Roadtrip reading

At one point I said I was going to try to read 40 books in (or was it before?) my 40th year.  Well, I turned 40 back in May, and my reading has been going pretty slowly.  In between all of our activities and teaching and socializing in Guam, the move, and being with family on vacation, I haven't spent much time between the covers of books.  Our road trip gave me an opportunity to catch up a little bit, especially if I count juvenile literature. Since I just finished The Grapes of Wrath to keep up with my son's AP English class and as an introduction to California, I thought I'd finish this list of reviews of recent reads, just to through something up here during a busy time. Let's just say that we've had some ups and downs recently.

So reading: I had read Steinbeck's work back in high school myself, but remembered few of the details, only a brief outline of the plot and the characters.  I had forgotten how lyrical parts of the book are - maybe I breezed through those chapters, as I suspect my son did, since he didn't underline any of those parts.  Having just driven alongside Route 66 on our own journey from Oklahoma to California, parts of the setting were very familiar. We even stopped in Needles ourselves to get a new tire for the trailer before crossing the desert because my husband didn't want to get caught in between rest areas, just like the Joads. Even today it is a long, lonely stretch of road through Death Valley.

Also, the similarities of concerns about large farms back then and today are striking. Migrant workers still bend between rows of strawberries and walk through groves of citrus trees picking fruit.  Although I grew up in America's breadbasket, farming in California is very different. Soybean, wheat and corn can cover hundreds of acres and be harvested by just a few men driving large farm implements.  Here the harvest must be handled more gently and brought in by hundreds of hands. A great deal has changed, I'm sure, between the days of the Joads and today, but there still is a need for human dignity and potential and for the land to be protected.

I think my teenager was a little put off by the politics of the book and embarrassed that I'm reading this book that he just read that has all these references to tomcatting and canoodling. It makes me wonder whether I've sheltered him a little too much. Not that share Steinbeck's apparent approval of the actions of Al and others in the book, who act on the human need for physical affection without commitment, but if there is one thing that literature is useful for, it is for learning to understand and empathize with people vastly different from ourselves, even if we disagree with them or disapprove of their actions. How else can we maintain civility in diverse communities, such as the one we are in? I'm sure we can love our enemies and forgive those who injure us, either personally or communally, without literature, but certainly books help us open our hearts. Literature like The Grapes of Wrath is in some ways spiritual reading because it does allow us to know and love our neighbor in a real way, even if he is a sinner or a cheat or a redneck or a yuppie or an Okie.

I think I have explained this to the boys, but I'm not sure if I've done it well enough. I just read this article by Mark Edmundson from the Chronicle that does a good job of capturing some of the reasons I was an English major: a good read:

Love for language, hunger for life, openness and a quest for truth: Those are the qualities of my English major in the ideal form. But of course now we're talking about more than a mere academic major. We're talking about a way of life. We're talking about a way of living that places inquiry into how to live in the world—what to be, how to act, how to move through time—at its center.

What we're talking about is a path to becoming a human being, or at least a better sort of human being than one was at the start. An English major? To me an English major is someone who has decided, against all kinds of pious, prudent advice and all kinds of fears and resistances, to major, quite simply, in becoming a person.

The other book I read for AP English is A Separate Peace, by John Knowles. Another repeat from high school that I'm glad to return to as an adult. This one was a tearjerker for me as a teenager, but today I feel a little manipulated by the maudlin ending. Even without Finny's second accident, the book's impact would have been strong.  Where once I read it mostly for the emotional impact, now I see it more as a story of how Gene comes to terms with guilt and loss and with discovering that making the world into dichotomies, us vs. them, serves no purpose. Instead of vanquishing Phineas, he takes something of him into his soul, the part that sees the world as a large wonderful place full of possibility to enjoy without fear: "[Phineas] possessed an extra vigor, a heightened confidence in himself, a serene capacity for affection, which saved him. . . . Only Phineas never was afraid, only Phineas never hated anyone."

To live without fear, without an enemy - another reason books are important.

Other reads:
Savvy by Ingrid Law- this is a recent Newbery Honor book out for the older elementary/younger middle school group that my daughter picked up for a birthday present at a wonderful children's bookstore we discovered.   The story follows Mibs, a girl born into a family with special "gifts" that appear on their thirteenth birthdays. It was entertaining, but the characters felt a little thin. It reminded me of some other contemporary prepubescent girl books we have read, like the one about the girl who gets left behind by her tramp dad and the swamp girl book, that use kind of southern slang and crazy names and unusually constructed sayings. This one takes place on the border between Nebraska and Kansas, so the southernisms seemed a little out of place. The gifts are called "Savvies" and are abilities like making storms or causing electrical surges.  Mibs is just turning 13 and is trying to get to Salinas to see her injured dad, so she leads her brothers and a couple friends on a round about journey to get there. Along the way she discovers her own savvy.  Entertaining, not exactly heart stopping.

Elizabeth Goudge's The Sign of the Green Dolphin. This was a library reject I bought years ago. It's a thematically grouped collection of chapters from Goudge's books. Usually I don't like these kinds of things - I'd prefer to read the whole book. But I didn't realize what I was buying when I shoved it in a "Bag for $5" at a library sale. I did enjoy reading it and it made me want to try to track down some of these books, especially the eponymous title.

Mortal Beauty, God's Grace: Major Poems and Spiritual Writings of Gerard Manley Hopkins: This one I had been working on for a while. A book to dip in and out of. Some Hopkins poetry is not as good as others, but some Hopkins is luminous. A few segments from his journals, mostly eloquent descriptions of natural observances, are also included. His poetry seems to show more insight than his sermons.

The Illyrian Adventure by Lloyd Alexander Another kids' book. I thought this one was fun, but I can't get anyone else interested because the cover is torn and cheesy. And I can't quite decide if it is worth force feeding. There are a few points where I felt the plot jumped too much. Or maybe I was just distracted while reading.  The heroine is Vesper Holly, a young lady who goes off to discover her father's research project, a lost manuscript in the imaginary ancient culture of Illyria. An enemy group is after the same secret - think Indiana Jones with a female heroine and an aging Watson following along.

Colleen Carroll Campbell's My Sisters the Saints: I enjoyed reading Campbell's memoirs, particularly the story of her father's struggles with dementia. The father-daughter relationship is more illuminating than the explanations of what draws Campbell to some intellectual female saints, but those were equally interesting.

Anita Lobel's life story, No Pretty Pictures - Another library reject that had been taking up shelf space. This story reminds me of The Diary of Anne Frank, whcih I haven't read since middle school. But I might rate this one higher. Only Lobel didn't die. She did have to go into hiding, though. Particulary interesting was her recovery in Sweden.

Strange Idols by Elizabeth Scalia - loaned to me by my sister. A good critique of the ways we waste our time. I've really cut back my Facebook time without any loss.  I meant to have my older boys read this one.

Misty of Chincoteague - Read with my 4th grader. A favorite of mine from my horse-crazed youth. I started to cry when I read the part about the Phantom looking out toward Assateague yearning for home. And then Paul does the right thing... Brought back happy memories of a long ago trip to the island when my younger boys were wee lads.

We've also be reading through the Ramona books with my soon to be second grader: Beezus and Ramona, Ramona the Pest, Ramona the Brave. Everyone enjoys listening to Cleary's stories. So real and so funny.

Those are the highlights from the last couple of months. School starts this week, and I don't have a job yet, so we'll see if I can get some more reading done. Currently working on my uncle's memoirs and Thomas Merton's No Man is an Island.  Both illuminating in different ways.