Enough About Love

Enough About Love by Herve le Tellier is just longer than a novella; a few character sketches. Set in contemporay France, it tells the story of two couples, upper middle class, doctors, writers, a lawyer, with children. The women each meet someone else and either leave, or contemplate leaving their families. Le Tellier composes the chapters from individual and couple standpoints and is non-judgemental, in the way only the French can be when it comes to affairs. A book like this can easily been read as a film and I kept imagining Juliette Binoche as the lawyer.

This was a subtle, yet easy read, but for me, ultimately, unremarkable. I'd be suprised if I remember it in a year. 3/5 netflix stars.

Olive Kitteridge

Most people know I grew up in Kansas, and although Wichita is not a particularly small town, it sometimes felt that way. Family trips up to Ipswich, MA to see my cousins, or summer vacations to Santa Fe, Colorado or Italy confirmed to me that the world was bigger and I needed to see it.  I couldn't imagine why everyone didn't want to leave.  I moved to Boston after graduation and hardly looked back.   I thought reading Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout reminded me of the insularity I sometimes felt growing up.

Olive is the main character connecting a dozen or so stories set in small town Maine.  She's a curmudgeon, large and unattractive, overbearing and overall mean.  In short, not a sympathetic character.  The people in her town are gossips and un-motivated.  Her son manages to escape first to California, and then to New York.  The other men in the book seem broken and the women seem to get by mostly by being crazy and/or drunk.

It's been more (ahem) than 10 years I've lived in Boston and I can recall Wichita fondly.  I'm happy to still have close friends I grew up with; some moved away, and some stayed there.  But they're happy and successful.  I'm better able to connect with fellow midwestern ex-pats and appreciate that friendliness.  And I've come to realize that New Englanders are just as insular, if not more, than midwesterners.  The discomfort I felt reading Olive Kitteridge came from my own feeling of being sucked in to Boston.

Ms. Strout is a wonderful writer. Her scenes and characters are evocative to a fault.  So it's not the writing, but the subject matter.  Last spring I met a woman in my neighborhood and upon telling her that we like to recruit a geographically diverse housestaff to my hospital, her response, "But why would that matter?" seemed to summarize my overall frustration with Olive Kitteridge.

Netflix stars: 3/5.

Crazy Love

While reading Crazy Love by Leslie Morgan Steiner, I wanted more than anything for the book to be fiction. I wanted this in part because Leslie's story was sad and difficult and I wouldn't want anyone to suffer the injustices she described. But I also wanted it because the memoir was just so sloppily written that I wanted to just read it as a throwaway book.

Leslie writes about her first marriage in her early 20s to a man who first hit her five days before their wedding. She describes the violence inflicted on her during their honeymoon and also her isolation when they moved away from her friends and family to Vermont. Conor meets many hallmarks of an abuser-- he came from a family where he was abused and slowly controls Leslie, even though she doesn't think of herself as a "typical" battered wife. And in many ways, she's not what we think. She comes from an old, rich family, went to a prestigious college, interned at Seventeen magazine, went to business school. Not to be picky, but these are the exact reasons I wanted the book to be better written! The chronology was confusing, her's and Conor's characters were not multi-dimensional and there were some many inaccuracies (ie, Bostonians do not say "pop" for a Coke-- a detail, but if you're going to throw it in, it better be correct!).

I've read a couple memoirs in the past year or so. The best was An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination and the so-so was Trail of Crumbs. This leans more to the latter-- a need to get the story out.

I admire Leslie for telling her story and for the ultimate "happy ending" even though it wasn't as sophisticated as I would have liked. I'm giving it 3/5 netflix stars.

American Wife and The Wordy Shipmates

Periodically I'll put in requests for books at the public library and if the books are "best sellers" I might be number 80 on the list. I don't mind waiting, but invariably what happens is that all the books will arrive at the same time. So a couple weeks ago I got notification that American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld had arrived along with a fellow blogger's recommendation for The Wordy Shipmates, by Sarah Vowell. With limited time to read both, I shoved my New Yorkers to the side and plowed in. Fortunately I was sick for a few days so could only read and watch KU basketball on the couch. More importantly, I realized these books are nice complements to each other.

