The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie, by Wendy McClure My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Young Laura
You know how I am drawn to books with one-year experiments. I'm not sure if this book fits into this category, because it's unclear how long Wendy McClure immersed herself in the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Like McClure, I loved the Little House on the Prairie series as a young girl, so as soon as I got wind of this book I knew I had to read it. When I was 16 on a cross-country trip with my family, I remember my thrill when we stopped in at one of the Little House locations (I can't remember which one now).
Young adult Laura
Melissa Gilbert as "Ma"
Over the months, McClure rereads all of the books, in addition to anything else she could get her hands on related to the Ingalls/Wilder family; watches the TV series (which she hadn't watched as a child) and Disney's 2005 version; visits as many Laura World landmarks as she possibly can (and there are quite a few); learns how to churn butter, make a haystick, and tackle a number of other homesteading tasks; cooks recipes from the Little House cookbook; attends two Little House on the Prairie pageants; sleeps in a covered wagon; buys multiple bonnets; and sees Melissa Gilbert appear as Ma in "Little House on the Prairie: The Musical." Her loyal, good-natured boyfriend, Chris, jumps into the adventure with her. (In so many of the one-year experiment books I've read, the partner typically gets completely fed up by the end!)
Laura at 70
She explores the following issues in relation to the books and the family history:
Racism (Ma was a bit of a racist when it came to Native Americans, and Pa appeared in blackface during a minstrel show)
Whether Laura was a "tomboy" (McClure insists that she most certainly was not--this is not really an issue I personally care about)
The extreme Laura love shown by many girls like me (until the 1960s, the books were often known as "the Laura and Mary books," and McClure expresses shock that anyone could have seen them as anything other than the Laura books!)
The Wilder family's disenchantment and unhappiness in their older years, and the darker side of the Ingalls family (not portrayed in the books)
Rose Wilder Lane's manipulation behind the books, independence, and connection to the American Libertarian Party
The family (Laura's in the middle back)
I really enjoyed McClure's writing style and sense of humor. She notes the irony, for example, when Whole Foods (a place with an olive bar and an artisanal cheese counter) was the only place she could find molasses--a needed staple for the recipes. She and her boyfriend escape from a weekend stay at a homesteading training camp (for lack of a better term) after they realize that most of the other campers are left-behind converts (who are no doubt very excited about tomorrow, the supposed rapture day).
Signing books for fans
Some boys, I'm sure, appreciate the Little House stories, but I would wager that they are vastly more popular with girls. That was one of the best things about them...a children's book series with a gutsy, adventurous female pioneer hero. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, those types of books were rare finds. As McClure says, "The first few Little House books keep boys at the periphery...at worst, the boys in Laura World will hurl a few witless taunts...and are promptly told to shut up; at best, they might do something spectacularly stupid, like get themselves stung by a whole hive of yellow jackets." Since girls are the ones usually on the periphery (even more so in movies and TV than in books), Laura was--and continues to be--embraced by girls far and wide.
Rose Wilder Lane (who helped her mother get published)
Unlike McClure, I grew up watching "Little House on the Prairie"--I remember when the series came out, and it was after I already loved the books. (Clearly, I'm older than McClure--the show started in 1974!) Even though I knew the series diverged from the books, I LOVED this show regardless...and also regardless of its wild plots, such as the most extreme one I remember--the night when Ma was reading the bible and was thinking about sawing off her own leg! Even though McClure didn't get into the TV show as much as I did, she turned me onto a great blog, "WTF Little House on the Prairie?" The author, Mike McComb, has detailed the wackiest, most traumatic episodes for our edification.
TV Family Ingalls
Michael Landon is Pa for me. And I loved Mr. Edwards--remember the Christmas episode when he trudges miles in the snow to deliver presents for the girls? I grew up with Melissa Gilbert...she is just a few months older than me. I loved her spirited, sassy portrayal of pigtailed Laura, who was often getting into trouble. I identified with her much more than I did with Mary, even though Mary was the oldest child. If I'd grown up on the prairie, I would have been the one always getting dirty. I definitely would not have been Nellie. Too prissy!
The prairie bitch (see below)
The next on my Little House bookshelf will be these two books, especially Nellie Oleson's Confessions of a Prairie Bitch.
As I've documented a few times on my other blog, I too had a cleft lip (and palate) because my mom had German measles when she was pregnant with me. I had a series of surgeries throughout childhood to correct both cleft lip and palate, in addition to ear tube surgeries (because of the frequent ear infections often associated with a cleft palate), oral surgery, and two jaw surgeries. I'm well aware of how lucky I was to be born when and where I was. A few years ago Mike and I made a Christmas donation to Interplast, an organization that corrects cleft lips in developing countries, to pay it forward.
But I've never read a book about a person with a cleft lip or palate, so of course I knew I must read this one. It's a middle grade novel, so written in a much simpler fashion than Cutting for Stone.
Zulaikah is a young Afghani girl who is taunted mercilessly by the neighborhood bullies because of her split lip and crooked teeth. (I, too, had horribly crooked teeth.) Her mother died during a Taliban raid, and her stepmother seems to dislike her. Her only consolation in life is her beloved sister, Zeynab. As frequent blog readers will know, I have a soft spot for books with positive sister relationships because of my own close relationship with my sister. When Zulaikah's sister is married off to a much-older man, her world seems to lose its meaning. But then the American military arranges for her cleft lip to be repaired, and the world seems brighter...but not for long. It's Afghanistan, and life is full of tragedies.
