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August 01, 2007
Books I Read In Between Frantic Attempts To Be Productive
New Total: 128
Best American Travel Writing 2006
Edited by Tim Cahill
Publishers Weekly: Declares Cahill (Jaguars Ripped My Flesh) in his introduction to the seventh edition of Houghton's annual collection, "Story is the essence of the travel essay." So perhaps it's no surprise to see several contributions from writers with literary reputations. Gary Shteyngart revisits his native St. Petersburg for the holidays; George Saunders takes a surreal journey through Dubai; and Alain de Botton explains why he loves "boring and bourgeois" Zurich so much. But more traditional travel writers make their presence felt as well. Outside columnist Mark Jenkins hikes across the steppes from Afghanistan into China; in another article from that magazine, Michael Behar finds himself getting shot at by natives in the rain forests of West Papua. Airplanes come in for a lot of ribbing: P.J. O'Rourke jokes his way through a sneak peek at the jumbo-sized Airbus A380, while David Sedaris bears the resentment of his seatmate on a crowded flight after refusing to switch places with her husband. In a charming touch, the anthology begins and ends with stories about food: Chitrita Banerji's reflections about a Calcutta wedding feast are book-ended by Calvin Trillin's marvelous New Yorker piece about spending a week in Ecuador indulging his love for "thick and hearty" fanesca soup, a perfect mix of exotic locale and elegant prose.
My Review: This book was a birthday gift from Ms. Wish to See and I brought it with me to Key West back in June. There is something about reading travel writing while on vacation (especially on a sun-soaked beach on the longest day of the year) that makes the prose extra good--not that this book needed it. The stories were hysterically funny, touchingly poignant, full of derring-do, and overall an excellent way to spend a day on the beach (even if I did forget to reapply the sunblock).
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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
by JK Rowling
Amazon: The heart of Book 7 is a hero's mission--not just in Harry's quest for the Horcruxes, but in his journey from boy to man--and Harry faces more danger than that found in all six books combined, from the direct threat of the Death Eaters and you-know-who, to the subtle perils of losing faith in himself. Attentive readers would do well to remember Dumbledore's warning about making the choice between "what is right and what is easy," and know that Rowling applies the same difficult principle to the conclusion of her series. While fans will find the answers to hotly speculated questions about Dumbledore, Snape, and you-know-who, it is a testament to Rowling's skill as a storyteller that even the most astute and careful reader will be taken by surprise.
My Review: I scarfed down this book in a single reading (10 p.m. Saturday to 6 a.m. on Sunday) and laughed and cried and thoroughly enjoyed myself. But as time goes on, I think I am becoming less impressed with the finale. It was a bit like "Harry Potter on Ecstasy"--there was just too much going on. I mean, did we really need Horcruxes AND Deathly Hallows? Did *every single* character in the preceding 13,000 pages need to show up for the final battle scene? Did she have to go the extra mile and make sure that we knew that Harry and Ginny get married? Don't get me wrong, I still loved it--but felt like a little more editing could have been useful...there was enough for books 9, 10, and 11 here.
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Foreign Babes in Beijing: Behind the Scenes of a New China
by Rachel DeWoskin
Publishers Weekly: DeWoskin moved to Beijing in 1989, shortly after the military squashed the democracy movement in Tiananmen Square, but just as China's younger population began embracing Western ideologies and commodities. This entertaining romp through her five-plus years in Beijing details her life as a PR consultant—and as the star of the wildly popular Chinese nighttime television drama Foreign Babes in Beijing. After getting the gig on a lark, DeWoskin became known, sometimes even in her real life, as the character Jiexi, an American who falls in love with a married Chinese man, in the 20-episode drama, which aired to an estimated 600 million viewers. Her memoir weaves humorous tales of Sino-U.S. culture clashes both on and off the set with astute observations of the two cultures, as well as a significant amount of Chinese history. Though she admits frequently to being homesick for New York, DeWoskin feels for the loss of more traditional Chinese culture: "Consumerism became a religion; companies arrived like missionaries... seducing the average Zhou Schmoe with products he had never known he needed." The book offers a generous helping of Chinese words (along with their English translations and insights into the young people's "Chinglish"), as well as Lost in Translation–esque glimmers of the differences between the Chinese and American acting worlds.
My Review: I was loaned this book by Ms. Secret Blog, and I secretly resisted reading it for two months. For some reason, the overall premise (an American woman starring in a Beijing soap opera writes her memoirs) just rubbed me the wrong way--and the title made it sound like the worst kind of chit lit. Well, Ms. Secret Blog, I admit that you were right and I was wrong--the book *was* good. I loved the insight into US-China relations and the reality that people tend to be the most patriotic when in another country. It reminded me of my week in Shanghai last year, my three summers in Japan, and the feeling of being out of place in a foreign country, and yet at home at the same time.
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Suite Francaise
by Irene Nemirovsky
Publishers Weekly: Celebrated in pre-WWII France for her bestselling fiction, the Jewish Russian-born Némirovsky was shipped to Auschwitz in the summer of 1942, months after this long-lost masterwork was composed. Némirovsky, a convert to Catholicism, began a planned five-novel cycle as Nazi forces overran northern France in 1940. This gripping "suite," collecting the first two unpolished but wondrously literary sections of a work cut short, have surfaced more than six decades after her death. The first, "Storm in June," chronicles the connecting lives of a disparate clutch of Parisians, among them a snobbish author, a venal banker, a noble priest shepherding churlish orphans, a foppish aesthete and a loving lower-class couple, all fleeing city comforts for the chaotic countryside, mere hours ahead of the advancing Germans. The second, "Dolce," set in 1941 in a farming village under German occupation, tells how peasant farmers, their pretty daughters and petit bourgeois collaborationists coexisted with their Nazi rulers. In a workbook entry penned just weeks before her arrest, Némirovsky noted that her goal was to describe "daily life, the emotional life and especially the comedy it provides." This heroic work does just that, by focusing—with compassion and clarity—on individual human dramas.
My Review: Holy crap, this was a powerful book. I stayed up late finishing it last night after being unable to complete it in time for my book club meeting. It wasn't that I didn't *want* to finish it, but it was often impossible to read more than a couple of pages before physically having to set it down because I was crying, or sick with fury, or perplexed as to how I would have reacted in such a situation. My favorite line: Important events--whether serious, happy or unfortunate--do not change a man's soul, they merely bring it into relief, just as a strong gust of wind reveals the true shape of a tree when it blows off all its leaves. This is a book that I will go back to on cozy winter evenings, and will serve as a reminder about the REAL hardships of life.
Comments
I believe Mr. Public High School deserves more.
Posted by: Mr. Bad Apolgoies at August 1, 2007 08:37 PM
