." 

A Room With a View by E.M. Forster

 How much do I love this book and movie? Oh my goodness, so much!


If I remember rightly, I think I saw the movie before reading the book and I fell in love with the movie. I don't know what year it was that I went to the movie. I think I went with Randy and my sister Jan. I remember we arrived late and had to sit so far in front we had to lay our heads on the seat backs to watch. When the chapter headings came up between scenes, I sometimes didn't have time to read what they said because I had to move my head from side to side to side to read all the words.


But what a great movie it was. First, it's British and I do love British movies. The stars are wonderful, too. Helena Bonham Carter is beautiful -- all that thick, long hair -- and so good as Lucy. I love her expressions and mannerisms. Her pettish look when Charlotte bothers her, her giggle when she sees Mr. Beebe by the pond, her disgust when her mother says she's just like Charlotte -- "to a T." The other actors, too. There's one scene that I just wait for, and all it is is a look. Lucy's mother and brother are sitting at the piano and both look out the window on Lucy and Cecil with such a look of *sigh*.


Another scene I love is when they're all in the carriages "and Italians drive them." The Reverend Mr. Eager kicks the driver's girlfriend off and Mr. Emerson says, "Do we find happiness so often that we should turn it off the box when it happens to sit there?" Classic.


I could go on and on. Much of the dialog in the movie comes straight out of the book. I love the book, too, and have read it several times, but in my mind's eye I see and hear the actors, scenery and rooms of the movie, and I feel my reading is all the better for it.

My Life With the Saints by James Martin

Doesn't it just figure that when I finally sit down to blog about some reading again, I can't find the first book I want to write about? I found it in Google Books, though. The main thing I am left with after reading this book is the feeling that my life is meaningful and worthwhile just by living a life of faith and prayer.

The other night at a meeting Brad said he finds that when he reads books by some great theologians their message is: Read Scripture. Pray. Be in community.

There you go. In My Life With the Saints, James Martin writes about one saint per chapter. He writes them in the order that he "met" them in his life. In each chapter he tells about how the saint came to his attention and attracted him, then he writes the story of the saint, then he reflects on the saints' life and what he can see as he relates his life to that, and finally summarizes how and when he prays to that saint.

In the first chapter he writes about why he decided to write the book. He says he started researching and learning about the saints and "Gradually, I found myself growing fonder of these saints and developing a tenderness towards them. I began to see them as models of holiness relevant to contemporary believers, and to understand the remarkable ways that God works in the lives of individuals. Each saint was holy in his or her unique way, revealing how God celebrates individuality. As C.S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity, 'How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different are the saints.'" He quotes someone who says the saints are like "older brothers and sisters to whom one can look for advice and counsel." He says "Some might argue...that all you need is Jesus....But God in his wisdom has also given us these companions of Jesus to accompany us along the way, so why not accept the gift of their friendship and encouragement? ....Everything the saints say and do is centered on Christ and points us in his direction."

Over and over as I read about the saints, people so very much dedicated to living a life in Christ, I saw that in many cases it was not because of some spectacular contribution to mankind that they were saints. In fact, some of the saints lived secluded lives and performed menial tasks in a religious community. But, they read Scripture, prayed and were in community.

I'm sure I'll find the book again, and I am confident I'll re-read it.

Hunger of Memory by Richard Rodriguez

Richard Rodriguez was a speaker at the Festival as well. He's an interesting man. He is an essayist. I was going to write, he's got lots of opinions. But that's kind of a dumb thing to say.

Anyway, this is a memoir. He and his family were immigrants from Mexico, and he grew up in the Sacramento area. He talks quite a bit about the experience of learning English after only speaking and knowing Spanish in his home. He writes about the intimacy of the language they use at home vs. the public language of English in school. The experience was very significant, maybe even traumatic for him. He talks about the guilt of hearing his parents' halting English, about losing his ability to speak easily in Spanish although he continued to understand it fine. He also talks about being a "scholarship boy," someone who doesn't fit in with the people around him.

Although the process of getting his education in a different language than he'd learned as a child was traumatic, Rodriguez is definitely not a proponent of bilingual education. He sees it as part of a "decade when middle-class ethnics began to resist the process of assimilation -- the American melting pot." This reminded me of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She talks about assimilating, too, and the need for Americans (and other countries) to have some beliefs and standards that people must agree to when they live in the country. It makes a lot of sense and I can see where speaking the language would need to be a part of that. I'm not so positive, though, that having some bilingual education would necessarily prevent the learning of English. I'd hope that it would be a gentler way to learn English. But it's true that the pendulum often swings too far.

I like the book. I haven't finished it yet but I plan to.

Peace Shall Destroy Many be Rudy Wiebe

I got this at the Festival of Faith & Writing. I've started it but I'm not very motivated to keep going. I'll try to get back to it.

It feels a little slow moving and heavy. It reminds me of some pioneer books I've read before. Not just the story of a pioneer but the thoughts and struggles.

It's about Mennonites.

------------
later addition

Kind of funny. I didn't finish this book and I also didn't finish this blog. Couldn't get through the book. It just seemed too slow.

The Emperor of Ocean Park by Stephen L. Carter

I heard Stephen Carter at the Festival of Faith & Writing, too. He was very interesting and articulate. I read his book The Culture of Disbelief quite a while ago. I know I liked it but I can't remember details, I'll have to find it and re-read it.


The Emperor of Ocean Park is a mystery. His mysteries involve politics somehow, and upper middle class black families. I'm only about 1/4 of the way into the book and I like it so far. The writing is excellent, and it's interesting. A member of my book club said that she likes the book but not the main character. Often if I don't like the main character, I don't like the book. I can see why this main character, Talcott Garland, may not be that likeable. So far he seems a little, I don't know, selfish maybe. But I'm still enjoying the book.


A review from the Washington Post on Amazon.com says (about another of his mysteries):

But let's be honest: No one should read a Carter novel for the mystery.

We know by now that the author is only partly concerned with whodunit; he'd rather ponder why any of us does the things we do -- especially the bad things. For instance, we know it's wrong to cheat, lie, steal or wound, and yet hardly a day passes in which most of us don't commit at least one of these transgressions on some scale. Human weakness is troubling, fascinating stuff, and Carter has spent much of his career plumbing its depths.

So I'll keep that in mind.


Talcott Garland is a law professor. He's married to a lawyer who is trying to become some kind of political judge. They have one child. Talcott's father dies near the beginning of the book and I'm up to the funeral. Talcott's sister has suggested that their father was murdered but Talcott's not convinced yet.

