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Weekly-ish Reading
Wi-fi was out through most of last week, so I got a lot of reading done, if not much else:
Read
Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat: A novel that reads more like interlocked novellas and covers the protagonist's life from when she's about twelve until up into her early twenties. When she's twelve, Sophie Caco leaves Haiti--very much against her will--to join her mother in New York City. By the point she eventually settles in and starts to become more "Americanized," secretly dating a non-Haitian (and much older) man and longing for some independence, her mother's own neuroses, which stem from an incredibly traumatic event in her past, are driving them apart. The mother-daughter relationship is the highlight of this book, and it's incredibly well-done; there's a lot of ugliness in her mother's past, and even though Sophie understands that the things she does(specifically: "testing" Sophie to make sure she's still a virgin) are motivated by a mix of tradition and trauma and genuine love, it doesn't make their reconciliation any easier. This book is hard-going, especially towards the end, but I enjoyed it quite a bit.
The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat: "Dew breaker" was a synonym for "torturer" during the Duvalier regimes in Haiti; this novel/short story collection focuses on one who put that past behind him and fled to New York City. The short stories that make up the book are all for the most part interconnected--some of them focus on the dew breaker and his family, others on his tenants, and others on his victims or possible victims. Though in his past the dew breaker was by far and away a worse person than Sophie's mother in Breath, Eyes, Memory, both books are kind of similar in that they deal with the forgiveness of seemingly unforgivable things and how complicated that forgiveness is. Sure, the dew breaker is a different man now--but he's still in hiding. His wife constantly worries that one day they'll be found out and he'll be returned to Haiti to answer for his crimes (the story of how they met and she more or less redeemed him is my favorite in the whole book) and as a reader you aren't given much guidance on how to feel about that. Should he go back? Is living with all the memories of his past, plus the constant fear of being found out, punishment enough? For all the questions it raises the book doesn't give any straight answers, and I loved that. YMMV, though, considering what the guy's done.
AND
War and Peace: I'm officially (...minus the second epilogue, okay, but we don't need to talk about that) finished! It really deserves a post of its own, which I'll try to write up soon, but the Cliff's Notes version is I still love it very, very, much. The first epilogue did throw me for a bit of a loop--Tolstoy was by no means a feminist and had some...let's call them interesting views on women and marriage which come through pretty strongly in the last few chapters--but it's still a gorgeous book, large-scale and small-scale all at once, sweeping and romantic and philosophical and just...gah. A real joy to read.
Currently Reading
Tolstoy: A Russian Life by Rosamund Bartlett: Started this on my mom's recommendation. So far it's been great, easy to read and (from what I can tell) pretty thorough.
Read
Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat: A novel that reads more like interlocked novellas and covers the protagonist's life from when she's about twelve until up into her early twenties. When she's twelve, Sophie Caco leaves Haiti--very much against her will--to join her mother in New York City. By the point she eventually settles in and starts to become more "Americanized," secretly dating a non-Haitian (and much older) man and longing for some independence, her mother's own neuroses, which stem from an incredibly traumatic event in her past, are driving them apart. The mother-daughter relationship is the highlight of this book, and it's incredibly well-done; there's a lot of ugliness in her mother's past, and even though Sophie understands that the things she does(specifically: "testing" Sophie to make sure she's still a virgin) are motivated by a mix of tradition and trauma and genuine love, it doesn't make their reconciliation any easier. This book is hard-going, especially towards the end, but I enjoyed it quite a bit.
The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat: "Dew breaker" was a synonym for "torturer" during the Duvalier regimes in Haiti; this novel/short story collection focuses on one who put that past behind him and fled to New York City. The short stories that make up the book are all for the most part interconnected--some of them focus on the dew breaker and his family, others on his tenants, and others on his victims or possible victims. Though in his past the dew breaker was by far and away a worse person than Sophie's mother in Breath, Eyes, Memory, both books are kind of similar in that they deal with the forgiveness of seemingly unforgivable things and how complicated that forgiveness is. Sure, the dew breaker is a different man now--but he's still in hiding. His wife constantly worries that one day they'll be found out and he'll be returned to Haiti to answer for his crimes (the story of how they met and she more or less redeemed him is my favorite in the whole book) and as a reader you aren't given much guidance on how to feel about that. Should he go back? Is living with all the memories of his past, plus the constant fear of being found out, punishment enough? For all the questions it raises the book doesn't give any straight answers, and I loved that. YMMV, though, considering what the guy's done.
AND
War and Peace: I'm officially (...minus the second epilogue, okay, but we don't need to talk about that) finished! It really deserves a post of its own, which I'll try to write up soon, but the Cliff's Notes version is I still love it very, very, much. The first epilogue did throw me for a bit of a loop--Tolstoy was by no means a feminist and had some...let's call them interesting views on women and marriage which come through pretty strongly in the last few chapters--but it's still a gorgeous book, large-scale and small-scale all at once, sweeping and romantic and philosophical and just...gah. A real joy to read.
Currently Reading
Tolstoy: A Russian Life by Rosamund Bartlett: Started this on my mom's recommendation. So far it's been great, easy to read and (from what I can tell) pretty thorough.