The House on Mango Street

Good golly. I loved this book. Last December or so I went about spending a graduation gift in the way of used books. I picked up The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros for a dollar. One dollar!

Well. I finally got around to picking it up tonight. Only a few pages in I had to stop to rave about it to my roommate. That doesn't happen very often.

The House on Mango Street is a story told to us by Esperanza, a young Latina girl coming of age in a rough neighborhood in Chicago. She lives in a "sad red house, the house I belong but do not belong to." Through Esperanza's observations and retellings we come to know the various characters in the neighborhood: Rafaela Who Drinks Coconut and Papaya Juice on Tuesdays, Sally, and Minerva, are a few who come to mind. Before she tells us, we know Esperanza is a poet... speaking in similes and metaphors and images.

A few of my favorite passages:

"In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting. It is like the number nine. A muddy color. It is the Mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing."

"You can never have too much sky. You can fall asleep and wake up drunk on sky, and sky can keep you safe when you are sad. Here there is too much sadness and not enough sky. Butterflies too are few and so are flowers and most things that are beautiful. Still, we take what we can get and make the best of it."

"People who live on hills sleep so close to the stars they forget those of us who live too much on earth."

I finally get what's such a big deal about Sandra Cisneros.

Recommendation: Please read this book.

Brian's Winter

All of elementary school I was convinced Hatchet by Gary Paulsen was a "boys book". I've never had strict gender role delusions, but it still didn't seem like it would be interesting to a girl. Last summer I finally picked it up and discovered a vastly complex novel aimed at middle readers and young adults but with some very grown-up themes. Brian Robeson is in a horrific plane crash that leaves him stranded and alone in the Canadian wilderness. Brian must call upon strength he didn't realize he had to try to survive the summer. Hatchet was so popular that Paulsen wrote several other companion books to tell more of Brian's story, one of which is Brian's Winter, one of my choices for the Young Adult Reading Challenge.

Brian's Winter takes on the premise of, "What is Brian isn't/wasn't rescued and had to survive a winter in the Canadian wilderness?" It's a short read (for an adult). Pretty graphic too... but really, what vegetarian doesn't want to read the details of killing, skinning, chopping, cooking, and eating wild animals? Along with collecting firewood, the book is consumed with Brian's hunting pursuits. But, I suppose when you're in survival mode, there's not much else to do.

Recommendation: If you liked Hatchet and had any lingering thoughts about Brian, Brian's Winter will give you plenty more to think about.

Mrs. Dalloway

Surprisingly I'd never read any Virginia Woolf before... I'd always meant to...

So I put Mrs. Dalloway down on my list of 1% Well-Read Challenge books.

The novel plays out a single day in the life of Mrs. Dalloway, a London socialite, as she prepares for a party and struggles with the reappearance of an old love.

I can't lie. It wasn't a smooth reading experience... always. I started the book and struggled with focusing on all the characters and all the happenings. The novel plays out over a single day without any natural breaks. It's hard to find good stopping places! (Which is probably why I put the book on hiatus and read 5 others.)

When I had the time and mental clarity to enjoy the book, I really really did. I liked the transitions between characters and all of the connections between the players. It's like one long tracking shot, which is one of my favorite techniques in film to watch develop.

Recommendation: If you had the time and patience to read it in all one sitting, I think it'd be an amazing reading experience. If you don't, try to keep your mind from wandering. It will save you a lot of rereading.

Kafka on the Shore

I was pretty excited to read this book. A teacher friend of mine who knows I love reading, emphatically recommended it to me by yelling across the library. Of course I wrote it down. Then I saw it on the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die list and popped it on my choices for the 1% Well-Read Challenge. When my roommate and I decided to have a traveling book club this summer, she bought me Kafka and I couldn't wait.

Noted: This was probably not the best book to bring to Peru. Naturally, it was read in short spurts during the peak of exhaustion. Murakami deserves much closer attention than that... especially his novel that John Updike refers to as a "meta-physical mindbender." Due to lack of sleep, overexertion, and the excitement of travel... my mind was already bent.

That being the case... I enjoyed the beginning of the book. There are two distinct plots that gradually intertwine as the novel progresses. The odd chapters follow Kafka, a fifteen year old boy who is facing a series of crises and discovering that life rarely makes sense (but I think it made more sense to him than it did to me). The even chapters follow Nakata, a friendly elderly man with an unusual developmental delay and the ability to talk to cats. Each character sets out on a journey and the reader follows.

I'm not going to pretend like I understood this book. Talking it over with my roommate we both agreed that there was a whole lot more going on than what we picked up. One element we struggled with: all the sex! There's a very graphic retelling of a sex dream in a letter that doesn't relate to much, and a few different potentially incestuous relationships (Kafka and a girl he suspects to be his older sister, and Kafka and an older woman he suspects to be his mother). I'm not against sexuality in books, but I do like to know why! The only explanation in my friend's bookclub for it was, "Well, the book was written by a man." But surely, there must be more to it. Murakami himself describes the book as being written in riddles that have no answers, but that the riddles themselves will take you closer to the meaning of the book. He also notes that the book requires more than one reading.

Seriously, why did I read this in transit?

Recommendation: If you've read other Murakami books successfully, you'll probably be thrilled. If you don't have the time or energy for close and multiple readings, wait until you do.

Non-Fiction Five Wrap Up

So I finished all five of my non-fiction books awhile ago. But, true to form, I took my sweet time with the blogging. I thought I stayed pretty close to my original list, but really just 3/5.

Revised List:
1. Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman (review here)
2. How to Live Your Dream of Volunteering Overseas by Josheph Collins, Stefano DeZerega, and Zahara Heckscher (review here)
3. Control Theory in the Classroom by William Glasser (review here)
4. When I Was Elena by Ellen Urbani Hiltebrand (review here)
5. Skipping Towards Gomorrah by Dan Savage (review here)

Favorite Book: Skipping Towards Gormorrah... I just love Dan Savage.

Least Favorite Book: Control Theory in the Classroom... I knew that going in. You can't read a book that was cutting edge in the '80s without thinking, "Oh please... who doesn't know that?"

I was disappointed not to read Vegan: The New Ethics of Eating... it seemed to have disappeared from the library. Perhaps having moved to a larger city (although less vegan friendly) will increase my odds of finding it.

Thanks to Joy for another lovely challenge!