A View of the Ocean by Jan de Hartog

I have never read anything so fast, in fact it took me two days, two sittings. This is a moving memoir of Jan de Hartog’s recollection of his parents, a Dutch theologian father and a mother whose devotion to each other was unsurpassed. It is hard to write about a reading experience that is so passing, so deeply engaging and so moving at the same time. He talked about philosophy, particularly his father’s take on the definition of free will by Schopenhauer and Neitzche, the history of Calvinism in Holland, the Quaker tradition among the Dutch, Dutch East Indies, the just concluded World War I in Europe. But most importantly, he talked about the impending death of his mother who was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Confined in a hospital and terminally ill, she was a picture of wretchedness and despair, and the author could not define his role in seeing his mother through her death. Between shots of sedatives that made her drowsy and deranged, vomiting the malodorous stench of human decay, his mother was not one whom he could comfort readily without his having to want to bolt away. She had one night of being lost in her terror amidst her excrement and her confusion and the author found himself washing and bathing her, holding her and assuring her that everything would be all right. That night was the one night of being in the ocean of darkness where he felt he was able to feel the vast ocean of light and love that followed it.
The book is somber, but there were many moments of upliftment, specially when you realize that love is behind all that we do as the parents in the memoir exemplified, that gentleness and persuasiveness go hand in hand, that our lives are strewn with suffering and there is no assurance that a decent life will end in a graceful death, but redemption is at hand if one is steadfast in their faith.

Jan de Hartog was a sailor, thus most of his imagery is of the ocean and its wild vicissitudes. The signficance of this in the perspective of human life as it derives support from the waters is perpelexing because the water can also drown us into oblivious death and being forgotten.

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang

If your idea of “party” conjures  joy, merriment and camaraderie, be prepared to change that when you read Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China. The 20th century saga of the 900 million Chinese in Sichuan, Peking and Chengdu that was portrayed through the biographies of three generations of the Chang women in the book was non-stop suffering. Their travails during the time of the Kuomintang party, the Communist Party of China, the Great Leap Forward, the Red Guards and the Rebels as well as the Cultural Revolution makes the word “party” a pooped out expression of being outcast, detained, forced to submission, made to do hard labor, become hungry due to famine, become ostracized, have your whole family and friends ruined for life, become a peasant, become exiled in the name of being a server of the people, and traitor to one’s allegiances including one’s family.  Jung Chang’s first person account of the history of her concubine grandmother, her communist party revolutionary mother and her Rebel Party self set in the cultural and geographic vastness of China is marked by suffering of epic proportions. Under the Japanese conquerors of Manchukuo, resistance leader Chang Kai Sek, Communist Party leader Mao Zedong, Deng Shao Ping and Zhou En Lai and finally the Gang of Four led by Mdm. Mao, these women’s stories will make you squirm in your seat as you turn page after page of oppression, personal degredation, rehabilitation, self recrimination and criticism, denial of pleasures and freedoms, sexual repression, abuse of filial piety that ends in extreme subjugation of one’s creativity and spirit. I have a feeling most Chinese people of this generation are still reeling from these collective experiences  and memories that marked their history under Chairman Mao  from 1949-1978.   Our heroine weathers all of these to flee unscathed to England and be the first Chinese citizen to finish a PhD in a foreign land since 1948.  Her account of her parent’s loyalty to the Communist Party of the early 1940’s as they were high ranking officials in the Departments of Public Affairs leaves no relative of theirs enjoying any “bourgeoise”privileges or even just personal comfort.  Their own allegiance to the Maoist/communist philosophy led them to despair and brokeness, but they remained loyal subjects to a demigod that took over all their beliefs and traditions. The very principles that they committed to in the hope of alleviating poverty and class iniquity betrayed them and caused many deaths in the proportions of genocide. The irony of these untold stories and hushed secrets is that they became the source of strength and cohesiveness that  propelled China into economic power and visible world dominance today.   

