OK, so I haven’t written about the books I’ve been reading for a while now – sorry! They’re all listed with brief summaries/thought on my books page, but I haven’t posted anything about the more recent ones. I will try to quickly remedy that now. 
Good Harbor by Anita Diamant. I remember loving her book The Red Tent, which was a re-telling of the Biblical story of Dinah and talked a lot about women’s lives in that time, so I was excited to find this one. But it was, well, it was just not my favorite – it’s about a frienship between two women, and I just didn’t think anything was properly fleshed out as far as depth of character goes. Not really bad, just not really good.
Everyone Else’s Girl by Megan Crane. A fun chick lit book about returning home after living as an adult, and the resulting awkwardness and difficulty in meeting exes, etc. Fun and quick to read.
The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory. Told from the perspective of Mary Boleyn, Anne’s older sister, a mistress to Henry VIII (before Anne married him) and mother of two illegitimate children with him. A strong focus on the power struggle behind getting Catherine of Aragon off of the throne, and the resulting schism within the church, as well as the issues surrounding being a woman in that time. As Kari said when she wrote about it, it helps to have a basic understanding of the history of the time, as there is quite a bit of fictionalization that goes on, including giving credence to some theories that the treason charges against Anne and her brother (charges of an incestuous relationship and a homosexual ring at court) were actually true, which most historians would agree was just a ruse to get Anne off of the throne to make way for Jane Seymore (thanks Kara!). I would recommend the book, but it is looooong (650 pages), but I read the last 100 pages on the elliptical at the YMCA in an hour, just because I needed to know how it ended (I mean, I know how it ended historically, but I needed to know how the novel wrapped things up).
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. This is one of the most difficult books I’ve ever read, not in terms of actual reading (it was very well written) but in terms of dealing with the trauma of the events that happen in the book. It’s about two boys growing up in Kabul Afghanistan in the ’70s and follows their lives through 2002. It’s very disturbing, but also (from what I’ve read about it) very accurate to the time and place, and that makes it actually more disturbing in a way. There are things that are specific to Afghan culture and religion, but there are definitely strong themes of guilt, secrets, family relationships and plenty of other things to relate to. I think I would have to read it again (I actually listened to it on CD in the car, which was probably not a good way to do such an emotionally charged book) to pick up on a lot of things, but I need to give it a little while – it’s too fresh and raw right now.
Intuition by Allegra Goodman. Kari recommended the book and asked me to fact-check if possible, cause the story revolves around a cancer research lab in a high-power cancer institute. The research of one post-doc starts to go marvelously well, and soon there are questions being raised by a fellow post-doc about the validity of said research, and it all snow-balls from there. For Kari’s benefit, the science seemed quite accurate, and it was really only talked about in the beginning, so non-scientists can still enjoy the book even if they get lost in the science. I remember Kari mentioning this when she read it, but had forgotten about it by the time I read it, but the story is told from each person’s perspective (not in first person), such that each person’s story is told as if there are the main protagonist and their version of truth and right vs wrong is correct. Which is an interesting and perhaps more realistic way to tell the story (especially this story), but it takes some getting used to – I was thinking all the way through the story that eventually the ‘truth’ was going to come out, that we would find out that he really did cheat, or that she really was making things up, but the ‘truth’ was left fairly ambiguous, though there is some closure at the end. Kari said she liked that there was no clear bad guy, and I agree that that’s more realistic, but in the end, I kinda like having that bad guy to boo, you know? Still a good read, and from what I’ve seen of her books, quite different than the rest of her stuff, so that’s good that she can write across several genres of fiction.
Oh, and I also checked out this strange book from the library, because I was looking for anything else by Audrey Niffenegger (who wrote The Time Traveler’s Wife, which I loved). And it turns out she wrote this bizarre ‘visual novel’ that’s basically a story told in these ephemeral aquatints that she apparently worked on for years and years. But it was straaaange, and I’m not counting it on my list (it took me 15 minutes to flip through). It’s called The Three Incestuous Sisters and well, it was wierd.
So I’ve now started On Agate Hill by Lee Smith (another Kari recommendation) and I’m hoping to get some time at the beach this weekend to read that and maybe one more – I’ve got a new one from Kari called The Faith Club about three women from Christianity, Islam and Judaism who talk about their faith with each other, but I’ve already got a few more out from the library that I need to read so I can turn back in. We’ll see…
What are you reading these days? Any suggestions for summer reading?
I’ve been thinking about community quite a lot lately, partly because I’m facing potentially having to leave my current community within the next year or two, and partly because it’s been the focus of several conversations and most recently the women’s conference at church this past weekend. This is probably going to be a bit rambly, so you’ll have to forgive me…
I believe that God has called us into community, to live as the spiritual brothers and sisters that we are. I know this will look different from each individual, but I believe that it is a crucial part of every believer’s life. Community is not only meant as a support system, but as a method for delivering truth to each of us. I am able to be aware of and respond to the needs of my friends only because we are living in a relationship that allows for open and honest communication. It seems that this is the kind of community that the church should model, including the responsibility to lovingly rebuke members who have gone astray or broken community.