Even though I had my cleft lip and palate repaired as a young girl, I never felt as beautiful as other girls. I, too, was teased--either because of my scar or my crooked teeth, or because I was not like the other kids. Even now--at the age of 46--I sometimes catch children or even adults staring at my scar. Sometimes children ask me about it (which I would prefer over rude stares). That feeling of inadequacy and physical imperfection still haunts me when I think about it.
Zulaikah believes that the cleft lip surgery will make her beautiful like her sister, although she comes to realize that external beauty does not bring happiness.
Trent Reedy based this story on his own experiences as a National Guard soldier in Afghanistan (which you can read about on his web site). The book did not bring me to tears until I read the author's note, in which he shared his own interaction with an Afghani girl with a cleft lip.
One editorial error I noted: Zulaikah's plastic surgeon is named "Dr. Akamura," and he is described as a "compact Chinese man." However, Akamura is a Japanese name, not Chinese. (I wouldn't have known this myself before moving to Japan in my early 20s.)
In spite of her extremely difficult life, Zulaikah's savior comes in the form of a woman named Meena, who studied in a literary society with her mother. She finds hope in the form of ancient poetry, and she's able to imagine a better, more meaningful life for herself.
I highly recommend this book--for both young people and adults alike.
Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
It always amazes me when someone whose primary profession is not writing manages to write a highly ambitious, sweeping saga of a novel like Cutting for Stone.
Abraham Verghese is a surgeon by trade, and it shows in this book. It's full of painstakingly detailed, sometimes graphic medical procedures. Fortunately, they are written in a way that a layperson can understand. It's not a book for the squeamish, which you will realize once you get into the first couple of chapters.
Cutting for Stone is about twin boys, Marion and Shiva, who are born to an Indian nun and a British surgeon. After their mother dies and their father runs off in grief, they are raised by two other doctors (Ghosh and Hema) at "Missing Hospital" in Addis Adaba, Ethiopia. Extremely different from one another but bound together from birth through blood and an invisible line between their heads, the brothers experience loss, betrayal, and distance.
Other reviewers were troubled by the narrator perspective of Marion, and I agree that at times it was jarring (especially when Marion was unconscious at one point!). Shiva in particular is very difficult to fathom at times, because of the singular perspective of his twin brother.
Marion has an obsessive love for Genet, his nanny's daughter, although it's difficult to understand why at times. She takes his affection for granted, and in one troubling scene, he has violent sex with her, I suppose as his way of getting even with her.
Verghese is an excellent descriptive writer--he's able to paint a canvas full of interesting, colorful locations--India, Ethiopia, the sea, New York, Boston--in addition to his ability to place you right in the operating room.
The book dragged for me at times, and I found the beginning and the end to be the most gripping.
As the aunt of twin boys and the friend of someone who bore twin girls and lost one on the day of her birth, I have seen twin kinship in action. I wonder whether Verghese is a twin or is close to twins. He seems to have a genuine understanding of the invisible bond between people who shared their mother's womb. When Marion fell ill, Shiva could sense it from a world away, in spite of the fact that they were somewhat estranged. This did not surprise me.
Even though this book took me awhile to finish (because of its length and at-times slow pace), I thought about it when I was not reading it--always a good sign.
As someone who has experienced the unique agony of having a loved one be medically fragile and close to death, I appreciated Verghese's efforts to express this perspective.
At one point, Thomas Stone (father of the twins) shares a letter from her mother about her son dying in surgery, and no one offered him any words of comfort--"Before I was asked to leave the room in a very rough manner, I must tell you that I saw my son was terrified and there was no one who addressed his fear...I saw no sign of the slightest bit of human kindness. My son and I were irritants. Your team would have preferred for me to be gone and for him to be quiet....My son's last conscious memory will be of people ignoring him. My last memory of him will be of my little boy, watching in terror as his mother is escorted out of the room. It is the graven image I will carry to my own deathbed. The fact that people were attentive to his body does not compensate for them ignoring his being." This so perfectly captures the feeling of desperation felt by a parent whose child is not being cared for with compassion, respect, and understanding.
Later when Marion was deathly ill, Shiva lay down next to him on his hospital bed, head to head, as they lay in the womb and during childhood...and Marion's intracranial pressure went down immediately. This is akin to those times when we would visit our premature son in the NICU and he would feel our presence--his oxygen saturation would go up.
Even during the times when Thomas Stone and his son, Marion, led solitary, reserved private lives, they displayed the kinder, more human side of medicine.
The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay, by Beverly Jensen My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
I should have learned my lesson by now. The first (fantastic!) review I wrote about this book vanished into thin air when I hit "publish" on blogger. This oddity has happened to me often enough that I should know better and draft my posts on Notepad (like this one, which I did). Grr!!
This book drew me in because of its story about sisters and setting in New Brunswick, Canada, where my mother's ancestors lived.