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

This book left me a visceral revulsion that is similar to a memory of a scene in the movie, “The Spy Who Shagged Me.” In that scene, a fat Austin Powers was made to drink a cup of fecal matter. To this day, thinking about that propels me to vomit, literally. I almost did that while reading this book. Somehow, the lasting impressions I get in reading this novel is not the beautiful allusions to God and creation and the relationships we have with nature and the grandeur of the cosmos. Even the more uplifting passages of Chapters 21 and 22 do not erase my disgust in the descriptions of Pi’s and other castaways’ effort to survive by eating and killing reptiles, fish, fowl, zoo animal or other men.

Overall, the book leaves a queasy and disturbed feeling in the mouth, as I profess to have an overactive imagination and one that remembers details, specially with those that relate to hunger, eating and digestion. Martel seems preoccupied with a lot of disgusting details relating to how if man was driven to desperation and hunger, survival to eat is reduced to the banal, the raw and obscene.

A case in point is the description of Pi’s trying to collect and eat the Tiger’s (Richard Parker) feces. “I popped the ball into my mouth, I couldn’t eat it. The taste was acrid, but it wasn’t that. It was rather my mouth’s conclusion, immediate and obvious: there’s nothing to be had here. It was truly waste matter, with no nutrients in it. I spat it out and was bitter at the loss of precious water. (p. 214)” Another stomach churning account that is left in my mind is Pi’s evisceration of a turtle, and eventually drinking its blood and eating turtle morsels. Cutting of limbs of animals and humans seems to be a mainstay feature description in the book. The cannibalism in the light of vegetarianism was more than I could take.

Never mind Richard Parker’s beastly behavior and Pi’s success in taming him, never mind the meerkats and the way they lived in the forest of carnivorous algae, never mind his surviving a 200+ day ordeal. The whole story was defeated by the detailed mouth and tongue disgusted impressions that it left. The struggle to survive and willfully invoke God’s presence and be thankful for his presence or lack of it is overshadowed by my vicious imaginings of stomach turning scenarios.

The insights about French occupied Pondicherry, India circa 1977 were historical tidbits that gave some vibrant local color. The descriptions of zoos and animal upkeep in the third world were informative. Even Indian politics with Mrs. Gandhi was commendable. Descriptions of Indian food was like a field trip to the bowels of India. The culinary aromas and gustatory visions of idli, chutney, rice and sambar, spicy tamarind, and vegetable samala were all sensuous contrasts to the tragedy of a castaway were Pi’s life was reduced to raw, flavorless and gummy dorados, turtles, birds and distilled sea water. But all of those dwarf the tragi-comic struggle for life in the wild, and the vexation of life as the struggle to preserve it is testament to its preciousness, its fragility and expendability.

After all that was said and done in Pi’s ordeal, the last section of the book tells us about the Japanese officers from the ill fated ship.  Pi then tells his story and provides an alternative interpretation of the real truth. Now what’s with that? Is the story he just narrated a figment of his imagination? That my dear friends is up to you to tell.

I would give this book a 3 instead of a 3.14.

Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende

Set in Valparaiso,  San Francisco, Hongkong and London during the 1840’s, this is the saga of young Eliza Sommers, the fiesty daughter of fortune. Isabel Allende weaves a tale of the adventures of a spirited young woman, true love and family devotion, survival smarts as she follows Joaquin Murietta to the “gold rush” of San Francisco. Her birth origins were questionable, Elisa was brought in a box with expensive lining and linens that bespoke of her noble ancestry.Rose Sommers raises her as her own and teaches her the refined ways of the British aristocracy. Rose is the young sister of Jeremy, ship captain and head of the British contingent that does business and enterprise in Chile. Rose has a sordid past that was not acceptable in London society, thus she gets exiled by her brothers to a far away land where she pines away and writes stories about her lost love.

Sixteen year old Eliza stows away in a ship bound for San Francisco. Tao Chi’en smuggles her on board and takes care of her in the bowels of the ship where she is hidden from all the other passengers of the ship. She is apparently pregnant and has a mollusk-like still baby on board. The Chinese cook/physician nurses her back to health. She and Tao Chi’en set foot on the new California and reinvent themselves, Eliza dresses up as a “young man” and makes a living following a troop of women of ill-repute. She plays the piano. Tao Chi’en becomes a physician attending to the medical needs of workers in the new land of opportunity.

