Changing Together

A long time ago, in what almost seems like another galaxy, I was single. But, I was newly engaged and had just relocated to New Jersey where I would be starting grad school a couple of months later. AJ was also living in Jersey, about an hour from me, for a summer internship.

One Saturday, we drove to the Hill Cumorah pageant with a bunch of single adults. On the way, we stopped at the Corning Museum of Glass to have a look around. AJ and I had had lots of impassioned discussions about what our future life would be like. We had talked a lot about gender and gender roles and he knew I had some issues. In fact, those discussions started long before we were engaged and dating.

I don't remember much about what led up to another discussion of gender in the museum, but I do remember this from AJ: "Just promise me that we will never put our kids in full time day care."

I hemmed and hawed because who knew what our future held? But, I think I eventually said ok.

Now, all these years later, I am on the verge of starting a full time job. It's not exactly the scenario I would have chosen, but all in all, I am excited and invigorated by the prospects. And not only that, but AJ is 100% behind the decision as well.

We've been through lots of different things, but less than a lot of other people. No major illnesses, no major financial problems, no more craziness than an average family. Compared to then, we are probably more cynical about some things, but still hold out hope for other things, maybe foolishly. We have three kids that quarrel and an often untidy house in the suburbs. You know. Just a pretty normal life.

Through both the mundane and life altering changes, I am grateful that we have been able to evolve as a couple and a family. I am particularly grateful for AJ and for his ability and willingness to envision and enact a different life than he anticipated.
Read more . . .

Best of 2009

I haven't done a good job chronicling and reviewing books here like I used to. I want to try to go back to my roots and do more of that, but for now, here are my favorite reads of 2009.


Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. This was my first Stegner. It's the memorable and gripping and searing story of two couples who met in Madison and then remained close friends over many years. Stegner does an amazing job portraying the four characters. And Charity still haunts me. This would be great for a book group.

All God's Creatures Have a Place in the Choir by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and Emma Lou Thayne. I read this one in the spring, right around the time I went to a retreat and met Claudia Bushman, a colleague of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. That was probably the high point of my year. I love LTU--she is a hero of mine. This is a book of personal essays about being female and Mormon, about friendship, sisterhood, and community, about motherhood and writing. Like any collection of essays, there were some that were more personally meaningful to me, but this is such a great compilation of Emma Lou Thayne's and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's writing, and bubbles over with the richness of their lives and their thoughtful insights. In its totality, their book celebrates women's gifts, not as anything generically applied to all with XX chromosomes, but individual woman's gifts and contributions, unique and precious, and ultimately beneficial to the community at large, no matter the shape of their talents.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. When I heard the premise of this book, I was skeptical. It sounded like it would be a feminist screed cloaked in a badly fitting story. But, Atwood is an amazing storyteller and she develops the dytopian world that the handmaid precariously navigates. As a member of a society that has almost lost its ability to reproduce due to a terrible environmental disaster, the few women who can still bear children become very important to the theocratic state. These are the handmaids--named after the women in the Old Testament who stepped in to bear children for the patriarchs when their wives were infertile. Atwood utilizes a narrative device that tells a portion of the handmaid's story through her own diary that has been discovered many years hence. Her current name is Offred because she now belongs to a powerful man named Fred. I also read Oryx and Crake this year, and enjoyed it as well, though it spoke more to environmental devastation than to issues around gender.

My Life in France by Julia Child. I loved the film Julie and Julia and saw it with a good friend this summer. I was moved by the story of Julia Child and the way she was able to define and create a life for herself. So, I picked up her memoir and Child's wit, pragmatism, and personality, her sense of humor and her embrace of life shine through. She has such a descriptive way with words and it was a pure pleasure to read. The best of her book is the first half when she and her husband Paul are living in Paris and when she discovers her passion for cooking. I love that she was a bit older (late 30's) when she discovers France and its food, but that when she does, she embraces it so heartily and fully that it powerfully shapes the rest of her life.

An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken. This slim volume is a gem--an exquisitely, beautifully written memoir of a stillbirth. Elizabeth McCracken and her kind, earnest English husband are living in the countryside of France, both working on writing. She is radiantly pregnant, the adorable baby shoes have been purchased, and they have created a vision of their future life with their baby boy nicknamed Pudding. From the very beginning, McCracken lets us in on what will happen. Both her stillborn son, and the living, healthy child that will be born almost exactly a year later. But, the unraveling. Oh, the tragic and painful unraveling. I read this one twice because it was so beautifully written.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. What do I say about this one? I loved the story and the creativity of it. I loved Katniss and I loved Rue. I thought Collins did a great job making the characters real in this book (and was disappointed with Catching Fire--I didn't think it was the same power as Hunger Games).

When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present by Gail Collins. I went to hear Collins speak on her book tour. It was at a dark time of my year--I was so depressed and felt so heavy in such a physical way. I loved hearing her speak and felt myself spark at her ideas and her painstaking research. She has written a great overview of all the things that have changed for women in the US since 1960. Collins is a journalist, and this book is very readable, packed full of stories of women, based mainly on interviews. She covers both the history-making events (Betty Friedan and The Feminine Mystique, the founding of NOW, the ERA, etc), as well as the more mundane (clothing, day to day life).

The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I don't care if the critics turn their nose up at this book, I loved it. Stockett's characters are so vibrant, so real. I felt like I knew every single one of them. What a topic--the revolutionary action of recording black women's voices and stories. I loved how Stockett portrayed the diversity of characters across both the black and white women. It felt authentic. There was the villainous and bigoted Hilly, yes, but there was also the conflicted, self-centered, and bullied Elizabeth, depressed Lou Anne who credited her maid with helping her get out of bed every day, and of course, Skeeter, one of the heros of the book. And then Aibileen, the other hero--I think she was my favorite character. I loved the way she took care of Elizabeth's daughter, Mae Mobley, and countered the effects of her mother's negligence. And Minny--the sassy maid who can cook like anything, taking care of the trampy Celia. Really wonderful.

