The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway)

Short novel. Short sentences. Short words with few syllables. Such is the work of Hemingway and The Old Man and the Sea is no exception. I like how fluid Hemingway is to read and I realize that this is one of his most famous works. In fact, it's the piece that won him his Pulitzer Prize in 1953. But I personally don't think it is one of his strongest books. The Sun Also Rises is the one that struck me the hardest. It was a book that delved a bit deeper into humanity, I believe, than this story.

Ah, yes, I should probably tell you about the story. This is the tale of an aging Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, who hasn't caught a fish in more than 80 days. His apprentice forced to leave him for greener pastures, he is alone on the sea when he encounters and battles the largest Marlin he has ever seen. The finest points lie in the relationship between humans and nature, man and fish. Who has the right to kill who, who literally is killing who. And where is the meaning in a life so close to completion. This story is also a testament for Hemingway's time in Cuba, where he lived out the end of his life. Weighing in at about 130 pages, it's a nice weekend read or a good introduction to Hemingway for the novice.

Love Medicine (Louise Erdrich)

This novel is less a novel than a series of interconnected short stories. Each segment told by a different character in the same environment--a Native American reservation of the Chippewa in the northern Midwest. It deals with two families primarily, the Kapshaws and the Lamartines, which drift apart from, hate, love, and reproduce with eachother.

You know why I like this book?

One: The postmodern connection of the point-of-view. A story with no set beginning or end. Without a character arch in the traditional sense of the phrase. Yet, these people, separately and together, create a kind of sense, a message that perhaps the people involved were unable to see as they were too close, a whole fabric weaved of the colored threads of the many, that alone only are pretty strings, sitting unused and sad on a table, with no purpose. But woven together, a tapestry. I love when authors take account of what truly makes up a story, a whole life, a whole landscape, a whole century. Whatever encompasses the story, instead of the old and typical David Copperfield trick of the incidents between "I was born" and "I died."

Two: The amount I learned about current Native American culture. Not the theoretical, not the spiritual, not the myths and legend of the textbook or the herbal remedies of the holistic. No, the way that life has continued to evolve for the Indians in America. Their habits, jobs, lives, families. Anything to see the dissimilarities and the intrisic sameness of human life in general.

Three: The time spent discussing alcohol and alcoholism amongst the Indians. I know that this partially comes from such roots in my past and the reasearch I have done in response. But Erdrich's novel describes alcholism as a disease, not a weakness, and a disease that affects families, or anyone that loves. If you are unaware of the connection of alcohol and genetics, the basic synopsis is that the body's cells will like to use alcohol as fuel over carbs, fats, or protein because it is easy to break down and provides instant, though not lasting, energy. In some people (who easily become alcoholics), the cells crave only this energy, which results in a physical need. Native Americans seems to be particulary vulnerable to this as their genes have yet/had yet to acquire the necessary tools to fight the effects of alcohol. Much like smallpox or other illnesses that ravaged their population, they were unable to fight it off. Though Erdrich doesn't go into the science of it, like I have, the battle of many of the characters with alcohol makes the disease human, understandable, and still heartbreakingly sad.

This is a wonderful modern read, especially for those interested in other cultures. Portions of the book have been excerpted in "Best Of" collections I read in college and published in many literary magazines. It's a deep yet very readable novel. Literary fiction to the center and non-traditional enough in structure that we say "Center? What center?" A novel I wished continued. Though I am told that the author does go on, I don't know if with the same characters, in later works.

Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)

Ah, Holden. How nice to meet up with you again. It's always an eye-opener to become reacquainted with you, with adolescence, with my teenage self, with the part of all of us that will never grow up and wants to curse at the "goddamn" world. Who wants to break all the windows and smoke all the cigarettes and watch the kids go 'round and 'round on the carousel. I find something new whenever I return to Holden. This time it is the repetition that strikes me. How Salinger crafts these redundant thoughts with such purpose. The technique makes Holden's voice both smart and young--he is struggling to find the words to elaborate on a thought but comes up dry. So he then repeats himself and asks the reader to make the leap he is too inarticulate to pin down exactly, sometimes with a direct question to the audience. Plus, all the slang that is heavy with meaning--"That kills me," "That knocks me out," "It's kinda funny," "all those phonies." And here it is from Holden himself:

That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write "Fuck you" right under your nose. Try it sometime. I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it'll say "Holden Caulfield" on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it'll say "Fuck you." I'm positive, in fact.

