Thoughts On ... Three Little Words by Ashley Rhodes-Courter

Sometimes I am reminded by how entirely unfair the world is to children, and how little protection the law actually provides to them. During her childhood, much happens to Rhodes-Courter as she is transferred from well-meaning relatives, foster care, a juvenile home, adoption, and beyond. Loquacious, whip-smart, and brave, Rhodes-Carter at first believes that her mother will reclaim her. At all points, people claim to help and care for her, with mixed results. Some, like the guardian ad litem who fights to get her out of legal limbo, are heroes, Other adults are downright Dickensian. Even Dave Thomas makes an appearance, and he seems alright. Many other people, like the mediocre social worker who deposits her at the most abusive home, remind me of people I'd rather forget. What I find remarkable about three little words is the honesty with which the author reveals the fears and doubts that underlined her wary interactions. Her story does not end when she is adopted (the happily-ever-after long promised), but also shows her transition into a new family, her pervasive fears of rejection (and the mistakes that result), and her later meetings with her mother. While her story offers many keen indictments of a system attempting to put the child's best interest first, I see it as a story whose key turning actions have a much negative space, a story about missing people, and the things people fail to do, and fail to say. This book attempts to fill that space with a voice that lingers long after the last page.

Thoughs on ... Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha

To read Siddhartha is to apprehend one kind of India, the kind where one can disappear from one life easily into another, the kind where an internet-free anonymity is possible. The main character goes through many lifestyles and abandons each one without a trace, and without any particular consequences. That kind of life does not really exist anymore, but no matter. It is romantic to think that it could.

Siddhartha reflects more influence from Hegel and ancient Greece than from the Ramayana or the Buddhavacana, which reflects the main character's own decision not to follow the path of his Brahmin father or of the Buddha, but to seek his own path. The dialogue between Siddhartha and his friend Govinda calls to mind the dialogue between Socrates and Plato. Siddhartha attempts to engage the actual Buddha in discourse to refine his ideas, but Buddha rejects the Socratic method with the nicest of verbal bish slaps. Siddhartha takes kind of a scientific approach to enlightenment, that is, he experiments a lot. And when one experiment is over, he peels out. His decision to become a person who lives by his own hands, self-reliant and kind of apart from the material world, is also romantic. It calls to mind another character drawn by Hemingway, except without the war scars. Overall a very satisfying read.

Thoughts On ... Haruki Murakami's Kafka On the Shore

Rare is the occasion when I close a novel and wonder, What the hell did I just read? Kafka On the Shore feels like a few hours spent chasing a deranged author through a maze to an ambiguous ending.

There are some books that are driven by characters, and other books that are driven by things like setting. This is a book about places and time (and other dimensions), not people. In a private library which is more like a mausoleum, one of the rarified places which Murakami portrays so well, a Tiresias-like character named Oshima muses on books and music which remain interesting because there's something tedious and frustrating about them. The discussion of the otherworldly forest, limbo village, the shore, and the library are worth the price of admission. The characters, however, are so mediocre as to make me want to throw my hands in the air.

The characters, especially Kafka, are so different that applying the categories of hero / villain make very little sense in the book. In the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, readers find a dream hero, a kind of schmuck who does something awesome in dreams or in a parallel dimension and thereby saves people in our world. In Kafka on the Shore, readers find a dream antihero, who does terrible things in dreams but for not-so-terrible reasons. The kid is set up, and Murakami gives him an out.

The book leaves open many questions. Who and what is Kafka? It's harder to identify with this strange teen than, say, the Holden Caulfield-like protagonist of Norwegian Wood. Kafka is an innocent killer, and, perhaps an innocent rapist. He seeks to overcome his Oedipal curse, which he does through a kind of dream-time exposure therapy. The only way to overcome a curse, apparently, is to go through the damn thing. That sounds okay, except that it involves hurting other people. Eh...overall this is a great meditation on what it means to choose and to be guilty, but there's little joy in this read.

