Amysue's Read-o-rama

Fun Home!

How did I forget to mention reading this beautiful graphic memoir (by Alison Bechdel) last week.  It's one of the most honest looks at one's family that I've read in a long time.  And yes, this family has flaws, not least of which is her father's closeted existence and it's complicity in his seeming inability to connect with members of his own family.  And yet..the last panel of this memoir brought tears to my eyes, it is such an embodiment of love.

Book 46.

44 and 45.

12 Sharp, the new Stephanie Plum from Janet Evanavich (and I have to say I wish Steph would just sleep with Ranger and do us all a favor!) is out, read and passed on to it's next reader (Hi Ellen!) already.  It was definitely a "jump to the head of the line" book (and a quick read).

I also had a chance to savor yet another Charles de Lint novel, Medicine Road, which takes place in the Southwest and was lovely.  I enjoy his novels that introduce us to Native culture and the spirits that have been around always and forever.  As always it calms and quiets me to read one of his novels.  This one is quite short and very contained but lovely none the less.

de Lint wrote a poem that tells the central tale that triggers the events in the novel:

Red Dog chasing, Jackalope
out in the badlands, that's the way it can go
driven by hunger, looking for something
deep in the desert, deep in the soul

medicine wheel, dreams in the moonlight
from each direction, the four winds blow
Coyote Woman, she has a vision
sets them to travel, on the Medicine Road

they're on the Medicine Road, out in the desert
thunder is talking, rumbling low
bound by a promise, laid upon them
to help each other, on the Medicine Road

in the flight of the hawk, there is a mystery
in the sound of a flute, hear a raven's cry
in the beat of a drum, there is a heartbeat
in the eyes of a lover, is a medicine sky

smoke is rising, sage and sweetgrass
smoke is rising, like an eagle's flight
smoke is rising, tobacco burning
smoke is rising, from a medicine pipe

brothers and sisters, are guided by spirits
some follow the Ghost Dance, some the buffalo
los peyoteros, are guided by Mescal
Coyote's children, take the Medicine Road

they're on the Medicine Road, out in the desert
thunder is talking, rumbling low
bound by a promise, laid upon them
to help each other, on the Medicine Road

Charles de Lint
Ottawa, May 5, 2002

43.

The Last Witchfinder by James Morrow.  The review I linked to is not wrong.  This is a superbly written novel, just beautiful.  I was riveted and charmed by it and yet...I didn't develop much of an interest in any of the characters.  What I mean is that I simply didn't like them much.  A failing on my part I'm sure and I hate mentioning it because this really is an amazing novel.

The theme of state sanctioned intolerance and self righteousness that runs through it is frighteningly with us today.  This book was worth every moment I spent with it and deserves every accolade it has received-I just couldn't get into the actual characters a great deal.

Megillat Esther:Book 42

OK, This graphic novelization of the Megillat Esther, by Waldman is amazing and trippy and if you want to blow away yourchildhood Hebrew School image of the Purim story go pick it up and read it.  We're only talking $18 bucks here and it's worth every penny!

A slight detour.

Jacqueline Carey's, Kushiel's Scion came out at the end of last week and somehow through itself the front of the to be read line.  All of her Terre d'Ange books are sumptuous, well written and impossible to put down.  This latest, the start of a new series focused on Imriel (son of traitors, adopted son of heroes, 3d in line for throne) is wonderful and heartbreaking and just a great read. 

The main mantra for the D'Angeline people is Love as thou wilt and it's not a bad one as such things go.  I don't want to give any of the plot away, but one of the nice things about this novel is that many of the main and secondary characters actually remember this rule and avoid or work their way through some major issues because of it. 

In any event, it was book 41 and a nice interlude even if it did sort of sneak it's way to the top!

Book 40!