Eat This Book by Eugene Peterson

I saw Eugene Peterson at the Festival of Faith & Writing. What a wise man he seems to be. He wrote The Message Bible which is an amazing thing. I would have thought that was written by a group of people. Imagine sitting down and rewriting the entire Bible!


This book, Eat This Book, is about reading the Bible, "A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading." I have not finished it yet but it's good. It is written in a very conversational style. The title is based on a verse in Revelation where an angel tells John to take a book and eat it; it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey."


I've just started the part where Peterson is writing about Lectio Divina. I've participated in some of that in a group but have not tried it myself. I'm eager to read what he says about it. He is trying to be practical and really describe what to do.


In one part he wrote about praying after reading the Bible and asking, "How can I obey?" I'm reading a devotional that has a short passage for each day. Last night's passage was the parable about an enemy planting weeds among the seeds a farmer had planted (not the one where there's different soils). In the parable the farmer sees the weeds and decides not to take them out because he may mistakenly take out the good with the bad. He says he'll separate them at harvest. When I prayed after, it seemed to me the way I could obey was to continue to grow strong in the Lord regardless of the "weeds" around me. A kind of simple answer but not simple to do.

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen

I am loving this book. It's cracking me up! I heard about, and saw, this writer at the Festival of Faith & Writing. It's a memoir. She grew up in a Mennonite family, moved on to live outside the Mennonite community, and then went home after her husband left her and she had a bad car accident.

She writes in a very witty way. I wish I could talk and write that way. Here's an excerpt. She is writing about after coming home from the hospital with a catheter, and planning a shopping trip with her friend.

And so it was that I sallied forth into public carrying my pee bag in an aqua patent tote, shopping with urinous enthusiasm...And less than a week later my doctors upgraded me to the kind of pee bag you strap on with Velcro around your leg, under your skit, like a nasty secret. I taught for half the semester like that. And dang, I'm here to tell you that when it's ninety degrees outside, nothing reminds you of your own mortality like a steaming hot bag of urine hugging your thigh.

I'm happy to report that I made a full recovery from the netherworld of tube and clamp...Whereas before I had taken for granted my miraculous ability to run without wetting my leg, I now silently praised my bladder, "Good show! You're holding up great in there honey!" I'd sneeze and think, Bravo! You have achieved true excellence, my friendly little sphincter!

Some parts where she writes about her mother made me laugh out loud until I cried. I'm not finished yet and I'm not looking forward to being finished. Always the sign of a good book.

Imperfect Birds by Anne Lamott

Good book. It's a story of a family with a daughter, Rosie, in high school who gets into drugs. The mom and dad have to figure out how to handle it. Rosie excels at academics and is great with kids, but she lies repeatedly about where she is and what she's doing.

The characters are in a previous novel, according to what I've read. She's got a novel called Rosie so I imagine that's the one. I need to go back and re-read it.

I liked this book. It's not funny or sad, it's just a good story, well written. It felt real, the way the parents reacted, what the mother was thinking. The end does not tie everything up but it still felt like a decent ending. You don't know what's going to happen, you hope for the best.

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

Last night one of my book clubs met to discuss Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. We all liked the book.

It's about twins who were conjoined at the head and separated after birth, born in a hospital in Addis Ababa to an Indian nun. They were brought up by an Indian couple living and working at the hospital.

We wondered about the name. "Cutting for stone" is in the Hippocratic oath so we knew that was part of the reason for it but we weren't sure what the phrase actually means. One member said it meant quarrying, searching for something, which made sense.

Our discussion drifted when we started talking about the way the two boys in the novel would fall asleep with their heads touching, as they'd been in the womb. We started talking about sleeping with our siblings and having our kids join us in bed. My kids all learned to go to Randy's side of the bed because I couldn't take their wiggling around and bumping me.

We all liked the character Ghosh a lot. He was like the boys' father, although not their biological father. He was a rock, everyone could rely on him and he always had sage advice.

I recommend this one, too.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

So, it's been forever since I've written, but I'm going to try again. I won't try to go back and do all the books I've read since my last post, but I'll do a couple anyway.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett is a very good book I read for a couple of my book clubs. It's set in Mississippi (how fun is it to write that, thinking "M-i-crooked letter-crooked letter-i-crooked letter-crooked letter-humpback-humpback-i"?) right at the beginning of the civil rights movement. Three women are the "voices" in the book. One is a young white woman who wants to be a writer and decides to write the stories of the black women in the town. The other two are two of the black women.

I was afraid it'd be more of that Southern women's book kind of stuff but it really wasn't. The women's voices seemed genuine, and it felt like you kind of got in their heads. The women served as maids/housekeepers and also nannys. There was definitely a comment on the way that these women were trusted so implicitly with such an important task as raising the family's children, yet they were not allowed, in some cases, to use the same bathroom facilities. And then those children grew up to have servants of their own.

I recommend it.

Janette Kok: Child of the Seventies

Janette Kok: Child of the Seventies

A Salty Piece of Land by Jimmy Buffet

My book club at work, the Pivot Book Club, decided to read a book by Jimmy Buffet and chose this one. I'd describe it as okay. It was kind of fun as an escapist read; you got that I'm-on-a-tropical-island feeling. But even that meant suspending disbelief in a big way for me -- I hate humid heat and I know how miserable I am in places like Florida, so I kept thinking, "This sounds beautiful but I bet if I were there I'd be all sticky and hot and crabby."

One other member, Sherri, read the book and pretty much felt the same way about it -- okay but not compelling. It was kind of like a series of short stories, which he writes, too. And I felt it had a real man's voice to it. Not that that's bad but to me it felt almost like what you'd hear men talking to men about.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

This is one of the best books I've read in a long time. Although it's not really the same, as I began it I thought this was kind of like when I read Anne of Green Gables for the first time. The story was so good. I was reading every word - no skimming, as I often do when there are descriptions or long passages not central to the plot. After that thought came to me, it occurred to me that might mean something sad was going to happen, as when Matthew died. When I read Green Gables I had no idea it was coming and it was the first book that made me cry.

Something sad does happen, several times. But even though it's not a happy story, it's a good one. It's a nice, thick book and one where I didn't want it to end.

The main character is Edgar, who is growing up on a farm owned by his parents. They raise a particular breed of dog that Edgar's grandfather began, based on breeding for an ideal dog, not a show dog. Edgar is born with no voice. He can hear but can't speak. The doctors don't know why. When I read that in the summaries and reviews I was afraid I wouldn't like the book. It sounded too odd. But I was wrong.

It was a good thing I didn't read what some wrote, that it was part ghost story. That would've turned me off. But when those scenes happened, they didn't seem out of place. In that way it reminded me of Leif Enger's book, Peace Like a River.

