When God was a Rabbit (Week 4/52)

I'm struggling to put into words how much I enjoyed this week's read, When God was a Rabbit by Sara Winman. I had intended to read this book a few years ago, when I was on my first epic read-a-thon, but as it was the year it was released, I was on such a long waitlist for the book that I didn't get it until the year was over and I was burned out from so much reading. So when NerdBoy and I started this read-a-thon, I made sure it was among the first books I requested from the library.

This book is a coming of age story about a young British girl named Elly and is divided into two sections. The first section covers Elly's childhood, from about four to twelve, and the second section picks up following a span of about 15 years shortly after Elly's twenty-seventh birthday. I like the book most I think for its dry British humour, beautifully delivered by Elly the narrator, and hidden in the youthful naivete of her character. I'm going to share some of my favourite sections in the hopes that you will read this book:

***

 He placed the box down on the table. I could smell the fecund dampness of straw. The box  moved jerkily, but I wasn't scared. My brother opened the flaps and pulled out the biggest rabbit I'd ever seen.
   'I said I'd get you a proper friend.'
   'It's a rabbit!' I said with piercing delight.
   'A Belgian hare, actually,' he said, rather brotherly.
   'A Belgian hare,' I repeated quietly, as if I'd just said words that were the equivalent to love. 
   'What do you want to call it?' he asked.
   'Eleanor Maud," I said.
   'You can't name it after you,' my brother laughed.
   'Why not?' I said, a little deflated.
   'Because it's a boy,' he said.
   'Oh,' I said, and I looked at its chestnut-brown fur and its white tail and the two little droppings that had fallen from his arse, and thought that he did indeed look like a boy.
'What do you think I should call him then?' I asked.
   'God,' said my brother grandly.
...
...

I held up the final picture of my rabbit to the bewildered faces of my classmates.
   '...And so at Christmas, god finally came to live with me,' I ended triumphantly.
   I paused, big smile, waiting for my applause. None came and the room fell silent, unexpectedly went dark; the overhead lights useless and straining and yellow against the storm clouds gathering outside. All of a sudden, the new girl, Jenny Penny, started to clap and cheer.
   'Shut up!' shouted my teacher, Miss Grogney, her lips disappearing into a line of non-secular hatred. Unknown to me, she was the product of missionaries who had spent a lifetime preaching the Lord's work in an inhospitable part of Africa, only to have found that the Muslims had got there first.

 ***

The second section lacks some of the magic and beauty of Elly the child's narration, but the character developments continue to be strong and the relationships meaningful and complicated. The main event of the second section felt like a bit of a stretch, one which was foreshadowed in an earlier chapter but was not necessary (I felt) for the progression of the plot. The strength of the characters saves it for me, but I wonder if others agree. Anyway, you should read the book. It's awesome. I'll end this post with one of my favourite quotes from the book...

'Two gin and tonics and a water for the fish,' said my brother for the fifth time that evening. He was dressed as Liza Minnelli, and looked really pretty until you saw that he hadn't shaved, either his face or his legs. When we left the house both my mother and father had shed a tear as their beloved son walked out into the cold night air dressed as a daughter, unsure as to what he might return as. That, my father would later say, was one of the unexpected gifts of parenthood.

Through Black Spruce (Week 3/52)

My books have finally arrived!

Or more accurately, I have finally made it to the library to pick up some books which are on my "to read" list...so this week, I read Joseph Boyden's Through Black Spruce, a made in Canada novel about the life of one modern anishnabe family living in northern Ontario. It won the ScotiaBank Giller Prize in 2008 and is apparently book two of a loose trilogy about the various members of the Bird family. I only learned of the trilogy after I read this so now I'm going to have to backtrack a little to try and hunt down the first book in the series, Three Day Road, which apparently is the story of Will's dad who fought in World War II. You would be correct in assuming that I enjoyed the book. In fact, I thought it was great! Refreshingly Canadian, honest in its discussion and portrayal of the many challenges faced by our rural Northern communities, but also beautiful in its unpretentious description of a way of life that is rapidly disappearing. Boyden's writing is a pleasure to read and the stoic persona of Will Bird a perfect fit to narrate an otherwise sad and lonely life story, albiet one with a fairly pleasant ending.

