The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood is a well crafted novel, layering stories in slices until it all comes together in the end. Moving from a straight first person narrative to newspaper clippings to passages from a novel written by one of the characters, the story unfolds wonderfully.

Where this novel failed for me is Atwood’s use of foreshadowing metaphor. The few surprises there should have been at the end were so heavy handed, the symbolism more a slap than subtle, that I knew every plot twist long before it came. I could say more but to do so would be to include spoilers in this review, something I try to avoid doing. But if the book had not been so well written my frustration with the ending would have made me angry.

I think if I had read it faster, had less time to think about the obvious foreshadowing of events and images, I would have been a little more surprised by how the last few chapters reveal the narrative truths. And with all of this, I can recommend this book to anyone who wants a satisfying conclusion, one that grows naturally and inevitably from the content. The final twists may have been predictable for me but if you don’t over-think as you read you may find them surprising and definitely satisfying.

I do wish I’d had the foresight to use a blank index card as a bookmark so I could have written down some of the more amusing or interesting lines in the novel. It has some great quotable lines.

The Book of Secrets by Deepak Chopra

The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life by Deepak Chopra is one of those self-help books steeped in spirituality that seem to be cluttering the non-fiction best seller lists. That is not to suggest that this is not a good or useful book. As far as these types of books go, Chopra’s is superior to most.

Each of the fifteen secrets is given its own chapter. The truths presented have a clearly Hindu slant, although Christianity and Buddhism are included to help support the relevance of what he suggests are things we need to know if we hope to live a deeply fulfilling life. He doesn’t oversimplify the information as so many books are wont to do. Nor does he weigh the content down with too much depth, which for me is a disappointment. I wanted more meat to chew upon and what I found was mostly milky content.

I would recommend anyone who reads this book keep a notebook handy. Many of the chapters include writing exercises and, if you find yourself inspired to do so after reading the chapter, you’ll want to explore the exercises as you go along. I did not have a notebook with me. I didn’t especially regret not having one. Probably because I didn’t find the book particularly inspiring, unlike others I have read recently.

Finding What You Didn't Lose and Poetic Medicine

Dr. John Fox is a leader in the field of poetry therapy and is president and CEO of the Board of the Institute for Poetic Medicine. He has authored two books on poetry therapy: Finding What You Didn't Lose and Poetic Medicine. In these books, Dr. Fox shares from his own experience as both a person in need of healing and as a poet who has used his writing to help heal others. He leads workshops on poetic medicine and his books are filled with the exercises he uses in the workshop. The reader is invited to write their own poetry and not just read the examples of past workshop participants, some as young as grade school. There are also marginal quotes that could easily be used as launching pads for journaling or poetry.

Finding What You Didn't Lose is an excellent resource for the person who is not comfortable with writing, who isn't already in the habit of putting their experiences into words, especially into verse. The exercises Fox uses are simple and build upon one another, gently leading the reader/writer through various experiences. Technique-like using metaphor, alliteration, line breaks, etc.-is not the emphasis, although they are mentioned and practiced throughout. Rather, the focus of the text is on simply getting the words, the emotions, the memories, on the page in whatever manner feels most honest.

Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making is the perfect complement to Fox's other text as it takes the same ideas but goes further along the path, focusing more on digging into the past to find inspiration for more poems. The idea is to not avoid pain so much as to bring it out into the light and find healing through giving the past experiences meaning through words. Once again, Fox shares examples from participants in his workshop before inviting the reader, through well defined exercises, to write their own poetry.

A Girl’s Guide to Modern European Philosophy by Charlotte Grieg

A Girl’s Guide to Modern European Philosophy by Charlotte Grieg is a summer novel that wants to be edgy. Had this been written and published thirty years or so ago it would have been an in-your-face story, bold and daring. Contemporaneously, it could have been an incisive look into the moors and moods of a particular time in recent history. In the end, it is just another beach book that one can easily read in a day.

The main character, Susanna, is torn between two lovers, neither of whom seemed irresistible or even desirable to me nor did they evolve or surprise me in the end. Drawn with broad and predictable strokes, Jason and Rob are the same at the end of the novel as they are at the beginning. Susanna’s friends also never vary from who or what they are at the beginning. Susanna herself hardly surprises and the denouement is predictable, which is why this book falls into a safe summer read.

