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#265 ~ Not That Kind of Girl
Not That Kind of Girl by Carlene Bauer
Published by: HarperCollins
Published on: June 29, 2010
Page Count: 288
Genre: Memoir
My Reading Format: Trade paperback review copy provided by the publisher.
Available Formats: Hardcover, paperback, eBook
Today it is my great pleasure to be Carlene Bauer’s host on his TLC Book Tour for her memoir, Not That Kind of Girl.
I have a lot of fun working as a tour host for TLC Book Tours. They always have great books and authors on tour. Check out their website for more information on this tour and the others that they are hosting.
Summary from the Publisher
Raised in evangelical churches that preached apocalypse now, Carlene Bauer grows up happy to oblige the God who presides over her New Jersey girlhood. But in high school and college, her intellectual and spiritual horizons widen, and she becomes skeptical of the judgmental God she’s been given. Still, she finds it hard to let go of the ideals she’s been raised with, and to rebel as she knows she should. She loves rock and roll, but politely declines offers of sex and drugs; she thinks the Bible and the Norton Anthology of American Literature are equally authoritative guides to life. Since there are no churches worshipping the Jesus Paul Westerberg sang about in “Can’t Hardly Wait,” and no tidy categories for those who are neither riot grrrls nor altar girls, she hovers between a hunger for the world and a suspicion of it.
In her twenties, however, determined to make up for lost time, Bauer undertakes a belated and often comic coming-of-age in New York City. Between late blooming at parties and staying late at work, it seems that she might become as bold as she’d hoped to be—even if the late blooming is a little more hapless than highly erotic. And yet the city and its pleasures do not distract her from another hope: that she might learn how to have a faith that she can truly call her own. Enter the Catholic Church, and a conversion. But then she falls in love, and loses her religion—which leaves her wondering just what it means to be good.
Sharply written, hilarious, and touching, Not That Kind of Girl is the story of one young woman’s efforts to define worldliness, ambition, and love on her own terms—while believing in, among other things, The Smiths, Virginia Woolf, and the transformative power of New York City. Fellow restless seekers will find solace in Bauer’s struggle to create meaning in the face of overwhelming doubt, and fall in love with the highly original voice at the center of this unforgettable debut.
My Review
All things pointed to me loving Not That Kind of Girl, a spiritual memoir by Carlene Bauer. She tells of her upbringing in an evangelical Christian home, her conversion to Catholicism, and ultimately letting go of God and her inner good-girl. I’m intersted in the stories of those who grew up in an evangelical household because it’s so much different than my own, Catholic upbringing. That she later chose to become Catholic made me want to find out why. Once I started reading, I discovered that we are roughly the same age and that we share very similar musical tastes and influences I became even more excited. While very well written, Not That Kind of Girl did not work well for me. Bauer is extremely intelligent and is logical in the examination of her spiritual history. It’s just that cerebral approach that kept me at an arm’s distance. She provided intellectual arguments for who she was and the choices she made, but she doesn’t let her readers see into her heart.
While very different memoirs, Not That Kind of Girl reminded me of Eat, Pray, Love. In both memoirs, I felt that the author were prone to over-analyzing. In tone, this memoir reminded me of The Mistress’ Daughter. Both are well written memoirs, but with a cynical edge that made the authors remote and untouchable. That’s not why I read memoirs. I read them because I want to share in another person’s experiences, be they delightful or terrifying. It’s a way of connecting to others and consider my own life. I just wasn’t able to get that close this time.
Because of the potential it had at the start, I wish that I had enjoyed this memoir more. I have always been curious evangelical churches. To someone used to the same routine week in and week out, those services seem so alive. Having attended many such services over the years, they just haven’t clicked with me. As lively as they are, they’ve never clicked with my soul the way the Mass has as I’ve grown older and matured. I really wanted to know why Ms. Bauer left and joined the Catholic Church. In the end, I never really understood. She related to Dorothy Day and her conversion. She liked the Liberation Theology and the focus on social justice. Still, knowing about the history of the Church and the sexual abuse scandals, she converts. Shortly thereafter, she finds herself unable to sit through Mass thinking about what the priest might have done, might have thought to do, or might have covered up. Without the emotional connection to the author, it all seemed hollow.
I am glad that Ms. Bauer is happy with her life in New York and with the spiritual choices she’s made. Perhaps her memoir would be more up your alley, though. If you’d be interested in reading Not That Kind of Girl, I would be happy to send you my gently read copy. Leave a comment here letting me know. I’ll use my favorite Randomizer to select the lucky reader.