The Wordy Shipmates is Sarah Vowell's research on the origins of American settlers in New England and American Wife is a fictionalized life story of Laura Bush (Alice Blackwell in the book)-- in short, these two books are bookends on American History.

Ms. Sittenfeld creates a thoughtful and sympathetic portrait of an average American woman. Alice grows up in a small town in Wisconsin and leads what anyone would consider a fairly ordinary life from the outside. She attends public school, goes to church, interacts with her neighbors, and has a best friend. Her dad works at a bank and her mom stays at home. Her grandma is the spunky antithesis of "normalcy"-- she provides the inspiration for Alice's lifelong liberal leanings. When Alice falls for Charlie Blackwell, a son from a strong and old Republican family, they are still years away from Charlie becoming president (based on W.). Alice is confident she and Charlie can keep their politics separate and to an extent they do, but she does find that her mores and ethics are often at odds with Charlie's public persona. She maintains a fine line between her personal feelings and public face.

Alice's conflict can directly be traced back to the 1630s. In school we learned that the Pilgrims came from England for religious freedom. That's part of the story. Ms. Vowell explains that they were all for religious freedom as long as they all adhered to an agreed upon set of rules. Sound familiar? She gives us the backstory on the founding of different colonies and the seemingly petty disagreements that led to vicious attacks on American Indians, multiple banishments of colonists and beheadings of those who disagreed with the King(s) of England. I liked Ms. Vowell's account of this history because she writes with humor and personal insight and honestly loves our founding fathers (and mothers) despite, and because of, their shortcomings. She cringes when Anne Hutchinson shoots herself in the foot and rolls her eyes at Winthrop's and Williams' disagreements. But she never apologizes for being American-- she loves America.

Both of these books were so well written and edited. They were both worth the wait, and even the $0.60 fine I'll pay for finishing The Wordy Shipmates after its due date.

5/5 netflix stars to each.

The Lone Pilgrim

I just finished my second Laurie Colwin book: The Lone Pilgrim, a collection of short stories. What I love about short stories in general, and Ms. Colwin's stories in particular, is the way the main characters are in sharp focus and the secondary characters are in soft focus-- kind of like a close up of a flower, where you can see fuzzy green and other colors and shapes around it, framing it, but it's the flower you really notice.
In "The Lone Pilgrim", the narrator comments, "But steady as I am, why am I so solitary? No matter how orderly, measured, and careful my arrangements are, they are only a distillation of me, not a fusion of myself and someone else. I have my domestic comforts, except that mine are only mine." In "Travel", our heroine notes her independence. "The food I lived on was eccentric. I strained yogurt through cheesecloth to concentrate it, and I ate it with pickled cabbage and salted Japanese plums...the odd tastes of a solitary person." When she gives this meal to her future husband, it never occurs to her "that he might have the same odd taste, or his own odd taste."
But as lone and solitary as Ms. Colwin's characters are, they aren't immune to heartache. Miss Greenway, in "Saint Anthony of the Desert", laments a lost love who has returned for a final farewell. "His ease in my apartment broke my heart. I wanted to say, like Saint Anthony of the Desert, 'Why do you do harm to me when I harm none of you? Go away, and in the Lord's name, do not come near these things again.' He did go away, and that was the last I even saw of him."
Ms. Corwin writes with the honesty of Andrea Lee and Nell Freudenberger and her books will surely hold a point of reference for me for years to come.
netflix stars 5/5.

