Water for Elephants – Sara Gruen

I just had a delightful little 3-day affair with this novel – a really easy, pleasant read for 330 pages.  It’s the story of a young man who loses everything and joins the circus, but the real beauty of the story lies in the way Gruen juxtaposes the young and old voices of the narrator, Jacob.  It’s an obvious commentary on the way the elderly in our society are relegated to nursing homes or “assisted living facilities.”  The story is narrated entirely in the present tense, and the chapters switch between Jacob’s 23-year-old voice and his 93-year-old voice.  93-year-old Jacob is still sharp in many ways, but forgets his age often and seems to be in denial about his abilities.  The way he describes shuffling in his walker, every effort moving him a single floor tile closer to his destination, is at the same time funny, precious, and devastating.  The real devastation, though, is that we see Jacob’s perspective as he waits for his family to come see him – whichever family member, that is, whose turn it is.

Jacob’s young voice carries us through the glamorous and seedy underground of depression-era circus culture, complete with plenty of elements we can only hope human and animal rights organizations have done away with.  And yet, if the authorities had known how many people got “red-lighted” (thrown off the moving train in the middle of the night) I’m sure they would not have been fine with it then either.  After reading Gruen’s story I understand a little more why circuses have such sketchy reputations – clowns and carnies are creepy for a reason.

The love story, while not the most honorable, is moving.  The love story between the human and animal characters is even more so.

I recommend this book, but with a warning:  the novel contains some very graphic “adult material,” so please, if you struggle in this area, try something else.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao – Junot Díaz

Eric, after much deliberation, bought this book at an airport bookstore on our way back from Maui.  He read it pretty quickly and recommended it to me, so as soon as I finished the Time Traveler’s Wife (oops…reviews out of order here, I guess…) I started it.  This novel was particularly interesting for a couple reasons.  First of all, Díaz’s writing voice is like nothing I’ve ever read.  The whole book was completely unique, at least according to my experiences with literature.  Take our protagonist:  an obese Dominican “ghetto nerd.”  I didn’t know what that description meant, really, but the novel really does make it all makes sense.  Having been to the Dominican Republic, I was fascinated by all the history that somehow escaped me.   Like the fact that a crazy dictator (Rafael Trujillo) held power until 1961, which completely explains the previously perplexing zeal (and sometimes, violence) of current Dominican elections.  Oscar Wao is epic in that it covers generations of a family and of Dominican history.  However, it remains entirely interesting because our very intelligent tourguide/narrator (whose character itself hardly matters to the story, interestingly) is always looking back from a distance, never forgetting WHY this stuff should matter to us now.  And it matters to Oscar.

Oscar represents much more than himself, of course.  In fact, the novel is much less about Oscar than its title implies.  Dominican culture, good and bad, is very accurately represented here.  I was often disturbed by the focus on sex and the idea that the Dominican male should be a womanizer – and yet, Oscar, the character we grow to know and love, is the very antithesis of this culture.  Sure, he wants to lose his virginity like all his male relatives keep pressuring him to do.  But in the mean time, he falls so madly in love with the girls he pursues that they get creeped out before anything of the sort happens.  So he’s not exactly a manipulative jerk.

This is the kind of novel I finish and wish it wasn’t really over.  My friend Tom put it well – when we found out we were both reading Oscar Wao, he told me he was making himself only read it at breakfast so that it would last longer.

Overall – parts are hard to read.  There is pervasive violence, as well as sexual situations and dialogue.  But I will remember this novel very, very fondly.

Rabbit, Run – John Updike

This book was a strange experience for me.  Not too engaging, or riveting, or suspenseful.  In fact, I could definitely have stopped reading it and probably not have regretted it too much.  But it is on the list and I have time, and, mainly, I bought the book instead of borrowing it from the public library.  So I finished it.

Now, I really hate when someone else’s opinion of a book influences my opinion.  I must admit, though, that I was greatly affected upon my discovery of two of Updike’s subsequent “Rabbit” series books (Rabbit at Rest and Rabbit is Rich) on the Pulitzer prize winners list.  Needless to say, I am conflicted about this novel.