Please be sure to check out the rest of the stops on this tour:
Thursday, July 1st: Tales of a Capricious Reader
Tuesday, July 6th: The Book Nest
Monday, July 12th: Drey’sLibrary
Wednesday, July 14th: As Usual, I Need More Bookshelves
Thursday, July 15th: she reads and reads
Tuesday, July 20th: Heart 2 Heart
Friday, July 23rd: Knowing the Difference
Monday, July 26th: Bookshipper
Tuesday, July 27th: Life In Pink
Wednesday, July 28th: my books. my life.
Thursday, July 29th: Suko’s Notebook
Friday, July 30th: A Fair Substitute for Heaven
Monday, August 2nd: A Certain Bent Appeal
Wednesday, August 4th: Sara’s Organized Chaos
#261 ~ This Time Together
This Time Together: Laughter and Reflection
Published by: Crown Publishing Group
Published on: April, 2010
Page Count: 288
Genre: Memoir / Personal Essays
My Reading Format: Audiobook purchased in CD format from my local Barnes & Noble store
Available Formats: Hardcover, eBook, audiobook
My Review
This Time Together is a collection of Carol Burnett’s memories from her life. This book sprang from her question and answers tour, similarly to how she used to open The Carol Burnett Show each week. Since she won’t be performing this show much any more, she tried to answer some of the questions she’s answered over time for those who haven’t seen her show.
I have loved Carol Burnett for as long as I can remember. Although I was alive when her comedy sketch show was originally taping, I’m quite sure I watched them in reruns because I had a strict 8pm bedtime until I was in junior high. It was her “Went With the Wind” sketch that first brought Gone With the Wind to my radar screen and for that I’ll be forever grateful for that introduction. What I love the most about that show was how Tim Conway could always make the other comedians laugh when they weren’t supposed to. Some of my favorite characters were Ms. Awiggins, Tim Conway’s dentist, and, of course, the main characters in the Mama sketches. I think those sketches highlight just how extremely talented that group was. The dynamics between Mama, Eunice, and Ed were hilarious and priceless.
When Ms. Burnett published her biography in the 1980s, I remember reading it with my mom. I loved the story of her and her beloved grandmother. I wasn’t mature enough to fully understand exactly what delighted me about Carol Burnett then, but isn’t a wonderful to read about a person who makes lemonade out the lemons instead of just being bitter? Remembering how much I enjoyed One More Time
Here are the highlights:
- Carol Burnett is the epitome of class and grace. Of all the people she’s ever known and all the things she’s seen, she only shines a spotlight on what is good, fun, and heartfelt. There are a few sections where she had to point out quirks in people’s characters to completely tell a story, but she never names them. She doesn’t have a negative word to say about anyone. What a decent and stand up woman she is. Her lasting legacy will be laughter, love, and friendship. Those who feel the need to tear others down to lift themselves up should look to Carol Burnett before publishing a memoir or autobiography.
- The chapter about meeting John Steinbeck cracked me up. If you’ve ever met an author you admired, you will relate to Burnett’s story and see yourself in it.
- I love it when people are as obsessed with their soap operas the way I was (was only because it was cancelled)! If you’re a fan of soaps or just like a laugh at their expense, Carol Burnett’s story about keeping up with All My Children will really tickle you.
- There are many touching moments in This Time Together. When she speaks of her late daughter Carrie it is clear how much she loved her daughter and how much she appreciated the moments she had to spend with her. The most touching part of the book for me revolved around her story about Kathy, a sick young girl she met toward the end of her life. Unfortunately I had to stop listening to that story just at the end because I had to get to a meeting. If I’d been able to listen to it all the way through I would have been crying like a baby when it was all done. As it was, it took me a second to stop the tears.
- Several years ago Tim Conway and Harvey Korman came to perform at our local Civic Center. Danny and I knew it was something we wouldn’t want to miss. I am glad that we went, but it was apparent how much they’d aged from their heyday. It shouldn’t have been shocking because those shows premiered nearly 30 years ealier, but a shock it was. I am still so thankful to have had that opportunity to see them in person. They are part of what shaped my sense of humor and just thinking about them makes me smile. Carol Burnett did moreso. I suppose you don’t think of your icons as mortal because I got a little of the same sense listening to This Time Together. Carol Burnett sounded just like Carol Burnett, but you can hear the age in her voice. This might be a touch sad, but she has lived her life well and without regrets. Who could ask for anything more.