A Big Storm Knocked It Over

You know how you learn a new word and suddenly it's everywhere? And you can't stop using it because it seems to apply to everything? I recently read about the late writer Laurie Colwin and then kept seeing her referenced, most notably in my favorite food blog, The Kitchn. I checked out a couple books from the library and as I was reading, knew they had come to my attention for a reason.
A Big Storm Knocked It Over seemed like a cup of tea on a snowy winter afternoon. An alternate title could be, "A Year In The Life of an Aging City Living Liberal Who Wants to Grow Up But Doesn't Know Exactly How". Jane Louise is our heroine, and she really is ours. Perhaps I'm making assumptions, but I assume most women worry about having children, about pleasing their spouses and about doing what is right in our day to day lives. Jane Louise has had a nice non-traditional wedding, marrying the kind of guy she never thought she'd end up with. She is a graphic designer for a boutique book publisher and has a best friend, Edie, she calls several times a day. Her family is disappointed with her life choices, although none of them have really been bad.
Not much happens in this book. Jane Louise enjoys and has anxieties about her marriage. She considers her friends more of her family than her actual family and she deftly navigates a slimy boss and slimier writers-- all who she still maintains professional and friendly relationships with. She is saddened and heartbroken when a close friend suddenly stops confiding in her and is pleased when she becomes pregnant and loves it. She worries about the safety of her job.
I loved that Jane Louise and Edie were so close that they planned their pregnancies so their children would grow up together. And I loved that they made snotty, sarcastic comments to the Babies R Us sales clerk. I loved that this book was written when smoking was still allowed in offices and that business lunches had cocktails. When Sven repeatedly comes on to Jane Louise, she always has a smart comeback.
Jane Louise reassures me. I know that I still have time to have a family and find my place, but it is nice to know that the mundane and the simple anxieties are chronicled. I'm looking forward to more Laurie Colwin.
netflix rating: 5/5 stars

A Wedding In December

The best thing about A Wedding in December by Anita Shreve is that I finished it and can now get rid of it. The wedding in question is of two former high school sweethearts, reconnecting after 20+ years. Their closest friends from high school are also invited to the wedding and over the weekend secrets are revealed and relationships are strained.

As I was reading this I kept thinking, "this is like The Big Chill--only bad." There was every possible cliche-- audultery, cancer, accidents and death, not to mention the gratuitous mention of 9/11 (did not enhance the plot at all). I didn't find myself to be especially sympathetic to the characters.

Ms. Shreve has a very simplistic writing style, and her descriptions seemed dated and out of touch (reference to a gay classmate who had to adjust to "gay life" and even clothing and hair descriptions).

Within the novel, there was a sub-story written by Agnes. It was about a massive explosion in Halifax during WWII and I felt that plotline was way more believable and interesting. It's for that alone that this book is getting 2 stars.

I have a few more books by Ms. Shreve on my shelf. I know she is a beloved author so perhaps this book was just an anomoly-- something she wrote quickly to fulfill a contract?

Atmospheric Disturbances

I really enjoy ambitious first novels. Some of the best books of the past century are first novels (The Catcher In The Rye, The Sun Also Rises, Sister Carrie, V, Catch 22). Many books are status quo, a la Anita Shreve (more on her in coming weeks), with perhaps a strong plotline, but written in a staid manner. It's gutsy to tackle history with humor like Jonathan Safron Foer's Everything Is Illuminated. Likewise, Rivka Galchen's first novel, Atmospheric Disturbances, tackled marriage, psychology and the weather, with aplomb.

We are introduced to Leo, a pyschiatrist, just as he realizes his wife Rema has been replaced by a double (simulacrum; if you don't like strange vocabulary, this book isn't for you). Double Rema is almost his wife, but not quite. His wife, for example, would never bring home a dog like the double did. Leo decides that by finding one of his missing psychiatric patients, he might be clued in to where the real Rema is. Slowly the reader is pulled into Leo's implausible adventure searching for Rema. It starts in New York, a bakery that they frequent, but soon moves to Argentina and beyond.