They work and survive in 49er country where men outnumbered the women. Smutty literature was in great demand as well as the services of women who peddled sex. Loneliness and being away from home fostered businesses that drew the talents of writers, and we find out that Rose Sommers becomes the source of lascivious literature that is lucrative commodity to lady-starved men. Eliza also makes a living writing letters to the loved ones of the lonely prospectors.

Joaquin Murrietta apparently becomes a rogue and wanted man. He steals and becomes a murderer wanted for a myriad of crimes. But he is also a hero to the impoverished. Eliza finally finds him as a beheaded criminal. She reverts to a life with a true and tried love, Tao Chi’en.

Allende is crisp and and eloquent, her images are vivid and she transported me to places and a time that I would have never imagined. Her description of San Francisco and its first settlers (which was not so so long ago) was a vivid historical account of how the first business thrived, catering to lonely migrants and gold miners.  Fresh food and comestibles that came from South America were brought to North America in ships that had blocks of ice from glaciers in Chile!!!  Pornographic literature also came from its English presses, but originated in Chile!  Indeed, the “gold”  in the gold rush was just yellow stuff, the real gold lay in the people who came from the far corners of the world and indeed there was money to be made because of the rush.

Peony in Love by Lisa See

This book seemed fanciful and flighty at first, until I found out that the story of Peony Chen and her account of her mother and grandmother’s life. They were feminist heroes during their time. (Tang Dynasty). Peony becomes the roving hungry ghost of her husband’s family and she and her sister wives were the first feminist unsung literary heroes in China. (1400’s). Peony was about sixteen years old when she died, and according to her account, it was because she had too much quing in her. She died of lovesickness, and she literally starved herself to death, pining for Ren, her bethrothed husband to be. Her ghostly activities propelled the literary genius of womenfolk in a time that women could not and were not known for anything but being subservient to their husbands and parents.

Either you love the book or you hate it, as it accounts for these lovelorn women of high society. They were not allowed to leave the inner chambers of their palatial homes, the had bound feet “golden lillies” and were groomed to be stern mothers to sons and daughters, obedient wives and subservient members of a clan that they marry into. Girls were not important but it was customary that their marriages be arranged by their fathers into well to do families. Women and girls in the household were either wives, concubines, daughters and mothers-in-laws. Peony’s dowry was extensive and her bride price was fitting of a princess. She grew up in a household that had generations of poets and very literate ancestors, her father was an extremely well read and high ranking government official. On her birthday, her father commissioned the opera “Peony Pavillion” to be played in their family garden. Top government officials were invited, including families of her husband to be.

Peony Pavillion is a play about a ghost lover Du Liniang, and the erotic love she shared with her lover Liu Mengmei. Du Liniang is the daughter of an important official. Her maid encourages her to abandon her dull studies and take a walk in the garden, where she falls asleep. She dreams of her lover Liu Mengmei, whom in real life she has never met, before being awoken by falling petals. Unable to recover the enchantment of her dream, she wastes away and dies.

Peony’s story is actually the story of Du Liniang. The novel is an account of a girl’s interpretation of the opera “Peony Pavillion” and how her life imitates the main character’s life. I stumbled upon the history of women in literature in about the later 4th part of the book, otherwise I thought it was just a dreamy account of a young girl’s erotic fantasies. I give Lisa See credit for her research and ability to portray the women’s plight and struggle to express their creativity and their sensuality.