My Final Thoughts
If you are a fan of Carol Burnett, you must read this book. You’ll feel like you were able to attend one of her Question and Answer shows. Listening to her read the book made this feel even more intimate. I enjoyed every minute I spent with Carol listening to her stories. I plan on passing this along to my mother and grandmother. It is sure to be a treat for every Carol Burnett fan in your life.
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I’m publishing this review as part of Audiobooks Week, coordinated by Devourer of Books.
#178 ~ First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria
First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria: How a Peace Corps Poster Boy Won My Heart and a Third World Adventure Changed My Life
I enjoy reading memoirs from time to time. It’s a nice break from the norm and, typically, the person writing the memoir has had an eventful, if not sad, life story to tell. The first memoir I wrote about was A Girl Named Zippy, which was a wonderful story of growing up in the Midwest. Although not everything smelled of roses for Zippy, her memoir is full of humor and is heartwarming. I read The Glass Castle shortly thereafter. Although Jeannette Wall’s life had a good deal of hardship, there was a touch of humor to it. You could tell that she didn’t take herself terribly seriously. The other memoirs I’ve read and reviewed here are more brooding, such as The Mistress’s Daughter and Without a Map. They may not have had the humor of the others, but they provided insight and were cathartic for the author. First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria most definitely falls into the first category. Eve Brown-Waite tells of her struggle to marry the man of her dreams while taking a bite out of third world hardship is a hilarious, delightful, and hopeful read.
As a young adult, Eve seemed to live her life based upon declarations she had made. At one point she announced that she would join the Peace Corps. It’s not that she didn’t think that the Peace Corps performed a great deal of good work, but she ultimately makes the appointment to see the recruiter because she said that she was going to join and she didn’t want to look like a wimp. What she doesn’t foresee is that she would fall in love with her recruiter and not want to leave him for two years. The kicker is that it would be darn difficult to impress John, the Peace Corps poster boy, by chickening out of what brought them together in the first place. Besides, being clingy would be a sure way to lose him. So, off to Ecuador she went full of misgivings about her future with John. The road to destiny was a rough one, which the author mostly remembers with a smile. There would be no memoir had they not ended up together, but the best part is the way that Eve writes about herself. She is self-deprecating and continually second guesses herself, but the reader is able to catch of glimpse of the woman John met. We knew that he wouldn’t be able to live without her, either. What other woman would pack up and move with him to perhaps the most desolate and unsafe part of Uganda? While there, Eve is secure in her relationship with her husband, but getting a handle on life in Africa provided a new sort of insecurity. She isn’t a natural housewife, but she doesn’t believe that she’ll be strictly a housewife for long. Her background in AIDS prevention in the United States was a gift waiting to be opened in Uganda, or so she believed. The people and organizations in Uganda didn’t see her as the gallant knight riding in with the answers she needed. What she found out that for the most part she was in Uganda to learn, not to teach.
Throughout this memoir, Eve’s style and sense of humor made exploring some less than exotic regions meaningful. She clearly illustrated that people might live and play within very different cultures, but that humans were more alike than different, be they from South America, North America, or Africa. There is, however, one notable exception (full disclosure – Literate Housewife is nearly 75% Dutch):
“I’d come to prefer the pilots who were Dutch, like Coby. She was competent and full of common sense, which I’d come to think of as a Dutch trait.” ~ pg. 148
“I envied Coby’s lean, athletic body and had begun to think of her natural athleticism as another Dutch trait. Right up there with cheery competence and a fondness for cheese.” ~ pg. 162
In these two sections, she quite eloquently said what Egbert Dodde, my wise yet not quite so eloquent grandfather has taught me since birth:
“If you ain’t Dutch, you ain’t much.”
He also often said that there were two types of people in this world: Doddes and those who only wish they could be Doddes – but that’s a whole other story. Now that I think about it, I don’t remember the author mentioning anything about how naturally modest and humble the Dutch are. That’s curious. I’m sure it’s in there some where…
In all seriousness, I do have a fondness for cheese. Can you tell that I had so much fun with this memoir?
In First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria, Eve Brown-Waite shares about life and her experiences in other countries with humor and honesty. Never once does she get preachy or self-righteous. She doesn’t paint Peace Corps volunteers or others from the outside working in the Third World amazingly selfless heroes or holier than thou saints. They are human beings who simply feel called to do what they do, no differently than the teacher, dentist, or computer programmer next door. Nor does she write about those living in the Third World as simply victims of tyrannical governments or uncivilized heathens. Everyone was well-rounded and flawed. No one saved anyone, yet everyone saved each other. Eve was leading the charge and I loved her for it. You will, too. This is a perfect memoir to read this summer.
