Capitol Hill Blue Forums Misc. Topics Book, Movie & Podcast Reviews my own book page

I really wanted to like The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck because it's been mentioned here (in various threads) fairly often, but it's not gonna happen. I'm at page 82 and stopping. Sort of interesting when he talks about specific cases. Rest is, IMHO, pure psycho-babble and boring. I'll take my philosophy and coping skills wrapped up in characters doing things.

Martha - I have to admit, you got further with it than I ever did. I think it's one of those that either speaks to you or doesn't. It spoke to a dear friend of mine whose opinion I value highly, but when I tried to read it I found myself deaf as a post.

A thank you to whoever recommended The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer. I enjoyed it—with one reservation, which I'll get to in a minute. The subject matter itself is quite interesting. Isaac Amin, a successful jeweler in Tehran, sees the life he knows vanish during the Iranian revolution in the 1970s, when he is carted off to jail. He is, of course, innocent of the few charges the authorities could "hang on" him. When he claims innocence or lack of knowledge, he is tortured—primarily because he is not giving the answers his captors want to hear.

The story of Septembers is also the effect of Isaac's arrest on the rest of his family—his wife, a thirteen-year-old daughter and an older son already living and going to school in New York. All these characters—and even more—experience lives fraught with danger. And therein lies the problem I had with the book. Something bad is always about to happen, yet the characters manage to avoid or escape the issue. Example: In a scene reminiscent of Doctor Zhivago, Isaac, his wife and daughter go to spend time in their summer home. They arrive, not to find "it all boarded up" as Zhivago does, but it has been sold by the government to another family, the head of which explains to Isaac that he, Isaac, already had a home in Tehran, he didn't need a second one. Then did I, the reader, get a grandiose scene similar to Ralph Richardson pulling a board off his family home and saying, "Damn it all, I'm the people, too"? Nope. Isaac finds a beachfront home for rent, and he and his family stay there. Anticlimactic, to say the least.

I guess the problem, IMHO, is that when a writer uses danger to tease, occasionally the threat has to turn out to be real. Remember that one of the things I liked in the 87th precinct novels was Ed McBain's ability to create a likeable character and then kill him off. Dalia Sofer needs a lesson from Ed McBain.

Bottom line? I'll give it a thumbs up at less than a 90 degree angle. The picture of a modernized country being taken over by religious conservatives was interesting.

Four days ago when I finished reading Ian McEwan's Atonement, I was going to start my review with "Thank god, I've finished it." My main complaint was—and still is—McEwan's writing style. He's one of those in-the-character's-head writers. Okay in small doses, but page after page? Forget it! If I was that into what characters are thinking, I'd be reading novels by James Joyce. Over and over.

But four days have passed, during which I've been reading Ian Klaus's Elvis Is Titanic. Doing so has dulled the memory of boredom produced by Atonement. But more about Elvis later. Probably tomorrow.

And actually I've decided to Netflix the movie Atonement. My friend Tessa had seen it. Her review was "Okay film, but the surprise at the end is really cool." Surprise? Nothing in the novel surprised me. Ever. I mentioned a couple things that could have possibly been a surprise, but Tessa refused to comment. Now I wait with baited breath for whatever surprise the movie holds. And I wish not to be disappointed. Again.

I think the last book my mother-in-law read was "The Other Boleyn Girl." It was passed on to me at the wake. It was paper-back, and 661 pages long, so I thought it would be a good read to take along on my recent trip to France.

Actually, if the book was researched decently, it does manage to tell a good bit (that was confirmed in tours) of what life was like in the courts of medieval France and England.

I told Mr. BamaMama that I was reading trashy fiction but I was gaining some knowledge of history. "Yes," he replied, "Trashy history."

Can't say he was wrong.

"The Other Boleyn Girl" is a book I chose to read backwards. I sometimes do that. I read the last chapter, the next next to the last chapter, and plunder my way through the book in that fashion.

IMHO this is the ONLY way to read this particular book because the foreshadowing in almost every chapter could cause one to cut off the head of even an innocent within range of me and a knife!

I now have to watch "Anne of 1000 Days " again. I had always envisioned her as a sympathetic character. If "TOBG" even touches the truth, Anne gives witches a bad name.

Respectfully,

Kathy Albers

Bama - Nice to see you again! You've been missed.

Thanks Julia. I'm still getting over lag....Saw Martha and had to join in!

Kathy

Finished Homo Domesticus last night, by David Valdes Greenwood.

I hate relationship books, never touch 'em. I generally find them just too... well, too. But when I saw this one in the library, I had to pick it up. Why? Because David Valdes Greenwood's husband's name is Jason.

I wanted this book to be the story of a happy marriage. The fairly boring story of a typical happy marriage.

Yay for David and Jason - they are happy. They are normal. They are gay. (They're even, at times, a little boring.)

The two were married in a non-state-recognized church wedding 10 years before Massachusetts allowed them to marry legally (which they did, in 2005.) This is a long-term relationship - not perfect, but lasting pretty well so far. At least adoption agencies agree; they have recently become the fathers of a little girl.

David is a playwright and occasional college lecturer; Jason is a children's speech therapist.

I think the more we are able to see that the world of gay marriage is pretty much like the world of straight marriage, the more acceptable it will become. There's nothing particularly noticeable about this book which is, of course, why it's so wonderfully noticeable.

(And no heterosexual divorces have been attributed, to my knowledge, to the publication of this book.)

A quick, easy read, and kind of fun.

In Elvis Is Titanic Ian Klaus describes the year he spent teaching in the Kurdish section of Iraq. Overall, the book is quite similar to the little girl with the curl right in the middle of her forehead. When it is good, it is very good; when it is bad, it is horrid. Horrid occurs when Klaus delves into the history of the Kurds and their relationship with Iraq. Very good comes when he describes his classes—the people in them, what they study and how the students relate to the material. I was impressed by various things in all three areas.

At one point his class reads a speech made by Malcolm in 1965 which includes the following: "The yardstick that is used by the Muslim to measure another man is not the man's color but the man's deeds, the man's conscious behavior, the man's intentions." (page 154) I read such things and have trouble equating Muslims with people whose goals are to kill all humanity that doesn't become Muslim. Maybe I'm missing or misunderstanding something. Anyone care to make whatever it is clear to me?

In one chapter Klaus describes how the university in which he taught has changed. "By 2003, there were four colleges and since then three new ones have been added—in medicine, engineering and architecture—as well as numerous departments, including one devoted to 'the science of the Koran.'" Can we say "creationism"? "Devine intelligence"? Maybe there are similarities between our culture and that of Iraq. If only people would slow down and pay attention.

And as "way leads on to way," Elvis added some books to my to be looked into list—specifically the poetry of Langston Hughes, a Harlem Renaissance book entitled Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, and maybe even The Old Man and the Sea. Alas. So many books, so little time.

Right now I'm now giving Stephen King another chance. Haven't tried one of his in about ten years and I so enjoyed the stories he picked for this year's Best American Short Stories. Here's hopin'.

Martha, I strongly second the recommendation for Their Eyes Were Watching God. There is debate over whether Hurston is a great writer or not, but this is definitely a book that will stay with you. I have several of her books - it's been awhile since I've read them but I'm not about to let them go.

Julia