Idella and Avis Hillock live on a hardscabble farm on the edge of a cliff that overlooks the ocean. The story begins with the young girls searching for mayflowers to give to their mother on Mother's day. Tragically, their mother never made it to Mother's Day, because she died soon after giving birth to their youngest sister, Emma. In addition to Idella and Avis, she left behind her husband, "Wild Bill" Hillock, a rough, hard-drinking farmer, and their son Dalton, who escapes their difficult home life by retreating to his lobster boat.
As soon as they are old enough, Idella and Avis leave Canada to move south to the U.S. The book follows their lives, loves, and losses over the next 60 to 70 years in a variety of locations, from Maine and Boston back to New Brunswick. Straitlaced, traditional Idella marries a philandering husband and has four girls. Wild Avis ends up with a series of men, none of which she really loves, and serves a few years of time in prison.
I loved the character development in this novel, as well as the beautiful descriptions of the land and environment, especially in New Brunswick. I also enjoyed reading how the small Canadian community supported each other in a crisis. The sisters, although dramatically different in personality and values, were the one constant in each other's lives. Even though their lives were difficult, they shared a few laughs, such as attending the opera or drinking cherry cider in the back of Avis' boyfriend's car.
It's easy to see that this novel was written as a series of short stories, as its one weakness was the disconnectedness of many of the chapters. Some characters lived large in certain chapters, only to then disappear during the rest of the book (such as the French-Canadian maid, Maddie).
The author, Beverly Jensen, wrote The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay while she was taking care of her children, and then she died from pancreatic cancer. Her husband, Jay Silverman (English professor at Nassau Community College), published her work posthumously. Jensen's death is especially poignant considering the fact that these characters' lives were so shaped by their mother's death.
Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld, elder daughter of the now-famous "tiger mom," whose book I recently read, has become a writer in her own stead. She's started a blog, "New Tiger in Town," and it's fabulous! I love her combination of intelligence, wit, sarcasm, and young spirit. Recently she posted about their recent photo shoot with live tigers for Time magazine. (Amy Chua was recently named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People. She's certainly garned a lot of fame and fortune from her recent book, along with the death threats!
I must say I love young Sophie's take on the recent publicity and her defense of her mom and dad...clearly she adores them. I'll be adding it to my blogs to read.
In Stitches by Anthony Youn and Alan Eisenstock My rating: 3 out of 5 stars
(Book giveaway details at the bottom)
I continued on my Asian tour by reading this memoir by plastic surgeon Anthony Youn and Alan Eisenstock. Told with a huge dose of humor, Youn shares his experiences growing up Korean-American in the Midwest, with strict Korean parents who always expected him to get straight As and become a doctor. There was no other career path possible.
It turned out that Youn had an affinity for the medical field, and he got through college and medical school fairly easily. He must have had spectacular grades and MCAT scores to get the highly coveted residency he wanted.
I enjoyed this book much more than I though I would...mostly because of the accessible, funny writing style...and I'm always a sucker for an Asian backdrop. I had to chuckle at the obsessiveness over finding a girlfriend throughout college and med school. My girlfriends and I loved hanging out together on Saturday nights, while Youn and his friends felt like losers if they didn't have dates. I'm thinking the constant obsession with sex might be a male thing. :) And also, his stories of desperation in trying to find a woman were pretty hilarious.
I would have liked to know more about Youn's experience in residency--the book ends when he lands his residency. During his pediatric rotation, Youn met a plastic surgeon who was about to rebuild the face of an 8-month-old baby whose mother had left him alone in a trailer with a pet raccoon. The raccoon ate his face. After floundering and not knowing which specialty to choose, he decided to pursue plastic surgery. I found this story to be so deeply affecting that I couldn't understand why Youn decided to focus on celebrity facelifts and breast reconstruction instead of pediatric plastic surgery. Guess that's where the money and fame are--Youn is a frequent guest on Rachael Ray.
When Youn's traditional Korean dad breaks down in tears a few times (when his mother was having open heart surgery, and other times when he was deeply proud of Youn), I shed a few tears.
I probably would have liked this book even more if I didn't have such mixed opinions about plastic surgery:
On one hand, I benefited tremendously from plastic surgery because of my cleft lip (and palate). I had multiple surgeries throughout my childhood and adolescence to correct both defects. They were followed by two jaw surgeries in my late teens. (Youn too had jaw surgery as a late teen.) I know all too well how lucky I was to have been born when I was, where I was, and am grateful for plastic surgery and other types of restorative medicine. As we know, children born in developing countries are not as lucky. I still remember the name of my childhood plastic surgeon, Dr. Lindgren, and I am grateful for his care.
On the other hand, I find it highly disturbing to note the billions of dollars spent on plastic surgery in the developed world. I can understand certain forms of plastic surgery, such as breast reduction, or even liposuction or nose jobs. But the plastic surgery that bothers me most is the type done to attempt to find the fountain of youth. If someone wants to spend money that way, it's his or her choice. But to think of all the money spent, combined, and all the money used for advertising plastic surgery, it's shameful to me. What greater use could that money have gone to? I love More magazine for many of its great articles and book recommendations, but every single month its emphasis on plastic surgery is disturbing. Why can't we age gracefully and spend our money on travel or philanthropy instead? Why do Americans waste so much money on vanity?
Anyone who has been through medical school would enjoy this book; in fact, I plan to give it to my physician sister! Would you like to win a copy of this book?All you have to do is like the In Stitches Facebook page and leave your Facebook URL in the comments section of this post. (You must live in the U.S. or Canada to enter.)
