The Mother In Me

Written by a group of smart, articulate and thoughtful women who write for Segullah Magazine and Blog Segullah, The Mother In Me compiles essays and poems whose topics cover pregnancy, miscarriage, infertility, adoption, birth, the loss of a stillborn (I wept), parenting special needs children, and several on the challenges of being a mother to small children.

I think this book is best read in small doses - first, because each essay has its own feeling and message to experience and second, because after reading multiple essays at a time, the book starts to feel redundant. Smart woman....smart woman sacrifices (time, energy, body, mind)....smart woman resents challenge...smart woman feels grateful for challenge...smart woman better because of challenge.

As someone who considers herself a smart woman (I hope we all do), I can certainly identify with the whole cycle. Motherhood is hard. Motherhood is sacrifice. And yet, motherhood is the absolute best teacher I could have ever hoped for in life. Every essay chronicles the development of a God-like trait: patience, hope, faith, forgiveness, compassion, and pure, pure love. After reading, I'd want to hug my children, read them a story, take them somewhere to teach them something, play hide and seek, cook together. It made every experience that every mother knows is difficult and frustrating to be looked upon as a cherished opportunity. I really enjoyed it.

It's only flaw, in my opinion, was that sometimes the essays felt overly essay-ish. It's not like I prefer authors to dumb their writing down, particularly in this book because their writing isn't difficult to read or hard to understand. But sometimes...only sometimes...I felt the superfluous descriptions of leaves, food, weather, etc, etc were added because the authors were English majors going for the "A" instead of mothers writing for mothers. That's all.

This would be a GREAT book for any young mother, any mother who ever was a young mother, any woman who one day hopes to be a young mother. In other words, this would be a great book to read for any woman. I'm sure some men would even like it too.

Highly recommended.

The Maytrees

For a book about love, it's kind of a downer. There are too many exquisite lines to put this into a "waste of time" category, but as a whole, I can't claim this to be a favorite.

What I enjoyed was Dillard's ability to put a unique feel to common experiences. For instance, when Maytree looked at his wife, she wrote, "After their first year or so, Lou's beauty no longer surprised him. He never stopped looking, because her face was his eyes' home."

Or.
"That he did not possess her childhood drove him wild. Who was this impostor she sang with in college -- how dare he?"

Here's a good one:
"A woman's forgiveness weakened a man's arms and back. So did its sob sister, pity. It would not stand up to fight. Who could prevail against it?"

This one is my favorite:
"Often she missed infant Petie now gone -- his random gapes, his bizarre buttocks. How besotted they gazed at each other nose-on-nose. He fit her arms as if they two had invented how to carry a baby.....She imagined joining picnic tables outside by the beach and setting them for 22 Peties and Petes, or 122, or however greedy she was that day and however divisible Pete. Together the sons at every age and size -- scented with diaper, formula on rubber nipples, bike grease, wax crayon...waited for dinner. Who else knew what each liked? It was a hell of a long table. She gave herself a minute to watch them -- Petie after Petie barefoot near his future self and past. They pinched and teased or shoved one another. What mother would not want to see her kids again?"

Now normally I do not give a lot of quotes for a book review. I can't really explain why I did with this particular book, other than I liked these individual lines better than the book as a whole. I confess that I've always had a slight prejudice against east coasters. I don't know exactly why. Again, I like almost all of the individuals I've met, but as a whole, there is a superiority they perceive in themselves in regards to their intellect, experience and perspective that I find irritating. These characters and their beachfront way of life irritated me. Their attitudes towards marriage, parenting, etc. frustrated me. I don't know if it was the author's own bias that tainted them, or if it really was isolated to these particular characters, but the choices they made did not match the consequences I felt each choice deserved.

But who am I to say what should befall the fallen? All I can say is I felt unsatisfied at the end. And a little bit like none of it mattered.

Wow. This was a really bad book review. Sorry.

My Thirteenth Winter

This book was a complete surprise for me. A few weeks ago, my mother sent me an email which included a beautiful quote from this book. It was about being a writer, and my mother was paying a compliment to me in regards to my dedication to blogging. Interested in reading the book where the quote came from, I found myself reading about a very bright girl whose world collapsed around her as she struggled through her elementary school years with an undiagnosed learning disability.

Samantha Abeel was a bright, precocious and highly confident young child. Her memories of Kindergarten and first grade are of being in the top of her class and proudly so. She knew she was known as one of the smart kids and did her best to live up to her reputation, even as she inwardly began to realize that sometimes, particularly during math time, she had to fake it.

