Overdue but done: Literacy, 3

Here is the overdue literacy update!  I met my goal in time, however, I just didn't manage to sit down and write the blog about it, until now.

I had hoped I would have more to report for March. I had hoped it would be my first 4 book month of the year, but as it turned out, I am easily distracted. The book I thought would be my fourth got interrupted when I found a copy of Lovely Bones in my friend's house while snowed in. At the time, I thought I would be spending an entire week or more snowed into her house, and so I reasoned that it would be better for me to read Lovely Bones and then go back to my book, so that when it was time to leave, the book that I needed to take with me would be my own...however, we got evacuated 16 chapters into Lovely Bones, and I left it at her house.  So, sometime in the near future, I will be pursuing another copy of Lovely Bones.  Despite this, I did meet both my hard set goal-at least 1 new book a month- and my ideal goal- at least 2 books a month.

Unshaken: Rising from the ruins of Haiti's Hotel Montana by Dan Woolley and Jennifer Schuchmann was the first book to be taken down in March. Dan Woolley was one of the Americans working for Compassion International who got caught in the Haiti earthquake.  He and his photography partner had just walked into their hotel lobby, after an entire day traveling around Haiti, when the earthquake hit, and the 6 story hotel collapsed on them.  Dan found himself alone, and locked in a prison of shambles.  He made the decision to crawl into the open elevator, which very likely saved his life, however, shortly after making it into the elevator, an aftershock hit, and rubble closed him into the elevator, making his safe haven a prison at the same time.  Dan spent 65 hours under the hotel, and the book details his survival, but the majority, and best part of the book details what went through his mind, what battered his soul, and what led him up to this point in his life.  The book flashes between Dan in the elevator, and Dan's young marriage some ten or twelve years before, and dealing with his wife's sudden onset of severe depression.  My Mom posted after reading this book, "Besides being a good read about surviving being trapped in pitch dark for too long under a building it is also a very well written view into the life of depression. I think an especially good read for those who haven't lived it."

Amazingly, as intense and deep as this book can be, it does not feel heavy. There are some books I read that when I finish I am burdened with a lingering heaviness, an after taste of despair, because there was so much deep thought to muddle through.  Unshaken has that deep thought, but it did not leave me despaired, in fact, it left me energized with so many thoughts to think.  Believe it or not, though the book has its heart wrenching, thought provoking, seat gripping story to tell, it also has hope, and well placed humor.  Also, it is a quick read. Its thickness looks somewhat intimidating, but it moves fast.

So, would I recommend Unshaken to you? Most heartily, yes!  It is a great book, and though it is written by a Christian, I believe that even my non-Christian friends would enjoy this book.

After Unshaken, I took on Cane River by Lalita Tademy. I was excited, because I love historical fiction.  Sci-fi, modern day, political fiction, biographies, commentaries, mysteries are all great types of literature, however to me, reading one of those genres is like visiting some one else's house for the first time: it's fun, it's new, it's interesting, but it's not reflexively comfortable.  Reading historical fiction, on the other hand, is like going to Granny's house: a place to walk in, be hugged, kick off your shoes, find a couch with a sunspot warming it, grab a blanket and a bag of potato chips and belong.  Because of this comfort and haven I usually find in historic fiction, you must understand that Cane River disappointed me greatly. It was like being at a party, and realizing that while I had been invited, I wasn't really supposed to show up.  The book was boring and mechanical.  However, I have already written a full blog devoted to my disappointment in this book, and I did give a few positive points, so I will just conclude with this:  Would I recommend this book? Definitely, no.

After trudging through Cane River, I decided I deserved some candy reading, and I also realized that throughout this literacy challenge so far, I had not managed to visit some old favorites. This sent me straight to my parent's entryway bookshelf: the storage of all literature to ever be loved by anyone who has lived in that house.  What better reward for finishing a dull book than a Dahl book? 

The BFG by Roald Dahl has been a favorite of mine for almost as long as I can remember. When we were little, Mom used to pick a book and read them out loud to Jared and I.  I don't know if this was mainly done during the summer, but summer evenings are when I remember these reading times happening.  One of Mom's favorite authors is Roald Dahl, so usually, the book she picked was Roald Dahl.  I think that The BFG quickly became a favorite for Jared and me because it was so funny.  I mean, what kid between the ages of 6-11 would not love a book that has an entire chapter devoted to whizzpoppers? (For those of you who do not know, those are farts, and you need to go read The BFG, because that chapter still cracks me up, and you are being greatly deprived of happiness by not reading it.)  One thing I love about going back to read books from my childhood is that usually there were comments made about politics and life in general that were just plain hilarious, but I completely missed them when I was younger.  I guess perhaps the reason so many of my childhood reads are so enjoyable to the adult me is because often my books were picked/suggested by either my Mom or my Granny, and they like a good chuckle.
For those of you who don't know the plot, young Sophie could not sleep that night at the orphanage, and so she peeked out the window, and saw something she ought not. Soon she was kidnapped by a giant because of this, and the story goes from there, but I refuse to give away any more of the story than I already have!
Should you read The BFG? Yes. If you have never read this book, you need to break all speed limits (as safely and legally as possible) to your nearest book establishment and devour this book.  If you have read this book, but not in the past 5 years, should you reread it? I would suggest it!  In fact, you will likely see more Roald Dahl books popping up on this blog, because I have realized, I miss those books. I have already snagged Danny Champion of The World off my Mom's shelf for nearby future reading.