On one level this is a story of a man descending into a type of madness, but on another level it's the story of a man who has lost the love he had for his wife. This book is equal parts Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. With a dash of Borges thrown in.

5/5 Netflix stars

An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination and Observatory Mansions

Warning! The following is written during the holiday season; it's so sickly sweet you should probably make a dentist appointment first.

Nearly seven years ago a small group of us started a book club. We realized that now out of school, we might like to read for fun, but we also realized that just because we all lived near each other didn't mean we'd still see each other all the time, so book club became a once a month way to make sure we caught up. Over the years some friends have joined us and some friends have left us, but there's still a few from that first year. We take turns picking books and I think we each have a certain style.
Mihee tends to pick books that cause us all grief-- they're usually obscure classics or biographies of scientists, while Steph waits to pick a book by a certain author she's been excited about for a long time.
An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken was Dali's pick last month. It wasn't a happy book: it's a memoir about the loss of a child. But it was the most honest book I've read in a long time. Elizabeth is an author married to another author: Edward Carey. While reading An Exact Replica, I kept meaning to look up Edward Carey, but it wasn't until Tishka visited a few weekends ago and we were talking about a book we often joke about, Observatory Mansions. And that's when we realized it was Edward Carey's first novel. We were ecstatic! Years ago, Observatory Mansions was one of Steph's picks for book club. It's about an oddball cast of characters who live in a rundown apartment building called Observatory Mansions. I don't remember a lot of details about the book, but the protaganist, Francis Orme, wears white gloves every day and impersonates statues in public. Anna Tap is the (anti)heroine. While I was reading Observatory Mansions, I thought it was one of the worst books I'd ever read. But I think back to it quite often (as I do another hated book, American Pastoral by Phillip Roth).
When I realized both authors were married and had the shared experience Ms. McCracken writes about, I could see how their mutual creativity and quirkiness attracted and protected the other. I could mostly tell they were lucky to have found each other.
Neither of these books is for everyone, but they both told a story that will stay with me for a long time...kind of like my book club friends.
Netflix stars-- 5 for An Exact Replica and 3 for Observatory Mansions.

Lulu in Marrakech

If you could travel to exotic locales and live a life of percieved ennui, maybe just volunteering for some local projects, would you? Would you forfeit your identity, even from your family? Would you risk your life and be prepared to go to jail in a foreign country? Lulu Sawyer does all this, in Diane Johnson's book, Lulu in Marrakech.

We don't know a lot about how and why Lulu became involved in the CIA, but as a young agent without a family, she is able to deftly move place to place without prompting suspicion. Lulu isn't a robot; like many 30 year old, liberal educated women, she questions the role of women in world society, specifically focussing on her new post in Morocco. She yearns to marry Ian, the man whom she ostensibly travels to Marrakech to be with, although he could in fact be part of a larger plot which Lulu is supposed to keep tabs on.

Ms. Johnson expands her themes of Americans abroad much as she did in Le Divorce. Lulu and a fellow guest and expat, Posy, try to navigate as women in a Muslim (albeit liberal) society and are confronted with other European women who have conflicting views about the roles of Muslim women-- some believe they deserve to learn to read, while others think, "what's the point?".

Lulu's covert task comes to a head by the end of the book, but along the way she has to decide where her allegiances lie; are the friends she's made really friends? What personal risks, if any, will she take to maintain those friendships?

Ms. Johnson, through our heroine Lulu, is able to address non-PC topics and sterotypes and ultimately, those become the main themes of the book-- not Lulu's mission.

I loved this book. I loved that it was current and provacative, yet at times also really funny. I give this 5/5 netflix stars.

