Four Great Books | Lisa says | ENTERTAINMENT
Four Great Books
March/24/08 09:32 PM Filed in: Lisa says
One of my absolute favorite things to do is read.
I'll read almost anything, although I tend to
prefer fiction, don't generally like science
fiction (love Robert Heinlein, though), and never
read romance. I read like a starving person eats,
my eyes flying over the pages, devouring the
words, tone, characters, and story. I love books.
I love words. I love stories.
Because I am truly a voracious [definition: 1 : having a huge appetite : ravenous 2 : excessively eager : insatiable] reader, people frequently ask me for book recommendations. So, here are four absolutely wonderful books:
Eat, Pray, Love by
Elizabeth Gilbert. I can't tell
you how many times I've recommended this book.
Saying it moved me is the understatement of
the year. It spoke to me. It made me feel like
everything I had previously felt and thought
was ok, I wasn't alone. I started reading very
slowly when I got to the end because I did not
want to finish the book. I wanted to stay with
Elizabeth Gilbert, who I felt had become my
close friend, and keep her close to me.
It is the story of one woman, Elizabeth Gilbert, and her search for herself. She takes us through four parts of her life in her journey. The first part is in New York, before she leaves on her official quest. This is the part where she looks around and finds that the life she created isn't working. It isn't good and she needs to change it. This is a difficult phase, where she questions herself, blames herself, breaks down, and decides to change. The second part of her quest is the "Eat" part of the book, where she goes to Italy and allows herself to explore all sensations. Elizabeth Gilbert does a wonderful job of taking us on a sensory tour of Italy. The next chapter of her journey, "Pray" takes her to India, where she goes to an Ashram and, well, prays. Here she focuses on her i nternal, spiritual self. I have to admit, this is the one part of the book I skimmed a little. But I still enjoyed it. Bali, the "Love" part, was my favorite. It all comes together for her here, physical, emotional, and spiritual.
The book is an easy, beautiful read, that makes you feel like you travel without leaving your couch, and will help you appreciate yourself a little more.
From the New York Times Book Review by Jennifer Egan, "If a more likable writer than Gilbert is currently in print, I haven't found him or her...Gilbert's prose is fueled by a mix of intelligence, wit and colloquial exuberance that is close to irresistible, and makes the reader only too glad to join the posse of friends and devotees who have the pleasure of listening in."
You can visit her website at http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/
A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John
Irving. Can I just say it's an amazing
book? Maybe the greatest ever? OK, probably not
enough. Like other John Irving books, Owen Meany
talks about friendship and faith and includes
several bizarre scenarios that only John Irving
could imagine. I am not someone who laughs out
loud when reading books, but I laughed out loud,
hard, when I read Owen Meany. I don't usually cry
when I read books, either, but I sobbed
hysterically when I read Owen Meany. I have read
a lot since I first read this, and I still think
it is the perfect book. Irving ties up all loose
ends, leaving you completely satisfied after
reading the book, as though you've had a really
good meal.
I find it hard to talk about this book because I feel so close to it. I adore it. So, I'll turn it over to other reviewers:
From the New York Times review by Alfred Kazin on March 12, 1989, ''Jesus has always struck me as a perfect victim and a perfect hero,'' said John Irving, explaining the genesis of his seventh novel, ''A Prayer for Owen Meany.'' The story about a freakishly diminutive self-proclaimed prophet and his effect on the religious belief of his lifelong friend represents ''a natural progression'' for Mr. Irving.
From the Salon.com review by Cintra Wilson on 30 September 1996: Owen Meany is simply a great and luminous character, a man whom you wish you knew and hung out with, and the novel is driven by the merits of his palpable soul. This is a book about the interconnectedness of things and the importance of seemingly meaningless details and the yielding nature of true friendship, and how everything plays a part in recognizing a larger force and ultimate plan. There are always pitfalls and disasters, but these too play a part in the eventual logic of events. I think this is what all people want from faith -- a feeling that the seemingly senseless indignities of life ultimately serve the higher purpose of educating the soul. Like life, nothing in this book makes any particular sense until later in the book when it all falls gracefully together into a whole that means more than the sum of its parts.
"Owen Meany" is John Irving's heroic stab at connecting all of the metaphysical dots. He wants to SAY something, he wants to infuse his readers with a sense of divine possibility, and he wants to make a bunch of subjective political insights and make us laugh and cry all at the same time, and I appreciate it, even if I don't necessarily regard it as a Great Work of Art. A lot of the book falls prey to Irvingisms: he digs his own pits -- incest, New Hampshire, freak accidents and amputations, untimely death, ironic sexual shame -- and falls into them in nearly every book. That doesn't matter: any Irving fan reads his books for precisely these flavors.
