So, yesterday was the official kick-off of the Keep Portland Weird festival here in Paris, which meant that I had a reading/screening in the...
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Piper Kerman had a charmed life. She was the happy product of a functional family, brilliant, privileged, lucky, and much-loved. She looked like a Barbi Doll, she graduated from Smith College, she had a few wild adventures, and then suddenly she was behind bars. Instead of the Why Me whine you might expect from a woman ill-prepared to meet adversity, Kerman writes a love song to the women in orange who taught her what class is, how it works, who has voice and who doesn't, and what it means to wake up. There are several heroines in this book, and Kerman isn't one of them, but she tells an unforgettable story of the courage of ordinary poor women trapped between hard circumstances and harder choices. If you've never been to prison, read this book. If you've been there, you might find yourself in it.
Poetic prose, every page cut like a gem. Winterson re-tells the story of Atlas, who holds the weight of the world on his shoulders, and his dicey dealings with Heracles, "a bastard and a blagger, but the only man alive who could relieve Atlas of his burden." In and around their story weaves a little dog named Laika, rescued from a Russian satellite, a few golden apples, and various gods, goddesses, and mortals. The question is, What would it be like to lay down our burdens? What would happen if those among us who think the weight rests on us should just quietly walk away?
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Kavita has commented on (2) products.
Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison by Piper Kerman
Kavita, January 3, 2011
Piper Kerman had a charmed life. She was the happy product of a functional family, brilliant, privileged, lucky, and much-loved. She looked like a Barbi Doll, she graduated from Smith College, she had a few wild adventures, and then suddenly she was behind bars. Instead of the Why Me whine you might expect from a woman ill-prepared to meet adversity, Kerman writes a love song to the women in orange who taught her what class is, how it works, who has voice and who doesn't, and what it means to wake up. There are several heroines in this book, and Kerman isn't one of them, but she tells an unforgettable story of the courage of ordinary poor women trapped between hard circumstances and harder choices. If you've never been to prison, read this book. If you've been there, you might find yourself in it.Weight (Myths) by Jeanette Winterson
Kavita, January 3, 2011
Poetic prose, every page cut like a gem. Winterson re-tells the story of Atlas, who holds the weight of the world on his shoulders, and his dicey dealings with Heracles, "a bastard and a blagger, but the only man alive who could relieve Atlas of his burden." In and around their story weaves a little dog named Laika, rescued from a Russian satellite, a few golden apples, and various gods, goddesses, and mortals. The question is, What would it be like to lay down our burdens? What would happen if those among us who think the weight rests on us should just quietly walk away?