Here's Anthony Youn talking about his childhood and book, in which you get a good feel for his sense of humor:
I just wrote a long post on Every Day Is a Miracle about Jon Krakauer's investigation into Greg Mortenson. Krakauer's piece is excellent and convinced me.
Yesterday I wrote about the upcoming 60 Minutes episode about Greg Mortenson on my other blog, Every Day Is a Miracle. I am truly hoping that the claims that he fabricated stories are not true!
A couple of things give me pause to wonder: where has this supposed close friend (who said that Mortenson didn't in fact wander into a Pakistani village after his failed K2 climb) been all these years, and why has he never spoken up before? And it's clear, reading Three Cups of Tea, that Mortenson is not the type to be anal about keeping receipts and accounts in order. On the other hand, one would think that with a multi-million $ nonprofit, he could hire people to help him. As a friend noted, General Stanley McCrystal himself has lauded Greg Mortenson and worked in partnership with him. Why have these claims, if true, never come out before?
It must be said that Mortenson has done amazing work in Pakistan and Afghanistan and I've long admired him as a brave, philanthropist hero, regardless of whether these recent claims are true.
But I will be disappointed in him if they are...and they will cast a dark shadow on what he's done.
Kimberly Chang leaves Hong Kong to move to Brooklyn, New York, with her mother, and neither of them speak a word of English. They, like so many other immigrants, expect to find a wonderful land of promise waiting for them. Instead they find themselves buried in debt (owed to Kimberly's aunt and uncle), living in a roach- and rat-filled hovel without any heat, and working night and day--for pennies--in a sweatshop.
Kimberly is determined to escape, and she focuses all of her energies on learning English so that she can get back to being an outstanding student as she was in China. After she's finished with school, she goes to the sweatshop to work side by side with her mother, who had been a gifted music teacher back in Hong Kong.
Because of Kimberly's determination and innate intelligence, she is able to win a scholarship to an elite private high school. While there she constantly struggles with fitting in and managing to keep all the balls in the air. In the meantime, her mother struggles to learn English and has to work constantly to keep a filthy roof over their heads.
As Kimberly becomes a young woman, she falls in love with a young man, Matt, who also works in the factory. She's faced with a terrible choice between love or ambition.
Much of this novel is based on Jean Kwok's own experiences--she too was an immigrant from Hong Kong whose family ended up working in a sweatshop. Her family lived in a filthy, heatless, vermin-infested apartment. She too relied on her smarts to get her out of that difficult environment. Here is a video of Jean Kwok speaking about the novel:
Warning: SPOILER AHEAD!!
Many reviewers have commented that they did not like the ending. I'm guessing that they believe Kim should have chosen love instead of continuing to follow her path of pulling her family out of deep poverty. At the beginning of the book, I was concerned that she would have forsaken her ambitious dreams. What Kim only alludes to at the end is that she would not have made Matt happy.
This is a feminist novel to me, because the protagonist makes choices for her own independence. Never again does she want to have to rely on someone else (as she and her mother have been indebted and abused by her aunt and uncle). She is determined to change her life and give her mother the life she deserves. Matt is one of those traditional Asian men who would never abide his wife making more money than he does. I agree that it is sad that he never knows about her son...and sad also that Kimberly ends up alone...but I think it would have been far sadder had she given up her dreams.
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, by Amy Chua My rating: 3 out of 5 stars
I first heard about this book back in January when it lit up the blogosphere after an excerpt in the Washington Post titled "Why Chinese mothers are superior." As you can imagine, mothers came out of the woodwork, fiercely attacking her and defending their own parenting approaches. As much as I can understand their perspective, I also find it amusing when people attack each other's parenting styles. What they didn't quite understand about the book was that Chua meant it to be a parody of this parenting style. The front of the book says: "This is a story about a mother, two daughters, and two dogs. This was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones. But instead, it's about a bitter clash of cultures, a fleeting taste of glory, and how I was humbled by a 13-year-old."
Chua, who arrived in the U.S. as a very young child, was raised here by her immigrant parents, and she was convinced that her daughters would be far more successful (and happy) if she made all the choices for them. For example, they were never allowed to do the following things:
Attend a sleepover
Have a playdate
Be in a school play
Complain about not being in a school play
Watch TV or play computer games
Choose their own extracurricular activities
Get any grade less than an A
Not be the #1 student in every subject except gym and drama
Play any instrument other tan the piano or violin
Not play the piano or violin
Chua, a Yale law professor and writer married to a Jewish law professor, makes a bargain with her husband. They would raise the kids in the Jewish faith if she could apply Chinese parenting principles. Honestly, the man must be a saint. I don't know how he put up with it. She is far stricter, demanding, and (in my opinion) cruel than her parents were with her.
Her two long-suffering daughters could not have gotten much enjoyment out of their childhoods. They were too busy studying, learning Chinese, and practicing violin or piano. She hires a Chinese tutor for them (even though Chua herself does not speak Chinese). She comes across as a complete snob, telling her kids that other children (who are able to go to slumber parties or do not have to practice 4 to 5 hours a day) come from bad families. Anything less than the top performance is not acceptable. She rejects birthday cards her daughters make for her and tells them to do them over again.