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To read this memoir, click here
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#83 Admit One
Admit One: A Journey into Film
When I was offered the opportunity to read this memoir, I was extremely excited. I’ve always loved movies and this love is something my husband and I share in common. Danny studied to work in film during college, where he worked very hard to create and direct his senior project. I believe that if my husband were to ever write a memoir it would be a combination of Admit One and Love is a Mix Tape (hopefully without the widower connection). Knowing that my husband and James shared a similar passion made this book a must read for me.
Admit One details the childhood and early acting career of Emmett James as framed by the films that have impacted his life. A different movie provides the backdrop of each of the 22 stories making up this book. From The Jungle Book to It’s a Wonderful Life, James shares his memories and what he learned about life in both Croydon, South London and Los Angeles, CA. If you are a film lover, you will appreciate that James writes about the way this medium can interweave with our lives and shape our perspective on what it means to live.
Reading this memoir brought back a lot of wonderful memories for me. I believe that almost everyone has tried to dig to China or Australia (or vice versa) during childhood. It was the first thing Emmett James did after seeing Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. At first his dig started out as an archaeological excursion in search of some Indy-worthy treasures. After coming up empty, he changed his motivation entirely and that made this chapter came alive for me. There is something about watching dramatic representations of other people that can drive both the young and old take on the characteristics of heroes or even glamorous villains if only in our imaginations. That is the true beauty and worth of film.
Unlike for the James family, a trip to the movie theater was an infrequent yet beloved treat in our household. It was a reward for a semester’s good grades, or more often an excuse for my father to see an adventure film. Being of a similar age to the author, my childhood was likewise shaped by E.T., the original Star Wars trilogy, The Karate Kid, The Wizard of Oz, and Ghostbusters. Although our backgrounds are extremely different, we could most certainly communicate clearly and concisely using the language of movies. Reliving my life through each of these films, among others, was the best part of reading this book.
Whereas film has brought a great deal of joy to the author’s life and ultimately brought him to Hollywood’s door, this memoir isn’t entirely happy. James’ relationship to his family is distant and even a little cold. In the same section where he is dreaming of uncovering precious artifacts, James reminisces about the last time his family went to a movie together. He wishes he could recapture that experience once again, but the rest of his story is about moving further and further away – first emotionally, and then physically. When he writes that “movies have always meant everything to [him],” I believe that they have become his family in a way that his flesh and blood family never did. I can’t help but feel saddened by that.
In addition to weaving film throughout his stories, I enjoyed this peek at what life was like for a young boy growing up in a working to middle class neighborhood in South London. Once James left England and became acclimated to Hollywood, I felt that the book started to lose its direction. While he did learn about himself and what he wanted out of life working on the set of Lap Dancing, I’m not it was deserving of an entire chapter. It could have been tightened up and combined with Honeymoon in Vegas. I was also surprised by what he chose to write about when discussing Titanic, I eagerly anticipated reading about being directed by James Cameron or acting opposite Kathy Bates. Instead, he describes both the poverty of Mexico and an odd and somewhat alarming experience with a cab driver. As a result, those chapters lack the cohesion I felt throughout the rest of the memoir.
At its heart, Admit One is a love letter to film. The author rightly points out that movies can have a powerful effect on viewers. They can serve as entertainment, promote wonder and imagination, educate, help us communicate with one another, and challenge us. In addition to being a lover of film, James has the added pleasure of being a working actor in Hollywood. It is his passion for his life’s work that made this book a reality, and I was not disappointed. If you ever wanted to ride your BMX through the sky or fight storm troopers with your very own light saber, this is the book for you.
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To buy this book, click here
#76 Trespassers will be Baptized
Trespassers Will Be Baptized: The Unordained Memoir of a Preacher’s Daughter
Trespassers will be Baptized tells the story of Elizabeth Emerson Hancock’s early childhood as the oldest daughter of a Southern Baptist preacher living in Kentucky. Miss Em was a precocious little girl who grew up certain that she knew exactly the way it was, only to find out that even her parents weren’t always so sure. It is her experiences coming to learn and understand how her parents, most especially her father, live within the spaces between their holy” (public) life and their “human” (private) life that make this memoir interesting and applicable to almost anyone who once was a child.
Although you should never judge the book by its cover, I really feel as though I got exactly what I was eagerly anticipating from the moment I first held the book in my hand. Hancock tells her story in a vivacious manner that pokes fun at her childhood notions and background while honoring it all at the same time. She sheds light on what it is like to grow up in a Southern Baptist home, but also provide insight on girls coming of age in the early to mid-1980s.
