Mountains Beyond Mountains

I heard about this book several years ago when my mother read it for her book club. She liked it a lot and suggested that I might too. Then my good friend Melissa finished it right before I met her in Jerusalem and mentioned it to me again. I read a different Tracy Kidder book, Strength in What Remains, last summer, and it was a powerful, powerful book. Paul Farmer, the subject of Mountains Beyond Mountains, makes minor appearances there as well, so when I constructed my summer reading list this year I knew it was time that I finally got to it. I was certain that I would love it, but I was also certain that it would make me uncomfortable. True on both counts.

Paul Farmer is a Harvard-educated doctor who specializes in infectious disease. While a student, he started a public health clinic in Canage, Haiti, a tiny little portion of one of the poorest countries in the Western hemisphere. He deals with all sorts of infectious diseases, but spends a great deal of his time with TB, HIV, and AIDS. Through his connections in Haiti and in Boston he created an organization called Partners in Health, headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., which runs the clinic in Haiti as well as branches in the Boston area and a clinic in Lima, Peru attempting to eradicate MDR-TB. He travels all over the world to consult with other doctors, the World Health Organization, speak at conferences. He is a tenured professor at Harvard. He is on the board for Village Health Works, which sponsors health clinics in Burundi (see Strength in What Remains). He has written several books about infectious disease, poverty, public health, and Haiti. He is one of those people you are amazed by and feel guilty because of. Case in point: while a Harvard medical student he would skip lectures for weeks at a time so he could work in his clinic in Haiti, then fly back to Cambridge for exams. He had grades at the top of his class. Harvard granted him permission to spend half his residency at Brigham and half in Haiti.

It’s an amazing story because he is an amazing man. Margaret Mead said, “Never underestimate the ability of a small group of committed individuals to change the world. Indeed, they are the only ones who ever have.” Paul Farmer is certainly an example of this. And I sat there reading and loving what he’s doing but also feeling guilty that I’ve been thinking about a pair of $70 boots I want (What if I sent that money to PIH instead? How much could they do? But every time I want anything for myself do I have to feel guilty about it?). And then I came across this passage:

He [Farmer] went on: “I thought I was the king of empathy for these poor kids, but I I was the king of empathy, why this big shift because of my daughter? It was a failure of empathy, the inability to love other children as much as yours. The thing is, everybody understands that, encourages that, praises you for it. But the hard thing is the other.”

I thought about this for a while, attempting to frame my question delicately. Finally, I just tried to disassociate myself from it: “Some people would say, Where do you get off thinking you’re different from everyone and can love the children of others as much as your own. What would you say to that?”

“Look,” he replied. “All the great religious traditions of the world say, Love thy neighbor as thyself. My answer is, I’m sorry, I can’t, but I’m gonna keep on trying, comma.”

And he’s right. That’s something we hear all the time, Love thy neighbor as thyself. But how many of us actually genuinely do it? I certainly don’t. I’ve had times when I have, sure, flashes o really loving someone the way that God loves them, but it doesn’t happen often. But that attitude, “I know that I am not perfect, but I’m constantly trying,” I think that’s why I’m so impressed with Paul Farmer. He does all these amazing things, but he does them on an individual level. He loves his patients and he remembers them, even though he sees hundreds of people and they’re from multiple countries. All throughout the book people say how they feel like he genuinely cares about them, and when he asks about their health or their family or their job he really wants to know and he remembers what they say.

So maybe I can’t rid the world of infectious disease. But I can try to love and remember the people in my life better than I currently do.

A Wrinkle in Time

K, so that's not actually the real cover. The real cover looks like this:

Among other hideous covers they've done for this book. But I took a design course this summer for school and when we got to redesign a book cover I chose a childhood favorite, A Wrinkle in Time. I reread it while designing, too. You know, for inspiriation.

Okay, did you read Madeleine L'Engle growing up? I love, love, love her books. I love the way she combines the religious and the scientific. I love the goodness of her characters. I love that they are real and have flaws but can still do great things. I love the shivery feeling I get every time I read the line, "There is such a thing as a tesseract."

Anyway, I got crazy busy with school and moving and life, so I didn't actually finish the book until my commute to work this morning. And I as I read this passage I nearly started crying on the T:

"And what I have to give you this time you must try to understand not word by word but in a flash, as you understand the tesseract. Listen, Meg. Listen well. The foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called, but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are." She paused, and then she said, "May the right prevail." (194–195)

I love it in part because it's scripture (a quotation from 1 Corinthians 1). But also because it's so applicable to their story—this awkward, teenage girl with her genius little brother and lonely friend Calvin who go off into the universe to find her father and try to fight Evil as best they can. What a daunting task. And I feel like that so often in my life. But this quote puts it all in the proper perspective. And I love that it can be found in a children's book. 


And Lorren, you've said you like her adult fiction even more. Specific suggestions?

Gone with the Wind Anniversary Edition

So I realized this morning that you guys would think this is cool.

