Three Cups of Tea

I just finished Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen and David Oliver Relin and alternately admired it and despised it. Right now I have an angel on my right shoulder and a devil on my left. I'll ask them to go through the pros and cons of this book.

Angel: What's not to love? Greg Motensen has really lived an amazing life-- not only for himself but humbly giving what he can to those less fortunate. He was able to identify a need-- schools for those who didn't have them-- and a means to provide them.

Devil: Sure, sure...but he was always running away, couldn't commit to a life and career in one place.

Angel: His missionary parents raised him and his siblings in Africa! He has a family history of selflessness.

Devil: Selflessness? What about the idea that this whole book is self promotion? And how many times so his Pakistani friends and good deed recipients say, "Praise be to Allah! And also Greg Mortensen!" Andrea, you know you hate that.

Me: That self aggrandizement does bug me...

Angel: He was just stepping in and helped get things going- the Pakistani people built and ran the schools, plus he provided jobs and pay to several upstanding Pakistani and Afghani citizens. Plus he really focuses on providing education for girls and providing community centers for village women as a means of empowerment.

Me: Ah, I really do love female empowement.

Devil: But would you really love being his wife and being 9 months pregnant while he's unreachable in Afghanistan? He's away from his own family for months out of the year!

Angel: She knew that going into the relationship.

Devil: And how about how they named their kids after places in Pakistan? So corny!

Angel: Attacking kids' names?? Classy, Devil, Classy.

Devil: Seriously, why do we always hear stories about white people going in and making life better for brown people? What, there's no brown people helping themselves?

Angel: Why make such a big deal out of it? Just look at it as one man doing his best to make a positive difference-- don't read so much into it! So, Andrea, what do you think?

Me: I think I still don't know...I'm just going to give this book exactly 2.5 out of 5 stars.

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

Jamaica Inn

Say you're a single woman whose closest family member has died, or perhaps you have lost the little fortune you might have had and somehow have to fend for yourself. What is your best option? Calling on your friends for help? Finding employment or try internet dating? Nope. Your best option is to time travel back to Victorian English countryside, where even though there might be no neighbors for miles and miles, there will be one single, dashing bachelor. He may be a bit rougue, but no doubt you will find yourself living happily ever after.

Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier is such a novel, but it is darker than a Jane Austen and more along the lines of a Bronte. Our heroine, Mary, has made a deathbed promise to her mother to sell the farm and go live with her aunt and uncle at Jamaica Inn. She soon learns that many strange things happen at the Inn, and her cowered aunt is not the first to tell her that her uncle is up to no good. Mary is curious, however, and soon gets embroiled in a great smuggling plot.

Jamaica Inn is a great gothic thriller and therefore a fast read. I don't read a lot of thrillers/mysteries and don't want to give away key details, but I was surprised by the twist at the end...and it's no surprise that Mary gets the guy.

Next on my list of things to do? Figure out time travel.

Netflix rating: 3/5 stars

The View From Castle Rock

I was afraid I'd picked a dud for book club. Our turns roll around every 6-8 months or so and so I've usually thought of something that I think everyone will enjoy or benefit from but that they wouldn't necessarily pick for themselves. I hadn't given it too much thought so picked A View From Castle Rock by Alice Munro, a book my mom had loved and passed along to me. I'd tried it awhile back but couldn't get into it so put it aside. I thought having the book club read it would be good incentive. And ultimately it was, but it was a rough time getting there.
Ms. Munro bases these loosely connected short stories on her family's emigration from Scotland to America. She starts with a very great grandfather's journey in the 18th century by boat to Canada. Following stories tell of her pioneering family taming and settling woods. Husbands, wives and children die and someone passes the stories along orally or in journals and letters. Ultimately the stories become more connected to Ms. Munro: her parents meeting and raising fur foxes, her own forray into love and employment and finally her own brushes with death of those most close to her.
About half way through the book I figured out why my mom loved it, and why I ultimately would love it. It's my family history. And just as Ms. Munro's interest in her family history was piqued as she grew older, my interest in the book piqued as generations passed and I started to feel connected to them. I understood the quite austerity of this family of Presbyterians and identified with them. I smiled at their value of education, but not at the expense of hard work.
My grandma happened to call right after I'd finished the book, saying she had been looking through pictures and letters and thought of me. I immediately told her of A View From Castle Rock and said I'd send it to her. It's our kind of story.