The Grass is Singing - Doris Lessing

The book begins with the murder of Mary Turner, the wife of Dick Turner who is a white farmer in colonial Africa (Rhodesia which later became Zimbabwe) in the early 1900s. Then we find out what lead to Mary’s tragic fate by learning about her childhood with an abusive father and an oppressed and depressed mother. Her young adult years give a picture of a fairly confident and independent woman working in an office in a city, supporting herself and enjoying city culture with cinema, romance novels and lots of parties and friends (although shallow). Eventually out of peer pressure and advancing age, she marries Dick, a stranger, and moves out to the country to live a life in poverty and madness on his barely sustainable farm. The most interesting aspect of the story is the relationship between master and slave—all the white farmers use and abuse African workers who are paid little to nothing and who have virtually no rights under the white man’s rule. The Africans, or natives as they are referred to in the book, are viewed and treated more like animals than humans even though without them, the white farmers’ lives and riches would not be possible. Therein lies the complexity; the whites have to continue to treat the natives like slaves in order to justify their ownership and cultivation of acquired African land. Newcomers must learn this. Poor whites, like the Turners, threaten to upset this racial balance and erase the line between white and black. The book leaves several questions unanswered. For example, was Mary intimate with her houseboy Moses? What were his motives? How much did her husband understand? This book is a 9. By the way, Doris Lessing just received the Nobel Prize in literature.

Shanghai Diary - Ursula Bacon

The story, a memoir, of a young Jewish girl fleeing an affluent life in Germany to escape the Nazis during WWII was interesting from a historical perspective for me. I had never known much about the fate of the refugees in Shanghai, China, before. I learned that they were actually bombed by the Americans intending to stamp out Japanese activity, which I never knew, and that for years they lived in squalor and had to wait several years after the war was over to receive their visas to travel to the United States or other countries. Some of the details of her daily life, thrust into such different culture from her own, were interesting as well. Other than that, the book is supposed to read like the diary of a ten-year-old girl during the subsequent seven years of her life, but the voice is not a girl's. The reflections and descriptions seem to mature like an older person's thoughts but the text is interspersed with parts like "Oh, grownups! They can be so strange sometimes. I don't understand how they are thinking." It gets annoying to read. The best parts were the various wise words of a Chinese-British man, her friend, on a spiritual journey, "You will be able to capture your childhood from within, and you will sweeten it with the wisdom of your years. We are everything we have ever been, only more so. We are our own work." or "Dear friend, always remember. We come here to stay. We come here to go." I rate this book a 5.

Teach like your hair's on fire - Rafe Esquith

A teacher, who spends most of his free time and money to coach his poor inner LA fifth-grade students to become better people and students, writes about how some of the magic happens in his classroom. Esquith's daily schedule is rigorous and he never takes vacations; however, his students learn and grow in amazing ways under his tutelage which is payment enough for him. The most amazing thing he does is the annual and complete Shakespeare play the students put on. I would love to see it! Apparently, some of his classes have toured and performed in far away places. There's got to be a video. Hm. I must check. Anyway, his writing and methods are inspiring even though he probably is insane. Or at least his wife must be by now. This man must not have a life outside of his elementary school! His job is his life, which turns out to be quite fullfilling in his case. When did he have time to write this book?

The Magician's Assistant - Ann Patchett

Sabine is a detached unlikeable 40-ish woman living alone in a large home in LA after the death of her husband Parisfal. Well. Husband is debatable. They had been married for a year by the time of his death but never had sex because he was gay. Before his death, he was in a committed relationship with a man, Phan, and the three of them lived together in Phan's house. Phan had died 5 years earlier. Parsifal was a magician and Sabine was his assistant for 20 years or so. Upon his death she discovered that Parsifal had a family she never knew about, his mother and siblings lliving in Nebraska. Anyway this book is a drag pretty much until the end. The ending almost makes up for some of the snail pace and predictable dullness of the story line as well as the numerous insufferable syrupy dream sequences. I will have to muster up some willpower to pick up one of Patchett's other books, e.g., Bel Canto which is supposed to be splendid. A weak 5.