And, really, it's not just a story of a boy and his dogs. Not at all. All the characters are so well drawn. And you really are IN the book. You see his life, the characters, the setting.

I guess I can't really write too much about the story or I'll give a lot away. I liked the book very much.

I Feel Bad About my Neck by Nora Ephron

I heard of this book quite a while back and thought it sounded like it'd be fun to read. Nora Ephron wrote quite a few screenplays I like -- You've Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle, My Blue Heaven, When Harry Met Sally, to name a few. I thought of this book again last week when I tried to take a picture of myself.

I'd posted a new profile photo on Facebook and my sister Jan said she'd like to see my new haircut. I thought I'd take a picture on Sunday morning. I sat in the chair and held the camera with my arm extended and took a "selfie", as Cori called it. I couldn't get one that I felt was acceptable! My neck! I've always been self-conscious about my chin anyway, and unfortunately the getting old thing does not help. Cori told me the secret is to take the photo from way up high. Maybe I'll try that. Or Photoshopping may be the answer.

Anyway, I've started reading the book. Each chapter is an essay. The title is from the first essay. Here's a bit I liked, "If I pass a mirror, I avert my eyes. If I must look into it, I begin by squinting, so that if anything really bad is looking back at me, I am already halfway to closing my eyes to ward off the sight."

Actually, I don't avoid mirrors too obsessively. I've grown to accept myself a lot more than I used to. I still hate seeing my big old pot belly but I don't let it get me all crazy.

I'm enjoying the book. It's amusing.

Catcher in the Rye at the Pivot Book Club

Here's what I wrote about our discussion about Catcher in the Rye at the Pivot Book Club:

We had a pretty good discussion about "Catcher in the Rye". Sherri said it wasn't as engaging as she'd thought it would be. It's short and she thought she'd easily finish it quickly and didn't. It didn't keep her going. I had read it before and also didn't finish re-reading it, although I do like the book a lot. Elida did finish the whole thing. We agreed that it is a unique book, and Holden has a very unique "voice". There are funny places and turns of phrases, such as when he said things "killed him" or talked about "old Phoebe" and that kind of thing. Some touching places too, such as the stuff about his brother Allie and sister Phoebe.


After our Jimmy Buffet book we thought we'd read another classic, "Pride & Prejudice" by Jane Austen. So that'll be next our book.


We had a bunch of possibilities of books we were looking at. Some "also rans" were

"I Feel Bad About my Neck" (http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9780307264558.html) by Nora Ephron, which is something I want to read because it expresses how I feel -- and also sounds hilarious.

"People are Unappealing" by Sara Barron (http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9780307382450.html) was another also-ran that sounded very funny.

"A Reliable Wife" (http://www.readinggroupguides.com/blog/2009/03/librarians-view-robert-goolricks.asp) sounded intriguing.

"Dewey: The Small-town Library Cat who Touched the World" (http://www.deweyreadmorebooks.com/) might be a good, feel-good kind of story.

And "So Brave, Young and Handsome: A Novel" (http://www.powells.com/biblio/9780871139856) was written by Leif Enger and I really liked his first book.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Here's a note about the Pivot Book Club discussion of this book:

"One theme that supposedly was in the book was some similarity to the story of Jacob in the Bible. I know the story but I actually read a few chapters of Jacob's story in the Bible, trying to find the similarities. Of course, the main character's name is Jacob, and there is one place that the discussion questions referenced where Jacob in the book uses a stone for a pillow just as Jacob in the Bible does. But I just didn't see a lot more similarities than that. I'm probably missing something. 

"We talked about the title a bit. The phrase came from a scene in the book where a fellow resident in the home where Jacob lives says he carried "water for elephants" in the circus when he was young. Jacob gets very angry about this and calls the man a liar because elephants drink way too much water for anyone to have carried it. We wondered whether there might be even more meaning to the title than that. Sherri noted that that particular phrase began the whole story of Jacob's life. 

"As we talked about the circus animals, we drifted into some discussion of deciding what we will and won't eat when you know how much animals feel and think, humane treatment of animals, the way we are so distant from the actual source of our food. Robin said she does try to eat organic food and meats where animals have been treated humanely, such as grass fed and cage free. She told us about her husband's upbringing with raising some of their own food. Sherri's grandparents raised some of their food on their farm, too, and Sherri grew up at least having exposure to that, but when you think of our children, they are very distant from the actual animals who provide their food. Elida talked about visiting a relative in Mexico who actually killed a chicken and a turkey right in front of them. It was so intense for her and her brother that they couldn't eat."

All in all I enjoyed the book. At first I didn't like the way it skipped from the present, when Jacob is in a nursing home, to the past, as he remembers his life story. But I got used to it and especially the second time around I found both scenarios to be interesting.

Persuasion by Jane Austen

I am reading Persuasion. I am not sure if I am re-reading it or not. I may actually never have read it before, or if I did it was too long ago to remember. I have enjoyed the movie many, many times, as has my husband Randy. For some reason it was his "default" movie for a long time. He'd often put it on before going to sleep. He likes all the recent Jane Austen movies, actually.

Anyway, I've just started. There was a short biography of Jane Austen at the beginning. She was an amazing woman. So much in such a short life. And she seems to have been a devout, good person.

"They must retrench. That did not admit of a doubt." Retrench. I've never heard of that word except in Persuasion. I like it. With me on reduced hours and Randy having a 5% pay cut, we must retrench.

The Faith Club by Ranya Idliby, Suzanne Oliver, and Priscilla Warner

This is another book my mom recommended. Three women living in New York decide, shortly after 9/11, to get together on a regular basis to talk about their faith. One of the women is Muslim, one Jewish and one Christian. Their idea was to collaborate on a children's book discussing the three faiths, but they ended up writing this book instead.

They met kind of a like a book club, discussing topics of faith. They'd all write about the topics separately and then bring their writing to the meetings and discuss them. They had some rough times getting through some things.

They talk about some of the stereotyping they did, and do. I realized I don't know very much about Islam at all. A co-worker of mine, who's very bitter toward the Muslim faith, told me many times about how he'd read many things by Muslims and his conclusion was that Islam is the only faith in the world that says if you don't believe what I believe I have the right to kill you. I also read the book Infidel and the life of that author growing up in a Muslim household is very oppressive.

In this book, the Muslim woman is the one who starts the club. At the beginning of the book she is trying to find a Muslim community that is not like the ones you most often hear and read about. She doesn't wear the hajib and doesn't want anyone to say that because of that she is not Muslim. She and her husband do not believe in the oppressive things about women in that faith. This woman is Palestinian, her family's home was taken over by Israeli's. She has some feelings about that, of course, but she's very American and even talks about the need for the Muslim faith to have an American experience.