Well, in a way I hope there is a day when I don't relate to Holden. When I have a plan and don't feel like the weight of my purpose (What's your purpose? What do you want to be? Why can't you apply yourself?) like an anvil tied to the cuff of my pants. When I don't feel like just taking off into the distance with a single suitcase and hitch a ride into transparency. Here's a good plan. "Just so people didn't know me and I didn't know anybody. I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend to be one of those deaf-mutes. If anybody wanted to tell me something, they'd have to write it down on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. They'd get bored as hell doing that after a while, and then I'd be through with having conversations for the rest of my life."

Such a pleasure to reread a good book. And, well, I need to get to library.

Broken For You (Stephanie Kallos)

I got this book from a book club selection, the Today Show Book Club to be exact. This book club has an interesting notion--to have well-known authors chose selections of lesser known authors that they like. In fact, this was selected by Sur Monk Kidd, author of The Secret Life of Bees. This selection, however, was simply okay. I think I could use this novel as the perfect example of a book--a good plot-driven book--vs. a book of literary fiction. It had a good story--an old woman, tortured by the guilt of her fortune's roots, finally overcomes her self-hatred to reach out to a colorful cast of characters late in her life, discovering how breaking an object (or a habit, an idea, etc) can be cathartic, how sometimes a broken thing is worth more than a whole one. I like that thought, that driving theme. I didn't like the flat characters. You knew which other flat character they were going to end up falling madly in love and living happily ever after with. You knew that so and so was really going to wind up being so and so's long lost family member. You knew that she would eventually figure out that the man she thought she loved and would never stop loving wasn't really worth it in the first place. And, you sighed when the subjects of Yoga, vegetarian diet, and brain tumors came up. I must say the best thing, in my opinion, was the discussion of bowling. Now there is unsussed territory. Hmmm. I'll have to remember that one. Anyway, a quick and light read about throwing precious, antique ceramics against the wall and relishing the noise, the mess, the destruction. And not so bad that you will throw the book itself across the room in imitation.

A Home at the End of the World (Michael Cunningham)

I was disappointed in this, Michael Cunningham's first novel, before his Pulitzer Prize winning The Hours. I suppose I just like The Hours too much. I idolize it, worship it. I love the interaction between the three characters and the thread of Virginia Woolf running throughout. It was play, it was fun, it was a game of marbles with characters and (lyrical) descriptions but with depth in every action, in every clack of those marbles. In fact, I never saw the movie version, no matter who and their mother tells me how good it is, because I don't want to ruin my own idea of the novel, a fragile little bubble in my head that dazzles me with it's soapy, shining reflection of light. I'd like to keep it exactly as is.

This novel, on the other hand, is not bad by any means. It's interesting but dull, done and done again. The story of three people (and one of their mother's too but in an offhand, on and off way) who make their own sort of dusfunctional family. A gay man, his female best friend, and the gay man's childhood buddy (who was his first lover but then become's the woman's). They have a child together and attempt to raise it as a threesome, rejecting traditional notions of family to create their own "Home at the End of the World." I know, I know, you've heard that somewhere before, right? How about when Jennifer Aniston did it in Object of My Affection or when Madonna gave it a try in The Next Best Thing? I mean, if you are going to go into territory that has been explored my such, ahem, geniuses, you at least need to riff off of what they did. Take what has been done and either make fun of or build off of it. No. This book just did the trite thing. Oh, and threw in the AIDS epidemic to boot. Yay! All in all, a fun read. But nothing like The Hours, not in the same league as The Hours, and obviously before Cunningham truly found his voice and style in The Hours. Next time I try his work, I will pick up his collection of interlaced short stories that he wrote post Pulitzer, Specimen Days.

