Had to do it

Started Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert the other day and the following really spoke to me:

"But I disappear into the person I love. I am the permeable membrane. If I love you, you can have everything. You can have my time, my devotion, my ass, my money, my family, my dog, my dog's money, my dog's time - everything. If I love you, I will carry for you all your pain, I will assume for you all your debts (in every definition of the word), I will protect you from your own insecurity. I will project upon you all sorts of good qualities that you have never actually cultivated in yourself and I will buy Christmas presents for your entire family. I will give you the sun and the rain, and if they are not available, I will give you a sun check and a rain check. I will give you all of this and more, until I get so exhausted and depleted that the only way I can recover my energy is by becoming infatuated with someone else." (p 65).

Minus #1 That I do not, as is suggested immediately following this passage, take on the personality characteristcs of my significant other and #2 I do not move on to become infatuated with someone else because I am still throwing myself into the first person - this is me.

Reading it so perfectly laid out it was as if I sat down and wrote it myself. That is what I do, that is what I have done, that is what I need to stop doing. I need to have a relationship with myself that would fit this description. I need to try at least. I've been the cheerleader (and a part of me always will be), but I am going to start/continue cheering for myself first and let everything else fall into place. Because if you are literally pouring yourself into someone else they either A. become that person and resent you for changing them or B. They don't change and you feel drained, exhausted and like a failure and you resent them or C. Just take and take and take until you have absolutely nothing left to give.

I would have never bought this book for myself and am so delighted it was bought for me. Once again, skeptic book snob me was proven wrong. And once again I am so happy it happened.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Love love loved this book by Lisa See.

It is about a unique relationship in 19th C China between two young girls who are "laotong" aka old sames.

The book focuses on their growing relationship and the way in which they communicate. Little known fact, there is a language in China, which is adapted symbols and relies heavily on phoentic interpretation that is the only language used exclusively by women.

Their language both binds and destroys the two girls' relationship.

Being a woman with a very close friend, who I now consider my old same, this book was extremely relatable. The (off)centre focus is a misinterpretation of their writing and how it dramatically changes their friendship.

I especially liked the contrast between Lily - who very much follows and wants to stay true to tradition and Snow Flower who is quite the opposite. It seems that Lily cannot understand this aspect of Snow Flower and tries to impose on her her style of thinking to solve her problems.

This book taught me a lot about Chinese culture in the 19th C, and also about how time may change but the dynamics of basic human relationships never do.

Just a Thought

I was talking with a friend the other day about a book called Clara Callan, about a woman, but written by a man.

I have always found it interesting when a book's protagonist is the opposite sex of the writer. Especially when those books are written in the first person. It brings up the issue of whether or not they have the "right" to write these things, how can they know how a woman's/man's mind works?

Yet at the same time, many authors write about subjects and experiences that they themselves have not gone through. Yes they may have researched the topic extensively and written other people's accounts, but for some reason the issue of gender really strikes a chord with me.

I understand they can even be the argument that author's write about character's with a mental disorder which they have not suffered through, which is arguably not much different than writing outside of their gender.

Many authors, and I can only speak for males on this, are shockingly good at capturing the female pysche. I often wonder, HOW? How can they relate and write so eloquently well feelings and thoughts which I myself have had.

We all know that women and men think very differently, feel differently and experience differently. But if this is really the case, how can a man write a woman so well, or a woman a man?

Perhaps we aren't so different at all. All I know is that I will forever be amazed by the male authors who seem to have read my own mind.

The Ash Garden

I'm currently on the tail end of a wonderful book called The Ash Garden by Dennis Bock. Quick note, he is a Canadian writer, which I am super exicted about because at times they seem to be few and far between.

This book takes a look at the affect the H-bomb had on three different lives. A young girl who is scarred by the bomb and looses most of her family. A scientist who took part in developing the bomb, and his wife who evacuated her home.

The book neatly weaves these three stories together as it has the young girl eventually interviewing the scientist, and also takes a look at how his wife deals with him before and after the bomb drops.

What really strikes me is how well Dennis explores the different ways people can be affected by the very same event. It also plays with the notion of necessary evil and how exactly one defines that term

What I am really loving is how much each character learns from the other. Where this is especially clear is in the relationship between the young Japanese girl and the scientist. The "villian" and the "good guy" if you would. I love how well he illustrates the struggles the scientist has to go though.

Think about it, what is worse:
Having to deal with being a part of the bomb that created so much destruction and took so many lives in so many ways...
or
Having to think about what the war would have looked like if the bomb was never dropped.