The stories she tells specific to her religious upbringing ring true, but so do her experiences as an oldest child. She brought back so many memories for me. I laughed as much at her story about fishing a pair of acid washed Guess jeans out of the Missions box for herself as I did about times when I used my advanced reasoning with my younger siblings to get them to go along with my schemes. Once I convinced myself that what I was setting out to do was okay, I could often easily recruit the rest to go along with me. The tricky part was working it so that they would get the blame if we were caught…
I very much enjoyed my time reading Trespassers will be Baptized. It was well paced and smoothly written. I reminded me of how much I enjoyed reading A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel. It’s nice to read about childhood experiences that weren’t traumatic or abusive. Living in a Southern Baptist area, I am happy now to know a little more about how my neighbors might have been brought up and some of the characters they might have encountered at church. Even still, despite doctrinal differences, growing up in an religious yet open home and regularly attending church is more alike than it is different. I would most definitely recommend this book.
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To buy this book, click here
#68 Love is a Mix Tape
Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time
I found out about this book from Pop Candy, my favorite pop culture blog written by Whitney Matheson. As soon as I found out what this memoir was about, I had to buy it.. It tells the story of a man’s life and, more specifically, his love life, through his mix tapes. Rob Sheffield sounded just like my husband to me. I bought it for Danny, but I knew that I would eventually read it myself. So, when I found myself without a book I had to read, I plucked this off of the bookshelf having no idea what type of impact it would have on me.
A little background…
I “met” my husband in 1995 on Dreamscape, an Internet talker that required users to enter commands to do or say anything to anyone else. At that time I was obsessed – there is no other word for it as much as I care to deny it – with Michael Stipe. As ZenLauda, I would go on and see how fast I could get everyone to say something – anything – about Stipe. Of course, if someone said something nasty, I excommunicated that person from my persona. One time I brought Stipe up and HoneyPoison said, “Stipe is unripe.” I nearly axed HP, but then I didn’t and I don’t know why. I’d banished others for less. This started a long conversation about R.E.M. and music in general (Danny was in a band called “Ancient Astronauts” in 1989) that continues on to this day. I fell in love with him at an R.E.M. concert in Greensboro in 1995 and I moved to southwest Virginia 8 months later. The rest is history.
The first thing I remember Danny giving me was a mix tape entitled 24 in honor of my 24th birthday. Most of the music on it was new to me and stuff that I still love today – Julian Cope‘s “China Doll,” Died Pretty‘s “D.C.,” and Miracle Legion‘s “You’re The One Lee” were my favorites, but the rest was great. Reading this book made me very nostalgic for that tape. Sheffield’s descriptions of the time and energy he puts into his mixes rings true to this woman made to another mixer. You know that you mean something to a man or woman like that when they make you a mix tape. In fact, one of the first things Danny thought to do after meeting our oldest daughter’s birth mother was to make her a mix tape for when we saw her after Emma was born. Knowing all of what goes into a mix, it’s one of the saddest things ever when a person being gifted with a mix tape doesn’t understand the significance.
Back to the book…
Sheffield grew up in Boston in a world of his own where all outside stimuli filtered into him through music. He loved music like nothing and no one else. From school to Catholic summer camp he tried to impress his peers with his mix tapes or, when necessary, he escaped into them. It wasn’t until he was in college that he made himself break out of his shell. And it is in grad school at the University of Virginia that he met Renee Crist, an Appalachian girl who stole his heart from the very beginning.
When you live in southwest Virginia, it’s not every day that you pick up a book and it starts talking about places you’ve been or places you live. Renee was born in Georgia, but she grew up in Pulaski and attended Hollins College (now University) where I earned my Master’s degree. She lived in Roanoke for a time before heading to Charlottesville, where she met and feel in love with Rob. As he describes when he fell in love with her, the connection to Danny grew even stronger than I ever could have expected:
I squeezed into a booth next to her and we talked about music. She told me that you can sing the “Beverly Hillbillies” theme to the tune of R.E.M.’s “Talk about the Passion.” That was it, basically; as soon as she started to sing “Talk about the Clampetts,” any thought I had of not falling in love with her went down in some serious “Towering Inferno” flames. It was over. I was over.
While in Roanoke, Renee met Danny and hung around in the same circles with him. At one point, she was roommates with Claudia, the wife of Danny’s good friend from high school. While in Roanoke, Renee heard the Ancient Astronauts play “Talk about the Clampetts,” a song Danny, the lead singer, mashed up himself. Danny is responsible for Rob and Renee getting together and, therefore, responsible for this book being written!