I am a huge Gone with the Wind fan. I love the book. I love the movie. I didn’t love the sequel, Scarlett, written by Alexandra Ripley, but I have read it more than once. Usually when I’m super depressed and want that happy ending, even though I love the real ending most.

Anyway.

This year is the 75^th anniversary of the publication of Gone with the Wind. Per my google reader feed, I discovered about six weeks ago that there was a library in Southport, Connecticut that had an exhibit of the last four chapters of the typed manuscript on display for a month before they sent it to Atlanta with all the other GWTW paraphernalia. As I love this story so, so much, I desperately wanted to go. I easily convinced my roommate and her not-yet boyfriend, and we convinced another friend to come as well. He was more hesitant, but I’m pretty sure what sold him was the argument that he “needs to pay homage to the book that inspired the first movie that ever used a swear word.” It worked, and he enjoyed the exhibit.

Guys, it was SO COOL. They had the manuscript in a glass display case and you could see the copyediting marks in the margins, which was amazing. I loved being able to read it right there, and I know the book well enough to pick up on some text that changed between the manuscript and the final printing. They also had copies of foreign covers in many, many languages, which was really cool to see.  A lot of the covers were done after the movie came out and had excellent likenesses of Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable. They also talked about how in America we see it as this great tragic love story, but in Europe it was read much more for the political undertones. Apparently it made a big impact on them in the way the South handles the Reconstruction and stuff, and it was even banned in Spain (I might have the country wrong) during a war for fear that the people would rebel. I had no idea it was so influential in Europe. It made me want to read the book all over again.

I took some photos on my phone to text to my mother (who loves GWTW as much as I do), so they aren’t particularly high quality. But they are still cool.

GWTW in Hebrew and Arabic

GWTW in Danish

Part of the typed manuscript. The last line on the bottom of the right-hand page is Rhett Butler's famous, "My dear, I don't give a damn."

Orange Is the New Black

Orange Is the New Black was not written by Salman Rushdie :)

No, it was written by Piper Kerman, a Smith-graduate who unintentionally got herself caught in the world of drug trafficking, and ended up paying for it ten years later.

The bulk of the memoir covers the time she did in Danbury, the women’s prison in Connecticut, although she does discuss how she got to that point in the first place. I learned more than I ever knew before about the prison system, which is very interesting and full of flaws. I also learned a great deal about empathy. Because to me, that was the point of this book: people commit crimes when they don’t care about the suffering of others. Rape, theft, assault, drug dealing, they all are very selfish and uncaring acts. But when we start to care about other people’s suffering and we start to empathize with them, that’s when we become better and begin to heal. The relationships Piper has with her family and friends, and the relationships she forms with other inmates, are amazing examples of how we can help each other through terribly hard situations in life. We cannot get through life alone; we need other people.

So a little background, I’ve known about this book for several years, although it was only published in 2010. Piper Kerman, author, is the sister-in-law to my uncle Michael; I’ve actually had the chance to meet her twice, once at Michael’s wedding in 2007 and once just last month in New York. I like her a lot. It was a little strange to read a book where I’d met the author, as well as some other people who are mentioned (her husband and his family, my uncle’s in-laws). But she is a great writer: she had me laughing sometimes at the ridiculousness of some situations, and other times I cried because of the sadness she or others had to deal with. It’s a powerful book that I highly recommend. Her husband, Larry, wrote an article for the New York Times right before the book was published, talking about how it was for him while she was in prison. Also some powerful writing, so you should check it out too.

I do feel I have to give fair warning about the language in the book. It can get rather colorful, but as it was a depiction of her year in prison I didn’t really have a problem with that because I’m sure it was quite accurate. I also think I should perhaps warn you that homosexuality is discussed fairly regularly as well; again, it is a huge aspect of the prisoners’ lives (she mentions how some people choose to be “gay for the stay”), but it is never in any way explicit or graphic and didn’t make me uncomfortable at all. But I have no idea how others feel about those things, so I thought I'd mention it.

I really liked this book. I was impressed by her writing and I came away with serious questions about the prison system, as well as a strong desire to help (in the back of the paperback edition there is a list of organizations that work with women in the system as well as their children).

Luka and the Fire of Life

Okay, don't hate me.

So I read another Salman Rushdie book. I know you're probably thinking, Why did we even let her join this group if she only talks about one author? or perhaps, Good grief, is she stalking him? Answer to first question: I promise I'm halfway through another book that is so far from Salman Rushdie you will be amazed at my diversity.


And I may or may not be attempting to stalk him.