The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls

I judge the quality of a read by how fast I am going and by how much I remember. Jeannette Walls is superb by making such a riveting memoir of her childhood with her wacko-demented-do you have any idea of responsibility-supposedly intelligent-hippy-homeless parents. The reading was quick and fluid, and it transported me to a world of despair and their decrepit existence without it being sappy and exaggerated. There were even many humorous parts that led me to believe that poverty can also be dealt with a lot of levity and skittish joy. I cannot imagine homelessness and what it is like to be “skeddadling” all over the US. Bohemian is one thing but to neglect and abuse children and say that you love them is another story. The Walls father, Rex, as bright as he might seemed to be was a brute and malicious person. He could not hold a job and had many argumentative bouts with priests, the law, the school, the government, the police and just about anyone who he encountered that questioned his behavior. He truly was the family’s cross to bear. His malice was in his constant betrayals with money and his taking advantage of his children’s allegiance to him. The lies, the embarrassments and the immorality of his life were the bread and butter of his children. He even blasphemed about Jesus H. Christ and Virgin Mary’s conception.He stole the money that the kids were saving so that they could leave for New York and flee their dysfunctional household. He would beat up his wife and dangle her body out a window, or yell loudly as he cursed his wife and life, in front of all townspeople to see. He was a drunken scoundrel as far as I could read, but not in the hearts and memories of his children.
This was the double edged sword of co-dependence in alcoholic families.

Rose Mary, the mother was slothful and lazy. She was born with wealth and had the resources that could have spared her children of their abject poverty. But she chose to live with self absorption and neglect of her children by being the writer artist who never sold any piece of work. She had art supplies, fruitwood archery sets, a 2 carat diamond ring, large landholdings in Texas and Phoenix but she never thought about how she could spend her monies on anything else but thrift store items and sugary foods. She could not be bothered with cleaning house, cooking and disciplining her children, she barely held a job that would be their only source of income. Jeannette would many times question why she would not act more like a mother.

These people are the kind who would be the candidates for either not knowing or disregarding all of Moses’ Ten Commandments. It is a great wonder that their children came out somewhat “together” and became able to fend for themselves. Lori found jobs being an artist and making posters for others, Brian became a policeman, Jeannette became a writer and news reporter and Maureen a settler in California who continued to look for herself after she was incarcerated for stabbing her mother.

The funniest part of the novel was when Jeannette said her mother’s work is much like that of a caryatid. When asked what that was, she said it was those Greek sculpted ladies on the temples carrying the world on their heads. For their mom, the only thing worse than her life is to be like those caryatids. I also laughed a lot about the public swimming pool having separate swim times for blacks and whites. Jeannette swam with her colored friend Dinitia in the “free” morning swim hours where they played black people music. The black ladies had no clothes and were bumping butts and their bodies. In the afternoon swim times, white people had to pay. There was no humor in the pool being severely chlorinated enough to burn one’s skin to an itch though.

The saddest part of the novel was when Jeannette was brought to the bar by her father so that he could make some money off her. He would somewhat peddle Jeannette to a pool buddy and let her be fondled. Jeannette wrote about this incident with an almost sickening detachment. The next saddest part was when Jeannette would be with her lover and would be regarded as “textured” as she exposed her scars and skin grafts on her skin from the fire that she survived as a child.

There are more parts that I remember vividly, too many to write about with either glee or sadness, but all in all, “Mountain Goat” aka Jeannette did well for herself and is living proof that yes, “whatever it is that did not kill you is probably what made you stronger” if you maintained your “focus”. I credit her for finding her life and making it successful and not being bitter and contentious about her past and her parents. She has a shining spirit that can be likened to the luminosity of “Venus”, a planet that her father gave her for Christmas. I think she is one the brighter reflections in the firmament of writers.

Reading is my escape!

I am a voracious reader. My favorite spot to read is on my bed. I keep my books next to my pillow and when I wake up at odd hours during the early morning, I pick up my book du jour. I belong to a book club at the high school where I work and we read a book a month and talk about it. But I read more than one book now and will use this blog to chronicle what I have been reading. I also am part of Shelfari.com, a book group online and that allows you to share the books you have read with your friends. But this blog will be more of my attempt to write my thoughts and account for the time I spend reading fabulous books. I will start with the latest book I finished, and will continue as I read some more. I will not go back to writing about any of the past ones I have read for fear that I may just clutter my mind and get me wrapped up with past books that I failed to write about. I have written reviews at amazon.com and will leave those there.

Book blogging is a great way to sharpen your writing skills, it will allow me to keep an acute mind, ably remembering dates and details that I would normally forget. I can keep track of how my writing has improved, and possibly, with the hyperlinks that I can create, I can become better informed and be a better information source.