This is not Civilization - Robert Rosenberg

Fun story following a young restless American, Jeff Hartig, as he spends a year in the Peace Corps on an Apache reservation and two years teaching English in an isolated village in Kyrgyzstan. Characters from these years later converge during an earthquake when Jeff has a job in Istanbul, Turkey. Lively descriptions of exotic customs, foods and locales fill the book. Interesting people cross his path. However, Jeff himself is a selfless aimless kind of character who is hard to like. There's no explanation or resolution of his restlessness while the other people seem to find their places. The opening line can't be beat, "The idea to use porn films to encourage the dairy cows to breed was a poor one." It's an 8.

Honeymoon in Purdah - Alison Wearing

A female Canadian travel writer goes to Iran with a male gay friend pretending to be a married couple on their honeymoon. The book came out in 2000. I think the actual trip took place in 97 or so. I particularly liked her descriptions of how she experienced being covered at all times. Her full-length black manteau is outfitted with big shoulderpads in order to fall straight down and not reveal any curves. Her headcover is a slippery scarf with a clip that she and other women struggle to keep in place sometimes with the help of their teeth. She writes about the heat and sweating profusely under all the layers of fabric but also about the freedoom of being invisible under her cloak as she is sitting in the corner of a temple or walking down a busy street. The most lasting impression of the Iranian people, as experienced and conveyed by her, is the overwhelming friendliness of the warmhearted Iranian people. Strangers invite them in, feed them, entertain them, and drive them around everywhere they go. The Iranian people's questions are always about America, "Are people bad in America?" and "Do Americans hate us?" They are always relieved to find out that Wearing and her "husband" are not American but Canadian. Hm.... Very enjoyable. 8.

Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen

Very entertaining! Easy and quick read. Jacob, a veterinary student, loses his parents to an auto accident right before his final exams and ends up penniless and bereft on a circus train during the depression. He becomes the circus veterinarian and cares for an assortment of exotic animals including Rosie the elephant. As much as the details of circus life is interesting and appalling, the story is really about an old man in a home looking back at a wild period in his life during which he meet his wife Marlena, an equestrian circus star. My only complaints are that Jacob seems to be too good and noble, defending and caring for everyone. He would be more interesting were he more flawed i.e. more human. Also, this is a love story where they live happily ever after which is very Hollywood--a movie will most certainly follow. Gotta love the ending though. The guy runs away and joins the circus for the second time in his life! It's a 7.

The Alchemist - Paul Coelho

I had high expectations and was looking forward to reading this book about an Andalusian boy, Santiago, pursuing his dream of finding a treasure in Egypt. Sounds exotic enough. The hype around how inspirational it is supposed to be turned out to be just that, hype. Omens, elixirs, and legends just don’t do it for me especially packaged in a simple tale without much dimension to characters or settings. The language of the book is unadorned and it actually reads more like a fable. The Christian messages are too strong; god will tell you what to do if you only just listen to your heart. OK. Maybe I am crass, but enlisting god in pursuing a dream of finding a treasure seems selfish and materialistic. I wish his dream had been greater and nobler. Maybe I just don’t understand the symbolism… Right. The complexity of the book is not exactly daunting. Trite and preachy. 4.

The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls

Great read. Talk about dysfunctional familiy! The hardship of poverty and the lunacy of the author's parents get worse by the page making it difficult to put down. It is hard to believe that kids can emerge seemingly unscathed out of a childhood such as Jeannette Walls'. Actually, it would be really interesting to know how much therapy she and her siblings have been in as adults, especially Maureen. This memoir depicts a family where the children's unconditional love for their crazy (mother) alcoholic (father) parents survives poverty and immense adversity. Despite the drunken rages and irresponsible and deceptive ways, the father also is bright and loving and teaches his kids to appreciate learning. I wanted to dislike the parents--more the mother than the father--but Walls' love for her parents is unyielding and they remain likeable characters despite their appalling behavior and hideous shortcomings. I did wonder about the richness of details in the book; does she actually remember her childhood accurately or is it ficionalized? I have no memories of being three years old! However, it almost doesn't matter. The book is still enjoyable. It's a 9.