As her school years progressed, and she couldn't keep up with her peers in math, and she couldn't admit that she had no idea how to tell time, she turned inward in humiliation and depression, while secretly praying that the difference was merely because she was special and wise, and not at all slow.

After many unfortunate delays and misdiagnoses, Abeel was finally diagnosed with a math and sequencing learning disability known as dyscalculia. Throughout her schooling, Abeel realized that although she couldn't understand the rules of grammar and had a hard time spelling, she had a gift for words and poetry and channeled her gift into a skill of writing. As a ninth grader, she, with help from several teachers and artists, published a book whose name was later changed to Reach For the Moon. While it gave her confidence and success, she still drifted into social isolation and depression throughout high school and later, college.

Reading about her change, her isolation and fear, made my heart pound as I thought about the possibility of any of my own children suffering in this way. Particularly Henry, as we continue to worry about whether or not his speech will come or if it will be a continual battle for him throughout his life.

The faults I have with this book lies in its slow, repetitive pace. As the story begins with her memories as a kindergartener and ends with her graduating from college, it's got more than enough "space" for her memoir, the sort of book usually reserved for a later time in life. Additionally, Abeel frequently transitions the style of writing from autobiography to memoir, which sometimes works but often times feels incredibly jarring. It's like she's a narrator to her own memories, but without first giving a warning to the reader to "fade to screen".

Aside from that, I think this would be a valuable and worthwhile book to discuss. From our current education model to the causes of depression and its treatment, I think many women, mothers and friends could relate to its material. I also think it would be a good book to recommend for older children with learning disabilities or their peers.

And, now, for the quote that started it all, which is actually quite relevant to her own story, but also a beautiful passage for anyone who enjoys writing.

For an admissions essay to Mount Holyoke College, she writes:

Sometimes on winter mornings, I try to see myself in gathered wrinkles, my dark hair forsaking me to silver. I try to see my hands traced by blue veins and my eyes in vintage brown. I try to see myself a little bent, a little withered. I close my eyes and see me all in white, all in gray, draped in the webs of age.

Oh, I will ache a little and have one of those chronic coughs. I will sit in my chair and pull at curtains that reveal a window etched with white doves of frost. Then, maybe just then, I will know what I was and who I am. I will know all that I took and all that I gave.

It is here that I want to be a messenger, a courier of everything I've gathered. I want to tell my grandchildren of the games my friends and I would play. I want to pass on the legends that creep around us. I want to tell them of the sand dunes and of the lakes. I want to tell them of the many ghosts that look fondly upon them. I want to say that I have made a difference. I want to give them the world through my eyes.

However, for now, my center, my sense of self, my purpose is yet unclear to me. I see it like one sees a fish in a river, only silvery flashes of fin and tail. Never seeing all of it at once. The journey to discover these things lies ahead. When I am in the November of my life maybe then I will understand my June. I do know that I want desperately to understand what I don't, and give the understanding of what I do to others.

Perhaps one day, after I have sunken into the shadows, my granddaughter will read one of my poems to her daughter, or show her a book that I collected, maybe even pass on one of the stories that I told. Then, there in that moment, is all that we can ever hope to be. That one little niche in time, when what we gave, or passed on, is given again.

I could never say it quite so well, but this is what I hope too.

Mrs. Mike

This wasn't on my list of scheduled reads but while I was in a bookstore last month to purchase a book for a Christmas exchange, I saw Mrs. Mike on the shelves and felt compelled to buy this much beloved book.

I'm often asked what my favorite book is. I always answer that I don't have one; there are many books I love but they are too different to say one is superior to another.

I have changed my mind. Mrs. Mike is my favorite book.

A coming of age story set in the Canadian North in the year 1907, Katherine Mary O'Fallon, a young woman of 16, goes to live with her uncle somewhere north of Calgary as treatment for her pleurisy. There she meets Sergeant Mike Flannigan, a Mountie who has "eyes so blue she could swim in them." They are eventually married after a brief (but fantastically romantic) courtship and she follows him by dog sled to the arctic wilderness to live among the fur traders and Indians.

I love this book for many reasons. Most importantly, as a book, it's my first love. Mrs. Mike was the book that made me realized how much a book could move and stick with me for years. I rarely re-read a book, but I believe I've read Mrs. Mike five times now. Each time, my stomach swoons when Kathy and Mike fall in love, I laugh when Kathy covers her daughter and Mike spanks Kathy instead, I cry when the unimaginable happens and I sigh as I close the book, thinking the line at the very end is one of the best ever written.

Another reason I love this book is that it's based on a real woman's life who the authors met before writing the book. I'm sure it's juiced from the reality, but even the skeleton of the story is moving.