Click here to listen to a live performance of “Talk about the Clampetts” performed by the Ancient Astronauts in 1989.
When we figured out that this book was about Renee Crist (at midnight on a work night – I didn’t end up getting much sleep), Danny went into his closet and pulled out his shoe box of pictures. In that box he found a picture of her with Jimm (with two Ms), the same person who was seeing when she moved to Charlottesville.
After seeing the picture of her at a New Year’s Eve party, this book came alive to me in a way I’ve never experienced before. Not only was it a reminder of the time when I first fell in love with my husband, my reading of Love is a Mix Tape became a couple’s project. It set us off on a mini archaeological dig of Danny’s musical past, and I’ve always wanted to be an archaeologist.
Reading Sheffield’s memoir made me feel very happy to be alive in a world of music and mix tapes. If you love music and have ever made a mix tape – even if you ever just taped songs off of the radio, you will enjoy this book.
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To buy this book, click here
Without an ARC
For the past week it seems as though all it’s done is rain, and I’m without an ARC. Please don’t read that as a complaint, though. I have two on the way: Love Marriage by V.V. Ganeshananthan through LibraryThing‘s Early Reviewers for April and Songs for the Missing by Stewart O’Nan through Barnes & Nobles’ First Look Book Club. Even if those books weren’t somewhere in the mail, I am still happy to be without an ARC. While I absolutely love getting to read free books (who wouldn’t), there is a special commitment made to read and review them in a timely manner. From the moment they arrive in the mail, they become my first in line to be read. Books I’ve actually purchased sit gathering dust on my bookshelf. So, right now, I feel pretty foot loose and fancy free – and my current choices are proving to be very interesting and very personal.
Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield – I bought this book at some point last year for my husband. At that time I bought the book, I knew nothing about the author. I had no idea that the author lived in Charlottesville around the same time as my husband. Last night, after midnight, Danny and I discovered that he knew Sheffield’s wife when she lived in Roanoke!!!! I won’t reveal any more here, because it will be repeated in my review. Suffice to say that I kept saying, “It’s a small f*#!ing world!” over and over again. I’m really excited to write my post about this memoir. It’s going to be a lot of fun!
Mistaken Identity: Two Families, One Survivor, Unwavering Hope by the Van Ryn and Cerak families. I remember when the story about this tragically deadly car accident hit the news. At the time, I must have registered that the Van Ryn family was from Grand Rapids, but I was surprised again to hear that familiar accent when I happened upon their interview on Dateline NBC at the end of March. The story was as beautiful as it was heart wrenching. This isn’t typically the type of book I would buy or read, but the hometown connection and the goodness of these people made it impossible for me not to buy.
So, I’m not fretting how long it’s taking Love Marriage to arrive. I’m basking in the glow of my own choices right now.
#60 Eat, Pray, Love
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
I don’t typically read books about food. For whatever reason, I get bored reading paragraphs filled with nothing but food preparatory details. Knowing this about myself, I never considered even picking up this book off of the shelf to read the description. The only reason I am reviewing this here is that a co-worker offered to let me borrow this book on CD. In the end, my instincts to stay far away from this book were dead on – just not for the reasons I expected.
Eat, Pray, Love is a memoir which describes the impact taking a year away from home to heal from a hard divorce had on Elizabeth Gilbert. During that time, she stayed in three countries: Italy, India, and Indonesia. The book is separated into three sections for each country. She goes to Italy to learn Italian, to India to study at her guru‘s ashram, and to Indonesia because a wise man she once met there indicated that she would eventually return to stay with him.
During the Italy section, this book was almost poetic in its theme of finding and honoring oneself. However, the poetry of the book was too often interrupted with seemingly unnecessary references to current American politics. Because of how well the rest flowed, those comments, which ranged from off-hand comments to an entire chapter dedicated to thanksgiving that George W. Bush wouldn’t be president much longer, felt like huge potholes in an otherwise smooth road. They did not add to her experiences with struggling between career and marriage, her desire not to have children, and her spiritual longing. They simply dated a memoir that could otherwise be timeless.
Skipping over the political banter was as easy as pushing the forward button, but there was no way to avoid her agonizing discussions of her spiritual struggles as related to Swammy G, her guru’s guru. It didn’t take me long to start begging for a long soliloquy about cooking two cups of rice a single grain at a time. Still, I was committed to finishing the book until *it* happened.