Thoughts On ... Nicholas Carr's The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

Is the internet making you less human? Nicholas Carr's bestseller argues that this is so.  Reliance on the internet to remember things for us, like directions, may alter the chemistry and even shape of parts of the brain historically responsible for storing that information. By outsourcing memory, spelling, recitation, etc. to the internet, we risk losing the unique capabilities and capacity for memory that make humans very special. It is human to blame machines for the decline of culture, but Carr posits, this is just a lazy way of abdicating responsibility for the narrow, robotic world that we have created for ourselves. If people are fooled by Siri's and Her's that seem to pass the Turing test, it is because they subconsciously wished to be fooled. At least, this is my gloss on the book. Comments are welcome.

Anyone who has tried to has tried to search a fully digital archive without exact information can understand how limiting a future wholly reliant on internet search engines would be.  It's impossible to get the kind of information from a computer that you could get from a good librarian or archivist. Yet, like the author, I cannot imagine a world without the internet. I am writing to you digitally, after all. Carr does not advocate a completely internet-less existence. His approach is more moderate, including the frequency of updates to specific intervals during the day.

With perfect timing, my access to the internet was limited for the past few days by an unexpected outage, possibly related to the Polar Vortex. This was a great time to test what life without the internet would be like. Would I have a sunnier outlook on life? Would I remember things more easily? Would I get to relax more? The answers were yes, yes, and no. At first, it was a struggle. Without the internet, I was unable to stream movies, skype with a friend in California, or look up random things on wikipedia. I kept forgetting that service was down, and feeling disappointed every time I reached for my smartphone. In some ways, not having access to the internet was extremely stressful, because I had to figure out how to do things the old fashioned way. But I admit, I felt better rested, happier, and sharper after just a couple days of limited access. Perhaps it was just a placebo effect; I don't have the desire or the willpower to try an internet-less existence for longer than 48 hours. Like taking a stroll in the mountains, taking a break from the internet is refreshing and probably good for one's health after acclimation. Yet I could not imagine living in the mountains for long.

Thoughts On... Anna Karenina

In literature, a love story is rarely just a love story. A love story is often a proving ground. In his Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke advises an aspiring poet and admirer to avoid the subject of love, until he has mastered his form enough to be able to handle it. Haruki Murakami, in writing Norwegian Wood, also understood the form of the love story as a stylistic challenge, in which to strip his work bare of surrealist bricolage.

Following the tapestry of human relationships that is War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina is epic. Yet, like Joshua Rothman and others, I do not view it as a love story. Characters express and explore love, between mothers and daughters (extensively), mothers and sons, friends and comrades, brothers, and of course, between spouses and would-be spouses. The piquancy of each relationship is given enough space that each relationship seems important, and a means unto itself. But love is often a source of misunderstanding and hurt feelings. Despite the unspoken financial and emotional dependency that characters may claim from each other, each character is assured of his or her own goodwill, so much that the insinuation of bad faith or self-interest hurts. An unfaithful husband is hurt by the possibility that his interest in his wife's property prompts his reconciliation with her. A faithful lover is hurt by the suggestion that he has grown tired of her. And a dutiful husband is hurt by the thought that he wishes to control the thoughts of his unfaithful wife. Truly the road to hell is well-paved. 

Often, the characters feel driven not by what they wish to do, but what they believe others expect of them. It is by losing faith in themselves and their partners, that they lose their humanity and deprive themselves of joy. Anna suspects Vronksy of loving her out of duty, and at once, their star-crossed relationship is shredded. 

While Anna's act of jumping in front of a train seems capricious, it seems driven by the need for certainty. It is an act that she cannot take back once the train has a hold of her, proceeding to dumbly do whatever machines do. Anna pretends to loathe machines, but at least she respects them for doing what they must. She talks of her husband, Karenin, as if he is a machine, disconnected and incapable of love. But he forgives her in stages, much to her utter disappointment. Ultimately a real machine, and not the human Karenin, is able to give Anna the release and vindication that her upright husband and devoted lover could not.