Anyway, go forth and read this, internet people! You will not regret it.

Icy Sparks, failure to launch (Week 2/52)

Last week you may have read my post about how I am embarking on a year long read-and-blog-a-thon with my partner-in-crime, NerdBoy, and thought, oh man, RamenGirl really had a rough start. Look at her trying to woo us with her stolen MagicEye image. I'm sure she'll settle into a routine now that she's two weeks in and have a plan for what she's going to read so we can have an actual book review about a book she cares about! Well, only part of that is true: I DO have a reading plan now! And I have books to read!! The problem is that because I am trying to be fiscally responsible with all this reading, so I'm taking most of the books on my read list out from the library, and unfortunately, wasn't able to get the book I was planning to read last week. Instead I ended up reading yet another book I found lying around the house, Icy Sparks by Gwyn Hyman Rubio. 

This book was named as an Oprah's Book Club Selection in 2001 and was left in the house by a friend. I read the cover and was encouraged: Icy Sparks is a coming of age story of a young girl with a difference in rural America. Through my year of excessive reading a few years ago, I realized that I liked coming of age stories, and I really liked reading about people overcoming personal adversity, so this book looked like a good fit. 

Unfortunately, it was not. I am trying to pin point why I didn't like it and I think it comes down to a few things (Warning, spoilers ahead!):

1) The book tries to do too much. Coming of age stories must be hard to write...they are about people at some of the most emotionally confusing times of their lives and usually involve a degree of additional drama. Writing about someone you know well, like yourself, is hard enough, writing about some fictional you just invented is like lighting a cigarette with a blowtorch...a little drama impresses people but too much and it ruins everything. 

COOL BEANS.

NOPE. TOO MUCH.

It felt like the author thought to herself, "Gee, what if I took that little blond girl from Forrest Gump that everyone loves, throw her in a different state, give her a fat friend, kill off a main character, add in some hillbilly religious rituals, oh, and let's give her a disability for good measure." While the first chapter held real promise, it just started feeling like the author had a theme for each chapter from there on in, and that overtook the storyline it self. 


One chapter on 'the treatment of individuals with developmental/mental health issues in hospital systems in rural Kentucky in the 50s', another on 'puberty and sexual discovery'....there is so much effort put into making the story feel authentic to the time period and culture - don't forget to mention JFK's presidential campaign! - that it ends up doing just the opposite, making the information feel forceful and distracting from some of the real strengths of the book, which is the genuine likeability of some of the main characters.


2) If you're going to write a book about a person with a disability...make sure spend just as much time talking about the challenges of living with that disability as you do about how you come to own it. If I had to sum up Icy Sparks in a few sentences, it would be something like this:

A little girl grows up in rural Kentucky and starts getting weird uncontrollable impulses that interfere with her life. She's institutionalized but nothing really happens and then somehow she is released with no real plan. Then she turns 13, learns about mensus, is charged up on hormones and gets sexually assaulted all within about 20 pages. Then someone she loves dies, she discovers church, learns to sing, and suddenly she has graduated from university with a Tourette's Syndrome diagnosis and is friends again with everyone. 

I'd draw you a 10 frame comic strip summary if I could draw. But I can't.

The taste that gets left in my mouth is that the author starts off with good solid intentions to write about the challenges of growing up in the 1950s with a mild disability, but then realizes that its hard work to write a book or gets tired writing about the same characters, and then throws together a "happily ever after" ending just to get it done. It's cheap and disrespectful. And from some of the book reviews I've read, those with Tourette's are not thrilled with how their disability is portrayed either.  

 

That being said, there were a few things that the author did well. Characters. Oh man, I wished she had chosen fewer characters and spent more time fostering our relationship with them because she introduced so many interesting and unique personalities that I felt had real potential to drive the story. However, because most were only around for the off chapter or side storyline, her use of them just ended up making the plot feel over crowded and the characters like tea made from overused leaves: weak. Also, food. I have seldom felt as hungry after reading as I did while reading this book. I have been craving fried chicken, dumplings, and other southern treats for a solid week now. God. Bless. American. Southern. Cooking. *drool*...and on that note, I'm off to eat!