I can't claim that it's the best written book. It is simple in structure, dialogue and description, but as I've read more and more over the years, and compare it to other literature, I believe the style matches the story perfectly.

It's the kind of book I can't help but promise that anyone who reads it will love it. But I also know that with our diverse personalities and preferences, it wouldn't be true. Like a biased mother who adores her baby, I don't think I'd enjoy anyone pointing out the flaws of this book. Perhaps its eyes are too close together and the head oddly-shaped, but it's my baby, and I think it's the most beautiful thing in the world.

March

I rarely buy books. This is true for several reasons, but if I'm ever missing, you'd have a much better chance at finding me by looking in library rather than a bookstore.

However, last month, for Blogger Bookclub, we had a book exchange and I found myself in a bookstore perusing the shelves. First of all, I could quickly change my borrowing ways if I were forced to walk through a bookstore every day. I loved it! So many rectangular shapes that wanted to be slid off shelves and bent open. I found myself off task and reading the jackets of many a book.

Which is precisely how I found this gem. Booksellers tend to pimp their bestsellers by displaying their front covers as opposed to the binding, making it easier to catch the buyer's eye. Right at my eye level was the book Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks. I surmised that it was about the plague and while that wasn't the type of story I was looking for, placed right next to it was Brooks's second, and equally acclaimed book: March, a 2006 Pulitzer Prize winner.

It is the story of Peter March, the absent father of Meg, Jo, Amy and Beth of Little Women. Much more up my alley, I replaced Year of Wonder back on the shelf and walked around with March until, ultimately I found an altogether different book and placed March back on the shelf too (I ended up walking out with The Emporer's Children, which I have yet to read.)

Not forgetting about my interest for March, I used my old-faithful-tried-and-true method of attaining books and placed a hold for the book from the library.

I think I should have bought it. It's a great book. Clever, poignant, informative, inspiring, heartbreaking, interesting and historical, Brooks takes Louisa May Alcott's famous Little Women, and writes a parallel story about their father's experience during the same year. Little snippets are taken from Little Women, and it's as though you can see that famous play happening in the background in each scene. Sort of like Wicked and The Wizard of Oz, only more serious and important. After all, Peter March wasn't out flying on a broom, he was trying to serve the Union troops in the United States own Civil War.

Brooks bases Peter on Alcott's own father's journals, just as Alcott based her Little Women on herself and her sisters. Bronson Alcott, and his fictional representative, Peter March, are part of the intellectual elite who reside in Concord Massachusetts alongside their contemporaries, Walden, Thoreau, Hawthorn and Brown, who each make an appearance in the story. Idealistic abolutionists with Quaker leanings, March leaves his family to support the union's cause to end slavery and finds great conflict between his inner values and his outward actions.

Brooks writes exclusively in the first person and as a result, I, the reader, was able to understand Peter March as he was, as he wanted to be and as he failed to be. He is a fantastic character. My only complaint with the book is that she abandoned Peter for a few chapters and wrote as Marmee, his wife, when he lay sick with fever. She eventually returns to Peter's voice, which gives the story the resolution it needs, and while Marmees' thoughts are equally moving and necessary, it made the ending a little choppy.

Despite that lack of continuity, I enthusiastically recommend March. It will force you to examine your own viewpoints about war, education, race, marriage, courage, pride and love.

Me Talk Pretty One Day

Marjorie, a girl in our Blogger Bookclub, has become known as the Devid Sedaris girl. She's an intelligent, stylish girl, so I thought I'd give him a try.

He is totally my kind of author. Not only that, I want to write like him. Funny, self-depreciating, honest and perceptive, I enjoyed (almost) this entire book.

He can be crass. There is an entire chapter I skipped because almost every other word on the page was horribly vulgar, but he was writing about his horribly vulgar brother and using a lot of quotation marks. I skipped it, and all the other chapters were delightful.

I was able to do that because this is not a novel or a biography. It's mostly essays written autobiographically. The kind of book where each chapter can have its own discussion.

Some were better than others. They can't all be home runs. But, as a whole, the book shines due to the writing. It's a pleasure to read.

Thanks Marjorie!

The Making Of Pride And Prejudice

Andrea got me this book for my birthday last year, knowing how I feel about this gem of a movie/mini-series. I've skimmed through it before, but actually sat down and read most of it last week.

I would never want to be involved in the making of movies. What a headache. I'm so glad that I was able to simply enjoy the magic they created in their adaptation of Jane Austen's beloved novel.