My Life in Orange - Tim Guest

Tim Guest writes about growing up in a commune. When he was 6, his mom joined a cult centered around the teachings of Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. He spent his childhood wearing orange clothes and missing his mother, who was busy leading therapy groups and spreading the word of Bhagwan. Tim, or Yogesh, was raised by various adults around the commune. His story is painful as he describes being sent around the world according to the whims of his mother or wishes of the commune leaders. He spent time in England, India, Germany and Oregon and felt rootless and lost most of the time. His schooling was spotty as was his diet and care. The kids of the communes seemed to mostly take care of themselves as Baghwan taught their parents not to set limits on their children's unspoiled minds. The information about the life and rumors of Baghwan and the orange-clad "sannyasins" (disciples) in leadership positions in the organization was fascinating. Such corruption! When Baghwan was jailed, on tax evasion and entering the U.S. under false pretenses, he owned 93 (yes...93!) Rollsroyces, a couple of planes, land, gold, and jewelry. All paid for by his followers who slaved away in communes around the world hanging on this man's every word and following his every whim and notion... Yikes. It's a 6.

Stubborn Twig - Lauren Kessler

I don't know why I hesitated to read this book, a historical chronicle of true events. Maybe it was the look of it and the size of the font, the textbook quality about it. It was indeed written by a professor at the University of Oregon. However, once I started I was engrossed in the story of the Yasui family. The book chronicles three generations starting with Masuo, a Japanese immigrant, arriving in the United States in 1908. He setttled in Hood River (right up the road from me!) and built an empire around a grocery store and fruit orchards as well as various and numerous other enterprises. He raised a family and worked incredibly hard to become an accepted member of American society and almost believed he had succeeded when World War II began. Anti-Japanese sentiment had been mounting and Pearl Harbor unleashed a flood of racially based discrimination culminating in interment camps throughout the West. Yasui was imprisoned on false grounds of being a dangerous alien spy. Most of his family were sent to camps. The book describes the difficulty of acculturation as it pertains to the Japanese in the U.S. during an ugly period of time. It describes the duality of living a Japanese life at home while being immersed in American culture elsewhere, the close ties and strict boundaries of Japanese family life as opposed to the rights of the individual of the American culture. Great book. It's an 8 (close to 9) for sure.

The Feasting Season - Nancy Coons

This is a silly book about an inane woman having a inane love affair with an inane man. Meg is an American writer married to a Brit, Nigel, and living in France. It's hard to understand why she ever married him because he belittles and patronizes her and doesn't do his share of household work or spend time with their children. Then she goes off and has an affair with an unattractive chainsmoking selfish French photographer. It is all very predictable like a bad romance novel, which is almost the category where this book belongs. On top of it, the writing style gets old. It's a first person narrative in a journal format almost hour by hour or blow by blow, literally. Yeah. A little too graphic on some details. Like Meg cleaning herself in a bidet after having sex with the chainsmoker. You have to really love all things French to appreciate that... It's a quick ready though but only a 3.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami

"A well without water. A bird that can't fly. An alley with no exit."
Phew. And a book with no ending and no answers.... The Wind-up Bird Chronicle took me quite some time to get through, and I am a fast reader! It took me a while because every word and every sentence seem to be important in order to understand the overall picture and mystery of the unfolding story of Toru Okada, an unemployed married 30-year-old man in a Tokyo suburb. The story is a period in his life of big changes--his cat disappears and then his wife Kumiko leaves him. Interwoven with his story are other tales which are intermittenly tangential tales of other people's fates and intermittently stories or events relevant to his life or circumstances. Various characters appear and disappar in a dreamlike fashion. Some of Toru Okada's experiences seem like hallucinations. But hallucinations that leave permanent physical scars like a mark in his face from "passing through a wall." He is described as an ordinary unremarkable nobody, but his reactions to the environment and his actions (e.g., climbing into a deep dark dry well for extendend periods) are not ordinary nor are any of the other characters or their actions. Reading this book was at times compelling and at times both annoying and amazing. It is like partaking in somebody's hallucinatory dream of good and evil. It's intriguing and a 6.

Anagrams - Lorrie Moore

Lovesick and evil sock. Cool. I did enjoy some of the anagrams in Anagrams. Unfortunately, the book contains too many quips and quick standup comedy-type jokes for my taste. It’s a solid 4. The main character is Benna whose life is dispensed in bits and pieces of reality and imagination interspersed with some wittiness and mostly bad jokes. It's like the author collected all the funny lines she came across and strung them together in a story. The mixed together reality and imagination bits make the book a little hard to follow in the beginning. The story of Benna, despite the jokes and word play, is sad with her imaginary friend and daughter and troubled love life, but the ending is downright gloomy. Here’s a taste of the despondency, “They had, finally, the only thing anyone really wants in life: someone to hold your hand when you die.” Or how about this quote:
Sunday is always a bad day. A sort of gray purgatory that resembles a bus station with broken vending machines.
And now I'm so blue I feel like poking my eyes out with the potato peeler...