A friend who lives in Maryland tells me that half of the kids in her children's school live like this. Their parents constantly pressure the schools to accelerate the curriculum well beyond the usual grade levels.
It's hard to tell, at times, whether Chua is making fun of herself or if she really believes what she did is right. For example, she calls her daughter "garbage" when Sophia acts disrespectfully toward her. When she mentions this conversation later at a dinner party, the other adults ostracize her. One guest breaks down in tears and has to leave early. So she must have known, on some level, the kind of reaction this book would get. Chua says that this approach worked "great" with her daughter. She speaks with admiration of the Chinese (or other) cultural more of insulting their children--for example, saying to an overweight child, "Hey fatty--lose some weight." In contrast, "Western parents have to tiptoe around the issue, talking in terms of 'health" and never ever mentioning the f-word, and their kids still end up in therapy for eating disorders and negative self-image."
She goes on to recount ONE anecdote of hearing a "western" father toasting his adult daughter by calling her "beautiful and incredibly competent," and the daughter later telling Chua that it made her "feel like garbage." I do not know anyone who would feel like garbage upon being told they were beautiful and incredibly competent. Chua likes to spout one-off anecdotes to defend her actions. Another one is the fact that her husband had been asked if he wanted to play the violin as a child, and he said no...and now he always regrets it. Hence, it's okay to FORCE your child to play the violin.
Each time Chua forces her daughters (often the younger, more defiant one, Lulu) to do something unreasonable, and hours of angry fights ensue, the daughters eventually cave in to Chua's ridiculous demands. She considers these triumphs as her rightful due as a mother, and feels justified in her methods.
Chua perhaps unintentionally pits Asian parenting styles against "western" parenting styles. She consistently puts down the latter. She writes "There are all these new books out there portraying Asian mothers as scheming, callous, overdriven people indifferent to their kids' true interests." I find this comment pretty hilarious, because this is the best-known book about Asian mothers, and it does just that!
She truly believes that only she knows what would make her children happy--in the case of Lulu, "I wanted her to be the best violinist in the state--and that was for starters. I knew that was the only way Lulu could be happy."
I think Chua is a little bit crazy, actually. In the midst of her incredibly high-stress life (teaching law, writing books, going on lecture tours, on top of screaming and shouting at her daughters to practice all hours of the day), she decides to get a puppy. She chooses a Samoyed, and then begins to focus her competitive energy on her dog! As if one unruly puppy wasn't enough (she ended up doing all the dog walking and care on top of her other responsibilities), later she decides to get a second one.
During the course of the book's time period, she loses her mother-in-law, a vibrant, independent woman, and comes close to losing her beloved younger sister, Katrin, to leukemia. You would think that these experiences might prompt her to think more about her family's quality of life and her daughters' happiness. It can't have been fun or relaxing to live in a household constantly fraught by fights (usually about practicing the violin, and sometimes the piano). Why doesn't she realize how short her time with her daughters would be (while they were young) and make the most of it? Well, she says it herself: "The truth is I'm not good at enjoying life. It's not one of my strengths...I saw childhood as a training period, a time to build character and invest for the future. Florence (her mother-in-law) always wanted just one full day to spend with each girl--she begged me for that. But I never had a full day for them to spare. The girls barely had time as it was to do their homework, speak Chinese with their tutor, and practice their instruments." So Florence died without getting to spend a full day with her granddaughters. How sad is that??? Especially because Chua doesn't realize that it is sad.
When their beloved grandmother dies, Chua forces her grief-stricken adolescent daughters to give eulogies. When they protest, Chua demands it and pours on the guilt. She then rejects Sophia's first draft as totally unacceptable and calls her selfish. Both girls come through in the end, but it shocks me to think of how callous and unfeeling she was to demand that they speak at the funeral.
Chua writes about some of the arguments she had with her long-suffering husband, Jed, but for the most part he lingers in the background. In one argument, he accuses her of making crazy overgeneralizations about "westerners" and "Chinese people" and asks her to stop insulting people all the time. "I know you think you do people a huge favor by criticizing them, so that they can improve themselves, but have you ever considered that you just make people feel bad?" When he points out how wrong it is to praise Sophia in front of Lulu, she completely refuses to see his point, claiming that Lulu doesn't "need affirmative action."
The fights continue when she hosts a 50th birthday party for Jed. She demands, again, that Sophia and Lulu give speeches, and Lulu refuses. It is the first of many battles Chua loses, and she accuses Lulu of dishonoring the family. After Lulu hacks off all her hair after Chua tells her they don't have time for her to get a haircut, you'd think she might consider backing off...but no.
The simmering hostility begins bubbling and finally explodes when the family travels to Russia. Chua tries to force Lulu to sample caviar and calls her a juvenile delinquent and a barbarian when she refuses. Lulu throws a temper tantrum in the middle of the restaurant and tells her mother she hates her, her life, and her family. Chua tells her she's a terrible daughter. Finally, Chua realizes she must change.
She allows Lulu to give up the violin and take up tennis. But it's clear at the end of the book that she doesn't have any regrets and feels good about the way she has raised her daughters. That's why I'm not sure it's a parody. Everyone around her--her husband, daughters, parents-in-law, and even her own strict Chinese parents--tell her to chill out and back off, that she's going too far, but she refuses until Lulu ultimately explodes. She's extremely lucky that she didn't alienate her children forever.
