The Help and Strength in What Remains

The Revolutions of 1989 were by and large bloodless; the Velvet Revolution, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the revolutions of other Eastern Bloc countries resulted in the end of Communism and peaceful transfer of power. Twenty years before that Dr. Martin Luther King epitomized the non-violent struggle for civil rights.  The Help by Kathryn Stockett describes the stories of three women: one privileged white woman who along with two African American maids work together to tell the stories of behind the scenes lives, and in the process create a non-violent revolution in Jackson, Mississippi.  Each woman makes personal sacrifices for the greater good-- even though at the time they have no idea what that good will be.  Ms. Stockett tells the story of The Help in three viewpoints-- Skeeter's, Aibileen's and Minny's.  Each woman has a personal impetus to enact change, but what's amazing is how the three of them come to work together.
The revolutions of 1989 were not all peaceful. Tianamen Square took place that summer.  Likewise, 1994 brought about revolutions too. The very violent kind.  Extreme poverty for the majority and extreme wealth for the minority set the catalyst for the ethic genocides in Burundi and Rwanda.  Tracy Kidder relays Deo's story in Strength in What Remains.  Similar to What is the What, Deo miraculously flees Burundi and lands in New York with $200, no place to live and barely understanding a word of English.  Within five years he's enrolled at Columbia and soon after that, Dartmouth Medical School.  Mr. Kidder relays Deo's story in a series of viewpoints also.  He writes as a journalist, telling Deo's history as Deo remembers it.  Then he tells the history of the country, so the reader can better understand how events took a turn from the worse, and finally, he tells his story: how he met Deo and his impressions of him and his relationship to him and their return together to Burundi.  Mr. Kidder's document seemed a more complete story than What is the What.
In The Help, Skeeter is amazed that Aibileen is such a voracious reader, and that other maids who work for her friends have gone to college and aspire to send their children to college.  Many of white women Skeeter is friends with cannot see past the color and occupation of their maids.  But what surprised me was that Deo's story in New York was similar.  He'd come from being an intern at a hospital in Burundi to being a grocery delivery boy who made $15 a week in New York.  Just as the family Aibileen works for dehumanizes her by not even allowing her to use a bathroom in the house, Deo's employer literally pokes him with a stick to make him work.
Both books are good reminders that revolutions are, and should be, dynamic and constant.  I give both 5/5 netflix stars.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

There are more than a few classics I never read growing up. For this I have to say, "Thank you Wichita Public Schools." I love Jane Austen books and can proudly say, "I knew Mr. Darcy was not a cad all along." But sadly this is from watching endless hours of BBC productions, not from having read the books. I'll admit it: I've never cracked open a Jane Austen novel. I'm working on remedying this, so decided to make quick work of another classic I've never read, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Growing up next door to Missouri this might be a little surprising but even though ET#1 thought I must have been absent from that week of 9th grade, I checked with my sister and she never had to read it either, so it wasn't my fault. I certainly read a lot of American authors-- Poe, Wharton (Ethan Frome, ugh!), Knowles...but never Twain.
I won't comment a lot on this book, in part because Twain advises us not to read into any morality and in part because any liberal leaning, This American Life loving, born and bred in the heartland (Kansas-- a free state from the get go!) can easily see where the book was going. Plus I had the soundtrack to Big River on cd in about 7th grade. The book was delightful and my only disappointment was that it was essentially a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (oh references to Lost, I'm sure!).
Today I made my own journey...to the grocery store. And bought catfish, in honor of Huck and Jim, and fried it up good.
Netflix stars: 5/5

Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love and the Search for Home

I picked up this book after seeing an ad for it in the New Yorker; a memoir about a young woman's life in France and her love of food...having just finished My Life In France I was still hungry.  Trail of Crumbs by Kim Sunee delivered on the romantic just as Julia Child's book did.  But it was filled with bittersweet and sometimes downright depressing imagery as well.  The end of most chapters contained at least one recipe corresponding to the remembered time and place just described.
Ms. Sunee was adopted by a New Orleans couple after being abandoned on the streets of South Korea with just a handful of crumbs for three days.  Like other books I've read about an adopted child, Ms. Sunee is never quite happy, and doesn't fit in.  She and her sister are the only Asian children in school and she always feels uncomfortable around her parents.  She does find solace with her grandparents, especially her grandfather, from whom she learns the secrets of Louisiana cooking.  As soon as she's old enough to leave home, she does.  She spends a semester abroad in France as her first travel alone.  She wants to become a poet, a writer and learns French.  She is soon able to translate for work.
At a young age she meets men more advanced in years and experience, but being seemingly fearless, Ms. Sunee follows them, looking for her own history.  At 23 she falls in love with a wealthy, nearing 40 year old French businessman with an adolescent daughter.  Ms. Sunee is soon "adopted" into this family with various roles: lover, step mother, social hostess, home keeper and cook.  She only feels truly comfortable cooking and provides the reader for recipes such as spring pea salads and La Daube Provencale, wild peaches poached in Lillet Blanc and Figs roasted in Red Wine.  Some of her recipes are memories of a past both real (Monday red beans and rice, Crawfish bisque) and imagined (quick fix kimchi).
As the years pass she feels more and more unsettled, especially as her partner Olivier establishes a life for her more and more.  She ultimately has to make decisions that women twice her age have a hard time making, and her naivete and inexperience push through her strong facade.  While I respected her for her bravery, I was conscious of her seeming lack of appreciation for a life she had, whether she truly wanted it or not (probably an inherent trait in a young 20 something).
I liked this book, but I was hopeful for more sophisticated self reflection, a la Eat, Pray, Love.  Still, it was an enjoyable read, one that took the gloom out of a bleak Boston Sunday.  4/5 netflix stars.