One thing I didn't know, although now I see I should have, is that the Muslims read the same Old Testament stories as we do. Her kids have kids books about Noah, Moses, Abraham and so on. I was telling my minister about that and he said that they claim to be descendants of Ishmael. I've heard that but I guess it didn't click with me what that meant.

The Muslims, according to this author, believe that as a Muslim you must believe in the Jewish stories and the Christian stories but they don't believe Jesus was the son of God, just a prophet, in a line of prophets that leads to Mohammed, also a prophet.

People reading this book might accuse the three women of picking and choosing what they will and won't believe, and making up their own religion. I guess this could be true, but in a way we all do that, at least to some extent.

The book goes between the 3 women writing about the various topics and times of the faith club. They taped their sessions so the book also includes some of the actual recorded conversations, verbatim.

I recommend this book. I plan to reread it some day.

The Nazi Officer's Wife by Edith Hahn Beer

My mom recommended this book to me. A friend of hers had recommended it to her. It's a very interesting story of a Jewish woman who kind of hid in plain sight during World War II. She lived in Vienna when the war started. She took on the identity of a friend and went to Germany under that assumed identity, then ended up marrying a man who eventually was forced into becoming a Nazi soldier, an officer.

It's pretty unreal that that could have happened. She did tell the man that she was a Jew before he married her. Somehow he still married her although he also bought right into the belief that Jewish blood is bad blood and all that sort of thing. They had a child and once he saw that it was a girl he was pretty much finished with the whole thing.

Jewish people who did this kind of thing, hiding in the open, were called "U-boats".

It's really a good read, I thought. I enjoyed it.

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

My other bookclub chose the book Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. I had sometimes wondered what kind of writer Salman Rushdie is. I imagined something much more political and strident. His writing is very enjoyable and good and easy to read. However, I did not finish this book.

There were a couple reasons. One was I am a little tired of India. India's popular right now. I've read several books and seen movies about India, fashions are even being influence a lot by India right now. I didn't feel like reading yet another book about India.

The other reason was I got impatient. The writer is telling the story not just to the readers but also to his relative or maybe she's a nanny of some kind or something. Anyway, he sort of writes cyclically, saying something, remarking how it will matter later, circling back to an earlier time, going forward. It was just annoying me.

At our book club meeting discussing this book, some others expressed my same feelings. Others, though, said that if you kept reading, past "Book 1", he stops writing that way and they enjoyed it much more.

I'm not feeling like continuing to read to find out. But there you are. I'm sure they're right.

Twilight

So, I thought I'd write about some other books I've read in addition to those for the book club. One is Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, a very popular books especially for "tween" girls. It's been made into a movie.

A co-worker of my daughter's recommended it to her and she liked it. A while back I saw it on a bookstore shelf and thought I'd get it and see what I thought.

Well, I can't say I think so much of it. My daughter did enjoy it and went on to read the others in the series. It's interesting, in a way. It is interesting that a story can be written about a young girl falling in love with a vampire who is part of a small group of vampires who are sort of "vegetarians" of vampires. They don't drink human blood, only animal blood. It's pretty bizarre that anyone thought of it (and strange that there's also a t.v. show out with a similar thing, only the vampires on the show drink a man-made, sort of substitute blood and have come out in the open claiming that they should be treated better now that they don't harm anyone).

Anyway, I can see that this is an intriguiging concept, and it does say something that the story in no way grosses you out. But I just didn't feel a compelling need to read more of the story. I did complete the entire book, but I'm okay with that being the end of it.

I don't plan to see the movie because people who adore the book say the movie is so-so or don't like the movie, so I am pretty confident I would not find the movie any more compelling than I did the book.

Not a Genuine Black Man

And now we're up to the one we're reading for our next meeting, Not a Genuine Black Man. This was chosen as San Jose's book for the city to read. The author grew up in a white neighborhood in Oakland.

I'm looking forward to hearing what the club members will have to say. The author writes about several instances of prejudice, where he's stopped and mistreated simply because he's black. He writes about how often now people accuse him of not being a "real" black man. I think that happens because he doesn't talk with a black accent or maybe because he grew up in a white neighborhood. It's an interesting read.

The Good Earth

I read The Good Earth years ago. I don't think I read it as an assignment, just on my own. But I could be wrong. Anyway, I know I enjoyed it then and I enjoyed it now again. It, too, is very much a "be there" book. It's fascinating to live in the world of China.

I sometimes think of some scenes in this book when I see scenes on t.v. with hundreds of people -- such as the scenes in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan when masses of people are at a temple or on a pilgrimage or at a funeral. I remember the times in The Good Earth when the characters were in that kind of a situation, just a small family in the midst of hundreds and hundreds of others. It makes me remember that each of those persons is living a life as important as mine. They're loving their family members and friends as much as I do. They're caring about what happens to themselves and those they care about as much as I do. So often when you hear about things far away with unknown people, it's hard to remember that.

The Good Earth also is interesting as a story of a woman who is such a strong character in spite of being looked upon as a simple, ugly peasant. Her unbound feet make her even more ugly in others' eyes. Yet she is the center of that family. After she dies, things go downhill.

It's another one that is just a really good story, moving along at a good pace.

Flannery O'Connor

O boy, Flannery O'Connor. Everyone who knows me and talks to me about books knows my sad story of Flannery O'Connor. I love to read and when I went to Calvin I thought I would major in English. My first English class, though, was taught by a professor who ONLY had us read Flannery O'Connor, the whole semester. I was so sick of the grotesque.

And then on top of that, I could not get an A in that class, no matter how hard I tried. In high school I was basically an A student with little difficulty, even taking honor courses. But in this class, I couldn't get above a B+ on my papers. I even met with the prof and asked what could I do to this paper to make it an A- instead of a B+. He couldn't give me an answer except that it wasn't A material.

So, stupidly, I told myself I shouldn't major in English if I couldn't get an A. How dumb. I majored in Elementary Education but you also chose a subject major. I chose Psychology and History. I didn't even like History. How stupid was that?

Anyway, to get back to Flannery O'Connor, the group decided to read some of her short stories because they are classics. Dan, one of our members, taught high school English and included a unit on Flannery O'Connor. He brought along his materials. We had a really good discussion. If I'd have kept up on my blogging I could have written more about it. One thing I remember is he said that her stories point out the need for grace. And I guess that is certainly true. I, though, like the stories to actually include grace, and hers really do not.

So, I liked our discussion of these stories and I'm glad we read her. But I don't plan to read her again unless it's some similar situation as this. I was talking to my mom and dad about it and said I didn't enjoy her stories at all. My mom said, "Do you have to enjoy what you read?" And I think my answer is yes, if not have to, I want to.

