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This is a review I have meant to write for a very long time. I am finally daring to do so.
I first read this book as a very young girl, underneath my covers with a flashlight. And then about a year ago I had the chance to see Sherman Alexie speak at a community college--I went on a whim, not connecting who he was, but while there I realized he was the writer of a great deal of excellent poetry I revere and this book, Reservation Blues, that I had loved and allowed myself to live in as a little girl.
Browsing the Goodwill book section a few weeks later I found an old copy of this book and snapped it up, a very happy book-lobster. I re-read it after 10 years.
I hated it this time around. It wasn't the writing, the writing was the same boggling mind-trail Alexie is so excellent at revving through. It was a single phrase that slashed at me, the sentence was attributed to Big Mom, the wise character, Watcher, and strange Savior of the book, aimed at Victor, a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of a priest.
"...you should forgive the priest who hurt you when you were little...that poor man hasn't even forgiven himself yet."
I re-read that part and my mouth sort of fell open, and I felt betrayed by Alexie, who I felt didn't understand what he was doing when he wrote the book.
I realize that when someone writes a book they largely write for themselves and of their own experiences in a vicarious way. I am all too aware of how many Indians were raped by priests, and the deep anger alot of Indians have towards white and half-white people as a result of the genocides. I think the power of forgiveness is a wonderful tool for healing for SOME people. But not all.
I feel strange criticizing and hating this sentence. I want so badly back into the rest of the book, but am unable to step back in. I was locked out of his beautiful world with those words, because those words are used to hurt people in institutions of religion, used to silence and place the burden of guilt on victims of brutal sexual assault, and used to dumb down followers.
Forgiveness is a main theme in all of Alexie's writing, and I have come to expect this of him. I don't resent the theme as long as it is clearly separated from the abusive machinations of institution. Usually he manages. He fails here, slipping the theories in willy-nilly without a clue. I think he is trying to hit all the major problems Indians face in one book, and not having personally been raped in the church (which I am willing to state quantitatively based on the way he glibly throws around religious language and talks about Catholicism, a wonderful freedom that victims of CSA do not have) he fails here, and manages to pour salt on the wounds (albeit with such innocence and such a good heart that it hurts MORE for all its damned arrogant innocence).
Victor is not a well-fleshed out character and his abuse, his reactions to that abuse, is never delved into aside from the single event. There is no analyzation of his reactions. His "tough-guy" fasod mostly remains in place throughout, slipping to reveal the outlines of the soul beneath only a few times.
Alexie only seems to understand the full-on anger reaction to abuse, he doesn't understand the deep guilt that victims of CSA have, nor does he understand the type of pain in having a "safe" spirituality spout out a flat forgiveness line that rings in tune with the corporate rapists of religious institutions. (And so few are sorry. And if this priest were sorry, why didn't he try to make amends? Why didn't he pay for counseling? Why didn't he turn himself in? What's that? He cared about himself more? He had 60 more victims? He doesn't want to go to jail? He's narcissistic and can't stand the thought of not being God's right hand? Ah. Yes.)
Alexie had no right to fling these theories out in such disarray, in the mouth of someone looked up to as a God-figure. The character Big Mom fills is a vast one, so her dialogue had better be good. He was essentially speaking for God. Shame on him!
I generally mock reviews that say, "this book is bad because the theory is bad." Well, here I am, hating a book with excellent writing for bad theory.
Mr. Alexie, I like you and I'll make a deal here, I'll stay out of the sweat lodges and your spirituality if you'll stay away from my spirituality, and refrain from telling me my spiritual path.
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This is my least favorite Harry Potter book and it hurts to say so. I am a big fan, and have been since my older brother snuck me a copy (beneath my evangelical father's eyes) of Sorcerer's Stone. I am now all grown up and reading Harry Potter has been, in many ways, the mile marks of childhood for me. Let it be known that I don't give criticisms to JK Rowling lightly, and that while a great deal of what I have to say is negative, it's my honest opinion, and not disgruntled fanmenship.