Unaccustomed Earth

My first job out of college I worked with a woman named Alo. Originally from India, she and her family had lived in Newton for nearly 20 years. She worked so that her children would have access to her employee discount of education. Once her youngest was through school, she would retire. Despite her years in the US, she always wore a sari and beautiful jewelry to work. Even in winter she would wear colorful, sheer and silky saris, covered with a thick cardigan. Alo had a vast network of fellow Indians and when she learned that I had loved Jhumpa Lahiri's book Interpreter of Maladies, she divulged that she was friendly with her family and thereafter took every opportunity to share with me stories about Ms. Lahiri. "Baby", she would say, "Jhumpa wore the most gorgeous sari to a wedding shower." She would tell details of her clothes and how she styled her hair, telling me how beautiful she was. But I couldn't imagine her clothes being half as beautiful as her stories.

Unaccustomed Earth takes advantage of Ms. Lahiri's distinguished writing style. In a sense, it picks up where Interpreter of Maladies leaves off; a book of longer short stories which can be read individually, but when combined tell a larger story. Her stories explore the relationships between generations of immigrant familes, and their relationships with people outside their immediate circle of friends and family. But far from playing the race card, Ms. Lahiri's stories commentt on the universal feeling of otherness. How losing a parent or spouse can be the most lonely feeling in the world. Or the feeling when you are untethered with no permanent home. And by the regret that comes with age, over decisions and actions made when younger. She writes capably of love and loss, but also resentment and fear.

Ms. Lahiri's stories are beautiful, but less like a brightly colored chiffon sari, and more like Alo's sweater-- old and dependable, meant to comfort and warm, holding the knowlege of its owner's years.

Netflix stars: 5/5

Netherland

How much does public tragedy drive our private lives? Can we redirect our personal trajectories after public events steer us off course? How will our lives be perceived in the space of our generation; or in the space of two, three or four generations? What does it mean to be an American (Ich bin ein American?)? How do we chose our friendships? These are some of the questions Joseph O'Neill asks in his beautifully and thoughtfully written Netherland.

Hans, a Dutch native, his English wife and their young son relocate to New York for work prior to 9/11. They live downtown and are moved to the Chelsea Hotel after their building is contaminated. Rachel becomes more and more agitated and anxious after the attacks, and decides to move with their son back to London. Faced with the unexpected, Hans flounders. He lives in a bohemian hotel with transient to non-existent friends, a job in which he's successful and makes a good living, but without friends and family doesn't translate into happiness. But as friendships often happen, he randomly meets Chuck Ramkissoon and soon strikes up a friendship of convenience with him, and others who meet to play cricket throughout the outer boroughs.

For Hans, cricket is a transport back in time to his childhood in the Hague. Throughout the book Hans enjoys the anonymity his ragtag group of immigrant friends provide. He doesn't question their motives and they don't question his. Maybe for all of them it is a way to connect in vast America, and they do. To connect with his son, Hans frequently logs into Google Earth and swoops from lower Manhattan to London, getting down close enough to see his wife's car and son's bike in the lawn. We are, and as Hans intimately knows, in a very small world, but also one that is still so immense.

O'Neill deftly navigates the reader through real events in the years following 9/11 (ie, the blackout of '93) and challenges us to wonder whether public events really do affect our current and future relationships. He writes about the mundane and the profound in the same tone, giving us a guide, Hans, who is equally confused and assured about his own decisions.

Netherland isn't a page turner, but it is captivating. I give it 5/5 netflix stars.

The Maytrees

Some books are meant to be read only at certain points in your life. Several years back I attempted to read the Golden Notebook and was rebuffed (by what, the writing? I can't even recall). I told my mom who said I simply wasn't old enough to appreciate it yet. And then there are books that fall to you at exactly the right time in your life. I read Annie Dillard's epic, The Living, the summer I moved to Seattle. About pioneers who settle the Pacific Northwest, it was perfectly timed for my own settling of the Pacific Northwest. In The Living, the families become intertwined with, and are essential to, the landscape.

