The Pacific Northwest has not gotten that message yet. In fact, we have had so much rain this spring that the Columbia River has surpassed flood stage. Spring has occasionally teased us. This morning when I went into my second grader's school to teach music, the sun was out and the weather looked glorious. When I left 40 minutes later, the skies had opened up and rain was falling in buckets. It's rained steadily ever since then, frequently with great force. Apparently this is typical "La Nina" weather, and everyone I know is complaining about it. Our rhododendrons and apple trees are just finally starting to blossom, near the end of May! We haven't wanted to put our bedding plants in the raised beds yet for fear of drowning them. (On the other hand, they are NOT doing well in the house either.) But then I read about the heartbreak and tragedy in the midwest and the south, and I feel that I cannot complain. A little rain is nothing compared to massive flooding and tornadoes.
At any rate, I realize that spring is almost over in most of the country, and summer is approaching. The New York Times has come out with its recommendations of this year's summer books. Do any of them look interesting to you? I've listed here the ones I'll be adding to my list.
Now this one, Exposureby Therese Fowler, seems particulary topical, given the amazing openness (and stupidity) displayed by today's teens via the internet and texting. A girl snaps a cell phone photo of her boyfriend, naked, and you can guess what happens next. Apparently the novel is based on something that happened to the author's own son.
I've seen advertisements for Jennifer Haigh’s Faitha number of times on Goodreads. It's about the family of a Boston-area priest who is accused of pedophilia. Scandal+Catholicism=I'm all over it.
The American Heiress, by Daisy Goodwin, is about an American girl from a rich family who snags a British title. Think Edith Wharton and if you saw "The King's Speech" recently, Wallis Simpson.
This is the one I'm most curious about, though:
Super Sad True Love Story, by Gary Shteyngart. I heard the author being interviewed on NPR yesterday: he has won the Wodehouse Prize for his novel. I've never read anything by him, but he sounded terrifically amusing being interviewed. As his prize, he will be receiving a pig named after his novel.
The Rehearsal, by Eleanor Catton My review: 1 out of 5 stars
To be honest, I could not get past page 15, so in all fairness I probably shouldn't give it a rating. At one point, I pledged to read only books that get at least a 3.5 or 4 rating in Goodreads, and this one has a 3.27. But it sounded interesting, and I feel lacking in the modern female adolescent category, and it involved theater and music...right up my alley, right? So wrong.
The Rehearsalhas been described as a postmodern novel, and some readers describe it as brilliant. But right from the very first page, I didn't like it. It's hard to put my finger on it, but I think it's because the characters were so removed and distant, the dialogue completely stiff and unrealistic, and it seemed artificial. Reading the other reviews, I understand that this is the point. However.
I have learned something: when I've had this initial instinct about a book and plowed on ahead (after reading other people's glowing reviews and convincing myself to give it a chance), I'm always disappointed. Sometimes I find redeeming qualities in the book and it's not as bad as I initially think.
But is that really good enough? When I have so many books I want to read? No way. Life's too short to read books that you don't enjoy (or that don't at least have some educational, redeeming quality).
Pomegranate Soup, by Marsha Meran My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Although this book reminds readers of Like Water for Chocolate or Chocolat, no chocolate delicacies are mentioned within its pages. Instead, the spicy and savory aromas, flavors, and spirit of Persian cuisine fill the streets of a little Irish village, hypnotizing its residents and changing their lives forever.
Marjam, Bahar, and Layla have escaped from Iran with their lives, and after a stint living in London, they moved north to Ireland. It is the 1980s, and the village residents have rarely seen anyone who is not European. They open the "Babylon Cafe," and before long, the villagers become to appreciate the wonders of Persian cooking.
I do not recall ever tasting Persian cuisine myself, but my sister's best friend from medical school is Iranian, and I remember hearing stories about her wonderful wedding.
The sisters are trying to escape their own ghosts, just as many of the villagers are leading unfulfilled, unhappy lives. Each chapter opens with a recipe. I do believe I will have to try at least one of them out!
If you like ethnic cuisine and stories that take place in other countries, I encourage you to try this book. It was a fairly quick read, but I enjoyed it.
I've actually been trying to SHED some of our board games (mostly the ones for kids), but I could not resist this one...especially at resale prices.
It's like Balderdash, but instead the players try to make up the first line of a book. Here's how Liebrary works:
In Liebrary, one player reads the title, author, and synopsis of a real-life book (e.g., Julius Caesar, Jurassic Park, or Mr. Brown Can Moo). The other players must each write and submit their best attempt at a first line for the book. The first player reads all the submissions, including the real first line of the book, and then the other players each try to pick out the real one. Players get points for choosing the real first line, getting other players to select their submission, and possibly knowing the real first line before it is revealed. The reader gets points only if no players correctly guess the real first line, but the reader position rotates.
I am hoping to finagle my clever brother-in-law into playing...he always came up with the funniest definitions when we used to play Balderdash BC (before children). He put the two writers in the family to shame! So maybe I don't want to play this game with him. :) No, it's worth it to hear his good definitions. This just proves that you don't have to be an English major to be wicked at writing definitions. (In fact, it probably helps if you were NOT an English major.)
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!
The Girl with the Sturgeon Tattoo
, by Lars Arffssen. Now this one I'm definitely going to be reading!! It's a parody, due in late summer, of the very popular Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 
series. Or if you don't want parody, there's always The Tattooed Girl: The Enigma of Stieg Larsson and the Secrets Behind the Millennium Trilogy
. 
Now this one, Exposure 
by Therese Fowler, seems particulary topical, given the amazing openness (and stupidity) displayed by today's teens via the internet and texting. A girl snaps a cell phone photo of her boyfriend, naked, and you can guess what happens next. Apparently the novel is based on something that happened to the author's own son.
I've seen advertisements for Jennifer Haigh’s Faith 
a number of times on Goodreads. It's about the family of a Boston-area priest who is accused of pedophilia. Scandal+Catholicism=I'm all over it.
The American Heiress, by Daisy Goodwin, is about an American girl from a rich family who snags a British title. Think Edith Wharton and if you saw "The King's Speech" recently, Wallis Simpson.
Super Sad True Love Story
, by Gary Shteyngart. 
I heard the author being interviewed on NPR yesterday: he has won the Wodehouse Prize for his novel. I've never read anything by him, but he sounded terrifically amusing being interviewed. As his prize, he will be receiving a pig named after his novel.
Pomegranate Soup
I am hoping to finagle my clever brother-in-law into playing...he always came up with the funniest definitions when we used to play Balderdash BC (before children). He put the two writers in the family to shame! So maybe I don't want to play this game with him. :) No, it's worth it to hear his good definitions. This just proves that you don't have to be an English major to be wicked at writing definitions. (In fact, it probably helps if you were NOT an English major.)
; 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 
; attends two 
.
. 
