All The Books

Here's a quick review of all the books currently listed by me.

I'll start with the oldest ones. "Everything is Illuminated" and "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" are both by Jonathan Safran Foer. Everything Is Illuminated is about a young man who travels to Ukraine to find the small town his grandfather was from. The town was wiped off the map during WWII. He hires a tour guide in Odessa to take him there. The tour guide is accompanied by his English-speaking grandson and his "seeing eye bitch". The grandfather thinks he's blind and needs a seeing eye bitch, but he's really not and does all the driving. The grandson, Alex, is brilliant the way he butchers the English language. Everything is Illuminated was made into a movie starring Elijah Wood. It's one of my all time favorite movies. I saw the movie long before I read the book. Foer's writing style often borders on fantasy. Some of the things that happen to his characters in the book are pretty close to being unbelievable. In the movie, Everything is Illuminated, a lot of the fantastical stuff is cut from the story. I'll have to go on the record here and say I liked the movie better.

The other book, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, is so sad and so sweet and funny, it'll just break your heart. There's some fantasy stuff in it, but not as much as his other book. It's about a very young boy who's father died on 9/11 in the WTC. The boy is very smart, possibly autistic. It's never spelled out for you. He finds a key in his father's things and sets out on a journey to find out what the key goes to. He struggles with guilt, he didn't pick up the phone when his dad was leaving messages for them that morning. He struggles with grief when his mom starts to see another man. All the while being a little too smart for his own good and seeing the world through the eyes of a kid who sees everything differently then we do. This is a great book.

The next book, The Help, Carla handed to me one day at work and said I had to read it. Being the follower that I am, I did. I didn't really think I'd like it, it sounded kinda soap-operaish, but I L-O-V-E-D it. It's a fast read, which I like now and again, the characters are totally believable as are all the events. Whilst reading it, I kept thinking, this would make a GREAT movie. I often think the opposite; that anyone who tried to make a movie from a book will ruin it. It takes place in Jackson Mississippi at the very beginning of the civil rights movement. The main characters are the black maids and nannies that take care of and run the white ladies lives'. The writing was...completely honest and simple. Trying to write about that type of relationship could've easily gone sappy or condescending or really really boring. And it wasn't. It cut right through to the complicated feelings of hating someone you serve and depend utterly on for your livelihood. And, I think filming started this summer in Mississippi.

The next book is The Honk and Holler Opening Soon. This was written by the person who wrote Where The Heart Is. You know, the story of the unwed pregnant teen girl who lives in the Wal-Mart and gives birth there. Anywho, it's a similar story of an unlikely group of friends that become family in a little diner in Oklahoma. Nothing earth-shattering here. The writing is simple and folksy. Pleasant, homey, a happy ending in a non-schmalzy way.

The next book is Beatrice and Virgil. This is written by Yann Martel who wrote Life of Pi, one of my all time favorite books. This book is not a sequel, but there are a few threads that continue on in it. It's a very sad book. Very sad, nothing uplifting at all about it. Just warning you. But it's still good book. Martel likes to anthropomorphise animals in his stories. Beatrice and Virgil are a monkey and a donkey who are alive during the Holocaust. That's all I'm saying.

The next book The Sabbath World. This is a non-fiction book. It's a history lesson of the Sabbath as well as a modern interpretation of how a person could even begin to observe the Sabbath in a traditional sense. I liked it for those reasons, but I liked it more for it's meta-message of how it's important to observe and organize your time in a meaningful manner. About how it's important to stop our work-a-day lives on a regular basis to tune into something bigger than ourselves, more timeless than ourselves, something that gives our work-a-day world more meaning. The last line of the book is my favorite: We have to remember to stop because we have to stop to remember.

The next book is The Island Beneath The Sea. This is by Isabelle Allende, one of my favorite authors. She writes in Spanish and her books are translated for English speakers. I love how I can tell that English is not her first language. It comes through in the translation. Every once in a while, you hear a phrase or the way a word is used that you an tell it wasn't written in English. The story is about a slave on a sugar plantation in what now is Haiti. It starts in the late 1700's and continues through the revolution when that island becomes Haiti. The white family, with this slave and her daughter (the master's second child with this slave)flee to New Orleans. It's a rich story, a painful story. Like The Help, highly complicated with the strange feelings and relationships slaves and their owners have. But not sentimental in the least. One of those stories that you worry about the characters when you're not with them. You don't want the story to end.

The next book is Eat Pray Love. Dhyana said that both Lila and I should read it. I read it first. It was a fun summer romp. Even though it addresses some serious life issues this woman goes through, she writes with humor and never fails to defuse a heavy scene with a bit of funny. Like the Balinese medicine man said, "I don't do yoga. It's too stressful." Love that guy! Already made into a movie, being released very soon. Next week?

Finally, right now I'm reading Wuthering Heights. Seen most of the movie versions. Have many fond memories if staying up late to watch it on the late, late movie. The language is a bit antique. Those Gothic writers are brutal. Such is the story...dark, violent, unhappy and tragic. What's not to love?