The Sea, by John Banville.
This is the best book I've read this year (2008),
mostly because of the beautiful prose of Mr.
Banville. The story is about a middle-aged man,
Max Morden, who is trying to deal with the death
of his wife. To cope, he returns to the place
where he spent summers during his childhood, and
tells the story of one significant summer and his
interaction with another family vacationing at
the same time.
The story is good, but what gets you is the writing. I had to take breaks to digest the words, many of which I haven't thought of since high school English. Every paragraph of the book is perfect. I open the book randomly and find this:
On a patch of grass between the low grassy bank and the wall of ferns a white cloth is spread. Mrs. Grace, kneeling, a cigarette clamped in a corner of her mouth and one eye shut against the smoke, laid out the picnic things, while her husband, his hat falling further askew, struggled to draw a resistant wine cork. Myles was already off among the ferns. Chloe sat froglike on her haunches, eating an egg sandwich. Rose – where is Rose? She is there, in her scarlet shirt and dancing pumps and dancer's tight black pants with the straps that go under the soles of her feet, and her hair black as a crow's wing tied in a plume behind her fine-boned head. But how did she get here? She had not been in the car with us. A bicycle, yes, I see a bicycle asprawl in abandon among the ferns, handlebars turned sideways and its fr ont wheel jutting up at a somehow unseemly angle, a sly prefiguring, as it seems now, of what was to come. Mr. Grace clamped the wine bottle between his knees and strained and strained, his earlobes turning red…
How could it be any better than that??
Too Close to the Falls, by
Catherine Gildiner. Too Close to the
Falls is a memoir, about a young girl growing up
in a small town near Niagara Falls in the 1950s.
The main character is a unique child with a
really interesting take on the world. The book is
really, really funny and is full of surprising
twists, making it very hard to put down. I was up
way too late several nights in a row reading it.
Review from Publishers Weekly: Now a successful clinical psychologist with a monthly advice column in the popular Canadian magazine Chatelaine, Gildiner tells of her childhood in 1950s Lewiston, N.Y., a small town near Niagara Falls, in this hilarious and moving coming-of-age memoir. Deemed hyperactive by the town's pediatrician, at age four Gildiner was put to work at her father's pharmacy in an effort to harness her energy. Her stories of delivering prescriptions with her father's black deliveryman, Roy, are the most affecting parts of this book, with young Cathy serving as map reader for the illiterate but streetwise fellow, who acted as both protector and fellow adventurer. In a style reminiscent of the late Jean Shepherd, Gildiner tells her tales with a sharp humor that rarely misses a beat and underscores the dark side of what at first seems a Norman Rockwell existence. Mired in a land dispute, the local Native American population has a c hief who requires sedatives to subdue his violent moods. Meanwhile, the feared "monster" who maintains the town dump is simply afflicted with "Elephant Man" syndrome. And Cathy's mother--with her intellectual preoccupations and aversion to housework and visiting neighbors--is an emblem of prefeminist frustration. The book's vaunted celebrity dish--Gildiner delivered sleeping pills to Marilyn Monroe on the set of Niagara--pales in comparison to such ordinary adult pathos. By book's end, Cathy, too, gets her share, as beloved Roy mysteriously exits and an entanglement with a confused young priest brings her literally and figuratively "too close to the falls."
Enjoy!
Because I am truly a voracious [definition: 1 : having a huge appetite : ravenous 2 : excessively eager : insatiable] reader, people frequently ask me for book recommendations. So, here are four absolutely wonderful books:
It is the story of one woman, Elizabeth Gilbert, and her search for herself. She takes us through four parts of her life in her journey. The first part is in New York, before she leaves on her official quest. This is the part where she looks around and finds that the life she created isn't working. It isn't good and she needs to change it. This is a difficult phase, where she questions herself, blames herself, breaks down, and decides to change. The second part of her quest is the "Eat" part of the book, where she goes to Italy and allows herself to explore all sensations. Elizabeth Gilbert does a wonderful job of taking us on a sensory tour of Italy. The next chapter of her journey, "Pray" takes her to India, where she goes to an Ashram and, well, prays. Here she focuses on her i nternal, spiritual self. I have to admit, this is the one part of the book I skimmed a little. But I still enjoyed it. Bali, the "Love" part, was my favorite. It all comes together for her here, physical, emotional, and spiritual.
The book is an easy, beautiful read, that makes you feel like you travel without leaving your couch, and will help you appreciate yourself a little more.