It is hard to imagine how love, devotion to one's family, and the desire to be valued, could lead to such a strong death wish as the one expressed by the main character. But Tolstoy makes no apologies. Interestingly, Vronsky leaves the memory of Anna for the battlefront. The book could have been titled, This is What Drove A Young Man to Volunteer for the Servians. But I am glad that it was not so titled, because I would like to believe that Anna Karenina's brief, wondrous existence was meant to matter. So many circumstances and petty fights could have led to a different outcome, one is tempted to say. But perhaps not! There seems to be no particular justice in the book regarding who lives and who dies. Do any of the characters deserve to suffer? Probably not. Yet they do, and with perplexing contradictions of temper. The notions of science, medicine, religion, and politics fall short of curing the characters of their sometimes overwhelming beliefs.

Anna's final moments involve a search for clarity and conviction, whereas the happy Levin's final appearance reveals that he does not share the thought which had so entranced him a moment earlier. Perhaps the secret to happiness is an embrace of uncertainty, limits, and the small weaknesses and hypocrisies of group life; a mere trifle before the altar of happiness. Tolstoy's work seems to say, all is fair in love and war.

Thoughts On ... Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In

Since reading Sandberg's thoughts on leadership among women, I have begun to see my work interactions differently. It is refreshing to see certain things put into print that I could never admit to myself. For example, no one would bat an eye if I brought coffee or doughnuts to a meeting. But if a male did it, it was a big deal.

I even look at the Harry Potter films differently. Why does Hermione get shut down by her professors for being a know-it-all, with regularity? As a person voted Biggest Kiss-Up in high school, I cringe at some of the comments that I endured when I raised my hand one time too many. How many young women have learned not to keep their hands up?

Back to the book:

Some of the findings posited in Sandberg's book, taken from McKinsey studies and other go-to factsheets, are quite interesting. Below is a small sample of points, by no means exhaustive.

1) Both men and women expect women to be more empathetic and accommodating than men (putting more demands on women's time than on men)

2) Men face uncomfortable connotations when sponsoring young women.

3) Men are hired based on potential, whereas women are hired based on past accomplishments.

4) Women who are viewed as less likeable, are also hampered in their efforts to be successful. Women who are successful, are viewed as more selfish, and therefore are less likeable. Damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

I am not going to debate whether the science behind these studies is rigorous enough to extrapolate these findings to the general population, i.e., whether or not these findings are empirically true. I am not a social scientist. I am, however,  inspired by the dedication and courage that it took for Sandberg to speak at length about a difficult topic. Too often, discussion about gender disparity in leadership feels like pointing fingers. Sandberg points out the discomfort and even mockery that the term "feminism" elicits. Sandberg makes clear that it's okay to be a feminist, and that it's okay to think about the real challenges to cultivating female leadership that exist simply because we are still discovering and trying to work out these challenges.

For example, I thought I knew that pregnancy had an impact on work life. But I had not heard of pregnancy parking before reading this book. I had not even thought of it. Thinking of the real drill that is morning sickness, it makes perfect sense to me to allow pregnant women spots near the entrance of the office. One of the problems that Sandberg discusses is "tiara syndrome", where women believe that by keeping their heads down and working hard, they will get the tiara that they believe that they deserve.

The tiara syndrome is particularly alarming to me, because it suggests that women are also preparing for a predetermined reward that is imaginary and inadequate. Keeping your head down means that you're not even looking around for the things that might really be needed, like pregnancy parking. Keeping your head down means that you're not bringing things to the table that are missing.

I would recommend this book to professionals trying to establish lives that they love, and not just female readers. Sandberg wisely addresses the hidden male equation of workplace equality, pointing out that men want their sisters, wives, and colleagues to be able to sit at the table. Moreover, any work that salutes men for stepping up in family and child-raising duties is a welcome addition.

I enjoyed Sandberg's empathetic talk, easily digestible statistics, and sensitive approach to personal growth for both women and men. I would recommend it to new graduates (both male and female), in particular, who can bring a fresh perspective to their own workplaces.