I was at my local bookstore by 5 p.m. on Friday night and hit about the middle part of the line at the stroke of midnight. By 9 am on Saturday I was finished, finished, finished...
Despite my desperately anxious reading, many parts of the story dragged and it just didn't FEEL like Harry Potter. Hogwarts took second stage next to the hectic, dangerous travels of our fine trio. When the pieces started falling (from the sky, as it were) into place there was a hurriedness, a randomness, a helter-skelter dissonance that bothered me like an itch. The ending tasted like raw sugar by the spoonfull--it left me with a stomach ache, and frankly, it read like poorly written fan-fiction.
Rowling thrives on dialogue, indeed, I'd say she's one of the best writers of dialogue I've ever read. Yet she doesn't capitalize on that large talent, instead relying on a tentative weakness: the contemplative Harry. This was a grand mistake on her part.
We all knew, coming into this book, that there would be huge revelations about our favorite sadistic teacher. Sadly those revelations were anti-climactic, seen through the Pensieve and in the middle of a large...er..."disturbance" in the continuing present of Harry Potter Land. To remove Harry from the emotion of the present and put him in a calcified rendition of the past was jerky and rang false. In this sense there was no closure with Snape; Harry never got his showdown; Snape never got his moment of revelation where he shivers in all his bitters. I missed that interaction very much. I was looking forward to it.
That is the crux of my disappointment in the book: Harry's isolation and silence. Harry has always, always relied upon a wide bevy of friends, even in Order of the Phoenix, only marching to do battle alone at the emotional climax, wherein with a stroke of luck, he saves the day. In this book he remained continually withdrawn. I didn't laugh much, I didn't cry, and I felt trapped in a bubble throughout. I felt ostracized from this last book.
Some more problems I had with Harry Potter the Final:
-The individual deaths seemed to have no meaning in relation to the overall plot and character progression. In this way, they seemed gratuitous. Rowling has said in interviews that she gave one character a reprieve and as a result gave two others the slash. I have an idea which character got the reprieve, and think, while I would have been devastated at that death, it would have been a better book with that death, and without the obvious two deaths she opted for. It would have had meaning to the overall arc and swing. As was, I blinked slightly at two of my favorite characters' demise and plunged on without a tear.
-Too condensed. I felt like I was in a college lecture: Harry Potter 101. Interesting to the fan like me, but a novel isn't an encyclopedia, and shouldn't be made into one.
Okay. Okay. Enough of the negatives. Let's face it: This is Harry Potter! And all of us here love Harry. What were the things I loved?
-Just seeing my beloved characters. I missed them, and love them as if they were real. As long as they're around, even if they're not talking and even doing alot of dying, I'm happy.
-Harry Potter all grown up. I kept wondering throughout the frantic travelings if Harry Potter had a moustacne? A beard? Ron did at one point. I wonder if Harry got all prickly.
-Closure. Yeah. No more guessing. We know now. And the intricacies of plot were fantabulous. Thank you, JK.
In the second to the last chapter I swallowed hard. The last page! I saw Harry exit the pages before my eyes, walk through an open door. I felt like my childhood had just waved goodbye and maybe it just did.
Goodbye Harry Potter. We will all miss you!
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(17 of 30 readers found this comment helpful)
I should preface this review by noting that Shannon Hale is easily one of my favorite fantasy writers. Her creative writing ability is notable and obvious. Take for instance the sentence "spring poked out everywhere." This book is rife with marvelous metaphors and the plot is great...but it's been done before and better in both "Goose Girl" and "Enna Burning." Added, Hale seems to make little effort to differentiate the bevy of characters she releases onto the reader in the beginning pages. I've read both of her previous Bayern books and "Princess Academy."I felt this book was cliche and overkill.
Overkill? Case in point: at the finale of our epic hero and heroine step into a boat and kiss their way to the final page. It was cliche and could have been done better.