Even though Chua and her husband are law professors, I wondered how they could afford their extravagant lifestyle. Full-time Chinese tutors (at least in early childhood), expensive piano and violin lessons, trips all around the world, constant dining out, and when Sophia performs at Carnegie Hall, a truly extravagant reception to which Sophia's entire class is bussed into the City?
In summary, this book was compulsively readable and a welcome break after The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet, which took me weeks to finish. I admire Chua's honesty--she does expose herself to heaps of criticism. But I truly feel sorry for Chua's daughters and husband. She admits that her family is not the type who has intimate conversations about their feelings. She believes that her daughters are happy and well adjusted, but how would she know what they really feel about her? (After I wrote this review, a Facebook friend sent me this link to a letter written by Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld, which defends her mother and says how much she loves her. Chua apparently has received death threats, so I understand why she wanted to defend her mom.)
Yes, she realizes she couldn't win, continuing the way she was going, but her closing pages smack of the kind of person who realizes, deep down, that she was right all along.
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet, by David Mitchell My rating: 2 out of 5 stars
I had this book on hold at the library for ages and had been looking forward to reading it. It takes place in a reclusive Japan circa 1799. The Dutch are the only Europeans who trade with the Japanese, in the island port of Dejima (just outside of Nagasaki), imperial Japan's only entry and exit to the outside world. Jacob De Zoet is a Dutch clerk, who has five years to earn his fortune before returning to The Netherlands to marry his love, Anna. He forms a tenuous friendship with an interpreter, Uzaemon.
Then he meets Orito Aibagawa, a bright young midwife and daughter of a samurai, who has a disfiguring burn on her face. Jacob cannot get Orito out of his mind. Any hope of a relationship between them, though, is doomed. Soon Orito's fortunes change for the worse and she ends up being sold to a Buddhist convent with shocking secret habits. It turns out that Uzaemon was also in love with Orito, but he was forced to marry another woman. Soon Uzaemon plots a rescue attempt.
This novel contains much, much more than this basic plot, but these were the most compelling, multidimensional characters and the most interesting part of the book. As you'll see if you read through the reviews on Goodreads or Amazon, many readers find the first and third parts of the book to be deadly boring. The middle of the book, with the attempted rescue of Orito off the mountain, was the most compelling. Then she vanished off the pages and it got back to Dutch trading.
Clearly, Mitchell meticulously researched this novel. But I found the vast number of characters and subplots, not to mention the lack of depth of so many of the characters, to be tiresome. The page after page about Dutch trading and backstabbing got to be painful, and at the end, I found myself scanning the pages. As one Amazon reviewer wrote, "A thousand autumns is nine hundred ninety nine too long."
Nearly all of the characters were evil, untrustworthy, or unethical, or simply lazy and only out for themselves. Even though Jacob De Zoet did feature throughout the novel, I never felt that I really understood him. I didn't care what happened to most of the characters. Those that I did care about (the mountain herbalist, for example) just disappeared.
I know this book is packed with metaphor and symbolism, and perhaps Mitchell's brilliance is just beyond me. I've never read his other books, so I don't have any mode of comparison.
Historical fiction set in Japan is usually my cup of tea. But after those months of waiting, I was disappointed in most of this book. I was relieved to be done with it, and that's not a good sign!
This is such an important and long-overdue book. I've always loved this quote:
Women hold up half the sky.
I've seen it attributed to Madame Mao, Chairman Mao, or as a Chinese proverb. No matter. It's a powerful quote, and it's the basis for this book by Pulitzer Prize winners and married authors Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.
Kristof and WuDunn investigate the widespread abuse of women and girls via sex trafficking, prostitution, and slavery (across the globe); rape; "honor" killings; maternal mortality; and neglect of health issues. They also explore issues related to family planning and the "God Gulf," whether Islam is patently misogynistic, the importance of investing in education, and the benefit of microlending.
Stop--don't get depressed yet! Not only do they report on these widespread abuses and shocking inequality across the globe, but they also share success stories and the lives of women who have risen above these horrible situations. The power of this book is in the stories of those individual women. Stories always help to personalize tragedy and help us to understand it better on a personal level. Furthermore, they give tons of suggestions for what we--as a country and as individuals--can do to help.
The authors packed so much into this book that anything I write in a review seems grossly inadequate. Everyone must read this book. The future of our planet and the sake of humanity depend on all of us to stop the terrible abuse of women and girls across the globe. To begin that process, we must understand what is going on. This book is a step in the right direction.
Toward the end of the book, they discuss societies that have come a long way in changing the lives of women. Two such countries they cite are China and Bangladesh. This is not to say that the plight of women in those countries is easy, but only that they have made a great deal of progress over the years by gradually changing their culture and introducing more women into leadership. Imagine my horror when, after just having finished this book, I read Nicholas Kristof's blog post about a 14-year-old girl in Bangladesh who was raped by a relative and then executed for "her" crime. Kristof expresses hope that Bangladesh's "robust civil society" will send a strong message that misogyny is not only immoral but illegal. But as a commenter says, "Can any society be described as 'civil' when misogyny is this deeply ingrained in its social fabric?" Another commenter points out that blaming the victim is not unique to the developing world.