What is the reading forecast for April?
Well, I am about a hundred pages away from finishing Parrot & Olivier in America by Peter Carey.  I found it in Costco and couldn't resist(I do so love the Costco book section).
I have Danny Champion of the World by Roald Dahl on hand. I also just borrowed Out of the Ashes by Dr. Keith Phillips, which I am hoping to finish before this weekend, but we shall see about that.  Then there are the usual suspects that are hanging around my room, getting picked at, here an there.

That's pretty much it, for me. How is your reading?

Books and covers...(Literacy,2.5)

We have all heard the phrase, "Don't judge a book by its cover"  and usually we assume it's talking about ugly people. I am here to say, that it also applies to books with covers that look good.

Cane River, by Lalita Tademy, for example, is one of those books. I will admit it: When I saw this cover at the Goodwill Bookstore, it fell into my hand like it was metal and I was Magneto. Look at the cover.  

Doesn't that look enticing?  It looks like it is going to tell you a rich story, and pull you in and leave you wishing there was a sequel.  Not so much.  It is very roughly based on a true story...ish?  The author based it on her genealogy, after quitting her job to trace it. It started because of her great grandmother, Emily, who being genetically more white than black showed favoritism to her lighter grandchildren. The author felt a need to know what made Emily become Emily, and so she traced the family line back 3 generations.  The story starts with  Emily's grandmother, Suzette, as a 9 year old, and Suzette's mother, Elizabeth, living and working as slaves.  It works forward through the generations until it reaches the author's grandmother.

Prior to this book, the author's career was founded in the corporate world. I am not saying that every author has to live their entire lives being authors. I am just saying that this one, Lalita Tademy, is not a natural author. The words feel very awkward and mechanical in the beginning.  They tell a story, yes, but but they are not rhythmic, warming, or inviting words.  It reads very much like you were looking at her family tree and reading short paragraph summaries about each person's life: Suzette-house slave, raped by white man, had two babies, sold.  In the author's defense, she did write with better flow than that, but it rarely moves the reader to become emotionally involved.  Often, Lalita Tademy uses written portions from documents she found in her search, such as letters.  It was a good idea, however, it clashes horribly with her writing.  For example, she copied a letter written in response to her great-great-great-grandfather's letter, but she did not have the letter that he had written, so she had to make it up.  The difference in letter style and eloquence is staggering. She may have tried to mimic the style, but she failed, and the mix of the eloquently written documents, and her mechanical style is quite jarring to the reader.

In Lalita Tademy's defense, the closer the story gets to the present, the better the characters become.  Maybe it is because she had half a book to develop her writing style before that, but my theory is that the closer she got to present day, the more elderly people she had in the family to glean memories from.  The people she heard about from the elderly people definitely have more character depth than the people she had little more than names and sales registries.  Even the characters that started without character gained character the closer they got to her elders' memories.

My favorite character was adult Philomene, the daughter of Suzette. Really, if the book only told about Philomene's story, it would have been a great book.  Philomene started as a slave, daughter of a white man, was sold multiple times due to deaths of masters. In reaction to the civil war's ravages on the South, she ended up nearly living as an equal with her mistress in order for the household of 2 women and 7 children to survive.

Philomene made some very calculating decisions that, in the long run, were the redemption of her family after freedom, even though the present sacrifice was such that most women would have forgone the decision.  When the war ended, her daughter, Emily, was two, and had no real experience of slavery.  This lead to a very interesting observation within the story about the generation gap between ex-slaves and born-free children. A year after being granted freedom, Philomene picked up her children and left to seize it. Because of her earlier and continuing calculating decisions she was able to gain a sharecrop to work until she was able to gain her own property.  She united a majority of her family, which and been scattered some ten years before at an auction. Her children were privately tutored and given every training they might need to survive in an upper class world.  It really was amazing what this woman accomplished, starting at the age of 17.
Unfortunately, her story is smack dab in the middle of the 416 page book.  After her is Emily's story until Emily is 60 years old, and the tying up of lose ends to explain where the grandchildren had scattered.

The book is interesting to an extent, because there are actual photos of many of the people, and also copies of the papers used to learn Lalita Tademy's family history, such as slave auction receipts, news paper articles, hand written (in French) letters and census records.

If I were rating this book on Amazon, it would get 3/5 stars(Well, ideally 2.5/5, but Amazon doesn't allow that option).  I would not recommend this book to a friend if they asked me for a good read.  It is not the worst book I have ever read. Like I said, it has some interesting moments.  I just do not feel the interesting moments redeem the mechanical writing style, the predominance of one dimensional characters, and the sheer drudgery of  Cane River.