Did I love this book? No. But I liked it. Regardless of the flaws I pointed out, this book still floats on Hale's excessive talent and imagination. Bayern is a place I want to go over and over again. I welcomed the chance, even if it wasn't as memorable as the last two times I went. For Hale's ability I give this book a three. In the general writing crowd where Hale stands a head taller, this book gets a four.
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(14 of 31 readers found this comment helpful)
After more or less bitterly mocking my conservative Adventist upbringing with my very Catholic best friend 7 years ago, he laughingly recommended this book to me, saying it might help me "deal" with that upbringing to soothe away the bitter. Ohmymymymy.
I checked this out at 9 in the evening and by 4 in the morning had finished this...this...this...the word book, from this book-lover, does not do this book justice. This is the monster of books, the God of all books, it's been given a little book-sceptre and rules over all the rest of the book-ette proletariat. It's bourgeois book and beastie book. Even better, instead of pompously lording it over all the rest of the lesser books, it quotes them, loves them, welcomes them in for one big book party.
I have two copies of this book. One copy is signed and is missing three pages, and is ripped in two from reading it too many times. The other is yellowed and sits on top of my bedstand. I have parts of it committed to memory, and re-read over and over and over.
The thing that strikes me most about Duncan's style is his underlying foundation, his ability to find love in the most crazed places: from the Adventist church to Vietnam to Canada to the village dotted desert outside Pune. There is a certain naivete in looking for unmitigated love in these places, but while various of his characters embody that Dostoyevskyan naivete, I get the feeling that Duncan is an incredibly down-to-earth guy and that down-to-earthness meshed with mysticism, Adventism gone fanatical, non-violent violence, etc. leaves a lasting impression.
I would say his main foundation is that love is an uncontrollable force, it takes on faces we might never expect of it. We see that over and over again as we watch this family's epic story unfold so heartbreakingly and terribly.
As for my old friend's comment that "The Brothers K" might help me "deal?" Yes. And then some. I felt like someone had hit me over the head with a frying pan after reading this book. Maybe it was the staunchly Adventist Mama Chance who stepped out of the pages and gave me a good iron whack. Duncan called The Brothers K (and I might be misquoting him a bit) his 700-some page attempt at coming to terms with his own Adventist/Presbyterian upbringing.
Having been raised solely Adventist I find it necessary to point out that some of the theology he attributes to Adventism is incorrect, particularly that Adventists don't believe in a literal hell. The culture, which is ultimately what matters in a book like this, he has portrayed amazingly well, right down to the children's rooms being in the church basement. I understand, from an interview he had with Dan Lamberton of Walla Walla Adventist College, that he was originally trying to write about Baptists, which is bigger and more mainstream and therefore more meaningful to readers, but found himself always returning to his Adventist upbringing, finally switching over altogether.
This book was amazing. While I'm not sure that Duncan would like that I felt hit over the head by a frying pan wielding Mama Chance, it turned out for me, and it keeps turning out. This book "holds multitudes." I can read it and come out crying and laughing and head-achey and glowy and furious and excited depending on which page I'm turning to and which character I'm reading about.
So. Should you buy this book?
Dear friend, buy two copies of this one, for one will fall apart on you for all that page turning.
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(17 of 30 readers found this comment helpful)
Langston Hughes' poems makes my knees knock. There is a little thrill with each poem, like I'm landing in a vat of buttermilk, and splashing happily about. With the subject matters he dares tackle one would think it'd be more realistic to walk away from a deluge of his work in deep depression.
Not so.
Instead I walked away with a dreamy smile and knocking knees. His ability to cull the beauty from the horror is...is...is
I'm wordless.
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(13 of 21 readers found this comment helpful)
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Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie
Michelleyevshky, July 29, 2007
This is a review I have meant to write for a very long time. I am finally daring to do so.I first read this book as a very young girl, underneath my covers with a flashlight. And then about a year ago I had the chance to see Sherman Alexie speak at a community college--I went on a whim, not connecting who he was, but while there I realized he was the writer of a great deal of excellent poetry I revere and this book, Reservation Blues, that I had loved and allowed myself to live in as a little girl.
