Connect
Sponsors
Currently Reading
-
Terms
The Book Lady's Blog is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Reviews and articles posted here are property of The Book Lady's Blog and are not to be posted elsewhere without permission. Please contact me if you wish to post any of my work, or any excerpt thereof, in any other location or format.
Miscellaneous
Meet Bookrageous!
Technical Stuff
Design Credits
Jan
28
When Reading Trumps Blogging (mini-reviewish book discussions)
2010 at 4pm Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky
January is almost over, and I’ve just started to feel as though I’ve recovered from the holidays. The process of getting here has left me with that special mid-winter variety of brain drain that makes me want to read a lot and do very little else. And now, with snowpocalypse 2.0 on the horizon, there is a very real chance that I’ll spend the next several days curled up with a book. Nothing to complain about there, but the growing pile of books to be reviewed makes me antsy. So here’s what I’ve been reading lately.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
I read this for the LOST Books Challenge, and I have to say it was very interesting to revisit a story that I seem to have learned by heart without ever having read it. And the whole thing begins with Alice declaring that she is bored and uninterested in the book she’s been given to read because “What is the use of a book…without pictures or conversations?”
You know the story, too. Alice falls down the rabbit hole, finds a bottle marked “drink me,” and proceeds to grow and shrink and almost drown in a pool of her own tears, then she unlocks a little door and walks right into Wonderland. There’s the mad hatter whose clock is stuck at tea time and the caterpillar who makes her recite poems that she can’t seem to get right and the cheshire cat with his riddles and the queen whose response to just about everything is “Off with her head!”
Since I’m addicted to introductory material, notes, and bookish extras, the best part of revisiting this story was learning more about Lewis Carroll (whose real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) and the deeper themes of this work inspired by his relationship with ten-year-old Alice Liddell and her sisters. Though the introduction to this Barnes & Noble classics edition describes Dodgson’s relationship with the girls as “by all accounts innocent and kindly,” it also notes that Dodgson was barred from the Liddell household before Alice’s story was even completed. Definitely makes you wonder if something dodgy were going on.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is an allegory for growing up and a snapshot of the nineteenth-century tendency to “disregard disorder and chaos as problems to be tucked away in regressive moments of dreaming and remembering,” and I enjoyed the opportunity to read this story for what lies beneath its surface. And the LOST tie-in felt obvious: just as Alice stumbles through Wonderland trying to impose order on chaos and make sense of her encounters with nonsensical characters, so the survivors of Oceanic flight 815 struggle to do the same on their mysterious island. See Lostpedia for more of the direct literary tie-ins.
The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell
Blame it on Nathaniel Hawthorne and that fantastic Jonathan Edwards sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” but I just can’t help loving the Puritans. That’s right. Loving them. I am fascinated by these people who were so convinced they were God’s chosen that they left their families and communities for what can only be described as a harrowing journey across the Atlantic to a new world of unknowns. Sure, they also believed this destiny entitled them to kill the natives, take the land, and impose their religious beliefs, but doesn’t that make them interesting?
This was my first time reading Sarah Vowell, and it was pretty much love from page one. Focusing on John Cotton, John Winthrop (author of the famous exhortation to be “as a city upon a hill”), and the social, political, and religious motivations of the people who founded America, Vowell brings to light the petty arguments, deeply felt convictions, complex relationships, and community values that, whether we acknowledge it or not, continue to form the basis of our society today. And yes, Vowell has her own political agenda here, occasionally pointing out that the things that make the Puritans sound crazy are not so different from the things that motivate members of other exremist religious groups to attack and criticize America today.
The post-9/11 context gives The Wordy Shipmates added depth, and Vowell presents her research and her just-subtle-enough jabs with a snappy pace and a hefty portion of snark. But the book is really all about the story behind the story, the seldom told history of the people who came after the Mayflower, and the complexities of their inner lives and their relationships with each other. The blurb on the back of The Wordy Shipmates calls Vowell’s Puritans “highly literatate, deeply principled, and surprisingly feisty,” and that sums it up nicely. The story is so interesting, in fact, that I didn’t even notice it is written as one long piece—no chapter divisions here—with just the occasional paragraph break.
Where the God of Love Hangs Out by Amy Bloom
I finished this book a week ago, and I’ve been trying to find a way to write about it ever since. My first experience with Amy Bloom has left me flummoxed and rendered me inarticulate. The stories in this collection are crafted so beautifully and packed with such emotional power that I am just in awe. But I’m going to try to talk about them because how else will I convince you to READ THIS BOOK NOW!
Where the God of Loves Hangs Out is comprised of twelve short stories, but it’s really more like two novellas plus four stand-alone stories. The first four stories of the collection present William and Clare, best friends who are married to other people but embark on a romantic relationship that will define the final chapter of their lives. Bloom alternates between Clare’s narrative voice in the first story “Your Borders, Your Rivers, Your Tiny Villages” and close third-person for the remaining three and paints a remarkably full picture of these two people and their families and the larger narrative of their lives at four distinct moments.