We can never really know how each person in this situation dealt with, and continues to deal with the aftermath, but Dennis has certainly tried to shed some light.

Happy Reading

Updates Soon!

I have been so busy reading lately that I have forgotten to update here!! This is what happens when one get sucked into a/many books!!

Finished Child of my Heart, interesting ending - don't really want to give too much away. Not too sure yet how I feel about it.

Recently read a fictionalized version of the pirate Anne Bonn - highly suggest. It made me want to travel the seas, plunder for treasure and live the life of a pirate. And the fact that it is about a strong independent (even for today's times let alone hundreds of years ago) woman made it all the better.

Now reading The Worlds Within Her. Weaves the stories of a mother, her daughter - present and past for the daughter which is kinda cool and confusing at the beginning. Love how each chapter is a new viewpoint and yet how they all tie together.

Read over 500 pages since I last updated (over three books) so you can see why I haven't been on here!!

Happy Reading!

Child of My Heart

Currently 50 pages short of finishing Child of My Heart. Its one of those books which its hard to say "what its about". I guess you could say it is about a 15 year old girl who lives in a summer town and baby/dogsits for most of the neighbourhood.

Its also "about" her cousin Daisy (8) who comes to stay with her for a while. Daisy who has mysterious and long lasting bruises, fevers and other things that are really making me worry she has leukemia.

This book has been a slight challenge for me, mainly because there aren't chapters per se and the breaks between what I am going to call days are long. And sometimes there are random things that happen where I start to tune out if you will, but I really don't want to because I know that there is something inherently important about what is going on.

I know it is starting to sound like I don't like this book, but I am actually enjoying it. It is written in a different style than I usually read and is almost like a day to day diary of the first person narrator.

I am definitely, for lack of a better word - excited, to see what ends up happening, really really hoping this one doesn't end in tears.

Coming of age - that's one way to describe it.

Taking Chances

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I recently visited a book sale that allowed me to fill a bag of books for $5. And since this was such a steal, I decided to not only buy books that I was 100% interested in, but also ones that I had even only a slight interest in. It was a very "why not" attitude in hopes that I would be lucky and find something to fall in love with that I would not normally pick up.

I'm not going to say I have fallen in love with the book I am currently reading, but it is definitely better than I thought it would be.

Currently reading: The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank.

I have to say I was thrown off by the amount of breaks in each chapter. The chapters are 20-40 pages long, but there are periods where maybe each page is sectioned off two or three times. This was a little off-putting at first, but also made the book easy to put down - and I mean this in the best way possible. Usually it is hard to find a place to stop in books and I end up reading forever and ever. This book allows me to stop with ease and not have to memorize what part of the page I am on.

Another interesting thing about this book is that each chapter skips to a totally different part of the narrator, Jane's, life. The fist chapter she is an early teen, then later she is in university, then in her 30's with a child. There is no straight line narrative carried throughout the book - and by this I mean often many years are skipped, but Jane luckily remains delightfully the same.

I'm about halfway through right now and am still trying to grasp who Jane is and what has made her so sarcastically similar to me.

Happy Reading :)

So Many Books, So Little Time

I guess you could say I am "back". I got the writing bug all over again recently and decided to put it to good use!!

I am also back to reading back at my regular pace. What with all the volunteering, working and travelling I've been doing lately my reading had slipped from a couple books a month to maybe one if I was lucky.

But now that I am back on the reading track as it were, I am really excited to share what I've been delving into!!

Right now I am reading Snow Falling on Cedars. To be honest, it was bought on a whim at a fill a bag for $5 sale I went to, where I managed to pick up 13 books!! At first I was really not into this book at all. But after the first 50 pages I was so into it I got through over 200 in the next 2 days!

There is a soft calmness about this book. Much like the snow softly falling on the trees outside the courtroom where the center of the drama is taking place.

I am also really enjoying how Gutterson is weaving in more than 4 stories and backgrounds of some very captivating characters. He also has a gift for stopping each individual narrative at just the right time, and consistently has left me wanting more.

Another aspect that has drawn me in is how the story is played against WWII and the extradition of Japanse Americans from their home. This coupled with the "present day" post-war feelings towards those of Japanses descent in small town America really provides a unique view into how ethnic minorities are treated in times of uncertainty.

Though I am only half-way through the novel I can already safely say this is one I will suggest to others. Its also one that will make me watch the movie adaptation even though they always fail to compare - in my opinion at least.

Happy Reading!