Browsing the Goodwill book section a few weeks later I found an old copy of this book and snapped it up, a very happy book-lobster. I re-read it after 10 years.
I hated it this time around. It wasn't the writing, the writing was the same boggling mind-trail Alexie is so excellent at revving through. It was a single phrase that slashed at me, the sentence was attributed to Big Mom, the wise character, Watcher, and strange Savior of the book, aimed at Victor, a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of a priest.
"...you should forgive the priest who hurt you when you were little...that poor man hasn't even forgiven himself yet."
I re-read that part and my mouth sort of fell open, and I felt betrayed by Alexie, who I felt didn't understand what he was doing when he wrote the book.
I realize that when someone writes a book they largely write for themselves and of their own experiences in a vicarious way. I am all too aware of how many Indians were raped by priests, and the deep anger alot of Indians have towards white and half-white people as a result of the genocides. I think the power of forgiveness is a wonderful tool for healing for SOME people. But not all.
I feel strange criticizing and hating this sentence. I want so badly back into the rest of the book, but am unable to step back in. I was locked out of his beautiful world with those words, because those words are used to hurt people in institutions of religion, used to silence and place the burden of guilt on victims of brutal sexual assault, and used to dumb down followers.
Forgiveness is a main theme in all of Alexie's writing, and I have come to expect this of him. I don't resent the theme as long as it is clearly separated from the abusive machinations of institution. Usually he manages. He fails here, slipping the theories in willy-nilly without a clue. I think he is trying to hit all the major problems Indians face in one book, and not having personally been raped in the church (which I am willing to state quantitatively based on the way he glibly throws around religious language and talks about Catholicism, a wonderful freedom that victims of CSA do not have) he fails here, and manages to pour salt on the wounds (albeit with such innocence and such a good heart that it hurts MORE for all its damned arrogant innocence).
Victor is not a well-fleshed out character and his abuse, his reactions to that abuse, is never delved into aside from the single event. There is no analyzation of his reactions. His "tough-guy" fasod mostly remains in place throughout, slipping to reveal the outlines of the soul beneath only a few times.
Alexie only seems to understand the full-on anger reaction to abuse, he doesn't understand the deep guilt that victims of CSA have, nor does he understand the type of pain in having a "safe" spirituality spout out a flat forgiveness line that rings in tune with the corporate rapists of religious institutions. (And so few are sorry. And if this priest were sorry, why didn't he try to make amends? Why didn't he pay for counseling? Why didn't he turn himself in? What's that? He cared about himself more? He had 60 more victims? He doesn't want to go to jail? He's narcissistic and can't stand the thought of not being God's right hand? Ah. Yes.)
Alexie had no right to fling these theories out in such disarray, in the mouth of someone looked up to as a God-figure. The character Big Mom fills is a vast one, so her dialogue had better be good. He was essentially speaking for God. Shame on him!
I generally mock reviews that say, "this book is bad because the theory is bad." Well, here I am, hating a book with excellent writing for bad theory.
Mr. Alexie, I like you and I'll make a deal here, I'll stay out of the sweat lodges and your spirituality if you'll stay away from my spirituality, and refrain from telling me my spiritual path.
(25 of 54 readers found this comment helpful)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter #07) by J. K. Rowling
Michelleyevshky, July 22, 2007
***Note: Some broad, vaguely worded spoilers.****This is my least favorite Harry Potter book and it hurts to say so. I am a big fan, and have been since my older brother snuck me a copy (beneath my evangelical father's eyes) of Sorcerer's Stone. I am now all grown up and reading Harry Potter has been, in many ways, the mile marks of childhood for me. Let it be known that I don't give criticisms to JK Rowling lightly, and that while a great deal of what I have to say is negative, it's my honest opinion, and not disgruntled fanmenship.