Let's hope that the world will one day recognize that women do indeed hold up half the sky and will stop the oppression of half of our population.
Buzz: A Year of Paying Attention,
by Katherine Ellison
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Q: How many kids with attention deficit disorder does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: Let's go ride bikes!
Katherine Ellison's son Buzz (a pseudonym) was diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) not too long before she received the same diagnosis. Not only did Buzz have ADHD, but he had a side order of obsessive-defiance disorder (ODD) to make things even more complicated and stressful. Buzz constantly made waves...from beating up on his brother to demanding extremely expensive toys and constant caffeine. Rock bottom was the day Buzz called 911 after Ellison confiscated his Gameboy as a punishment for beating up on his brother.
Ellison embarks on a one-year journey to chronicle her parenting struggles with ADHD, exacerbated by her own personal challenges. It also happens to be the year when Buzz is preparing for his Bar Mitzvah. To demonstrate the up-and-down journey of ADHD, she offers her own experiences:
"(ADHD)...may even illuminate how I managed to win a Pulitzer Prize just three years after being sued for $11 million because of a careless reporting mistake, then realized my childhood dream of becoming a foreign correspondent, only to break my leg by running into a manhole in Managua while chasing Nicaragua's newly elected president--and did I mention that she was on crutches at the time?"
In an effort to bring some peace into their lives, she pursued every option she could find to treat Buzz's ADHD. After desperately fighting against the medication option, ultimately she and her husband succumbed and found it to be helpful. I had to laugh reading the scene where she berates a friend for putting his child on medication, only to eat her own words later when her own family decided to give it a try with Buzz (and herself). (Reminds me of all those sanctimonious people who think that they know what's best for you.) At least she called him to apologize after she realized what an ass she had been. The cry for help that led her to consider trying medication was her son grabbing a butcher knife and aiming it at his own throat. I feel immensely grateful not to have had to deal with this kind of behavior or stress in my own family.
Ellison explores the history and biology of ADHD and investigates a number of alternatives (or additions) to medication. She takes him to a variety of therapists and experts. She gets to know people in the Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD) support group (and notes its marriage with the drug companies) and meets some authors on the subject (including Blake Taylor, who wrote a book called ADHD & Me, and his mother, Nadine Taylor-Barnes).
She investigates alternative education options and spends a chapter specifically on education and why the public school system is rotten for kids with ADHD. One of the experts she meets believes in "evidence-based teaching," the importance of developing a "sense of excitement and relevance, stories and mystery...and a student's connection with his teacher." The brain has to be excited to be able to learn and retain information. How often do we find teachers above the elementary school age who are able to do this with kids? As much as I sometimes question Chris' 8th grade science teacher's unconventional methods, Chris is way more engaged in science than he has been in the past two years, when he had rotten teachers.
Ellison tries neurofeedback for both herself and Buzz and finds some benefit...but it's very expensive and time consuming. She attends a silent meditation retreat (easier said than done for someone with ADHD). Ellison includes a helpful list of "What Else Worked" in the Epilogue and covers items such as supplements, toxins, exercise, snake oil salespeople (who are everywhere waiting to lurk on worried parents), and education advocacy. The book also contains several pages of notes at the end.
But this is the best thing I took from this book, wisdom from Toni Morrison:
"The author Toni Morrison says that the best gift a mother can give her child is to light up when he enters the room. I think of all the times my mind was elsewhere, dim to him, and now focus on shining extra brightly."
Ellison also makes a genuine attempt to respond positively to her son as often as possible, which takes a concerted effort at times.
This is what I strive toward: lighting up when each of my children (and for that matter, all of my loved ones) enters the room. That's how my boys react when I come home from work--I just need to take a leaf out of their books. If I retain one thing from this book, let this be it. It's so easy for me to get distracted or stressed out and take our children for granted--the ones that we desperately wanted and waited for. And I'm not talking just about the one with ADD! Before they received the dual diagnoses, Ellison was diagnosed with a benign brain tumor (a meningioma), followed by thyroid cancer. It seems that extremes follow her wherever she goes.
I haven't read this young adult novel yet--I'm waiting for our 14-year-old son to get through it first--but am looking forward to sinking my teeth into it.
It's about a girl in Afghanistan who has a cleft lip. My writer hubby loved it and reviews it here on his blog.
I do not recall ever reading a book about a heroine with a cleft lip, so I'm immediately intrigued by that. (I had a cleft lip and palate at birth.)
The Waves by Virginia Woolf My rating: 2 out of 5 stars
I am not typically drawn to experimental novels. In the book group we belonged to before we had children, I remember reading John Fowles' The Magusand Vladimir Nobokov's Pale Fireand becoming frustrated with both of those books (for different reasons).
In my relatively new book group, we decided that each member would nominate three or four books and we would vote on one book for each member. The Waves was our book for March, and even though it was difficult to get through, we agreed that we would not have tried otherwise. That's the great thing about book groups--it gets you out of your comfort zone. I do not regret reading it, and it will be a book I will remember for a long time.
The Waves, Virginia Woolf's most experimental novel, is a series of soliloquoys spoken by a group of friends, individually. These people are supposedly friends, but they do not seem to have much of a connection to one another. Apparently these characters represent various personalities in Virginia Woolf's life...T.S. Eliot, E.M. Forester, Lytton Strachey, etc. It's been alternately described as following six characters from childhood to adulthood or taking place all within one day, or being several parts of one consciousness. In simple terms, it's difficult to ascertain exactly what's going on for much of the time. There is very little plot. And the characters talk about each other, but do very little interaction with each other.