We studied Colossians 3:15-17 at the conference this past weekend, which talks about not only about being ‘one body’ called to peace, but about ‘teaching and admonishing each other in all wisdom’, and also speaking God’s truth to each other through the singing of songs, hymns and spiritual songs, all of which are essential elements of any Christian community. The accountability that comes with being a part of Christian community is one of the benefits, but also one of the more difficult things about community. I believe that we are called to hold each other accountable in love and with humility, not wishing to beat the other person over the head with their sin, but to gently speak God’s truth into their life.
I remember the Sunday that I became a member of my church, three years ago this spring. Hunter always does a fantastic job of making the membership vows take on new meaning, and the major point that I will always remember is this:
By agreeing to membership here, you are inviting us to come after you. You are saying to us, ‘If I fall away from this community and start living my life as if I don’t know God, I am giving you permission to come after me and shake some sense into me.’ And in taking those membership vows, the congregation is promising to actually come after you, to pursue you and speak God’s truth into your life, to attempt to reconcile you with God primarily, and also with the community you were once a part of.
And that always gets me. So in those weeks when I would rather sleep in on a Sunday morning, I think about the things I promised, both as I joined the church and as I watched others join. And when I know my family would rather me stay at home the whole weekend with them, I know, for the most part, I need to come back and be with my church community. And I remember the promises I made when new babies are baptized and I know that my service in the nursery is a partial fulfillment of those promises. I think I often still see community from a very self-centered place, but I’m slowly learning to turn the focus from me to where it really belongs.
I finished Nicole Krauss’s The History of Love this week, and it’s been really hard for me to think of what I wanted to say about the book. It was very good, beautifully written and very compelling – it took me a while to read, but that was mostly because I read it in spurts and missed several days of reading completely, and that’s actually probably the best way to read the book, because there are so many confusing twists and turns that reading it in dribs and drabs would make it even more confusing. The story switches narration mainly between Alma, a young girl dealing with the death of her beloved father, and Leo, an old Polish man who is seeking desparately not to disappear into oblivion. Their stories become connected in a way that seems almost impossible at the beginning, tied in with the fate of a novel written fifty years earlier called ‘The History of Love’.
What Kari said about the book being about survival really resonated with me, as that seemed like the biggest theme of the book – Leo’s concern with not disappearing, Alma’s attempts to become prolific at outdoor survival, Leo’s drive to make sure that part of himself is left behind, it’s all about survival, making sure that the life we lead leaves at least a small mark on the world when we die, that something is different because we were alive. And the book communicates that powerfully, I think.
My favorite part of the book, however, is early on during one of the exerpts from the novel ‘The History of Love’ (confusing that that’s the title of both ‘books’). The author is talking about the ‘Ages’ throughout history, and in this part he’s talking about the Age of Silence, when communication was only through gestures and there was no spoken language developed.
During the Age of Silence, people communicated more, not less. Basic survival demanded that the hands were almost never still, and so it was only during sleep (and sometimes not even then) that people were not saying something or other. No distinction was made between the gestures of language and the gestures of life. The labor of building a house, say, or preparing a meal was no less an expression than making the sign for I love you or I feel serious.
I thought that was an amazing statement of the concept that love is about action, that it’s less about feelings and emotions and more about the things we do that let people know that we love them. Of course it’s much easier to say the words ‘I love you’ but to actually show someone that love means something more than words is much more difficult, but also more worthwhile in the end.
I’ve long been fascinated by the traditions and rituals of the Jewish faith. My family has done several Messianic seder meals starting when I was about under 10 (I just remember it was in WI, so it must have been before we moved to NC when I was 10), which were always very poignant reminders of the hardships faced by the Israelites so long ago, and of the faithfulness of God in all things. So when I realized that Lauren Winner’s book Mudhouse Sabbath was about the Jewish traditions she misses now as a Christian, I was very excited.
She breaks the book down into 11 chapters, each one focusing on a different tradition/ritual/concept of Judaism that she believes could be adapted to make the Christian experience a bit richer. She talks about missing the real Sabbath-keeping she grew up with, where the week was focused on Sabbath, rather than Sabbath being yet another busy day like all the others. She talks about how mourning is different for Jews, where there are distinct phases of mourning, and where the community is often better at recognizing that mourning can take much longer than we’re often concede. She talks about how difficult it was for her to step out on a limb when professing her new Christian faith, whereas she’d been completely used to posting the mezuzah on her doorframe even in college, indicating to the world her association with the Jewish faith.
I loved this book, partly for the insights into Jewish traditions, but largely because I love the honesty and beauty of Lauren Winner’s writing. She’s open about her struggles (here and in her other books, which I’ve read and loved – you should definitely check them out if you’ve not read them yet!), and that openness creates a wonderful sense of relationship with an author, and makes you feel like you could have a conversation with her over a cup of tea or a walk in a park.
This book is about those things that I miss. It is about Sabbaths and burials and prayers, rituals Jews and Christians both observe…. Jews do these things with more attention and wisdom not because they are more righteous nor because God likes them better, but rather because doing, because action, sits at the center of Judaism. Practice is to Judaism what belief is to Christianity. Your faith may come and go but your practice ought not to waiver.