I was at my local bookstore by 5 p.m. on Friday night and hit about the middle part of the line at the stroke of midnight. By 9 am on Saturday I was finished, finished, finished...
Despite my desperately anxious reading, many parts of the story dragged and it just didn't FEEL like Harry Potter. Hogwarts took second stage next to the hectic, dangerous travels of our fine trio. When the pieces started falling (from the sky, as it were) into place there was a hurriedness, a randomness, a helter-skelter dissonance that bothered me like an itch. The ending tasted like raw sugar by the spoonfull--it left me with a stomach ache, and frankly, it read like poorly written fan-fiction.
Rowling thrives on dialogue, indeed, I'd say she's one of the best writers of dialogue I've ever read. Yet she doesn't capitalize on that large talent, instead relying on a tentative weakness: the contemplative Harry. This was a grand mistake on her part.
We all knew, coming into this book, that there would be huge revelations about our favorite sadistic teacher. Sadly those revelations were anti-climactic, seen through the Pensieve and in the middle of a large...er..."disturbance" in the continuing present of Harry Potter Land. To remove Harry from the emotion of the present and put him in a calcified rendition of the past was jerky and rang false. In this sense there was no closure with Snape; Harry never got his showdown; Snape never got his moment of revelation where he shivers in all his bitters. I missed that interaction very much. I was looking forward to it.
That is the crux of my disappointment in the book: Harry's isolation and silence. Harry has always, always relied upon a wide bevy of friends, even in Order of the Phoenix, only marching to do battle alone at the emotional climax, wherein with a stroke of luck, he saves the day. In this book he remained continually withdrawn. I didn't laugh much, I didn't cry, and I felt trapped in a bubble throughout. I felt ostracized from this last book.
Some more problems I had with Harry Potter the Final:
-The individual deaths seemed to have no meaning in relation to the overall plot and character progression. In this way, they seemed gratuitous. Rowling has said in interviews that she gave one character a reprieve and as a result gave two others the slash. I have an idea which character got the reprieve, and think, while I would have been devastated at that death, it would have been a better book with that death, and without the obvious two deaths she opted for. It would have had meaning to the overall arc and swing. As was, I blinked slightly at two of my favorite characters' demise and plunged on without a tear.
-Too condensed. I felt like I was in a college lecture: Harry Potter 101. Interesting to the fan like me, but a novel isn't an encyclopedia, and shouldn't be made into one.
Okay. Okay. Enough of the negatives. Let's face it: This is Harry Potter! And all of us here love Harry. What were the things I loved?
-Just seeing my beloved characters. I missed them, and love them as if they were real. As long as they're around, even if they're not talking and even doing alot of dying, I'm happy.
-Harry Potter all grown up. I kept wondering throughout the frantic travelings if Harry Potter had a moustacne? A beard? Ron did at one point. I wonder if Harry got all prickly.
-Closure. Yeah. No more guessing. We know now. And the intricacies of plot were fantabulous. Thank you, JK.
In the second to the last chapter I swallowed hard. The last page! I saw Harry exit the pages before my eyes, walk through an open door. I felt like my childhood had just waved goodbye and maybe it just did.
Goodbye Harry Potter. We will all miss you!
(17 of 30 readers found this comment helpful)
River Secrets by Shannon Hale
Michelleyevshky, July 3, 2007
I should preface this review by noting that Shannon Hale is easily one of my favorite fantasy writers. Her creative writing ability is notable and obvious. Take for instance the sentence "spring poked out everywhere." This book is rife with marvelous metaphors and the plot is great...but it's been done before and better in both "Goose Girl" and "Enna Burning." Added, Hale seems to make little effort to differentiate the bevy of characters she releases onto the reader in the beginning pages. I've read both of her previous Bayern books and "Princess Academy."I felt this book was cliche and overkill.Overkill? Case in point: at the finale of our epic hero and heroine step into a boat and kiss their way to the final page. It was cliche and could have been done better.