This section is followed by two stand-alone stories that I remember enjoying but that I didn’t find nearly as compelling as the William and Clare pieces. Then comes a four-story block about Julia and Lionel, a middle-aged woman and her stepson, who sleep together the day after Lionel’s father’s funeral and spend the rest of their lives trying to make amends for the mistake and repair their relationship. Bloom shows deft narrative skill in writing stories from Julia’s perspective, Lionel’s perspective, and close third-person, and I could not turn away from Julia and Lionel’s struggle to navigate the complex and long-lasting effects of one moment of confusing, desperate sadness.
What have you been reading lately?
Hey, FTC: I received a copy of Where the God of Love Hangs Out from LibraryThing Early Reviewers
No related posts.
I just read a Carolly Erickson novel: The Secret Life of Josephine: Napoleon’s Bird of Paradise and am not reading along with a Twitter friend, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. I finished Aurelia and was meh with it. I had a burn out in the first of January but reading some really good ADULT books has finally put me back in the mood.
Great post!
I listened to The Wordy Shipmates this past summer (while suffering a road trip in a small car listening to my husband and in-laws chatter at top volume!). I would high recommend the audio, because Vowell narrates. Brilliant, and laugh-out-loud funny. I wish she were my sister or something. And I will look into this Bloom novel. I loved Away.
I just bought Wordy Shipmates the other day — As if I needed to buy any more books. My excuse for buying was that it was only $4. So of course I bought 3 more books…LOL
Your mini review of The Wordy Shipmates is pretty much exactly what I thought. I have a not-so-secret love for the Puritains, just because of how confident they were and how much what we do now is impacted by what they did then. I loved the book too.
Have you read Nathaniel Philbrick’s book Mayflower? I have a copy of Wordy Shipmates but haven’t gotten around to reading it yet – your praise for it makes me want to dust it off and put it back on the TBR stack!
I plan to read Alice for the Victorian Reading Challenge and before the new film comes out later this year. Very excited for that!
As you liked The Wordy Shipmates, I would recommend Sarah Vowell’s other books, especially Take the Cannolli. Hilarious!
It looks like you’ve been reading some wonderful books! I’m putting Where the God of Love Hangs Out (love that title!) on my wish list.
Thanks for the rec! I’ve been looking at ASSASSINATION VACATION, but this is the first I’ve heard about CANNOLI. Glad to know it’s good!
I haven’t read the Philbrick. My dad read IN THE HEART OF THE SEA and loved it. I’ve been holding off on MAYFLOWER because it seemed like it might be heavier history than I usually like to read. Will revisit it soon.
This is the second time I’ve seen people recommending “The Wordy Shipmates.” One more and it goes on my list.
When I saw David Sedaris live last year he recommended Sarah Vowell so I now have Wordy Shipmates on my shelf – I need to get to it!
Mags and I will be reading Alice in Wonderland soon, and I’m so looking forward to it! I bought a copy for her at the library book sale last weekend, and then we sat down and compared her book to mine. While hers has bigger print (which she needs) and more up-to-date illustrations, she still likes mine better (It has the original illustrations). Funny, eh? I think mine has the special notes and stuff in it, as well
Mine has the original illustrations, and it really did add character. Love it.
I really enjoyed The Wordy Shipmates too! It’s fascinating and I loved the comparisons.
I was actually disappointed in Alice’s Adventures when I reread it as an adult. My daughter enjoyed it, though.
If you like Amy Bloom, I think that Love Invents Us and Come to Me are her best story collections. She always manages to talk about relationships in this new, piercing way, and I love how her stories always intersect with each other, usually taking on the perspective of a minor character in one story and making he/she the main character of another, etc.
[...] When Reading Trumps Blogging (mini-reviewish book discussions) [...]
[...] When Reading Trumps Blogging (mini-reviewish book discussions) [...]
I hear you on more reading and less blogging (though I read so slowly that it doesn’t even help that much!). Thanks for the Amy Bloom review – am tempted to try her new one even thought I don’t always find short stories so satisfying.
[...] love affair started when I finally got around to reading The Wordy Shipmates last month. I’ve always been fascinated by the Puritans, and Vowell brought them to life in a [...]
[...] Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll: Classics, LOST Books Challenge [...]
[...] (the first pantyworthy book of the year). It continued with my better-late-than-never discovery of Sarah Vowell. And then came In the Land of Believers and Flow and Just Don’t Fall (which I should have [...]
[...] (the first pantyworthy book of the year). It continued with my better-late-than-never discovery of Sarah Vowell. And then came In the Land of Believers and Flow and Just Don’t Fall (which I should have [...]
[...] more on my love of Sarah Vowell, check out my mini-review of The Wordy Shipmates, and don’t miss Assassination Vacation, which is especially fabulous in [...]