Some catch up - The Chosen

Well, it's been forever since I've blogged. I'll try again. I've found that quite often now in the evenings I decide not to even turn on my laptop. I can check emails on my blackberry so I can see if something urgent comes up that way.

So, looking back over the list I see that I haven't written anything since The Shack. We read The Chosen after that. What can I write about that book except that I love it? It seems like such a simple book, just a really good story about two Jewish boys, one who is Hasidic and one Reform. They meet at a baseball game where they both get caught up in a competetition that turns into hate. After one of them seriously injures the other with the ball, they start a friendship.

Why do I love it so much? I love the way it brings me so much into the boys' world, Jewish neighborhoods in New York. I collect teacups and some of my favorite teacups I call "be there" cups. They have a picture on them of a scene that I can imagine actually being in, the way the girl goes into the blue willow plate scene in a book I read as a girl. Good books like The Chosen are "be there" books. You are there in the world created by the author. And it's not done with a bunch of fancy descriptions. If there are descriptions, I tend to skim them. I can't remember any big passages of descriptions in The Chosen but I can picture the streets, the houses, the ball field, the hospital ward, the places in the book. So I guess one reason I love it is that "be there" phenomenon.

I also love it because it's just such a good story. It moves at the right pace. It doesn't rush to tie all the ends at the end, as so many books seem to. I also love the conversations. When my mom would bring me to the library as a girl, I remember opening books and looking for quote marks. If there were lots of quote marks I'd check further because to me that was a sign of a possible good book.

I also am fascinated by the life of Jewish people so that is probably another reason I like The Chosen so much. I went through a stage in high school of reading not only Chaim Potok books but also Leon Uris books and probably others that were about Jews. Even now I really enjoy a detective series by Faye Kellerman where the main characters are Jewish.

None of those reasons, though, seem like a good enough explanation for why I like them so much. But there you are.

The Shack continued

So last night was book club, discussing The Shack. We were a small group, some people had bowling and others had different conflicts. It was a good discussion, though.

Dan asked whether there were any scenes that people found particularly memorable. His example was the one where the main character is told to be the judge, in a way that God is. He was told, you have 5 kids, choose 2 to go to heaven and 3 to go to hell. After agonizing a while, the main character asks if he could go to hell himself so none of the kids have to.

I mentioned the way that God keeps saying she's "very fond of you." That reminds me of a sermon illustration by John Liu, who described God as a father who took out a wallet and had a huge folding fan out of photos, trailing to the floor, then he takes one, points to it and says, "This is my son, John. I love him so much." I like illustrations of how much God loves me, and us.

Another comment someone made was that they liked the way the Holy Spirit was an actual person. Often you picture the Holy Spirit as something different than a person. We had a brief discussion about the fact that God the Father was portrayed as a woman, and we all thought it "worked".

We ended up not yet choosing a date or our next book. We'll do that via email.

The Shack by William Paul Young

This is our next book club choice. I haven't started it yet. I wanted to wait until the meeting was a little closer, so I have it fresh in my mind. I don't think anyone in the group has actually read it yet but some were planning to because it's being talked about quite a bit right now.

Here's what my brother Joel said about our choice: "I think your group will like "The Shack," Mavis. I read it and I've talked about it with quite a few people. It's not top flight theology, though it's not a disaster either. And as literature it's pretty pedestrian. The power comes in a reconciliation theme in a chapter called "Festival of Friends." The book seems very helpful for people from broken or abusive backgrounds. At synod, I met a pastor who works with 20 somethings in Tucson. He gives out "The Shack" by the boxful. "

Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo

I purchased this book while visiting our family up in Lynden. I like Richard Russo and I think I've read all his novels. This one was still in hardcover and I splurged on it as a treat.

The main character is Lou, it's written in first person with Lou narrating his story. He is in a small town in upstate New York, in which, I believe, all of Russo's novels are set. Russo seems to often have a sort of simple, naive person as the protagonist. As I wrote that it reminded me of Flannery O'Connor and her use of the grotesque. In my first course of English at college, the professor taught for the whole course on Flannery O'Connor - her short stories and then a paper on a novel. I was so sick and tired of the grotesque and those weird stories with such strange people as the heroes or heroines. But even though Russo uses rather simple people for his heroes, I am not sick of his writing. They may be kind of simple but there's a lot to them and their families and friends and others with whom they interract.

To be honest, I've forgotten many of the details of this book. I'm planning to reread it soon. It's a big, thick book and I look forward to reading it through again. I like a big book when it's good. I like getting lots of details and not being left wishing for more. 

Blood and Thunder by Hampton Sides

I wasn't sure how much I'd like this book, the one we chose to read after Wit. Sometimes non-fiction is tough for me to get into. I sometimes feel like I am slogging through heavy reading, like when you try to walk in mud and it's hard to lift your feet. I told someone once that "I don't take non-fiction to bed." It often feels like too hard of work for nighttime reading.

I was pleasantly surprised by Blood and Thunder, though. I enjoyed it a lot and had no problem taking it to bed. :) The sub-title is: "The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West." I thought it would be mostly a biography of Kit Carson. It definitely did tell the story of his life, but much more of the book was about the settling of the West including a lot about the Navahos.

I found it really interesting. Hampton Sides, the writer, is good at characterization -- which I would normally only think of in relation to authors of fiction. He made me feel like I was getting to know several of the military characters who fought the Indians, some of the Indians themselves and others involved in settling the West.

Reading about how the Indians were treated as settlers moved in can be a sad story. I was especially saddened at the story of Narbona. He was a leader of the Navahos. The author said that the Navahos didn't really have just one chief, which was a difficulty for the military when they wanted to negotiate settlements. They would always ask for the chief and the Navahos had many clans but no one real chief. However, Narbona came closest to being that. He was close to 90 years old when he died and well known and respected by all the Navahos. He seemed like a very intelligent man who was sad about what was happening to his people but trying to be realistic about the fact that the way the Navahos had been living was going to have to change. 

The book describes several events in Narbona's life. The last one is when he went to a meeting with the Colonel Washington, who was leading an Army expedition into the Navaho country to "chastise them for their constant raids and thefts" but also so get them to sign a peace treaty. At the meeting Narbona and other leaders agreed that they were "lawfully in the jurisdiction of the United States now, and they must respect that jurisdiction," and that "their friends will be the friends of the United States and their enemies the enemies of the Untied States" and they were "willing to be at peace with all the friends of the United States."