The Ballad of the Sad Cafe

In the very olden days, before mass media-- tv, movies,and the internet (ie, back in the 1930s) stories were told as entertainment and a means in which to pass along useful information. Many cultures have their prized storytellers and stories. Many native tribes pass stories down, and verses were memorized in song format (ie, a ballad) to preserve their integrity. Not just anyone can tell a story-- the CNN headlines get the info across but in a boring fashion.
Carson McCullers was a wonderful, captivating storyteller. The Ballad of the Sad Cafe takes a liberal stand with the literal "ballad" but it does describe a folk tale of romantic origin. Seeing a rundown building in an old town, one often wonders about its past. Ms. McCullers describes the building's past-- how it went from a general store under the stern eye of Miss Amelia, to a proud cafe when Miss Amelia found love, to its eventual demise when that love is lost. The story is told with exaggerated characters and dubious truths: an evil, murderous ex-husband, a mysterious and mischeivious hunchback, a gaggle of funny named townspeople, and folk remedies prescribed to the ailing by Miss Amelia herself, tested on herself first!

The remainder of the book's short stories are told equally well, and draw on Ms. McCullers' life of lonliness (divorce and separation) and illness (including alcoholism). I still believe her masterpiece is The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, so I will give only four stars to this collection.

Cane River

One of my most favorite books of all time is The Living by Annie Dillard , a novel chronicling several generations of settlers on the Washington coast in the late 19th century. Cane River by Lalita Tademy reminded me of The Living. Cane River is based on the author's own family history in Cane River, Louisiana. She researched her family ancestry and fictionalized three generations of women-- all born slaves.

I was surprised that slavery was not just "black and white"-- there were freed colored people (presumably blacks, native Americans and those of mixed background) who themselves were sometimes slave owners. And, it was not uncommon for white men to have families with slaves-- sometimes freeing the children or giving them land and other benefits. Surprisingly, this became less acceptable over time, so that the most recent generation (early to mid 20th century), represented by Emily (despite having the most "white" blood in her), bore the brunt of what we recognize as modern racism.

Elisabeth, her daughter Suzette, her daughter Philomene and finally, her daughter Emily are all focused that family is what matters most. They each learn early on that although their white masters might be "generous" to them, they are slaves and their loyalty must ultimately be to each other. They keep each other close and work to ensure that future generations will be better off (ie, owning land, being able to read, and even passing for white).

Like Almodovar's movie Volver, the women in Cane River run the show; men are not incidental, but they are used and manipulated to further advance the families of the women of Cane River. At one point, a census taker comes and records all the generations of women living in Suzette's home-- not a man living among them.

This very nearly was an uplifting book, but for where the book dropped off, in the late 1930's. We know that times would only become more difficult for African Americans, but given the author's own experience and success, we know these generations of women accomplished their goals.

Netflix rating: 4/5 stars.

Charms For The Easy Life

Charms For The Easy Life came from my coworker. We were walking to the T after drinks one evening and she said she always carries books, but hadn't finished one in over a year. She stated this with the same kind of acceptance one has towards a gym membership: you pay for it, but never, or rarely go. And that's fine because it's there when you need it. So she pulled out of her bag Charms for The Easy Life and told me I'd like it. It's a small paperback and looked like an airport buy, so when it was cold and rainy the whole weekend, I settled into the couch and started reading. On Saturday I told G not to bother me and that I would do my chores on Sunday. As the cold rain poured outside, I enjoyed several of my favorite things: magical realism, women's friendships and the South. It was purely enjoyable and produced a fair cry at the end (possibly co-induced by my butt falling asleep on the couch) so on a Netflix scale of stars, I'd give it three out of five.