Play by play of *it*
- 1. Open chapter with Gilbert’s thoughts on the merits of “cherry pick” from the worlds’ religions to discover appealing spiritual practices.
- 2. Literate Housewife rolls her eyes when Gilbert slips a closed minded and oversimplified statement about the Taliban and the Christian Coalition into an otherwise open-minded discussion.
- 3. Continued exploration of the idea that all of the worlds’ religions (sans Taliban and Christian Coalition of course) provide elements of Truth.
- 4. Literate Housewife looks out the window of her car and wonders what it is about grass that makes cows eat it so ravenously.
- 5. Hearing “That’s me in the corner.” jolts Literate Housewife back into Gilbert’s diatribe.
- 6. “Oh, no. She isn’t.” says Literate Housewife.
- 7. “That’s me in the spotlight.” says Gilbert.
- 8. “She musn’t!” panics Literate Housewife.
- 9. “Choosing my religion.” says Gilbert.
- 10. Literate Housewife screams. She turns off the radio thinking that many fundamentalist Christians and Elizabeth Gilbert now have something in common – the misuse of secular lyrics.
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Congratulations, Liz Gilbert. You’ve earned your liberal street cred. You just lost me along the way.
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To buy this book anyway, click here
#55 Stealing Buddha’s Dinner
Stealing Buddha’s Dinner: A Memoir
Sometime toward the end of the year I was adding some books to my library on LibraryThing and wanted to add a book I received from my parents for Christmas the year before. It is a book of vintage postcards from Grand Rapids, my home town. I was sitting in the office at the time and the book was in the living room. I was feeling too lazy to walk into the other room and, figuring that there couldn’t be that many books about Grand Rapids, Michigan, I just used “Grand Rapids” to search for it. Much to my surprise, there were quite a few interesting books about my home town. Of those, Stealing Buddha’s Dinner by Bich Minh Nguyen stuck out when I read the following description:
“As a Vietnamese girl coming of age in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Bich Nguyen is filled with a rapacious hunger for American identity. In the pre-PC era Midwest, where the devoutly Christian blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jennifers and Tiffanys reign supreme…”
I was one of those blonde-haired, blue-eyed (well, slightly green as well) Jennifers and I was very curious to learn how I reigned supreme (it didn’t feel that way at the time). Because I wanted to read this book very badly, I rented it from the library (I’m trying to economize). I figured that if I loved it the way I knew I would, I’d buy it later. In the end, I’m glad that I just rented it.
There is something fun and invigorating about reading about your home town and it was even more exciting for me when the author’s family moved to the Ken-O-Sha area. That’s very close to where I grew up. I recognized many of the locations mentioned in the book as well as the type of people as well. I may have been Dutch, blonde, and named Jennifer, but there are more ways of sticking out like a sore thumb in southeast Grand Rapids than by being Vietnamese: you could be Roman Catholic. In an area heavily populated by members of the Christian Reformed Church, being Catholic is just as “unfortunate.” As Nguyen describes her early experiences living next doors to CRC neighbors, it brought me back to my childhood as well.
This first third of the book felt very authentic to me. I laughed out loud at the way she described her uncle he discovered after enrollment that Calvin College was “serious” about being a CRC school. I related to the scenes where Nguyen experienced orchestrated attempts to “save” her under the auspices of a neighbor girl simply bringing other girls over to play. I know very well the disgusted way those other girls reacted when she made it clear that she was not interested in their God. I was five or six the first time I was told by another child that I was going to hell for “worshiping Mary.” It was so frightening and I can remember the way my chest felt as I ran home crying to my mother. When there aren’t vocal attempts to convert you, there is always the feeling of being held away at an arm’s distance. There was one CRC family that wouldn’t let their children play with my siblings, but they had no problem asking my parents to borrow our camper. That always made me so angry. So, when a scandal rocked our neighborhood in the late 80s, I did take delight in it. The neighbor lady from across the street had apparently been having an affair with one of the husband around the block. I did feel bad for the pain the children and the other spouses experienced, but for me also felt somewhat like a vindication. Although I’m not proud of feeling this way, it was nice to see two people from that group, who made no secret that they were better than my family simply because of their religious affiliation, fall in such a public and shameful way.
While I related to Nguyen’s early experiences, I did not find her memoir enjoyable as a whole. About a third of the way through it went back in time for no apparent reason. From that point forward, the book felt disjointed. There were also large portions of the book that described food and books in such minute detail that I found myself often jumping over large sections until the story picked up again. In the section where she describes the books she read and enjoyed at the time, I was taken back in time to the books I loved so well. Unfortunately, this section began to feel like a book report. Why spend so many pages describing each of the scenes in The Little House on the Prarie that made her wish that was her family? One example would have been so much more effective.