At the end of the meeting, the author writes:

"The council broke up to everyone's apparent satisfaction, and for a moment matters between the Navajos and the United States of America seemed hopeful. But then one of the New Mexican militiamen spotted a horse among the Navajo warriors that, he insisted, was his. The militiaman was sure of it, he said. The natives had stolen his horse a few months ago, and now he demanded it back. The Navajos did not dispute that the horse had been stolen, but they indicated that it had passed through so many different hands that it was impossible to ascertain the true owner -- and that, in any case, something like a statute of limitations had taken effect. There was a brief scuffle and charges were shouted back and forth."

Colonel Washington demanded that the Navajo hand over the horse and "the situation had become a tense standoff." The colonel told them they'd be shot if they didn't hand it over. The Navajo with the horse took off for the hills so Washington told the militiaman to pick whatever horse he wanted. As he went to do so, the Indians turned around and galloped away. "At this, Colonel Washington ordered, 'Fire!'"

Afterward there were seven dead Navajos (no U.S. casualties) and one of them was Narbona's. "If their leader's death was not insult enough to the Navajos," the author writes, "then what happened next proved to be the final indignity. A New Mexican souvenir hunter walked up to the old man's corpse, leaned down, and raked a sharp knife across his forehead."

"In his diary, Dick Kern did not suggest that Narbona had done anything to cause the attack, but neither did he express any moral outrage over the incident, which may have been one of the most decisive events in the history of Navajo relations with the U.S. government. But Kern did admit that he was furious wiith himself for not having the presence of mind to secure the head of Narbona for his friend and patron back in Philadelphia, the skull researcher Dr. Samuel George Morton.

"'He was the chief of the Nation, and had been a wise man and great warrior,' he wrote Dr. Morton a year later. 'His frame was immense. I should think his height near 6 ft. 6 in. He was near 90 years old when killed. I very much regret that I had not procured Narbona's cranium, as I think he had the finest head I ever saw on an Indian.'"

After I read that I had to lay the book down and recover. Isn't it incredible that they could think of someone like Narbona in such a non-human way? As if he were an object, like a souvenir you'd pick up on a trip?

And that story also emphasized how one event, or one person, can be so very pivotal in the unfolding events of history. There were several events and people written about in this book that made me think of that. 

I also thought to myself, if we could do the settling of the West over again, knowing what we know now, what would we do? And not just what would we do, but what if we decided we were going to do it right, and treat the Indians fairly? How would we do it? The Navajo clans ranged around a vast area, moving from one part to another. With settlers coming, that kind of living just really wouldn't work out. How would we fairly and kindly get them to completely change their way of life?

When I was telling my dad about this book he said that he was reading one he liked (which I cannot remember what the title was) and one reason he liked it was the author didn't go on and on about how terrible the white people or Christians or Americans were. It is tiring sometimes, to read and hear so much of that. But although the event I wrote about above does seem to be a mighty example of how terrible the U.S. acted,  the book did not have that kind of tenor at all. When I was telling my dad about it I said that, to me, it was more like the author was saying, "Wow, look at how interesting this is."

When we discussed the book at our meeting, all of us who had read it enjoyed it. One member remarked how, even though she majored in American history, she hadn't really known or read much about the Mexican-American war. And another remarked on the fact that he hadn't realized how much the Civil War and the question of slavery was involved in the settling of the West.

Some catch up

So, my experiment of blogging...not going so well. I haven't written since July! No excuse. I've thought of it often but never mustered the energy to sit down and do it. But here I go again.

I'll try to look back and write about what I've read in the interim. I'll do a separate post for each book. I figure when I look back to see what I've written about books it'll be a little easier if I have each book as a blog post title.

W;t

We chose Wit, a play by Margaret Edson, as our next book. It's a very short book, a quick read. Betsy M recommended it. She said it fit the definition for her of a book that is significant.

It reminds us how much is going on inside a person when on the outside you may not see much. In that way it made me think of the book by Joan Didion that I read, The Year of Magical Thinking, which she wrote in the year after her husband's sudden death.

The doctors in this play seem pretty much oblivious to the real "person-ness" of Vivian. They see her more as just a patient, something they're treating and watching for results. Sometimes they don't even look at her when they come in, just her chart or just the other doctors or nurses in the room.

In one scene, Vivian starts to ask a doctor if he'll be sorry when she dies, then changes it to ask more generally does he ever miss people. He says he tells people that he will and some are persuaded. Then when Vivian asks what he says when a patient is afraid or apprehensive he is so clueless he says, "Of who?" When she tells him never mind he starts to quiz her with questions you ask someone to test if they're confused - who's the president and that kind of thing.

There's a nurse in the play who is very caring, and a professor who taught Vivian (Vivian is a professor herself) who visits and is very kind, too.

The book has references to "wit" that I'm sure would be more meaningful if I knew Dante's work. In fact I'm sure the whole play would be more meaningful if I knew Dante. I'm hoping some of the other members will clue us into what I've missed.

How the discussion of Infidel went

So we had a good discussion of Infidel. We talked quite a bit about the Netherlands and how they do things. It's quite amazing the way the Dutch gave money and shelter to the immigrants. It's a very generous policy but hard to imagine being able to continue.

Ann M and Gert B are both Dutch immigrants themselves, or first generation, and had quite a bit to say about Holland. Some of their relatives seem to feel a little besieged by the new immigrants. They also talked about how the Dutch don't have a mechanism for assimilation. As we talked more about what that meant, the perception I got is that the Dutch tend to stay within their own circles and don't bring in newcomers, so the immigrants tend to form their own circles and they don't become Dutch in the way that immigrants to the US tend to become American. Ann said her relatives are amazed at how much we in our church visit each other and talk with each other; that's not done over there. They also brought up that there is more of a class society in Holland.

We talked a while about the way Islam is different from other religions in that it seems like their goal is to make everyone become Islam or those people are infidels, while other religions do try to convert people but they don't consider non-believers infidels in the way that Islam, especially Islam extremists, do. Someone said they heard that Ayaan is writing another book exploring the way Islam could be "done" without going to the extreme, and how that would look. Sounds like it might be interesting to read.

One thing we didn't seem to be able to come to a conclusion about is, so what do we do? We all agreed that Ayaan seems to be saying, "Wake up!" and that we're being naive about the Islamic religion and what the Islamic people want. But if we agree that, yes, we do seem to be naive about that, and, yes, we need to realize that their goals are frightening goals and threaten our safety, but then what? What should we do? Should we change the way we handle immigration? Is that some way to make sure people assimilate? Is there a way to ensure that people who come to our country conform to some basic practices and beliefs?

I read them what Joel had written about a "cut flower" society. I think there's a lot to think about in that but it didn't get much response. We also had the questions Dad sent and might have touched on them a little bit but I think there's actually a lot more that we could talk about in this book.