From the New York Times Book Review by Jennifer Egan, "If a more likable writer than Gilbert is currently in print, I haven't found him or her...Gilbert's prose is fueled by a mix of intelligence, wit and colloquial exuberance that is close to irresistible, and makes the reader only too glad to join the posse of friends and devotees who have the pleasure of listening in."
You can visit her website at http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/
I find it hard to talk about this book because I feel so close to it. I adore it. So, I'll turn it over to other reviewers:
From the New York Times review by Alfred Kazin on March 12, 1989, ''Jesus has always struck me as a perfect victim and a perfect hero,'' said John Irving, explaining the genesis of his seventh novel, ''A Prayer for Owen Meany.'' The story about a freakishly diminutive self-proclaimed prophet and his effect on the religious belief of his lifelong friend represents ''a natural progression'' for Mr. Irving.
From the Salon.com review by Cintra Wilson on 30 September 1996: Owen Meany is simply a great and luminous character, a man whom you wish you knew and hung out with, and the novel is driven by the merits of his palpable soul. This is a book about the interconnectedness of things and the importance of seemingly meaningless details and the yielding nature of true friendship, and how everything plays a part in recognizing a larger force and ultimate plan. There are always pitfalls and disasters, but these too play a part in the eventual logic of events. I think this is what all people want from faith -- a feeling that the seemingly senseless indignities of life ultimately serve the higher purpose of educating the soul. Like life, nothing in this book makes any particular sense until later in the book when it all falls gracefully together into a whole that means more than the sum of its parts.
"Owen Meany" is John Irving's heroic stab at connecting all of the metaphysical dots. He wants to SAY something, he wants to infuse his readers with a sense of divine possibility, and he wants to make a bunch of subjective political insights and make us laugh and cry all at the same time, and I appreciate it, even if I don't necessarily regard it as a Great Work of Art. A lot of the book falls prey to Irvingisms: he digs his own pits -- incest, New Hampshire, freak accidents and amputations, untimely death, ironic sexual shame -- and falls into them in nearly every book. That doesn't matter: any Irving fan reads his books for precisely these flavors.
The story is good, but what gets you is the writing. I had to take breaks to digest the words, many of which I haven't thought of since high school English. Every paragraph of the book is perfect. I open the book randomly and find this:
On a patch of grass between the low grassy bank and the wall of ferns a white cloth is spread. Mrs. Grace, kneeling, a cigarette clamped in a corner of her mouth and one eye shut against the smoke, laid out the picnic things, while her husband, his hat falling further askew, struggled to draw a resistant wine cork. Myles was already off among the ferns. Chloe sat froglike on her haunches, eating an egg sandwich. Rose – where is Rose? She is there, in her scarlet shirt and dancing pumps and dancer's tight black pants with the straps that go under the soles of her feet, and her hair black as a crow's wing tied in a plume behind her fine-boned head. But how did she get here? She had not been in the car with us. A bicycle, yes, I see a bicycle asprawl in abandon among the ferns, handlebars turned sideways and its fr ont wheel jutting up at a somehow unseemly angle, a sly prefiguring, as it seems now, of what was to come. Mr. Grace clamped the wine bottle between his knees and strained and strained, his earlobes turning red…
How could it be any better than that??
Review from Publishers Weekly: Now a successful clinical psychologist with a monthly advice column in the popular Canadian magazine Chatelaine, Gildiner tells of her childhood in 1950s Lewiston, N.Y., a small town near Niagara Falls, in this hilarious and moving coming-of-age memoir. Deemed hyperactive by the town's pediatrician, at age four Gildiner was put to work at her father's pharmacy in an effort to harness her energy. Her stories of delivering prescriptions with her father's black deliveryman, Roy, are the most affecting parts of this book, with young Cathy serving as map reader for the illiterate but streetwise fellow, who acted as both protector and fellow adventurer. In a style reminiscent of the late Jean Shepherd, Gildiner tells her tales with a sharp humor that rarely misses a beat and underscores the dark side of what at first seems a Norman Rockwell existence. Mired in a land dispute, the local Native American population has a c hief who requires sedatives to subdue his violent moods. Meanwhile, the feared "monster" who maintains the town dump is simply afflicted with "Elephant Man" syndrome. And Cathy's mother--with her intellectual preoccupations and aversion to housework and visiting neighbors--is an emblem of prefeminist frustration. The book's vaunted celebrity dish--Gildiner delivered sleeping pills to Marilyn Monroe on the set of Niagara--pales in comparison to such ordinary adult pathos. By book's end, Cathy, too, gets her share, as beloved Roy mysteriously exits and an entanglement with a confused young priest brings her literally and figuratively "too close to the falls."
Enjoy!