The Bauer Confidential

I have a secret to confess: I love Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.  It feels good to get it off my chest; I’ve been hiding our relationship, perhaps not well, for years.  Yet my love affair with P&P didn’t start out so well, P&P was assigned reading for AP English Lit class my senior year of high school.  Like many seniors in high school, I had a bit of trouble motivating myself to do my schoolwork, and Merciless Mercer, my teacher, didn’t inspire me to do much more than sit as far from her in the classroom as possible.  I didn’t finish a single one of the many novels we were assigned in that class (lest you think me a total slacker, I read every play, poem, and short story).  I think it was a quiet, self-destructive form of rebellion; I’d always done my readings in every other English class but I had more important things on my mind (namely a real-life version of the subject matter explored in P&P, like most 18 year olds).  I really started to fall for P&P when a friend checked out the BBC’s mini-series version from the library the summer after graduation, we spent many hours enthralled by the characters, costumes, and story.  If I’d been able to picture Mr. Darcy as Colin Firth when I’d been assigned the book, no doubt I would have been able to finish it.  Whenever A&E would play the P&P mini-series I would stop what I was doing and watch it, all five hours of it, often enticing even the most macho of my family members to get sucked into the drama.

In graduate school, when DVDs started getting cheap, I bought the BBC mini-series, and I watched it, a lot!  Whenever I would get depressed about my love life, or lack-there-of, I would pull out the P&P DVDs and lose myself in Jane Austen’s world, usually watching all five hours at one go.  This happened more than I would care to admit.  Eventually I decided to go ahead and try to read the novel again, this time finishing it easily.  It’s been many years now since I’ve felt the need to watch P&P for a romantic escape, but I still watch it from time to time, just for sheer enjoyment.  And I’ve seen all the other reiterations, the Kiera Knightly version of P&P, the Bollywood take “Bride and Prejudice,” and “The Jane Austen Book Club” film.  I’ve read both Bridget Jones novels and adore the first “Bridget Jones’ Diary” film (in case you didn’t know, Bridget Jones is a blatant, modern-day rip-off of P&P, with both movies even having the same Mr. Darcy).  I’ve read novels written by modern day writers trying to explore what happened after P&P.  I’ve also read a set of books that are a contemporary writer’s attempt to tell P&P from Mr. Darcy’s perspective (she took three books to do it).  The P&P world is a bit of guilty pleasure for me, you see, I generally eschew “romance novels” and P&P is widely considered to be the original.

When I saw Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith, I was outraged: how dare someone be so sacrilegious to poor Jane?!?  My initial reaction was quickly overcome with amusement at the concept.  I choose Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for my book club selection with the thought: I like musical mash-ups, so why not a literary one?  This novel takes the classic P&P tale of Elizabeth Bennett and Fitzwilliam Darcy and adds a dash of ninjas and a sprinkle of zombies.  The “undead” have become a nuisance in polite British society, waylaying carriages, eating brains, and just generally making themselves unwelcome.  Not only does society value manners and breeding, it also values proficiency with sword and musket (even if guns are unladylike).  The British have turned to the far East for fighting skills, with the wealthiest training in Japan, with lower ranking families traveling to China for training.  The zombie plague even affects some of the inner circle the main characters.  In the end, it’s still P&P.  I’m not sure how well the zombie thing really works, the words just seem wrong.  Elizabeth Bennett discussing dojos and self-mutilation cannot blend with the prose of Austen, or at least it doesn’t in this novel.  I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy the book, and chuckle at the new additions from time to time.  In the end though, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a gimmick, and though fun to read, unless you feel like refreshing your P&P, it may not be worth your time.

This is the second half of my review of this book, the first half can be found here.  I meant to post this last week but got distracted!

The second half of this book is set in Guernsey, on the Chanel Islands.  To research her piece regarding how people coped during the war, Juliet goes to Guernsey to meet her pen pals and learn more about their experiences and those of their friends and neighbors.  Juliet finds herself quickly at ease with her new friends.  More comes to light about the fate of friends at the hands of the Germans, and modern day treachery also threatens Juliet’s reputation at the expense of her new family.  As any book that deals with the horrors of war should, there is also love, both romantic and familial.  The common and individual tragedies of the war help to bond the people in this book together, and to help them go forward to build new lives.