Betsy M voiced a feeling I had, too, which was it made her feel like she needed to figure out how she could help all the women living the life that the author described. I felt like that, too. How can I help to prevent others from being circumcised in that way, or forced into marriages, or treated so badly? They said the author's website has a way to donate towards her own security expenses. Here in the US she has to pay for her own bodyguards and security so you can donate towards that.

She is a brave woman to say what she says. Someone at the book club said they'd heard her give a talk called, "Let's say what it is" where she said straight out things about the issues being the Islam beliefs.

It was a good discussion but I wish we could have more!

Some discussion questions & comments about Infidel

My dad's bookclub read Infidel and he sent me the questions they discussed:

1. Are all Christian women freed from this ill treatment?

2. Are there any connecting/contact points between Christianity and Islam?

3. How does Islam’s doctrine about the Quran preclude any easy modification or modernization of Islam?

4. Does this presentation of Islam have any impact on our view of the war in Iraq or our war against Al Qaeda? Is a “conversation” with a Muslim country’s leaders possible or advisable according to Ayaan Hirsi Ali ?

5. How would we compare the sexual morality of the Dutch with that of Islam? How about the US view of sexual morality? Christian morality?

6. What do you think of the Dutch idea and practice of tolerance? How tolerant should or can a people or nation be? Can tolerance (Dutch) and intolerance (Muslims in Holland) co-exist? Church?

7. How much should we “fear” Islam?

8. What can or must we as Christians, as individuals or a church or a nation, do in this struggle with Islam? Are we morally responsible to do something/anything about these obviously immoral practices of Islam? Is missionary work a possibility in Muslim countries? Cp. Fr. Vincenso

I asked him what the reference "Cp. Fr. Vincenso" was and he sent this reply:

Fr. Vicenza Succi was our auxiliary priest in Izmir. He was a Franciscan priest, spoke 6 languages, had been in Turkey for 20 or more years, a simply wonderful person. His church was St Anthony’s. St. Anthony of Padua is the patron saint of the lost, poor, etc. Fr. did work with the Muslim Turks, provided them food and clothing. However, I do not think he had a single convert in his church. His parishioners were all people of European extraction who worked or just lived in Izmir. A Muslim once threw an axe at him as he came out of his house. We had two young Muslim women convert to Christian by way of our services in the Cathedral. Both were baptized in the Aegean Sea. I think I wrote a little about her in my book. Still, any attempt to convert Muslims to Christianity is very difficult and can be dangerous. I often think of Fr. Vicenza. Whenever we met, he always kissed three times, and the same when he said goodbye. I’ll never forget him.

My brother Joel also made this comment:

Good questions from dad re: "The Infidel."I believe contemporary Islam challenges people in the pluralistic western nations to realize that unless they recognize the religious roots of their society, they have no rational basis to defend their society. They may still choose to defend a "cut flower"* society on the basis of personal preference, but that's not the same thing as having a rational basis to believe that you live in a just society that is worth defending and developing. I believe Benedict XVI is trying to call Europe and the western world to recognize the Christian roots of the western world, which is the dominant social force in globalization. And in our own small ways we can live with integrity and pray for peace.

All good things to think about for our discussion.

*I had to look up "cut flower" and it appears to mean a society or country which was founded on certain beliefs but no longer is grounded in those beliefs -- so it's "cut" from its roots.

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

What an amazing story this is. I wasn't sure I wanted to read this book. I may not have if we hadn't chosen it as our book club selection.

This is a memoir of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's life growing up in a Muslim family in Africa, then escaping to the Netherlands and then moving to the U.S.

One thing in this book that I think I will never forget is the description of her circumcision. I had heard of female circumcision before but never really allowed myself to think of the details. How horrific it is. Three women held her down, "Then the scissors went down between my legs and the man cut off my inner labia and clitoris. I heard it, like a butcher snipping the fat off a piece of meat. A piercing pain shot up between my legs, indescribable, and I howled. Then came the sewing: the long, blunt needle clumsily pushed into my bleeding outer labia,..." She was 5 years old. And her grandmother held her down and comforted her while it was being done to both her and her sister, only 4. It's almost unbearable to think about. And it still happens.

Another thought I have after reading this book is to wonder why some people are born with the spirit and mind to escape this kind of upbringing, or any kind of hard upbringing. Why did Ayaan question the statements the adults in her life were making? Why did she decide to run away rather than go along with the inevitable? Within her is some kind of spirit that so many others in the same situation either do not have or do not act on.

I feel bad that Ayaan now believes in no God, no religion at all. She tried to be a devout Muslim. She reminded me of the soldier who worshiped the wrong god in Narnia. She believed Allah was good and loving and tried to be good and loving herself as a response. I feel sorry that she has no belief now, when she could have God's love and strength. I can absolutely see why she would give up the whole idea of God or religion. I just wish she could find the love of God somehow. Like when the soldier found Aslan after going through the door, I wish Ayaan could find that all along God has been loving her and holding her in His arms.

It is also amazing to me how much she loves her mother and father and others in her life who were so much a cause of the many bad things that happened in her life. In the introduction, Christopher Hitchens asked her about this. "Her response was twofold. First, she said, she felt on balance fortunate. She was, after all, alive to tell the tale. Second, she had seen what anger had done to her mother, a woman 'imprisoned' in resentment at the many ways that life had maltreated her." I think that beyond this, her attitude toward her mother and others shows the great power of love. Even when she tells about how her mother beat her or said terribly hurtful things to her, Ayaan finds reasons, or you might call them excuses, for what her mother does. She may say that her mother was acting out in anger for wrongs done to her or even more astonishing to me she might even say that her mother was acting out of love, just a misguided way of doing it. How powerful the love of a child for her parents.

This book also raises the question of how we should coexist with Muslims. We all try to be accepting and politically correct about it, to allow them to have their beliefs without condemning them for them. But there are some things that it seems obvious we should not allow. Something like female circumcision is most likely a fairly "easy" one. But arranged marriages is trickier. Even things like allowing the wearing of the hajib is difficult.

A phrase like "the power of story" can seem trivial and meaningless but in this story I think it takes on meaning. There is power in Ayaan Hirsi Ali's story -- the power to make us think about how we should act towards others, what we should do about awful things that are happening in the world, even how we can live as a Christian in a way that shows God's love rather than the many ways Christianity can be used to control others' thinking or behavior.

The Time Traveler's Wife

I just finished The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I wasn't sure I'd like it but I did like it, very much. It's told from the point of view of two people, Clare, who is the time traveler's wife, and Henry, the time traveler.