Given the author’s appreciation for music, I had anticipated more allusions to the music of the period. Although there are a few references to music and lyrics at the beginning, this is soon forgotten. Given the title, I also hoped to read more philosophical thoughts, discussions, whatever. Instead, the philosophical content only begins to soar in the third part and by then it’s a little too little too late. The opportunity to elevate a cliché theme to something profound was there; however, it was not fulfilled.

June in Summary

June began with the death of a friend’s brother. For those of you trying to keep track that’s five deaths since April Fool’s Day.

Then about the middle of June we celebrated Rob’s 38th birthday. It was a quiet celebration. Joe once again wasn’t with us so it was just Rei, Marc, and me trying to make his day as special as possible. I think I succeeded in some small way because he gave me the new Dave Matthews Band cd because I had “tried to make my birthday special.” Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King is now officially in my collection and I am only missing about half a dozen or so of the Live Trax collection. At this rate I shall never catch up.

I really did try to make his birthday special but the things I wanted to do were out of reach and circumstances precluded even my most conservative desires.

The month ended with things being not so great but since nobody else died this month it has been better than either April or May and for this I am grateful. Perhaps July will have no new deaths. That would be nice.

Books Read
Dreaming in Hindi by Katherine Russell Rich
The Blue Notebook by James A Levine
Decent People, Decent Company by Robert L Turknett and Carolyn N Turknett
You Are How You Move by Ged Sumner
Ecology of a Cracker Childhood by Janisse Ray

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
Harvard Business Review on Leading in Turbulent Times
Finding Oz by Evan I Schwartz

The Marriage Bureau for Rich People by Farahad Zama
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Hands down, the best book I read this month was The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. One of those rare books I would recommend without any reservations to anyone and everyone.

Movies Seen (for the first time)
A Passage to India – The movie is visually lovely. Unfortunately, it takes liberties with the story that negate the full impact of the novel.
Gattaca – Interesting. Predictable. The more I see of Jude Law, the more I like him. What’s up with that?
Tropic Thunder – There’s no way I would’ve seen this had someone not given it to Rob. Surprise. I laughed. Maybe because I’ve seen enough Vietnam movies to get the references. That and I love Robert Downey Jr.
Music in Another Room – Cute. Ummmm yeah. That’s it. Has the lovely Jude Law and the annoying Jennifer Tilly. Perhaps they cancel out one another.
The Exorcist: Beginnings – Why? Why did they make this? Why did I watch it? The novel, which I read as a teenager, was more interesting than all of the movies combined.
Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull – Not sure why they have to keep milking this cash cow. The Last Crusade was soooo good and The Temple of Doom soooo horrid. The Crystal Skull was just another visit to a well that is pretty much dry.

Television Shows

Rob and I watched Dexter Season 2. For those of you who are paying attention, yes this means we watched season three before season two. I have to say that if we hadn’t, I think that season two would have pushed me to the edge of wanting to watch the show into not wanting to watch it. I can’t say that the show was any more dark than in the other seasons and it was still brilliantly written and acted so it isn’t the quality at all. But it just felt different too me. Less safe. Far more threatening. I have my theories about why but to explore them here would be to have spoilers so I’ll just leave it at that. I am looking forward to season four, thanks to the less threatening and still intense season three. They say things happen for a reason. Maybe the reason I saw season three before I saw season two was so that I wouldn’t give up on the show prematurely.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

The Year of Magical Thinking is Joan Didion’s memoir about her husband’s death, an even that happened at a time when the couple was already dealing with the health crisis of their only daughter, newly married and in an ICU. Months after the death, the daughter would be back in the hospital having surgery to relieve some bleeding in her brain.

That is as objective as I can be about this brilliant book. I found myself devouring it because I could understand Didion’s response, her reactions, her ways and means of coping. Not because, thank goodness, I had any relevant experience even remotely close to her own feelings of loss and grief. But her turning to words, to poetry, to reading as a coping mechanism made sense to me.

As much so as those moments of madness where maybe she wasn’t quite holding onto the reality of her world to the same degree as before. And why would she? Why should she hold onto a world where her husband of forty years could die in the living room while she prepared their dinner only a few short hours after they had visited their daughter who was in a coma? What kind of world is it that finally allows a woman to have the funeral for her husband after their only daughter has emerged from the coma only to have her child collapse when the healing is finally (maybe) going to begin?