Like the first half, I very much enjoyed this, it was quick to read, occasionally confusing because of the letter set up.  I really identified with Juliet and other characters in the book, rooting for them during their trials and laughing with them on their adventures.  An easy read, I would definitely recommend this.  If you’re a history buff, you might find the romance a bit distracting, but I think it brings heart to the novel.

It was once again my turn to select the book club reading for the month, after a bit of research I chose The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton.  Set in the 1960’s, five women meet at the neighborhood play ground, form a writing group and become life-long friends and confidants.  Told though one of the group members, Frankie, the women explore their identities in the midst of the women’s liberation movement.  They share personal tragedies and professional triumphs.  Yet the relationships are not always easy, there are racial, religious, and even sexual tensions brewing for all the women, some of which test their bonds and threaten their connections.  They push the boundaries of not only what others think they should/can do but also their own assumptions of their abilities and self worth.

A fair amount of time is spent on the process of writing, editing, and publishing, which I found particularly interesting.  From short stories to novels, from revising a manuscript to being an editor, the whole spectrum of the writing experience is explored.  Some write for personal fulfillment and others for an audience.  I found Frankie’s description of her interactions with her agent and the experience of getting published enlightening, especially when contrasted with those of another group member, Brett.  I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it was a quick read.  There are some very moving and emotional passages, both sad and joyous.  I would recommend this book especially for those who have ever entertained the notion of writing.

Part of what drew me to this book was the writing aspect, like a lot of people, I’ve got an idea for a novel kicking around in my mind.  It sounds so easy to write a book, a romantic notion.  The Wednesday Sisters made me realize that literary writing is not so different from scientific writing.  Putting things together in a coherent and engaging way is no small feat, revisions can feel daunting, and in the end there’s always editors changing your work.  I’d still like to take a stab at my story, but after reading this, my expectations for that experience are far more pragmatic.

This month’s book selection comes from Laura. The Middle Place is the story of Kelly Corrigan, who could practically be my neighbor (according to the book she lives just across town), and her battle with breast cancer which occurs concurrently with her father’s bladder cancer diagnosis and treatment. Though it sounds like a downer, this book was both enlightening and amusing. The title of the book, The Middle Place, refers to the time in your life when you are both a parent and someone’s child, Kelly Corrigan is both a mother and a daughter. This book is part flash-back, part diary, with stories from Kelly’s childhood serving to illuminate the quirks of her family and explain their energetic and sometimes tense family dynamic. Corrigan is at times brutally honest about these relations, stating at one point that she’s a little more her father’s daughter than her mother’s, but this is something her pragmatic mother already understands. Kelly’s dad is quite the character, “The Green Man” as he often refers to himself, is the kind of guy everyone loves, the sort of fella that makes everyone feel like a million bucks, a man who greets everyday with a hearty “Hello World!”. I love my dad very much and wouldn’t trade him for the world, but a couple times while reading this book I couldn’t help but wish George Corrigan was my dad too! It’s no wonder that before his retirement he made his living at a salesman. The author’s absolute adoration of her father is tempered by occasional annoyance at the low key manner with which he handles his medical affairs, as she is decidedly not low key, and also “not very stoic.”
The cancer that changes Kelly’s life, though central to the story, never feels draining. She talks about the ways she tries to shield her children from the frightening reality about her condition. She is sometimes overbearing about her father’s treatment, all in an effort to feel some sort of control over these horrific situations. I don’t want to ruin the book and give away the outcomes, which would be easy to do. A story about life and illness, this book made me appreciate that I too am still someone’s daughter even though I now have a daughter of my own. Though initially hesitant because of the subject matter, I must say I really enjoyed this book. It’s not very long, but the story is satisfying and moving, humorous and humbling. If you’ve got a few extra hours, this book is definitely worth your time.