I really wanted to like this butt, but in the end I couldn’t even finish it. I set it aside with only 7 or 8 pages to go. I just didn’t care to continue to read every painful detail of her reunion with her mother. Yes, this should have been a strong way to end her novel. To me, it felt like it was going no where – and very slowly at that. Stealing Buddha’s Dinner would have been more effective if it ended about a third of the way through with the stories about her grandmother from later in the book added to that portion.
Read the first third if you’re interested in what it was like to grow up in the midwest when you’re not a WASP or if you’d like to read about the Vietnamese experience in America in the 70s and 80s. Otherwise, I would pass this book by.
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#47 Without a Map
Without a Map: A Memoir
I am angry. Correction. I am pissed. Really, I’m f*cking pissed off after reading this book. I am angry and hurt for Meredith in specific and for all women in general. That one woman should have lived through a teenage pregnancy is horrific to me. That this is by no means an isolated incident makes this even worse.
Meredith Hall became pregnant, at the age of 17. This happened after a non-conventional summer romance that ended with one sexual encounter on the beach before Anthony, five years her senior, returned to college. Meredith’s mother, who had been left to raise her three children as a single mother, also found love that summer with a hippy. After spending so many years using negative pressure to keep Meredith a virgin, she began staying out until all hours of the night herself. She, in fact, left Meredith alone at the beach most days while she worked with her new lover. Going from suffocating boundaries to nearly none at all made that summer confusing for Meredith. She ended up paying dearly for it.
Meredith’s family was seen as an upstanding family in their small New Hampshire town. After her father left, Meredith’s mother became extremely involved in her local Protestant church. Once it was discovered that she was pregnant, Meredith was permanently expelled from her school. She was then abandoned immediately by her church and her mother. When Meredith’s father asked what they were going to do about the pregnancy, her mother simply replied, “She can’t stay here.” Meredith went to live with her father and step-mother, but being forced to stay alone in the house (and mainly in her upstairs room) for the remainder of her pregnancy was of no comfort. There was no one for her to cry with. There was no one to explain what was happening to her body. She was not allowed to take an active role in the decision to place her unborn son for adoption – except she was forced to set up a meeting with the baby’s father by herself and get him to sign the adoption papers. I will not even get into the verbal abuse she suffered at the hands of the obstetrician who allowed an abusive family adopt the baby.
I read this portion of the book on the plane from Atlanta to Denver last week. It was enough to make me want to lash out at society. Sex is a shame that is only worn by women, and most especially when they get pregnant outside of socially acceptable settings. There was no shame for Meredith’s father when he left his family with almost nothing to settle down with another woman. Yet, no one could speak to or about Meredith because her unplanned pregnancy was so shameful. I could scream.
So, Meredith was told either directly or indirectly by everyone who was supposed to love her that she was a dirty, shameful person. One sexual act and your life is judged as unworthy of any respect. You are shunned by the rest of society. She was not even allowed to have a roommate at the alternative school she graduated from after the birth of her son. No one wanted her to have the opportunity to even share her experiences with another girl for fear of “infecting” the others. Yes, because this was all working out so well for Meredith, right? Wouldn’t every young woman want to sign herself up for a complete societal shunning? So, alone in her grief and full of shame, Meredith did a lot of wandering after she graduated. The relationships she became involved with were not (in my opinion) good enough for her. They were only good enough for a woman who thought she was tarnished and trash. The reactions to her pregnancy became a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is what happens when people and institutions only use principles to guide their choices and reactions instead of love.
I have the greatest respect for Meredith Hall. She ultimately discovered her own self-worth. She has raised two exceptional sons and has established a warm and familial relationship with her first son. Due to circumstances, she was not able to ever confront her parents about how they abandoned her when she needed them the most. Her mother developed MS. When she needed her children the most, Meredith did not abandon her. Although it was painful for her never to get the opportunity to even tell her mother how the shunning impacted her life, she was an ever faithful daughter. Even though her brother and sister’s families were always invited to her father’s house, Meredith was not allowed because of an argument with her step-mother. Still, she made a point of meeting with her father before he died to tell him that she loved him.
This memoir stirred up many personal things in my heart. I can only hope that I can forgive as Meredith did. She was able to do for her parents the very thing that they and her church failed to teach her by example.
Meredith, thank you for sharing your story.
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