A note in Marie Claire reminded me that Ms. Dillard had recently published a new book, The Maytrees. I don't normally get my reading recommendations from such monthlies, but I've read most of Ms. Dillard's repertoire, so figured this would be a safe bet. In fact, it turned out to be the most perfect book for me to read this summer. A quiet book about small things made big, it, like The Living, weaves characters and place together such that it is impossible to imagine Provincetown without Toby and Lou Maytree, or Reevadere, or Deary. Likewise, it's impossible to imagine Jane Cairo or Petie growing up anywhere but the Cape dunes.

The plot is simple: man falls in love with woman, they have a child, man falls out of love with woman and in love with someone else. But in a short 215 pages, Ms. Dillard allows us to feel everything this family felt during those 40+ years, every philosophical question they had while watching the eternal stars shine over the eternal waves beyond the dunes.

I found myself drawing this book out over the course of the week. It's short and I could have finished it in about two days, but I wanted to savor it.

The women at Marie Claire didn't like this book. For Lauren and Yael, the words and language were "dense" and "off-putting" and Marty felt she had to "be older in order to be quiet enough to want to accept the challenge of the book". If you think you can't handle some big words and bigger ideas, then don't bother picking this book up. There's a genre written just for you, it features a pink cover with an single girl on it and is filed under Chick Lit.

For me, this was right up there with Housekeeping, an easy 5 stars. And yet, I'm still not going to recommend it, because when you are ready for The Maytrees, this book will find you.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

I have fond nostalgia for the early 90s-- my generation saw the end of the Cold War and the crumbling of the Berlin Wall. My mom learned that JFK was shot while she was in typing class, but when I was in typing class, I pondered "Who Killed Laura Palmer?" Indeed, the 90's were a Lynchian wonderland. I watched and analyzed each episode of Twin Peaks the way people today watch and analyze Lost. So reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami triggered the part of my brain that lusts after crazy David Lynch.
Murakami creates a "real" world in parallel with a credible dreamlike "alternate" world. As in Kafka On The Shore, the protagonist is semi-alone, and searching for the meaning of his life. A cat is once again the catalyst for the search. Lynch created bizarre characters who were just accepted (the Log Lady) and Murakami does the same. The Kano sisters appear out of nowhere and dress as if from a different decade. They have psychic powers that are only slightly questioned. More new characters are introduced to the protagonist Mr. Okada than I might meet in an entire year; and Mr. Okada doesn't work and rarely leaves the house! A woman Nutmeg and her son Cinnamon become benefactors for Mr. Okada, and a Lieutenant Mamiya relates a distant past that turns out to be quite relevant to Mr. Okada's present, and likely his future.
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle was long. It's no secret I love a short and well edited book, but somehow this book kept me engaged, because I knew in the end all the storylines would somehow come together. And they did. Sort of.
I give this book 4/5 netflix stars.
Wine pairing: Casillero del Diablo Sauvignon Blanc. Translates as "Cellar of the Devil", not unlike the ominous wells which feature in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Also, at $7.99, a nice price for unemployed folks who have time to sit in wells, like Mr. Okada. And also for people who have time to take notes on every episode of Twin Peaks.