Last month’s book club selection, My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor, PhD., was chosen by Liesl.  A short book, My Stroke of Insight chronicles the experiences of a neuroscientist’s severe stroke and subsequent recovery.  Dr. Taylor gives good background into the anatomy and physiology of the brain so that the reader can understand the science behind the ramifications of her stroke (though the diagrams could have been better, in my opinion).  I found this book very informative, Dr. Taylor does an excellent job describing the warning signs of a stroke.  For this aspect alone, this book would be a beneficial read for everyone, as strokes are a serious threat, often leaving victims who survive substantially incapacitated.  The quicker a stroke is diagnosed and treated, the better the prognosis, so it would be good for all of us to know what could happen (Please go to this site by the Stroke Association to learn to recognize the signs).  But this book is not all about the science, actually very little of it is (to my disappointment).

The majority of the book is spent describing what it was like to live in Dr. Taylor’s newly damaged brain, what it was like to loose oneself to this condition, and the struggle of recovery and becoming someone new.  The bleeding was in the left side of Dr. Taylor’s brain, substantially impairing her language centers, and converting this formerly left brained scientist into a right brain-dependent person with the capabilities of an infant.  The description of becoming right brain-centered definitely sung the praises of the more creative and empathetic side of our minds.  Dr. Taylor describes a feeling oneness with the universe, a sensitivity to the emotions of others, and a heightened sense of aesthetics.  One of the main points I took home from this book involved how we treat patients; in the hospital Dr. Taylor had difficulties with anyone who was stressed or hurried and found interactions with them very draining, she also found that many of those treating her failed to recognize that she needed their patience and she need them to have confidence in her ability to recover.  Perhaps this is a reflection of our medical system, with nurses and doctors over-scheduled and needing to see dozens of patients a day, but it simply shows that we need to have compassion with those who are sick, no matter what the cause.

As scary as the descriptions of the stroke are, as disturbing as the prospect of loosing oneself is, this is a book of hope.  The plasticity of the human brain is an amazing thing and well described by Dr. Taylor.  The message of this book is uplifting and educational, and as it is so short, I would recommend this book.  I particularly liked her description of our physiological response to emotions; when we experience an emotion a surge of chemicals influences our brain often eliciting unpleasant sensations that can lead us to act in haste.  We need to realize that these chemicals are washed out of our system quickly (she says in 90 seconds) and if we can let the initial sensations pass we can regain control of our ability to respond to our emotions, rather than have our emotions control us.

I did have a couple issues with this book.  There are a few sections that are a little “woo woo” for me, that is they dwell a bit too much in the “oneness with the universe” feelings Dr. Taylor experienced.  I’m very left brained, I admit it, and I’m not ashamed of it; at times I felt like Dr. Taylor was selling the left brain short.  My preference for the rational probably made it impossible for me to fully appreciate Dr. Taylor’s experience in her right brain, but I still found it interesting.   My biggest complaint about was that My Stroke of Insight was pretty repetetive.  Yes the phrase “my stroke of insight” is ironic and clever in this context, but it is over-used by the author.  I hate to criticize the writing of a stroke survivor too much, but perhaps she could have had a better editor?

Facebook is a dangerous thing.  All those top 5 lists and notes are great time wasters.  When the favorite books lists started to appear, this one was on the top of one of my friends.  Since it was available at the library and I needed something to fill a little time each day, I decided to give it a go.  The story of the Land family, Peace Like A River follows this family through tragedy and miracles.  Narrated by the middle child Ruben, a child keenly aware of the value of breathing because of terrible asthma, the Land family becomes embroiled in a feud that has dire consequences for all involved.  There’s some thing unusual about Ruben’s father, his touch seems both miraculous and dangerous, both a gift and a curse.

This story is difficult to review without giving away too much.  Set in the upper plains states in the 1960’s, cold permeates the novel, as it mostly transpires during the winter.  The Land family crosses the barren landscape searching for the oldest child Davy, abandoning all they know to bring the way-ward son home.  They find much more than they anticipate, but loose more than they ever imagined in the process.

I enjoyed this book, though the micraculous aspect might be off-putting to some.  My favorite character was the youngest child, and only girl, Swede.  She’s got amazing strength, courage, and literary flare befitting a different century.  Her epic poem about outlaws and bountyhunters of the old west was my favorite part of the book and makes this book a worth-while read.  I couldn’t help but think all that the children in this book seemed wise beyond their years, though not completely immune to the foibles of childhood.  This book requires a pretty serious suspension of disbelief, but the closeness of the family, their love and sacrifices are moving.  This book is not particularly light-hearted, dealing with serious subjects though it has humorous moments.  The writing is quite good and I enjoyed it.