Frank Portman's novel, King Dork was one of the best novels I've read all year.  He totally nails the soul destroying institution known as High School (and how sad is it that it hasn't changed in the 30 years (gulp!)since I was there.  Tom Henderson (the King Dork of the title) is such a fully realized young man that I never for a moment felt as though I was anywhere but in his head and in High School again.

The book is also amazing for it's riff on popular culture and a running gag is the every changing names, lineups, album titles and songs for the rock band that Tom and his friend Sam have started.  My personal favorite was Ray Bradbury's Love-Camel w/ Moe-Moe on guitar and Scammy Sammy on bass and calisthenics.  First Album: Prepare to Die.

I couldn't put the book down.  As a parent of young kids, I definitely could use the reminder of how cruel kids are to each other and how disinterested and actively damaging some of the adults encharged with teaching them can be.  I'd home school 'em but as one of my high school aged acquaintances put it "then you'd really ruin all their chances of a social life".  I think I will be buying several copies as gifts for not only a bunch of teens but their parents.

OK, so I was about to hit the publish button and realized that I had more to say about public school and how much it sucked.  I will be 45 years old tomorrow and I still think of most of the time I spent in public school as just that "time", you know, in the same context as time spent in prison.  I was beat up, tortured, and assaulted by kids because I was tall and liked to read.  I was groped at just because I had breasts and complaining to teachers and administrators just marked you as a "crybaby" or worse.  I had a fifth grade teacher take me aside and tell me that if I tamed my curly and a little wild hair, and acted more demure and lady like I'd do better with the kids and in his class.  Many years later when I heard that he had committed suicide, while the adult part of me felt sad that anyone should feel driven to such an  act, the 10 year old jumped up and down with glee.  I had principals tell me that the "groping" was either my fault or to be expected because "boys will be boys".  I was once trapped in a science lab (6Th grade folks, I would have been 11) by two male classmates who exposed themselves, and while one held me down the other threatened to rape me.  I went ballistic and got in trouble for hurting them because (all chime in now) "boys will be boys".  Junior High and High School girls were the worst with their cliques and inability to just leave anyone different alone. 

And yet.  Who I am today was in some way shaped by all my earlier experiences.  The dearest friends I have today come from the place I found myself when at just shy of 17, I walked out of high school and never looked back.  I got a GED in my sleep the next week and then took classes at a local college where I also played D+D.  Almost every single one of my dearest closest friends, my family of choice, came directly and indirectly from that period.  We're all a little geeky and have odd somewhat sardonic senses of humor.  We're cynical and more importantly we care fiercely about each other, our families and our world. 

And one more thing, when I moved back to the area after being away for almost 20 years, I bumped into some of my school days tormentors.  Not a single one has ever been anything but pleasant.  If they mention our youth at all they will say something along the lines of "you were such an individual, I really admired that."  It puzzles me but I'm over it most days and while Portman's book brought a  lot of it back it does it in a kind of hopeful way.

All the above said, I hope I have a good enough relationship with my kids to really hear what they are saying and to give them the skills and foundation they need to avoid crap like I went through. 

39 and a Challenge.

I recently joined the Summer Reading Challenge and my challenge to myself is to read two books a week, one fiction, one non-fiction this summer. 

I finished this weeks non fiction entry, Anne Lamott's wonderful collection of essays:Plan B, Further Thoughts on Faith.  Some of these essays are very hard to read, painful even, but every one of them is finely crafted and deeply moving.  Her writing is from a Christian perspective but this isn't an obstacle for me, as a Jew, to hear the truth in them.  In one essay, titled Loving Your President:Day 2, she writes of how hard it is to love Bush and how frustrating it was to hear her pastor point out that G-d loves all of us, including Bush.  She writes, "This drives me crazy, that G-d seems to have no taste, and no standards.  Yet on most days, this is what gives some of us hope."

Her essays give me hope that with all our flaws and bad energy and worse choices, with a little  grace we can still raise our children, love our family and friends and most importantly ourselves enough to make the world a little bit better a place.