Anyway. Luka and the Fire of Life is a sequel to Haroun and the Sea of Stories, so if you want to read it it's worthwhile to read Haroun first. Luka is our protagonist, and he embarks on an adventure with Bear, his dog, and Dog, his bear, as well as a variety of other characters, into the Magical World in search of the Fire of Life. One of my favorite characters who he encounters is the Insultana of Ott. She is clever and funny and very very kind. She and her Otters help Luka through several situations, as is explained by a red squirrel named Ratatat:

And some of us (I don’t want to boast, but there it is) are Honorary Otters of long standing—oh yes!—members of the highly confidential Ott List, the Insultana’s emergency undercover squadron—sleeper agents, if you will, lurking in our secret Ott Beds and available to the lady twenty-four/seven on her personal Ott Line, just in case she needs to activate us. But, much as I’d like to stop and chat about these Ott Topics, I do believe you might be in something of a hurry. So, let’s Ott-foot it up this so-called Mountain while we can.

Once again, Rushdie's word plays are some of my favorite parts of the book. But really it's a beautiful story about the love and loyalty Luka feels for his father. You will love it. 

Haroun and the Sea of Stories

Okay, so I’m on a bit of a Salman Rushdie kick. I swear the next book will be by someone else (I’m actually really excited to get back to that next book, and I look forward to this insane semester being over so I can finally finish it).

Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Utterly delightful.

It is a children’s novel, written by Rushdie immediately after Satanic Verses while he was hiding during the fatwa. He had promised his son a children’s book, and it was an excellent medium to discuss what was going on in his life at the time.

Haroun, our hero, is a boy who lives in “a city so ruinously sad that it had forgotten its name.” His father, Rashid, is a storyteller, the Shah of Blah. Unfortunately, something terrible happens to him and he loses his Gift of the Gab—Haroun believes this is his fault and sets off on a journey to try and restore his father’s Gift of the Gab. During his journey he discovers the importance and power of words and speech, as well as the power of stories. The question, “What’s the use of stories that aren’t even true?” is asked repeatedly throughout the novel, and by the end Haroun finds the answer.

True to form, Rushdie’s writing is phenomenal. As it is a story about stories and language, he uses some excellent word plays (one of my favorites is when Haroun meets the Plentimaw Fishes in the Sea of Stories) and often repeats an idea many times in various familiar idioms. He also explores the importance of free speech very deeply, and even though it is a light-hearted children’s novel, it is clearly filled with adult themes.

I loved this book. It made me laugh; it made me happy. It sometimes felt like The Phantom Tollbooth, which is an excellent one as well. It reminded me yet again how amazing and important the power of language is. It is a wonderful story.

Five stars, definitely.

The Satanic Verses

So first off, hi, Katie graciously allowed me to join your group. If you don’t know me and want to know why you should trust my opinion on books anyway (because there are some people whose taste you question sometimes, right?), feel free to blog stalk me. Okay, now to the good stuff.

Salman Rushdie. Holy cow. 

Have any of you read The Satanic Verses before? Or any other Rushdie for that matter? Until I read this book (for a class, but let me tell you it’s the best book I’ve finished so far this year) I hadn’t been exposed to him before. His writing style is dense and overwhelming, but at the same time so rich and descriptive. I can’t describe it well, so here let me excerpt for you:

Bitterness, too, and hatred, all these coarse things. He would enter into his new self; he would be what he had become: loud, stenchy, hideous, outsize, grotesque, inhuman, powerful. He had the sense of being able to stretch out a little finger and topple church spires with the force growing in him, the anger, the anger, the anger. Powers.

He was looking for someone to blame. He, too, dreamed; and in his dreams, a shape, a face, was floating closer, ghostly still, unclear, but one day soon he would be able to call it by its name.

I am, he accepted, that I am.

Submission.

 

In short, I love the way he writes. He masters the English language so powerfully, it’s amazing. If you want a taste of him without committing yourself to a novel, read In the South or The Shelter of the World. Some short stories of his published in the New Yorker, and they are both excellent.

Okay, enough about Rushdie, now about the book itself. Again, masterfully written. It opens with a plane crash, and these two Indian actors tumble through the air toward London going round and round, one singing a famous pop song, the other singing Rule, Britannia. They are the only two survivors of the plane crash, and once they arrive back to earth one of them takes on the form of the angel Gabriel (his name is Gibreel) and the other becomes a devil. The novel then discusses how these transformations affect their lives as well as the lives of those around them. Rushdie discusses in great deal the ideas of transformation and rebirth (look for the phrase, “To be reborn, first you have to die.”), identity (“What kind of idea are you?”), immigration, religion, faith, agency, and what exactly good and evil are. There is some magical realism which enhances the story very effectively, there are numerous references to James Joyce (which I missed because I’m not super familiar with James Joyce), pop culture, and tons of religious references and imagery, of course. There were so many different ideas being explored at once that I really don’t think you can grasp the novel completely the first time around; I want to read it again.

There is, yes, the whole issue of the fatwa. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go here.) And I can see why some parts of the book could be offensive to devout Muslims. I can’t decide what I think about all of that, but either way, the book was phenomenal. I have to recommend it.

And I see you use five stars? I hate rating things, it’s hard for me, but I’d go with four out of five. Maybe four and a half.

It’s that good.