Thoughts On ... Lee Smith's Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger

Some books, you don't feel under your skin until you read them slowly. Lee Smith's short stories wait on you, until you have reached the right shuffle, speaking in tones of the White American South, but mostly in the tone that rises "above it all," like a well-kept bouffant. There are hardly any villains in the dramas that unfold, but regret gives sting to gentle stories like "Folk Art" and "Between the Lines."  I particularly enjoyed how the entire story in "Folk Art" turned upon one sentence, blurring the narrator's perception of the uncertain present, and the past that could have been. Truly wonderful.

Pedestrian occurrences like a holiday house tour lends itself to the surreal in "House Tour." Having recently attended a holiday house tour, I commend the author for seizing upon the potential for hilarity and surreal experiences during such a tour. There is nothing like walking among another person's things and admiring her everyday goods like it's a normal thing to do.

Some stories, like "Tongues of Fire" and the titular "Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger," reveal an uncertain connection between physical pain and spiritual revelation, one that seems less glamorous and self-congratulatory than martyrdom, in part because the narrators appear to be innocent of the consequences of that pain. Like a good improv, the stories go where I did not expect them to go, and everything turned out in the end. I feel as if I know the characters that flash in and out of the short stories, just as I know that it is not up to the reader or the narrator to "save" any of these characters from their own clearly-defined flaws.

From a technical standpoint, Lee's style reflects a great understanding of places by the feelings that they evoke. Sometimes a place, such as the beach, can be conjured best through images of physical movement and stillness, rather than a mere description of the beach.

As one might guess from the title, this collection of stories pays subtle homage to Austen's satire. The prose does not sparkle, but it has its own shine and gentility. No one is spared. Despite emphasis on purity at the center of each cameo, race and class remain at the edges. While some of the characters, particularly the men (who can be dark and handsome) are of indefinite coloring, the women take fairness for granted, and so does the Reader, up to a point. The terms "Negro", "little Chinese girls," etc. appear like the outer bounds of the picket fence. The narrators are different or special in some way that makes for a challenge. Some overcome, some accept, and some are left to make up their minds about the expectations others have set for them.

All in all, the book reflects a kind and big-hearted view of human foibles, without too many cumbersome words thrown in.

Welcome, Reader

To begin at the beginning, this blog is an outlet for all of the bookish ramblings that I choose not to foist anymore upon my loved ones, who are real and not imaginary, I swear to you, dear Reader. If you are reading this, you are probably 1) interested in books and ideas about books, 2) lost on the interwebs, or 3) a masochist. Be forewarned, many a very nice, hapless blind date has been buffeted by ramblings like the ones that follow. Really, how many nice, single young men can stand to hear about the hero cycle or Things That Annoy Everyone in literature, and laugh politely? I can tell you that... it's not many. But I like to talk about these things anyway. So I share these thoughts with you, dear Reader, in the hopes that you will find them amusing or at least good enough to read until the next episode of [...] airs on the BBC. 

 

My reading list is mostly fiction, but I look forward to scientific non-fiction, historical, and business/strategy/self-improvement books occasionally. There is no grand scheme dictating which books I will review, except that I happen to find the book novel and readable in a timely fashion. Given my habit of devouring books in secret, you may expect new material without undue delay.

What follows is not really a set of "reviews," in the sense that I will not be grading books. A book is not an invention that needs a scored review for performance according to established metrics. Books age much better than most things. I will not be measuring the heights of my emotional torment or moments of clarity triggered by a passage. I will talk about what I think a book is intended to achieve, and whether I think it achieved it. Or perhaps not. We'll see. Having systematic criteria is the hallmark of good science, but I am taking the Art Criticism approach here and I will assume that there is no objective means of measuring the greatness of a book, and therefore any pretense at a scientific comparison or scoring of a book means very little to me. I hope that you enjoy the following cries of amusement and lamentation and that you will feel free to put forth your own reading tidbits, if you are so inclined. And welcome!