What I’m (Still) Reading… The Member of the Wedding, A New Earth, and Rabbit, Run
By Kristen on Feb 13, 2008 in Future Classics...?, Reviews
It’s Wednesday again and this past week I have read one entire book, 1/3rd of a book, and am in the middle of 3… Here are my impressions…
First, I finished The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers for a kit and enjoyed it. In the spirit of full-disclosure, I really like the Southern gothic tradition — Flannery O’Connor, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, etc. I love their unflinching ability to stare down the darkest corners of the human psyche and still maintain that dry Southern wit. I also spent many wonderful summers visiting my maternal relatives in North Carolina, so this may contribute to my affection for Southern writing… On the other hand, I also love Virginia Woolf and Emily Dickinson’s intimate awareness of mortality, so it may just be a part of my nature.
Regardless, I recommend The Member of the Wedding. As I was researching for the kit, I found this lovely review from NPR’s Augusten Burroughs:
“There is a book I love dearly. So dearly, I have read it at least three times, if not 10. Always in the summer. The Member of the Wedding, by Carson McCullers. It was originally published in 1946, and I consider it a small miracle.”
And this quote from Tennesse Williams: “The greatest prose writer that the South produced.”
Personally, I wouldn’t go quite that far, but I did enjoy the protagonist’s journey toward identity and loved the way McCullers’s created and maintained a taut tension and sense of foreboding. I would like to see one of the movie versions to see if the big screen could portray Frankie authentically. Since McCullers’s Broadway adaption of her work won a New York Critic’s Award, I’m optimistic.
On related note (dark, gothic, taut fiction), I enjoyed No Country For Old Men, but with a deep sense of ambivalence. In other words, the cinematography was stunning and Javier Bardem’s performance was gripping, but the violence really did seem over the top, the Coen brothers’ need to shock, and their failure to fully develop their characters is getting old (in my opinion).
On to my 50 page rule winner of the week… Rabbit, Run by John Updike. It is very well-written, and I truly love Updike’s prose. I taught his short stories for years and am in awe of his ability to create a character and a fully-realized atmosphere within the first few paragraphs.
But I really didn’t like Rabbit and really didn’t have time this week to see if this would change. My 50 page impression of Rabbit is that of an arrested Holden Caulfield, only less likeable — I kept thinking, “Grow up, buddy! You have a pregnant wife and small child at home, stop being so self-absorbed!!” It won the Pulitzer, however, so please temper my impressions with that fact…
Next, I am half-way through Yoga for Equestrians by Linda Benedik and Veronica Wirth and really recommend it if you ride horses. However, to my knowledge, only one of my subscribers rides (hi Kim), so I will save everyone the details and move on…
I wavered a bit before embarking on this next journey (and journey it is), but I ultimately decided to give Oprah’s latest pick — A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose — a whirl. I am almost half-way done and, well, I love it. I can’t believe I’m writing this, but it has actually changed my perspective and thought-patterns already. It is pretty much the handbook for what I am hoping to accomplish during this year on leave (my life, a little bit better) and I am grateful to have found it. It is remarkably readable — I read Tolle’s The Power of Now and should have expected greatness. I’ll finish my review of this when I finish reading it, but here are a couple of quotes that have already moved me:
“Trying to become a good or better human being…is still part of the same dysfunction, a more subtle and rarified form of self-enhancement, of desire for more and a strengthening of one’s conceptional identity, one’s self-image. You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge.”
”…believing that when you have attached a word to something, you know what it is. The fact is: You don’t know what it is. You have only covered up the mystery with a label…When you don’t cover up the world with words and labels, a sense of the miraculous returns to you life…A depth returns to your life…”
Last, but not least — I am thoroughly enjoying Mike Greenberg’s Why My Wife Thinks I’m An Idiot. Greenberg (or “Greeny” to his many viewers) is half of ESPN’s Mike and Mike morning show, which my husband and I love. We tape it to avoid the annoying invasion of ESPN updates and commercials, and simply enjoy their unique chemistry and quirky humor. “Why My Wife” is Greenie’s journal of his thoughts leading up to the birth of his first child and is very funny. I read it before bed and fall asleep with a smile on my face…
So, that’s what I’m reading!
Check out my new page – ”Best Book Club Books” — and scroll down to the bottom “shelf” which includes each of the titles I’ve read (or discarded — I included them because I decided my opinion should not exclude them from the mix). Click on the covers to get more information…
This weekend my hubby and I are celebrating 50 years of Daytona racing, so I may not be reading as much as usual… but who knows? I don’t really follow NASCAR, but couldn’t pass up the opportunity of experiencing the Great American Race during my year of flexibility (plus, my in-laws live just down the coast, so it’s a good excuse to visit them, too…). But I’ll pass on my impressions of whatever I imagine to read on the plane next Wednesday…
Happy Reading!
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