The Pickup

Besides being a book on my shelf, The Pickup was authored by Nadine Gordimer, a friend of Paul Theroux, so after reading his his novellas, I thought I'd give this a shot. I read July's People a few years ago and found it both uncomfortable and probably accurate. Ms. Gordimer is a white African, and, like Doris Lessing or other female, white, African writers, carries a heavy mantle. She writes about race conflict, but in an intimate, yet removed, manner.
The Pickup details a relationship between Julie, a privelaged white South African woman, and her "pick-up" lover, Adbu, someone from a more 3rd world African country. At first I thought The Pickup was a comment on the current U.S. policy on "illegals" but came to realize that many countries have this conflict and that while I could see current U.S. debate in the characters, it was also very space specific. To mention that Julie is privelaged is like saying the earth is round; she chooses to live a bohemian lifestyle, maybe working, maybe not, in a small cottage in the city, away from her suburban upbringing and well-to-do father. She regularly meets a group of friends at the L.A. Cafe and these friends serve as her surrogate family. They all come and go, not answering to anyone. She meets Abdu when she gets in an accident and needs her car repaired. On impulse she invites him to coffee at her cafe and from there it goes. She seems sincere, but it's unclear what she sees in him-- is he a further act of revolt from her father? And what does he see in her besides a possible entree into "legal" society? They take their relationship farther than anyone imagines, and Julie can ask for general favors from her family: money to provide a needed well for his family (a liberal ideal of service) but cannot ask her father for specific help obtaining visas. Abdu can provide for her adventure and something different (she does not shy away from, nor complain about rustic conditions) but cannot provide the ultimate security for her: an accepting family.
Ms. Gordimer writes this book in the 3rd person passive voice, making it difficult to get to fully know or identify with the characters, which is maybe the point. She interjects editorial, pointing out that Julie's, and that of her friends and family, status would give allow her to emigrate country to country, never really being "illegal" but Abdu, by virtue of his race, religion and country of birth, can never be welcomed anywhere but there.
I liked this book but didn't love it. I had a hard time identifying with any of the characters although by the end I was able to sympathize with the decisions each made. I give this book 3/5 netflix stars.

My Life in France

Continuing on with the French theme...My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme  was my pick for book club.  I was first re-introduced to Julia Child through the popular blog the Julie/Julia Project, where a "serventless American cook" attempts to recreate all the recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  I then read Julie Powell's book based on the blog (so meta!) and netflixed some of Julia's old "French Chef" shows.  I was smitten! 

Julia Child is admirable in so many ways.  When I worry that I am getting older and have nothing to show for it and relatively little direction, I remember Julia.  She married in her mid-30s and only started cooking when her marriage took them to France.  In an era when women were not encouraged to work and were encouraged to raise a family, Julia broke the mold.  Julia threw her passion into learning, cooking, teaching, traveling and living life to its fullest.  I didn't intentionally pick a love story for February's book club, but it became evident that Julia loved Paul more than anything.  They had overlapping interests and supported each other in everything.  Julia did have conflicts-- as with anyone who collaborates with a friend, disagreements ensued.  But despite her frustrations, the friendship remained of prime importance.  And she flaunted her political beliefs, causing a familial rift with her father, but she stuck to her guns and beliefs.
I think my admiration and lovefest for Julia and this book is pretty clear.  I was even inspired to make French Bread!  This book gets an easy 5/5 netflix stars.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Several months back our book club read The Good Earth, which told of the hard life of peasants in China in the early 20th century. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See takes place about a century earlier, but despite the better standing of Lily and Snow Flower, their hardships were much the same as the family in The Good Earth.
Lily and Snow Flower are sworn as laotong, an eternal BFF, early in their lives. They understand their roles as women-- from early footbinding, to learning domestic arts, to marriage and serving their husbands and husband's families. While they never question those roles, they find ways to communicate true feelings, happiness, and especially unhappiness through the secret writing nu shu. Just like the peasants in The Good Earth, these girls experience drought, famine, untimely death and illness as well as success through hard work and tradition keeping.
The friendship Lily and Snow Flower shared was poignant, but the descriptions of the accepted footbindings were what really amazed me. Although impossible to change a tradition in one generation or by one woman, I was surprised that the two "sisters" so easily and readily accepted the practice for their own daughters after experiencing such pain and personal loss.
I enjoyed Snow Flower and the Secret Fan-- the story moved swiftly and the characters came to life with plausible jealousies, loves, desires and pain. Netflix rating 3/5.