To completely (unfairly) reduce it, Rabbit, Run is a story about a discontent man.   Issues addressed are family dynamics, class issues, fidelity, tragedy, and parenting.  One of my favorite elements may be the joint “cause” of infidelity:  it is very rarely only one partner’s fault.  After Rabbit returns to his wife, everything that goes wrong is blamed on him.  This is a very interesting exaggeration of the concept of a man taking responsibility for his family.  Rabbit condemns himself just as much as others do, and finds stability in this blame.  This examination of guilt is one of the novel’s strongest points.

Its other main strengths, in my opinion, are found in Updike’s prose, which is stylistically gorgeous, understated but moving.  His voice is not amused or brash; Updike makes sure we view Rabbit’s rebellious tendencies as a result of his sadness.  This is not to say he justifies them.  The book, overall, is like a deep breath.  It enters slowly and leaves quickly, and you’re not quite sure what it did, except that you feel a little loss in the knowledge that your next breath might be — only, tragically — for utility.

The main downfall for me in John Updike’s works so far (granted, I’ve only read this book and his short story “A&P”) is Updike’s tendency to oversexualize a story.  This is done purposefully as an important quality of his male characters’ brains, but still it leaves me rather disturbed at the way he objectifies women, cheapens sex, and often subtly reduces men to sexual maniacs.  I can’t figure out if he considers this aspect of his male characters to be the norm.

Oryx and Crake – Margaret Atwood

I recently finished Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel Oryx and Crake, published in 2004.  It was quite good.  Atwood is a terrific writer.  Lately I’ve been pretty disappointed by some books that could have been so much better than they were with more mature authorship.  These books (for example, Queen of Dreams) had such major plot holes that I couldn’t enjoy them for their good parts.  Oryx and Crake has holes, but they are purposeful.  There is such a huge difference between successful purposeful ambiguity, unsuccessful purposeful ambiguity, and unsuccessful accidental ambiguity.  It all comes down to the writer’s command of the plot and language…

[I want to write a book.] [The book might not be good.]

25 days until the wedding!  Today I planned to sew some pocket squares.  I haven’t done it yet, but I will.  I bought some nice gold-yellow floral (but not girly) fabric to go with our grey tux jackets.  Hoping to find something somewhat coordinating for bridesmaid sashes.

Drinking: Rooibos Vanille tea.

Listening to: Belle and Sebastian’s “Tigermilk” album.

Deciding:  whether to finish The Brothers Karamazov or start The Time Traveler’s Wife.

Loving:  this picture, via mint

I love these colors so much.  I want them to be my wedding, my house, my wardrobe…

<3

Prophets and Radicals/Simplicity

In honor of my recent college graduation, I am going to begin my new less-scholarly life by recapping my favorite class this semester, taught by Dr. Bill Jolliff.  The class was called Prophets and Radicals, and it covered “. . . women and men of conscience. Against more practical judgment, each turned a powerful critical and moral intelligence on contemporary cultures, and they articulated their views in articles and books that people keep reading today. . .” (from the course syllabus).  These authors were, importantly, not mainstream Christians.  Some were Christians, but all were on the fringe of what people considered acceptable.  They were radical, planting and springing from seeds sown by other radicals and prophets.  And despite the fact that they were either fringe Christians or not Christians at all, God’s truth is not confined to Christians, which was the main point of this class:  learning to search elsewhere for truth that may be hidden where we least expect it.  We studied 6 movements/authors/books:
1. Quakerism: John Woolman’s Journal and his essay A Plea for the Poor

2. Trascendentalism:  Henry David Thoreau’s A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers and Walden, as well as some letters he wrote to friends.

3.  Abolitionism:  Harriett Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin

4.  The Catholic worker movement:  Dorothy Day’s Selected Writings

5.  The beat movement:  Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums

6.  The hippie and back-to-the-land movements:  Gurney Norman’s Divine Right’s Trip:  A Novel of the Counterculture

I really, really enjoyed most of these books.  I think I most appreciate the last two because of my preference for 20th-century American literature, and also because they are novels more than essays or autobiographies (disegard the fact that Kerouac’s novels are autobiographical).   So here are a few little tidbits of my learnings.

Our term paper assignment was to choose a person outside mainstream Christianity who has influenced my life, or whom I want to make an influence in my life.  I wrote my paper about simplicity, as I saw in Jack Kerouac’s life/writing.  Kerouac’s simplicity wasn’t a complete asceticism, as he indulged in plenty of luxuries (namely alcohol, which was his downfall).  But in The Dharma Bums he champions the type of asceticism that challenges excess in the way of possessions, comforts, and worry.  Thinking of worry as part of a complicated life hasn’t really connected for me in this way before.  Reading Ray’s story, though, made me realize that part of a joyful life is simplicity of thought.  Ray is so quick to rejoice and so quick to find pleasure in simple things.  He spends time purposefully doing very little, meditating and being outdoors.  He insists on sleeping outside on many occasions.  He rarely complains about anything.