It's a love story but there are many twists and turns because of the time traveling. Clare meets Henry when she's only 6 and he is in his 40's. Each section begins with a date and the ages of the two characters. Then one or the other will speak. It sounds weird and science-fiction-y but it's not, really. I thought it was a really good story, well written, a page-turner in a way.

I'm reading The History of Love by Nicole Krauss for my other book club. It's pretty good so far. I started it as I began a plane trip to Michigan, then I stopped reading that and started reading The Time Traveler's Wife because that is a big, heavy book I hadn't wanted to carry with me on the plane. Now I'm having a bit of a hard time getting back into The History of Love. I may have to go back and re-read to figure out what's going on.

Been a while

I finished The Reason for God today and I changed my mind about it. As I kept going, I grew to like what the author was saying more and more. I plan to re-read this one.

The book club meeting went well. Steve made a good comment about Owen Meany, I thought. He doesn't read much fiction and he said he was having kind of a hard time reading the book. He kept waiting for more to happen. But once he finished he said that he thought a big theme of this book is that everything you do matters. You may not ever have something as dramatic happen as Owen did, but still what you do matters and you never know how it will.

We chose Infidel for the next book, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I read and watched some of the stuff on the web about it. Looks like it'll be very interesting and a good one to discuss.

Not Owen Meany

OK, so I feel like blogging but I have nothing left to say about Owen Meany right now. Our meeting is tomorrow. Maybe I'll have more to say after that.

For now, I'll write about some of my other reading. I took a trip to the used bookstore. Actually I went there thinking I'd find Owen Meany. That wasn't there, but a lot more was!

I picked up Marrying the Mistress by Joanna Trollope. She's a "member of the same family as novelist Anthony Trollope", according to the back cover, and I've read quite a few of her other books. I enjoy them. I think we read one of them in my other bookclub. If not, I know her name came up and Jan S., one of the members, did not like her, or at least not the book we were discussing at that point.

Anyway, I thought Marrying the Mistress was a good read. A man in his sixties, who was married for many years, had a 7 year affair with a much younger woman and finally decides to marry her. Of course the wife is extremely upset and so is his older son (he has two sons). This son already has a kind of strange relationship with his mother in that his mother relies heavily on him. The husband was extremely busy and not home much and the mother started depending on her older son instead. Now when the marriage breaks up, that dependency intensifies.

I like the way you get to know each of the characters so well. It's not actually told from the point of view from each of the characters but you're sort of "in the head" of each of them. It seemed very believable to me, and it was interesting to watch the developing emotions and thought changes as things progressed.

I also read a collection of short stories edited and introduced by David Sedaris called Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules. He said he named it that because he saw a work of art with that title and thought it was a fitting one for this collection -- he feels like a child in front of all these "Herculean" writers. Sometimes I don't like short stories. They often leave me feeling hungry for more. The short stories by Salinger do that to me, although I absolutely love reading anything more he wrote about the characters in the Glass family. But I want MORE, always.

Anyway, I enjoyed this collection, even the one by Flannery O'Connor. I was absolutely soured on Flannery O'Connor by an English class at Calvin that ENTIRELY her writing -- critiques and essays on her short stories and a term paper on a novel. Oh, I was so sick of "the grotesque". But I guess now that that course is over 30 years behind me I can get over it. :)

One of the stories in the collection I had heard already on my iPod. I listen sometimes to an NPR show where someone from "The New Yorker" magazine interviews a writer and the writer selects a piece of fiction that was at some time published in the magazine, to read and discuss. Every episode I've heard I've really enjoyed.

Another book I read was An Anthropologist on Mars by Oliver Sacks. He's an interesting writer. It'd be something to do what he does, study people or certain kinds of people and then write in-depth about them and whatever strange neurological problem they're experiencing. This book had "seven paradoxical tales", as the subtitle said. I found the ones about colorblind people especially interesting. My brother Dan was colorblind and my son Luke is, too. Sometimes I think it must be sad not to see all the beautiful colors we're surrounded by. But these "tales" gave some different insights into that.

For one thing, a footnote said that during WWII colorblind spotters were invaluable. They could see people in forests or places where they were trying to camouflage themselves. People who could see color would miss them, but the figures stood out to colorblind people. Randy said they used them in Vietnam, too. So although they miss colors, there are other things that stand out more to them than to us.

There was one story about an artist who suddenly stopped seeing color. It was a really strange thing. He was in a small accident and after that lost his ability to see or even remember color. He was an artist and he used a lot of color in his art so he was just devastated by his loss. He felt suicidal about it. But slowly he started to adjust and even enjoy his new sight. He started living more at night. He would travel to new places and walk or visit them in the nighttime. He said it was like a whole new world to explore. He started painting in black and white and then began experimenting with putting some color into the paintings even though he can't see the color. After 2 or 3 years, I can't remember which, a doctor thought that he might be able to reverse the colorblindness with some surgery and the artist said no. He thought he might go through another terrible time of adjustment and he was content now. Pretty interesting.

Currently I'm reading two books. I don't usually do that but I am this time because one is non-fiction called The Reason for God by Timothy Keller and the other is fiction, The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold. Sometimes I don't feel like reading non-fiction. It doesn't give me that escapism I'm addicted to. So I'm reading The Reason for God during the day and when I feel like a story I read the other.

My brother Joel recommended The Reason for God. The subtitle is "Belief in an Age of Skepticism" and Joel said he's going to do an adult Sunday School class based on it. I often go through periods of doubt. Really, I'm pretty much always struggling with that in my faith. It's sort of like I have this faith but I'm constantly questioning whether it can all really be true. I try to push the questioning out and just believe and most of the time that works just fine. This book has a chapter about many of the "usual" sort of arguments against faith, such as the problem with there being only one true religion, suffering in the world, all that stuff.

What I've read so far has been pretty good. It seems, though, as if much of his response to these things is to flip it around and say that the person positing the argument against faith is himself doing the same thing he argues someone with faith shouldn't do. For example, someone who says religious people shouldn't claim that their religion is the only true religion are themselves claiming that what they are saying is the only truth. I'm not sure that's such a great way to take away the argument. But I plan to keep reading, I'm interested in what he says.

The other book, The Almost Moon, is kind of strange. Alice Sebold wrote The Lovely Bones, which was also very strange. This one starts with "When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily." Pretty gripping first sentence, I'd say! It's written in first person and I like the character so far. It's a woman somewhere in her fifties, I think, with 2 adult daughters, who has been taking care of her mother - although her mother was still living on her own in her own house. After that first sentence it goes back to how she ended up at her mother's house that day and then on to more of her life - her marriage, divorce, childhood and so on.

So, there we are. I'm going to try to keep blogging about my reading, just because I enjoy it, not just the books we're reading for the book club.