When I began reading I inevitably thought of C S Lewis’ A Grief Observed, drawing parallels. Both authors are devout Christians. Both lose the love of their lives. Both are literati, bound to seek solace in the pages of books. There the similarities ended. I liked Lewis; I adore Didion. I cannot explain accurately why this should be and I suppose someone will someday write a paper in some college course, comparing and contrasting the two documents to better understand the differences in how the two authors approached the writing of their own pain.

Even when Didion quotes from Lewis, the difference is hinted at. Lewis observed his grief through a filter of intellectualizing and spiritualizing. In his book the pain of loss is hinted at but assuaged by the presence of faith, of hope, of the promises he found in the Bible. Didion, on the other hand, is quietly imploding, going through the motions of her life in hopes of regaining some semblance of balance. Her grief is keening, is tearing a hole in cloth over the heart to expose the rawness of her experience. She tries to intellectualize, to understand through reading what it is she is feeling, but she cannot because what she is feeling is so much more than words.

I suspect that somewhere between the lines there is so much more than her words could measure, so much more pain and memory that she never allowed to become concretized into syllables. I only suspect this because I can’t imagine that Didion, with her seeming transparency, would ever fully expose herself or her loved ones on the page. Perhaps I am wrong. I also suspect that this is a book I will find myself turning to again, someday, because her grief, her mourning, I understand. Lewis, who seems to observe from a reserved distance, doesn’t embrace the absolutely rawness of Didion’s experience and it is this passion that I know resonates more fully with my own.

The Marriage Bureau for Rich People by Farahad Zama

The Marriage Bureau for Rich People by Farahad Zama is a novel about a marriage broker in India, about his own family, and about the people around him including his unmarried (and not rich enough for his services) assistant, the housekeeper who comes to help his wife every day, and, of course, about the people who come to him for help in finding the perfect mate. Added to this mix are the people who come and go, who are seeking marriage for themselves, a son, a daughter, or other family relative.

In the end, this is a beach book, a novel meant to be read lightly. Throughout the telling of the story, I never felt immersed in the events of the story. Rather, I felt Zama was telling me about Indian life, about how marriages are arranged in a culture still struggling against its caste system roots, and about a small group of people whose lives become intertwined. But telling a story and having a reader lose themselves in the characters, the setting, and the plot are not the same thing and because I never got so caught up in the story that I couldn’t put the book down, I can’t say that I recommend it. I didn’t dislike it enough to say much against it. I think that Zama was very interested in sharing his culture with the reader but never shared it in an intimate or even passionate way. At times, he even becomes a bit pedantic as he speaks/lectures to the reader through his characters. According to the back cover, the author wrote this novel while commuting to and from work and while sitting in front of the television. Perhaps he should turn the television off.

Harvard Business Review on Leading in Turbulent Times

Harvard Business Review on Leading in Turbulent Times is a collection of articles, originally published in the Harvard Business Review, meant to be read by corporate managers and other white collar workers. I am neither and I still found this book very interesting. Moving from one essay to the next, it quickly becomes apparent just how challenging being the head of a company or even a department can be, especially during times of economic crisis. The advice offered by one author is quickly contradicted by another, decisions that work for one example do not work for another, and in the end, the essays boil down to one thing: there are no easy answers. Especially none for challenging and difficult questions.

Three essays especially stood out to me. Suzy Wetlaufer presents a fictional circumstance of a CEO who leads himself and his company into a corner and then five experts are given the opportunity to respond to the hypothetical situation with suggestions of what he can and should do to turn a bad situation around. I don’t know if it was because of the fictionalized story that preceded the advice or my amusement at how one expert would advise what another expert had warned against, but I found this article to be the most engaging.

How Resilience Works by Diane L Coutu is the most universal of the articles, offering ideas that can be transferred from the office to every day life. I also enjoyed Joseph L Badaracco, Jr’s We Don’t Need Another Hero which was overflowing with examples from his seemingly vast experience.

It was odd to read about how GMC is an example of success at the same time I am reading in the news about their filing for bankruptcy. And it is this factor that highlights the books greatest weakness. Businesses, in order to thrive, often need to be on the cutting edge of things. A book such as this, that gathers the best articles of the past to be highlighted thematically, can only end up dating itself far more quickly than a subscription to the publication itself. And to be completely honest, some of the information was over my head completely, having never been nor aspired to management in any of the corporate offices I have worked. Nevertheless, in spite of the relevancy to my personal life and/or professional experience, I found the collection a compelling read and would not hesitate to pick up other books in the series from my local library.