The spirituality of the beat movement, according to John Lardas, “validated and valorized personal experience by interpreting even the most mundane of activities within a context of universal significance” (from The Bop Apocalypse).  I want the significance of every aspect of my life to be revealed to me in the same way.

Here’s a little excerpt from my paper, in closing:

Ray encounters normal people and calls them “Buddhas” and “bodhisattvas,” and as he praises God for the beauty around him, Ray demonstrates his perspective on spirituality with this prayer:  “Down on the lake rosy reflections of celestial vapor appeared, and I said ‘God, I love you’ and looked up to the sky and really meant it.  ‘I have fallen in love with you, God.  Take care of us all, one way or the other.’  To the children and the innocent it’s all the same” (Kerouac 186).    Ray’s faith here is simple but genuine.  He approaches God with the spirit of “the children and the innocent,” which is quite a profound statement by Kerouac, especially following Ray’s  often less-than-“Christian” values throughout the story. He seems to suggest that spiritual innocence has very little to do with Ray’s actions and much more to do with the humility and simplicity with which he approaches God.

Merry Christmas.  May the beauty of simplicity rest on you tomorrow and Thursday!

“It’s the beauty of simplicty

That brings me down to my knees

I’ll praise you for eternity

Lord I love you

Because you first loved me

It’s the beauty of simplicity

that fills me with eternity

I tasted your divinity

and Lord I love you

Because you first loved me”

(the ever-inspirational Josh White)

A “Plea”?

I just came across this post.

And I have to completely, totally disagree.

The author of this post claims, as an undergraduate writing teacher, that the stories “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway, and “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, not be read because students of writing attempt to copy the writing styles of these authors and fail.  “NO highschooler should be allowed (let alone required) to read [these stories],” Ms. Jones says.

I’m not sure when professors began expecting undergraduate writing students to write as successfully as the likes of Jackson, Hemingway, and Faulkner, but as a writer myself I suggest that the responsibility for these students and their success with writing lies on themselves and on their writing teachers.  Every writer attempts to copy (badly) a favorite unique author at some point.  Sometimes it is terribly unhelpful.  Other times it opens up avenues for the writer’s own creativity and originality.  I have written several poems and songs inspired by poetry by e.e. cummings.  The poems are awful.  The songs are all right.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.  Blending a student’s own creativity, experiences, and invididual understanding of the story he or she reads can be successful, or not.  Should we dictate a student’s inspiration?  Definitely not.  Teachers can, though, direct students toward more successful methods of personal creativity in writing.

a poem on Thursday

A break from the boringness of ORELA until next Wednesday!

I want to share a beautiful poem I discovered last year, and it even goes along with our geography lesson.

Watershed
Here the land is tilted
Like a gambrel roof. The world
Slopes away from the Great Divide,
And all the people
And all the trees
Lean in the same direction
Just to stand up straight.

Even lies that lean that way are true
Like wilsome pines at timberline.
When I die and turn to rain,
I’d like to fall into the distance
And stay awhile.

I’d be happy to be smaller
Where close at hand is out of reach
And everything nearby is blue:
The denim work-clothes of the men,
Their axes in the spruce,
the spruce, the sky,
The knife that cuts the rain in two, the lie.

[by James Galvin, taken from God's Mistress, New York: Harper, 1984.]

My analysis of the poem after the jump:

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to www.brynnalynea.com, a blog about English and education.

I am Brynna – I am currently a student and am starting this blog for educational and professional purposes, to highlight and share the knowledge I gain about English and beginning teaching. It will also be for personal purposes such as reflection on my experiences.

I will start my graduate studies in secondary education next summer, and I am currently working on studying for and taking the required entrance examinations: the CBEST (California Basic Educational Skills Test), the Praxis II Subject Tests in language arts, and the ORELA (Oregon Educator Licensure Assessment). I will write information about these tests as I prepare for them and complete them.

I will also be writing reviews of literature I am reading, and posting about my personal writing and experiences with entering this field.

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Brynna Lynea