Flowers and bee

Flowers and bee

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Running with Scissors or My Family Is More Dysfunctional Than Yours

Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs is a book about a seriously dysfunctional family. Someone told me that it was funny. It is in parts, but then somewhere in the midst of reading it, you realize this is not fiction. Even if the story is 50% true, (it is just one person's perspective) it makes everyone else's family look extremely normal and bland in comparison. Thank goodness!

Augusten's mother is mentally ill and depressed. She sends him to stay with her doctor and his family because she can not handle anything. The Finches are self-aware eccentrics who can quote Freud to each other, but can not handle getting rid of the live Christmas tree in the living room. The fact that Augusten can handle the chaos - and he is given no choice - gives the reader some admiration of his coping skills.

He is writing about his adolescent self, which is sometimes likeable - sometimes not, and all the angst that adolescence contains is merely magnified in his environment. It is hard enough on a teenager, without having a sick parent, an unhealthy family life, and a developing gay sexuality to deal with.

Blame it on the 70's, blame it on the drugs, blame it on a sick parent - whatever the case, Augusten manages to learn how to survive in this environment. He writes well, but the story reminds me of a bad gorey accident. You know that you should look away, but your eyes are being drawn to the chaos and mess.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

A Sequel - perhaps a series?

The Orchid Shroud: A Novel of Death in the Dordogne by Michelle Wan is the sequel to a book I have in an earlier post - called Deadly Slipper. Again the characters have another death come their way. Mara is still trying to just finish her renovation project. Julian has not yet found his elusive orchid -what he is calling his Cypripedium incognitum.

I guess the thing I really love is the internationalism of the book. It is set in a small French village. It's lead characters are a Canadian and an expat Brit. The author is Chinese - but grew up in Canada and is married to an American who travels the world.

I hope she creates a series around these characters - she just brings their whole world to life. Again a great story about a place and it's mystery.

Reread while reading something else...

Yes, I have not posted for awhile. I have been trapped in book that is good, informative - and that puts me to sleep. I think I will have to stop reading it - because it is bringing my reading adventures down.....

Yes - it happens to the best of us! That is why the phrase " the right book at the right time" is indeed a powerful one...

While I was wading through the above book, I broke away for a bit of fun and reread Venetia by Georgette Heyer. It is one of the first Heyers that I ever read. It has our title character trapped in the countryside but enjoying her life, the younger brother who gets into scrapes when he is not quoting Greek to her, and the mysterious Damerel who happens to be the rake next door. Well there goes the neighborhood! Again, a book of detail, pithy dialogue and people who should really stop listening to what the neighbors think! A wonderful regency done by the master. Have fun...

Sunday, October 01, 2006

The Cloister Walk

Reading about spirituality, is definitely a "personal" thing for people. It is not only the book, that needs to be stimulating to keep one's interest. The reader must be open to the concepts that are discussed or nothing of the author's words will really sink in. Sometimes with these type of books, the concepts will be agreeable to what one already believes. Sometimes the concepts will challenge the core of one's belief or in some cases, lack of belief.

The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris is a challenging book about faith and spirituality. Norris, a poet and writer by trade, takes us on a personal journey into a community of a Benedictine monastery in Minnesota. That fact that Norris is a Protestant, married with children, and spending two extended residencies within this monastery is pretty remarkable.

To make our journey easier, Norris takes us through a liturgical year. She follows and and tries to clarify the psalms and text of the services for us and herself. Along the way she delves briefly into the history and development of the Benedictines and monastery life in general.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02443a.htm
(This listing from the Catholic Encyclopedia will give you an in depth history of the order.)

The organization of this book is also interesting, some of the chapters are very short, some are long. It combines with the text of the chapters, to force the reader to contemplate the topic and mull it over awhile.
And Norris' language seems to me very lush, but yet writes in an approachable style. Explore the book and see what you think.

" Anyone who listens to the world, anyone who seeks the sacred in the ordinary events of life, has 'problems about how to believe.' Paradoxically, it helps that both prayer and poetry begin deep within a person, beyond the reach of language. The fourth-century desert monk St. Anthony said that perfect prayer is one you don't understand. Poets are used to discovering, years after a poem is written, what it's really about. And it's in the respect for the mystery and the power of words that I find the most profound connections between the practice of writing and monastic life." - p. 143 The Cloister Walk.