Fear of Flying (Erica Jong)

This book was scandalous, which of course made it incredibly popular, when it was published in 1974 (5 years before I was born). I can certainly see why with the incessant use of the word fuck and the four letter word for vagina, beginning with a C, that I hate to say. I am ashamed that I hate that word--seems liberal ole me should be perfectly hunky dory with that slang, but I find that it's the violent sound of the word as it is spoken that I loathe. That and the connotation of nastiness/vulgarity associated with it. But Jong is certainly not shy of it as the narrator is not shy of her own, hmm, C word.

The novel is the story of Isadora Wing, in Vienna with her psychiatrist (second) husband for a professional conference. She meets another man, who turns her on with every pore of his skin and makes her realize how safe and perhaps dead her marriage is. She then runs off on a mad jaunt to discover existentialism, free love, feminism, and her self. Now, in 2006, the plot and the conclusions the narrator draws at the end are rather pat. About the fallacy of needing a man to complete you. About living your life without apologies. But Jong's novel was still a good fun read and her prose style is sharp, witty, and, yes, vulgar. Here's a great example:

"We drove to the hotel and said goodbye. How hypocritical to go upstairs with one man you don't want to fuck, leave the one you do sitting there alone, and then, in a state of great excitement, fuck the one you don't want to fuck while pretending he's the one you do. That's called fidelity. That's called civilization and its discontents."

It is also a story about being a female writer--how the experience is taxing, daunting and often dishonest. She doesn't feel free to write about what she really thinks or feels in the beginning because her thoughts aren't what she is supposed to be feeling, according to the novels and poems by male authors, what they thought a woman would feel, think, how she would act. A slightly out of date theory, I think, but still apt in ways. I think writing, for males or females, is about courage to overcome this dishonesty. I like this summary:

"My writing is the submarine or spaceship which takes me to the unknown worlds within my head. And the adventure is endless and inexhaustible. If I learn to build the right vehicle, then I can discover even more territories. And each new poem is a new vehicle, designed to delve a little deeper (or fly a little higher) than the one before."

Great airplane or beach reading, even for you blokes out there. After all, none of your friends are going to see you reading it there. Plus, there's loads of female lust and it says fuck.... a lot.

Beloved (Toni Morrison)

This novel flows like water, the pages being a shuffling waterfall between your open hands. Or rubber bands. See, I read my books at the gym and in order for this one to stay open I had to use two rubber bands, one pressing pages to the front cover and one the back. I then merely have to slip a new page, carefully, out and place it under the other rubber band. Good motivator for me on the elliptical machine when the book is this good.

Sigh. I love Morrison. Her poetic style and use of detail, especially about characters. One detail that encapsulates that person more than paragraphs of explanation. I love the way she makes skipping from person to person and from past to present okay--it makes sense, aiding the story and easily followed. I love how she has the talent to make a character that should be reprehensible, for their actions or their position, sympathetic and brave. It's a three-punch combo in my opinion. Not everyone, I know, feels the same. I recently chatted with a friend, a very intelligent friend, who felt this novel was a long and arduous slog. "At least I know more about slavery," she said. But I suppose we are all attracted to story-telling styles that suit our own thought processes and Morrison conveys the way I think and see the world around me, in stops and starts and looping backs and retellings with vivid drops of color splattered about. Morrison could be writing inside of my head--except I'm not black, was never a slave, have never been a mother, have never lost a child, etc and etc.

Ah the story. The story centers on the character of Sethe, a former slave that escaped her master to settle in Ohio with her husband's mother, a husband that never showed up as planned. That could never be cataloged as still living or mercifully dead. Sethe is above all a mother of four--one home, two taken off, and one dead yet haunting the house with the red, sad anger of a two-year old soul taken too soon. Through the interactions with her remaining daughter, Denver, and a long lost blast-from-the-past friend, Paul D, Sethe revisits all the pain that made her who she is and that explains, if not condones, all she has done. Morrison will leave you with vivid descriptions after the covers close--a quilt with two orange squares of color, how blood can feel oily as it slides through your fingers, and the metaphor of Paul D's heart: a rusted over tobacco tin, better kept closed, because love is a danger. If you love something, make it a small thing, like sunshine or the shadow under a tree, because loving something big is giving the world leverage to break you in yet another way.