This book review is sort of a two-fer.  It was my turn to select a work for the book club to which I belong.  Instead of searching the internet for a well-reviewed piece as I normally do, I decide to peruse The Book Club Cookbook, a compendium of popular selections from book clubs around the nation.  I really enjoyed flipping through this book, each novel is briefly summarized, then a book club who chose said novel is described which is followed by a recipe that relates to the selection provided either by a book club member or occasionally the author of the work in question.  I now have a list a mile long of books I’d like to read thanks to The Book Club Cookbook and an almost equal number of recipes I’d like to try, I would definitely recommend this particular cookbook if your a cookbook lover or even just a book lover, and especially if you belong to a book club because it will give you endless ideas.

Now on to this month’s book club selection, I chose The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty based on its entry in The Book Club Cookbook.  This is far-and-away the most literary work I’ve read in a long time.  Winner of the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, The Optimist’s Daughter is one of Eudora Welty’s most respected works.  A relatively short novel, The Optimists Daughter is an a study in opposite characters.  Laurel, the genteel southern daughter of small-town judge, comes home to bury her father and butts heads with his second wife.  In addition to exquisite descriptions of the tension between the two women, Laurel recounts her childhood and delves into memories of the relationship between her father and mother.  The Judge’s first marriage, by his daughter’s account, is one of real love and companionship, while his second, to the much younger Fay, is a ridiculous embarrassment.  The harder Laurel looks at her parents marriage, the more she sees the betrayal of her mother and her mother’s memory that happened long before her death.

In addition to conflict and clashing wills, The Optimist’s Daughter is a story about coming home and loosing home.  Laurel has long been absent from the town of her childhood, moved to Chicago and widowed years earlier.  There are poignant moments where Laurel begins to feel that she will never be able to belong in her former home-town, with her father gone, despite deep friendships, she becomes a visitor, an outsider.

Though it was challenging, I really enjoyed this book.  At times I felt like I was back in a high school english class, thinking about symbolism and deeper meanings.  At least one person in my book club found passages of this book “hard” not because of difficult vocabulary, but rather the characters are so realized that your feelings about them become very strong.  If you’d like a book that will make you think about the meaning of love and loyalty, of home and memory, this is an excellent choice.  I found this quote, which is from The Optimist’s Daughter, and found on Eudora Welty’s grave, particularly meaningful: “For her life, any life, she had to believe, was nothing but the continuity of its love.”

When returning my last book club selection to the library I decided to pick up something else to read while feeding Jocelyn. I perused the new fiction section and decided to give The Secret Papers of Madame Olivetti by Annie Vanderbilt a try since the summary sounded interesting and the book was an easy size for reading with limited mobility. I’ve mentioned before how I’m not really a fan of romance novels, so from now on I’m reading the reviews for books before actually devoting my time to one. The story of Lily, an adventurous and passionate woman who has lost her husband of twenty-plus years, this book recounts her attempt to recover from loss by escaping to a sea-side town in rural France, where she under-goes a great deal of self-indulgent reflection on her life. Lily is a strong woman, but she’s also pretentious. The characters in the book are all ridiculously well rounded and perfectly flawed. No one talks like these people, the dialogue is so stilted as to be unintentionally funny at times. The varying locales described in the book are the most interesting thing about it. I think the author has aspirations to greatness, she goes to great lengths to use flowery verbiage and detailed descriptions that are designed to immerse you in the story, most of the time they are just distracting. I had to make myself finish this book, though many times I thought about just giving it up. The end is ridiculously trite, destruction, love lost, love found. This book might be a decent beach read if it weren’t for the snobbishness of the characters. I think my upbringing has made me particularly sensitive to certain things, and one of those things is arrogance. Unfortunately for me this book reeks of self-importance and has very little substance to make it compelling. If you like romance novels (and you know who you are), you might like this one, if you don’t have a high tolerance for for neuroses and people who think too highly of themselves, then pick up something else.