Eat, Pray, Love

Personal perspectives on religion or spirituality can often be boring at best and unbelievably awkward at worst. Fortunately Elizabeth Gilbert presents her own journey (the physical and metaphysical), in Eat Pray Love, without gravitas and with humor and humility. I happen to be a big fan of the single-woman-on-a-journey-after-heartbreak literature (read: Tales of a Female Nomad), and Liz (can I call her Liz?) has such a great sense of humor (personifying Depression and Lonliness as thugs, getting a prim and proper Italian saleswoman to admit that she, Liz, does indeed look like the pasta and gelato she spent three months eating in Italy and divulging her friend's nickname for her as Groceries) that I felt immediately drawn to her and her friends.
I was torn between her reasons for getting a divorce: "finding yourself" seems a lame reason to give up a shared life, but she readily admitted that, and how brave is it to actually go on a year's journey, by yourself, to three unknown countries, and come out at the other end a better person?
I think the same narrative could have been mangled by a less sophisticated writer. Liz doesn't fall into the trite or privelaged perspective. She really maintains a balance (which was her goal in the year of travel) and when she starts to tip, she laughs, has the reader laugh with her, and pulls herself back up.
Netflix stars? A whopping 5 out of 5!

The Time Traveler's Wife

Being close to someone doesn't necessarily mean you share the same opinions on movie, tv, books...while my sister and I both have a fondness for all movies with Parker Posey , she did not share my love of Little Miss Sunshine. My friend Nadine fell asleep while watching The Science of Sleep-- a movie I loved so much I wanted to become the characters! Jane is a prolific reader and has recommended many a book to me, including Philip Roth's American Pastoral. I hated it. Included in the stash she gave me was a copy of The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. A recent email to her mentioned it was on my list of books to read soon, and she told me it was so terrible that she couldn't even finish it. I wondered if the Today Show bookclub sticker on it offended her hipster sensibilities. But then my friend Ahmed picked the book out of my entire list and suggested I read it next, it was so good! I decided to give it a go and while on the beach this weekend with Mihee, she commented that she had read the book and felt it was just average-- she didn't feel it was particularly bad, nor amazing.

I finished it up yesterday while doing laundry, and to put it simply, was mesmerized! The theme of time travel was quirky-- Henry is able to go forward and backward in time, although not at will. He visited his love, Clare, from the time she was six until she turned 82. She knew him her whole life.

Ms. Niffenegger does a nice job of giving each character their own voice and personality. Seems like it would be easy enough, but many writers do not do this-- one character's words could easily be transposed with another. But Henry's childhood neighbor is calm, yet direct and refers to Henry as "buddy" as he does to her. Clare's assuredness and self-possession does not transfer to her friend Charisse, a cool and outwardly confident woman, who has a secret knowledge of her husband's (Gomez) love of Clare.

Despite the potential for time travel exploitation, Henry and Clare try to keep "normal". A handful of people know Henry's secret and will on occasion ask him about their futures...but he rarely divulges. He's not perfect, though, and does give stock tips, "picks" winning lottery numbers.

The most remarkable aspect of this story is not the time travel itself, but is how Henry and Clare remain in love through troubles that would tear apart even the most resilient of couples-- his absences are long and unexplained, personal tragedies, such as alcoholism and mental disease, run through each of their families. The burden of knowing the future would be too hard for almost anyone to bear, but Clare pulls it off with grace.

I'm giving this book 4 netflix stars and would recommend it to anyone, but only a time traveler would know if you would love or hate it.

The Painted Veil

I watched The Painted Veil this weekend and really enjoyed it. In fact, I enjoyed it more than the book. The film deviated fairly significantly from the book...where the book was more conceptual, the film added some plot elements that fleshed out the era and the characters. Kitty was a more sympathetic character in the movie-- she was more apologetic for her transgressions and seemed to come around to loving her husband, Walter, as well as her situation. The movie did not go into so much detail on Waddington, ironically the only character I liked in the book. There was more a threat of nationalistic uprising in the movie-- something not touched upon at all in the book, although likely an accurate concern for the time period (China, 1920s).
The highlight of the movie was the scenery. The movie was filmed on location in China, and the deep mist filled moutains and rivers are truly beautiful.
In short, this movie stands on its own. It is a different from the book and each deserves an audience. Netflix rating 5/5.