GET INTO MY MOUTH! ALL THE CHICKEN! FOREVER!

Reading all the books. And blogging. In tandem.

NerdBoy and I are on a mission!

Or rather, NerdBoy is on a mission and I'm tagging along for the good of the blog. We are going to read (and blog) a book a week for the next year.

Now I love reading and I enjoy blogging, but a few years ago, I completed a completely absurd (and self-imposed) challenge to read 100 books in  a year and since then I've had trouble reading for pleasure. Knowing that it would be a rough start, I thought it would be a good idea to start with something easy and fun, so while on vacation in the land of tapas, I read this lovely little book called The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh which a coworker lent me before my trip. Alas, it turns out that NerdBoy is a stickler for rules and when I announced my intention to blog about this book, he informed me that because I finished reading the book before the read-a-thon officially began (also known as thedatewhenNerdBoyinformedsocialmediaofhisplantoreadandblogallthebooks) I was not allowed to use it towards the project. So, having limited time (and an expired library card) to pick out a new book, I turned to a book which has sat on my shelf for the past three years...Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children.

Confession: I have tried to read this book before. Several times in fact. And each time, I found myself so frustrated and confused by the writing/narration style that I gave up and consoled myself with something easy from Heather's Picks. If you've read or have attempted to read Midnight's Children, or have ever tried to read while inebriated, you'll know what I mean. This is not an easy read. The writing is detailed, dense, and utterly schizophrenic in its construct with regular interjections, interruptions, and interludes. However, with time working against me and motivation/desperation/pride on my side, I committed myself to finishing the book...all of two hours before the post deadline.

STAYING FOCUSED. LIKE A BOSS.

I don't know what people expect when they read a blog about a book some dude just read. Thoughts? Feelings!? ALL THE THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS!? But I googled "book blogs" and it turns out that people (like you!!) will read just about anything in blog format because there are legit internet folks who make a living blogging about the stuff they read in the real world. They even get books to review from publishers! So, since the internet says it's cool (and potentially profitable), I'm going to share some very brief thoughts about this book...

Here goes...

I work in mental health and as such am never fully successful in shutting off my work brain even when reading. So of course, the real puzzle for me while reading Midnight's Children was trying to figure out whether or not the protagonist (look! book words!) Saleem Sanai had a mental health disorder and whether or not his narrative was an extension or expression of his delusions. Now I know that this book is an example of magic realism and that structures which govern and divide our sense of reality are purposely disrupted in this genre. But I guess it speaks to Rushdie's skill as a writer (and my rigidity as a clinician and reader) that I could not read the narrator's story telling without labeling each thought or behaviour as tending towards schizophrenia, narcissistic personality disorder, or some type of delusion disorder.  Over labeling things take some of the fun and escapism out of reading and to be honest, I'm not sure that at the end of the day, I "liked' the book...but it certainly is a good reminder that sometimes, we need to let go of our need to make sense of our world because at the end of the day, reality is just another social construct. Just like this MAGIC EYE IMAGE! WHAT-UP GEN Y!!

** I should probably warn you that I just pulled this off of the internet so I really have no idea what the MagicEye is of and NerdBoy is rushing me to finish this post so I can't even try and dilute my brain to test this image out. Now you've been warned. I apologize ahead of time if it is offensive, lame or non-existent.

It has occurred to me that you might actually want to know what this book is about, so rather than waste time re-writing what way smarter and articulate people have written already, I'm going to redirect you to this link. There's also a movie version of this book for those of you who don't read books (*cough*Britto*cough) but if that's the case you wouldn't likely be reading this blog now would you?

It has also occurred to me that you might be interested in reading NerdBoy's read'n'blog-a-thon. Mostly becuase he's sitting next to me going "you should post my link in your blog. have you done that yet? people will want to read this. look, here's my link!" so here you go internet world, the highly nerdy (and often funny) blog words of NerdBoy...