Our book club has become rather eclectic as of late. This month’s selection, Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, is not what one would imagine a group of ladies our age would choose to read.  When it was mentioned, as I was up for something a little less heavy, so I said sure, why not.  I thought it would be like the Harry Potter novels, highly imaginative and easy to read.

Twilight is definitely a mindless read.  The story of Bella, a teenager wiser than her years, who moves to the cloudy Olympic peninsula of Washington state to live with her father.  She finds herself fitting in at her new school with surprising ease.  Not all of her classmates are easy to befriend, however.  Bella’s initial meeting with her biology lab partner, Edward Cullen, leaves Bella unhinged and is just the beginning of the strange encounters the two share.  It quickly becomes evident that Edward Cullen and his “siblings” are not ordinary teenagers.  In addition to their ridiculous beauty and grace, there are things about the Cullen family that are far from normal.   Edward becomes Bella’s some-what unwilling savior, and the two become intertwined in a dangerous relationship that threatens Edward’s family and Bella’s life.

A rather unimaginative vampire story, it is evident that this book is laying the ground-work for a series.  Most of the novel is spent in explinations and exposition.  There is really only one suspenseful plot twist, and it is both predictable and under-utilized.  I was both right and wrong in my initial predictions about this novel, it was a very quick read, but doesn’t deserve any comparison to the Harry Potter books (which I willingly admit I’m more than a little partial to).  There are only a few novel vampire characteristics thrown in and Twilight is a very typical teenage Romeo and Juliet-like story.  These things don’t make the story bad, just sort of flat in my opinion.  I actually think that the later books in the series should be better and more exciting than the first, now that all the ground-work has been laid, that is if the author is more imaginative with the subsequent tales.  I’m sad to hear that reviews for the movie based off this book are so terrible, it seems like a story that would easily translate to the big-screen and that could be enhanced using a visual media.  I may read the next book in this series, it took me less than two days to read Twilight, so it wouldn’t be much time wasted.  If you are into fantasy and vampire novels, you may really like this book if you can get past the trite nature of the teenage romance.

This month’s book club selection was a bit different than the normal literary fare for our group.  The Man in My Basement by Walter Mosely weaves the tale of an African-American man, Charles, in his mid-thirties whose involvement in the world around him has diminished to practically nothing.  He has no family, has lost his job, alienated his friends and is in serious danger of loosing his familial home.  Having done questionable things during his previous employment, he has been blacklisted and is unable to find work.  He drowns his sorrows as many have done before him, but is soon presented with a unique opportunity.  An older white gentleman, Mr. Bennett, arrives on Charles’s doorstep with a proposition, allow him to spend the summer in Charles’s basement and be handsomely compensated, but no one can know of the arrangement.  Averse to the idea and made uneasy by the white man, Charles turns him away, but eventually gives in to the scheme due to his desperate circumstances.  Charles does not understand the details of what is to come, this is no ordinary landlord and tenant relationship, but more of a warden-prisoner arrangement that will make Charles question his life, his prospects, and leave him unimaginably altered by the experience.

Scholars of race relations will undoubtedly find a great deal of symbolism in this story.  Charles is the descendant of free black people who were never slaves.  In preparing the basement for Mr. Bennett, he discovers a treasure-trove of his family’s history, though it takes a great deal to make him see the worth of these items that have so long been collecting dust.  Mr. Bennett, though white, is hiding his true identity to pass in the world.  His reasons for seeking out Charles and the basement dwelling are initially vague and ultimately disturbing.  The ending of the book is a little difficult to believe and though fundamental changes have been made to Charles and his way of life, we are ultimately left questioning how he will interact with the world.

Though interesting, this book was not exactly my cup of tea.  Definitely for a mature audience, there are some parts of this novel that I found not only unpalatable but pointless.  The main problem is that the author does not make us care about the characters.  They are both so flawed, and Mr. Bennett initially so vague, that instead of building intrigue through mystery, the author fails to make us invested in them.  The story is blessedly short, and not particularly complicated; therefore it is a quick read.  If you are interested in racial studies, you may find this story enlightening, otherwise you will probably want to skip this book.