The language is masterful, yes, but not in a way that draws me in enough to put up with the lack of plot or connection between the characters. I found myself scanning through so much of the book that I can't in good conscience give it more than two stars. I think if I had read it in college, and had been listening to a professor lecture on the novel's merits, I would have appreciated it more. However, at age 46, I found myself dreaming of what else I could be reading that would be more worthwhile.
It didn't help that halfway through the book, the Japanese earthquake and tsunami hit. I found myself wondering why I should care about the privileged, narcissistic perspectives of this book while people were suffering on the other side of the world.
Even though none of us loved The Waves, it made for an interesting discussion at book group. We found it interesting that although Virginia Woolf wrote some great feminist manifestos, her female characters in this book were the weakest. The males took over the book--perhaps a message in itself.
I find it fascinating that on amazon.com and goodreads.com, the vast majority of readers rate this book as five stars. (In Goodreads, 43% of readers give it 5 stars, and only 2% give it 1 star.) Many people comment that they've reread this book several times. That makes me feel completely inadequate. Maybe I've just become too old and particular to appreciate this type of book. Or maybe I would appreciate it more at another stage of my life. I found myself looking forward to moving onto a book that is more gripping.
I'd definitely agree with Dolores Umbridge--she was the first one who came to my mind, and she does indeed resemble Nurse Ratched. I'd have to add Count Olaf from the Lemony Snicket series to that list as well...he's one of the most colorfully depicted and creative villains I've read about.
Here he is, played by Jim Carrey (who was the perfect choice for this role):
In 1752, 17-year-old Agnes Trussel, an English country girl, finds herself pregnant after she is raped by a boy in her village. Ashamed and horrified by her predicament, she finds herself in a position to steal some gold coins from a dead neighbor and flees to London to prevent any shame from falling on her poor family.
On the way to London she meets a pretty young prostitute, Lettice Talbot, who offers Agnes to get her life started in London. Naive and ignorant, Agnes agrees to meet Lettice later on at her boarding house (nee brothel). However, alone in confusing and very dirty London, she gets lost. As night nears, she finds herself wandering the streets, desperate, freezing, and hungry.
She sees a sign advertising help wanted at a house and knocks on the door. The house belongs to Mr. J. Blacklock, who makes fireworks and is mourning his dead wife. Blacklock soon takes Agnes under his wing as his apprentice.
Many other characters feature in the book--the other servants in Blacklock's house and Cornelius Soul, who provides the gunpowder for the fireworks. Agnes fixes on Mr. Soul is the solution to her problems, but he is not as she thought he would be.
At times this book was a bit slow going (especially with all the detail about the fireworks making), but I enjoyed it. At the time, fireworks were not yet made in color, and it is the quest of color that fascinates Blacklock and Agnes both, drawing them closer together.
Blacklock is an enigma, a dark and brooding character. Some of the characters were not drawn as fully as they could have been. But the amount of research Borodale must have had to do is astounding. The list of references is impressive. She effectively captures the cadence of dialogue, food, setting, and habits of the British in the 18th century. What a lack of options an unmarried pregnant woman had in those days...and telling anyone that she was raped would have only worsened her lot. A very satisfying read!
It seems like everyone is reading or has read The Helpthese days. I read it last year and although I enjoyed it, I could understand why African-Americans gave it mixed reviews. My assessment was: great idea, awkward follow-through and lack of awareness of white privilege.
My book group has selected this book for April, so I'm anxious to hear what others think about the book...one of the members is married to an African-American man, and another comes from the south.
Besides the similarity of their names, Ablene has a gold tooth and lost her son, just like the fictional Aibileen. It's interesting to note that not only has the book sparked a feud between brother and sister, but Stockett's father seems to think his daughter is only out to make money.
According to the ABC News article, "he also noted that his author daughter, who has moved north to Atlanta, 'is also a New Yorker now.' Stockett, a retired developer and lawyer, said he did not know her phone number. 'Sure, I liked the book. It's fiction. They didn't give me the critics' copy until it was too late,' he said. 'I would have got some factual things changed. But I'm low down the totem pole.' He charged media with 'stirring up the pot' in the dispute between his son's maid and his daughter, adding that the ensuing publicity surrounding the feud would benefit his daughter financially. 'Kathryn will appreciate that she gets a cut,' he said."
Sort of sounds like Stockett's own words in The Help, "Another white lady trying to make a dollar off of colored people."
Have you read The Help? Do you think Stockett overstepped her white privilege?
The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie, by Wendy McClure
; visits as many Laura World landmarks as she possibly can (and there are quite a few); learns how to churn butter, make a haystick, and tackle a number of other homesteading tasks; cooks recipes from the Little House cookbook
; attends two Little House on the Prairie pageants; sleeps in a covered wagon; buys multiple bonnets; and sees Melissa Gilbert appear as Ma in "Little House on the Prairie: The Musical." Her loyal, good-natured boyfriend, Chris, jumps into the adventure with her. (In so many of the one-year experiment books I've read, the partner typically gets completely fed up by the end!)
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