Did I love this book? No. But I liked it. Regardless of the flaws I pointed out, this book still floats on Hale's excessive talent and imagination. Bayern is a place I want to go over and over again. I welcomed the chance, even if it wasn't as memorable as the last two times I went. For Hale's ability I give this book a three. In the general writing crowd where Hale stands a head taller, this book gets a four.
(14 of 31 readers found this comment helpful)
The Brothers K by David James Duncan
Michelleyevshky, July 3, 2007
After more or less bitterly mocking my conservative Adventist upbringing with my very Catholic best friend 7 years ago, he laughingly recommended this book to me, saying it might help me "deal" with that upbringing to soothe away the bitter. Ohmymymymy.I checked this out at 9 in the evening and by 4 in the morning had finished this...this...this...the word book, from this book-lover, does not do this book justice. This is the monster of books, the God of all books, it's been given a little book-sceptre and rules over all the rest of the book-ette proletariat. It's bourgeois book and beastie book. Even better, instead of pompously lording it over all the rest of the lesser books, it quotes them, loves them, welcomes them in for one big book party.
I have two copies of this book. One copy is signed and is missing three pages, and is ripped in two from reading it too many times. The other is yellowed and sits on top of my bedstand. I have parts of it committed to memory, and re-read over and over and over.
The thing that strikes me most about Duncan's style is his underlying foundation, his ability to find love in the most crazed places: from the Adventist church to Vietnam to Canada to the village dotted desert outside Pune. There is a certain naivete in looking for unmitigated love in these places, but while various of his characters embody that Dostoyevskyan naivete, I get the feeling that Duncan is an incredibly down-to-earth guy and that down-to-earthness meshed with mysticism, Adventism gone fanatical, non-violent violence, etc. leaves a lasting impression.
I would say his main foundation is that love is an uncontrollable force, it takes on faces we might never expect of it. We see that over and over again as we watch this family's epic story unfold so heartbreakingly and terribly.
As for my old friend's comment that "The Brothers K" might help me "deal?" Yes. And then some. I felt like someone had hit me over the head with a frying pan after reading this book. Maybe it was the staunchly Adventist Mama Chance who stepped out of the pages and gave me a good iron whack. Duncan called The Brothers K (and I might be misquoting him a bit) his 700-some page attempt at coming to terms with his own Adventist/Presbyterian upbringing.
Having been raised solely Adventist I find it necessary to point out that some of the theology he attributes to Adventism is incorrect, particularly that Adventists don't believe in a literal hell. The culture, which is ultimately what matters in a book like this, he has portrayed amazingly well, right down to the children's rooms being in the church basement. I understand, from an interview he had with Dan Lamberton of Walla Walla Adventist College, that he was originally trying to write about Baptists, which is bigger and more mainstream and therefore more meaningful to readers, but found himself always returning to his Adventist upbringing, finally switching over altogether.
This book was amazing. While I'm not sure that Duncan would like that I felt hit over the head by a frying pan wielding Mama Chance, it turned out for me, and it keeps turning out. This book "holds multitudes." I can read it and come out crying and laughing and head-achey and glowy and furious and excited depending on which page I'm turning to and which character I'm reading about.
So. Should you buy this book?
Dear friend, buy two copies of this one, for one will fall apart on you for all that page turning.
(17 of 30 readers found this comment helpful)
Selected Poems of Langston Hughes
Michelleyevshky, June 29, 2007
Langston Hughes' poems makes my knees knock. There is a little thrill with each poem, like I'm landing in a vat of buttermilk, and splashing happily about. With the subject matters he dares tackle one would think it'd be more realistic to walk away from a deluge of his work in deep depression.Not so.
Instead I walked away with a dreamy smile and knocking knees. His ability to cull the beauty from the horror is...is...is
I'm wordless.
(13 of 21 readers found this comment helpful)
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