I enjoyed the interviews with the screen writers and actors, although, really, they are kind of full of themselves. And Jennifer Ehle...Elizabeth...is actually a blond! It's all wigs!

I still like to think of Longborn, Netherfield, Pemberly and Rosings as the homes of these great characters instead of homes all across England that fit the mold.

Read this if you like to know how period pieces are made. If not, enjoy the magic anyway!

My Name Is Asher Lev

Written over a week ago....

I had never heard of the author Chaim Potok. I seem to be in the vast minority. Especially among readers, which I had kind of hoped I was. But when things like this happen, I'm reminded that I'm really not. My sister, Jen, lent me this book to read and I walked around it for several months. Finally, last week, I picked it up and started.

It wasn't a page turner at all. I could put it down easily and, to be truthful, I didn't even like this book until about 3/4 of the way into it. Now, I emphatically say that it is one of the best books I have ever read.

There is so much to say about this book. Throughout my entire reading of it, I kept thinking the book was about "this" or "that", only to be surprised by realizing the subject matter went far deeper. At first I thought it was about an art prodigy; that a difficult path is taken when your child is special or gifted.

It kind of is.

Then I thought it was about the pain and awkwardness of being a religious Jew right after the second world war.

Again, kind of.

Then I thought it was like The Namesake and the struggle between parents and children and different generations.

Getting closer.

Ultimately, I think this book is about perception. What is honoring your father and mother and what is following your dream? What is tradition and what is truth? What is the better choice? What is the better life? Whose point of view matters?

I experienced a lot of frustration while reading this. First of all, this book is about so many things that I either know nothing about or that don't interest me. For instance, Asher Lev is a art prodigy. As he is the main character, art - its history and technique - is a frequent subject matter. I know very little about art. It was hard for me to respond to Asher Lev's need to draw and paint. As a person without any particular passion, I had to take his word for it that for him, drawing and painting wasn't a hobby, or something he liked to do, but that it was who he was, an insatiable need that controlled him. That sort of passion would probably cause problems in any family but when you are a Hasidic Jew and the son of an important emissary of the Rebbe (I'm thinking kind of like a prophet) whose life work is to create safe places to teach the Torah to religious Jews throughout Europe, that passion tears apart a family.

My second frustration is probably apparent by now. I know very little about Judaism. There is a no apologizes approach to Potok's description of Jewish life. Obviously a Jew himself, he doesn't write for the goyim (are you frustrated? That's the Jewish term for the Gentile. Yeah...I know. I had to learn it all too).

It's not easy to read. There is a noticeable lack of emotion written about such an emotionally charged situation. Short, perfunctory sentences that made me feel as frustrated with the situation as I felt Asher Lev did with his father who did not get art. By the end of the book, I could appreciate it for the technique that it was. Asher Lev was the narrator and we experienced the story through Asher Lev. That containment of emotion, the abrupt conclusion of dialogue with his parents...that was his existence.

It all builds up to this pinnacle of frustration, this burst of emotion that brings the most hurt to his parents although that is what his art is about...his hurt, his mother's hurt, his father's hurt. I actually cried through this part. I rarely cry. It's that good.

I feel like I'm leaving out huge chunks of what I took away from reading this. I can't believe some people got to read this as part of their high school literature. This is the kind of story that needs to be discussed and broken down. I'm jealous of people who had that chance. I hate reading great literature like this and my only outlet is a poorly written summary on my blog. Even if someone read it now, and we discussed it, those initial raw emotions are gone. THAT is what I feel I missed out on.

So...now I am more learned. I know about Chaim Potok. I feel like I just graduated to another level as a reader. Who else don't I know about????

The Memory Keeper's Daughter

I can see why people like this book. I liked it. But I think because I read it immediately after I finished Drowning Ruth it had less of an impact on me. Both books were about secrets and the cancer they cause in their own lives and the lives of those around them. Both books make dramatic chronological jumps in time to progress the age of the characters. When this book did it, a bit of the intimacy you feel with the charaters dies. The writing is very vivid. The first paragraph about the snow is so descriptive that I felt cold.

The end seems out of place. I've never even attempted to write a story so I don't know how hard it is to finish one but I find endings disappointing more often than not. This book's ending was unfulfilling. I don't really know why. It's like the revelation of the daughter, Phoebe, somehow makes things alright for the mother and twin brother. Both seem ready to "try" to be happy now, something that evaded everyone in this novel. Perhaps that is what would happen. It seems more complicated than that...like other, less altruistic emotions would somehow prevail.

Definitely worth reading. I love looking into the lives of families and marriages. This is an interesting look.