The Human Stain - Philip Roth

A book full of lies. I am not even sure the ending is not a lie by the author in the story, Mr. Zuckerman. As Coleman himself says at one point, “there is no closure.” Hm. Strange. The story is too neatly packaged at the end, coming full circle. Hm. A lie? This book was hard to get into. I almost put it down several times because it seemed to ramble and go off on tangent topics like the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, which in the end still made sense. It was the era and it was included because of the powerful men, sex, and lies connection. The Human Stain. We are tainted by our humanity and one powerful man was almost taken down by one human stain. Coleman Silk, in book, was taken down by one word, spook. He was a pale black man who lived his life as a white person, a Jewish white person, and cut off contact with his family. He was a professor at a lily-white college. Lily-white is a word used on two occasions in the book. I did like this book. It is wordy and long and full of intellectual reflection and almost preachy in its rambling at times. Not a book for idle summer beach blanket enjoyment. Interesting racial issues. My rating is 7 (of 10). As a linguist I also have to admire the impossibly long sentences, sometimes extending over a full page. Amazing.

Life is Meals - James and Kay Salter

Did you know that the Aztec word for testicle was ahuacatle?? That's where the name of the avocado came from and it was believed to be an aphrodisiac. And that the word for chocolate came from the Mayan word tchocolatl. Anyway, after I got used to the format of "Life is Meals", it seemed to improve. Originally I had thought the book would contain actual chapters and perhaps short stories. But it is organized as a calendar with 365 entries, one for every day. It was interesting to read but not amazing in any way. Some of the information seemed old and lifted out of a book of quotations or birthdays of famous people. Some entries are actual little anecdotes from dinner parties that the husband and wife authors have held and recipes and menus are included. My rating would be 5 (out of 10 possible). Obviously, I did come across a bunch of interesting facts such as the bergamot in my Earl grey tea is oil from an inedible but fragrant citrus fruit from Calabria. And this cracks me up... the writing on a sign that could be found in bars in France in the '40s and '50s:

La vie moyenne d'un buveur d'eau: cinquante-six annees.
La vie moyenne d'un buveur de vin: soixante-dix-sept annees.
Choisissez-vous.
(Average life of a water drinker: 56 year. Average life of a wine drinker: 76 years. You choose.) Brilliant! :-)

Then We Came to the End - Joshua Ferris

I had heard that “Then it Came to the End” is a funny book about people in an ad agency during a period of layoffs. How interesting can that really be?? It seemed more like the premise of a sitcom. The book actually turned out to be better than I first had anticipated, maybe a 7. It took a while to get into because of the little information that is given about the characters. I found it hard to care for them or about them for the longest while. Ferris writes the book in a first person plural perspective (we), which is an important tool for the feel of the story and definitely for how the book ends. However, partway through the book, he switches to first person singular to relate the story of the nebulous boss Lynn and her illness. From then on the characters seem to have more clarity. They—Tom who writes deranged emails, Genevieve who is stunningly beautiful, Benny who is liked by all, Karen Woo who is disliked by all, Old Brizz who is the old smoker pitied by all, and many more—are all crazy in some way but normal at the same time just like most of us. It is as if they are all stereotypes rather than real people, and maybe that is exactly why I found it difficult to care for them at first. They are all stuck in their jobs needing the paycheck but probably wanting to leave. Whenever somebody actually leaves their job, one guy always remarks while toasting, “So good luck, and fuck you for leaving, you prick!“

The Year of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion

This book happened to be the first one for no particular reason. It was just on the pile of my books to read. It was one of the ones I recently received an email from the library about impending due date. On a scale from 1 to 10, I would give this book a 6. It's well-written by a proven author. However, the topic, the true story of her coping with grief after the loss of her husband of 40 years (John Gregory Dunne--also a writer) and her daughter's illness, is too up close and personal. Although it is a universal topic, it is too intimate for me at this point in time. I may return to this book at a later time in my life. Didion quotes lines of poetry dealing with grief and death and these stayed with me:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum,
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

They are the "Funeral Blue"s lines from The Ascent of F6 by W.H. Auden.