Here's to many wonderful reads in 2010!

Read more . . .

Lost in Translation Update

Back in January, I decided I would read 6 books translated from other languages this year.

Here's how it went.

I started out the year reading Inkdeath by Cornelia Funke, translated by Anthea Bell. After loving both Inkspell and Inkheart, this was a big disappointment. It was slow, it wasn't captivating, and it was way too long. A bad way to start.





Then, in about May, I read Ghosts by Cesar Aira, translated by Chris Andrews. Here's what Publisher's Weekly had to say about it:

Aira, an unusual Argentinean author (How I Became a Nun), writes a compelling novel about a migrant Chilean family living in an apartment house under construction in Buenos Aires. New Year's Eve finds the hard-drinking Chilean night watchman, Raúl Vinas, hosting a party with his wife, Elisa, their four small children and Elisa's pensive 15-year-old daughter, Patri. Moreover, ghosts reside in the house: naked, dust-covered floating men, mostly unseen except by Elisa and Patri. The novel engineers a clever layering of metaphorical details about the building, but gradually focuses on Elisa's preparations for the party and her conversations with her daughter about finding a real man to marry. Prodded perhaps by her isolation within the family, Patri accepts the ghosts' invitation to a midnight feast, at her life's peril. Aira takes off on fanciful sociological analogies that seem absurd in the mouths of these simple folk, so that in the end the novel functions as an allegorical, albeit touching, comment on his characters' materialism and class.

Yes, it was curious. Too much for my taste. I don't know if this falls in the magical realism genre. Or if it was just too literary for me. But, I didn't really like it.

With two strikes against me, I didn't jump into any other works in translation until the end of the year. Then, with a lingering deadline, I thought maybe I could still make it work.

I read the highly touted Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, translated by Alison Anderson, which seems to be something a lot of book bloggers have read and many have loved. I almost gave up on it several times, because the first 100 pages were soooo slow and way too much philosophizing. If I had had anything else to read at the gym one day, I wouldn't have finished it. As it was, it turned out to be pretty good.

Here's what I said on GoodReads about it.

In part 2, it finally started picking up and engaging me. It's the story of Renee, a woman in Paris who is a concierge to a building full of rich and elitist tenants, who are also intellectually barren and incurious. She spends her free time reading Marx and studying phenomenology with her Tolstoy named cat as only companion, hiding her mind in an attempt to not step outside of prescribed class barriers.

When she meets Mr Ozu, a new resident (the first new resident in the building in 20 years! What kind of stifling and rigid kind of place is this?), she finds a like minded friend. The section where they identify the true nature of each other is charming--Renee underhandedly quotes Anna Karenina, but not without Mr Ozu's recognition and then reciprocation. Though she enjoys conversation and meals with him, finally able to reveal her true self to another, she continues to struggle internally to truly accept a friendship with someone from such a different background.

This is also the story of a precocious and intelligent 12 year old Paloma, daughter of some tenants, who is unhappy, not able to share her true self with her family. She builds a friendship with both Mr Ozu and Renee and is able to find hope and goodness that has previously eluded her. Both she and Renee pour out their thoughts in diary form, which is how the entirety of the book is written.

As for the title, which has been so alluring to me: "Madame Michel (Renee) has the elegance of the hedgehog: on the outside, she's covered in quills, a real fortress, but my gut feeling is that on the inside, she has the same simple refinement as the hedgehog: a deceptively indolent little creature, fiercely solitary--and terribly elegant."

Then, I read Here's to You Jesusa by Elena Poniatowska, translated by Deanna Heikkinen. It started out strong, but I ended up really disliking it. Another disappointment

From my GoodReads:

Here's To You, Jesusa! chronicles the life of Jesusa, a tough, argumentative, spirited, and pragmatic Mexican women who was a young adult during the Revolution. The book is in her voice, and she goes from one ordeal to the other, always managing to come out on top, no matter how challenging. She is very poor and doesn't settle down anywhere for long, so the book skips around quite a bit. This made it hard to read-- it didn't hold together very well for me, and I skimmed through some of it, an...more

Here's To You, Jesusa! chronicles the life of Jesusa, a tough, argumentative, spirited, and pragmatic Mexican women who was a young adult during the Revolution. The book is in her voice, and she goes from one ordeal to the other, always managing to come out on top, no matter how challenging. She is very poor and doesn't settle down anywhere for long, so the book skips around quite a bit. This made it hard to read-- it didn't hold together very well for me, and I skimmed through some of it, and eventually stopped reading with 70 pages left.

I understand that Poniatowska was trying to capture an authentic poor Mexican woman's voice, but I would have like a bit more self examination into how all these events shaped the woman Jesusa was. (For example, the death of her mother when she was young, her father inability to stay in one place for long, an abusive step-mother.) It's all descriptive, but not much more.

The book starts out with a forward by the middle class woman who supposedly finds Jesusa somehow and then spends years interviewing her and learning her story, and who then writes a book about her life. I loved this part and would have liked to see more interplay between the "author" voice and Jesusa.

So, with completing four books, I gave up. I have a few more on my to-read list for next year, so I'm not giving up altogether, but I guess I didn't too well with the selection. That, or maybe I'm just an unsophisticated American through and through and can't really appreciate translated works.

Read more . . .