i wish i were back on a plane, just so i could keep reading

I had been planning on finishing up a few more books to add to the list below, continuing from previous posts (I'm right in the middle of Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose and don't tell me you don't want to hear about it), but school is, as always, getting in the way.  This will probably be my last hurrah of reading for fun until June.  So, here's a wrap-up of the books I read while in Singapore and on the journey home.  I give you four beautiful books, a really-really-trying-to-be-beautiful book, and a dud:

®21. All the Pretty Horses · · · · by Cormac McCarthy (3/25/2012)

Ohmygoshyouguys.  Cormac McCarthy blew my mind and I haven’t found all the pieces yet.  Because I’m in a state of verbal inadequacy, I’m going to simply copy and paste this lovely review from Lara at goodreads: “McCarthy pares his descriptions down to the purest bones, and then, as if all that surrounded it was the shrapnel of a shattering revelation, lays down a jaw-droppingly astonishing sentence that sums up good, evil, man, God, love.  The best and worst in men are inseparable in McCarthy's worlds, which are so exactly imagined as to be indisputable.  John Grady Cole is one of the most memorable heros in contemporary literature.  This one makes me want to ride out across the dust.” 8 out of 10.

®22. Brave New World · · · · by Adolus Huxley (3/26/2012)

Another classic. *yawns, leans back in chaise lounge and tosses book gaily over shoulder.* Seriously, I feel like the only place to read this book would be reclining in the lounge in 1932.  This book must have been the shiz in the 30s, but now, it just seems flat.  There’s really no plot development, there are no non-stock characters, and the descriptions of the dystopian world become repetitive and boring after the first ten minutes of reading.  Although those first ten minutes really are a trip: in this world, the dictatorial government uses happy drugs and playful sex as world-domination tools, and grows people in labs in batches, and purposefully stunts the growth of people in lower social classes, and uses sleep hypnosis to convince people that they really are truly happy with their lives.  It’s a WEIRD, cool idea, but the idea can be summed up in one sentence, instead of dragging it out for an entire book.  5 out of 10.

®23. The Bean Trees · · · · by Barbara Kingsolver (3/27/2012)

This is a warm story about the beautiful absurdity of life, about mothers and daughters, and about the human condition.  This book reminded me of many magical realist short stories, and the sense of bemused amazement as we follow the characters through life’s unexpected twists and turns is infectious.  Mini-synopsis: The heroine begins with giving us readers a clear-eyed account of Kentucky and her desire to leave it.  She eventually does, driving West and searching for a new place to begin.  Somewhere in Oklahoma, somebody gives her a baby.  In a blurb like this, saying “somebody gives her a baby” just sounds trite and soap-opera-y.  Kingsolver, wordsmith extraordinaire, is anything but trite, and this baby turns out to be the most central, most joyous part of the whole book.  This new ersatz-mom stops driving in Tuscon due to other random circumstances, and there her new life (+ baby) begins, and she starts to learn about the mixed misery and joy that humans put each other through.  8 out of 10.

®24. The Color Purple · · · · by Alice Walker (4/1/2012? or perhaps 3/31/2012—I was crossing the date line)

Man, oh man.  (Or, as my roommate says, Woman, oh woman.)  This book is incredibly powerful, and narrates a journey so despairing and joyous that you’ll cry for America.  Walker explores themes of race, misogyny, poverty, incest, rape, motherhood, heteronormativity, religion, creativity, and love, just to name a few.  Here’s an interview with Walker on BBC that has some fascinating stories about how she went about writing the book, and the world’s reception to it. 9 out of 10.

®25. Enduring Love · · · · by Ian McEwan (4/1/2012? or perhaps 3/31/2012—I was crossing the date line)

You know how you read the best book by an author, and how after that every book from the same author pales in comparison?  Atonement was such a complex, multi-leveled book, with a riveting plot, that although Enduring Love was undoubtedly well written, I couldn’t shake the feeling of slight disappointment.  Come on—is two masterpieces too much to ask?  However, McEwan does craft a compelling narrative in Enduring Love, and his writing is as lyrical as ever.  Love, respect, obsession, and identity are all major themes of this book, which chronicles the changes a freak ballooning accident wreak on one man’s life and once-stable love.  7 out of 10.

®26. Lolita · · · · · · · · · · by Vladimir Nabokov (4/3/2012).

Reading Lolita on the bus gives you two reasons to be disturbed: 1) pedophiles, and 2) motion sickness.  (Another reason to be disturbed: People in Portland like to comment on what their bus neighbors are reading.  I know everyone sees me reading Lolita.  I know it’s a classic that everyone should read at some point in their lives.  That doesn’t stop me from wanting to hide it far, far away from my bus neighbors’ prying eyes—shoot, now I’m talking about it like it’s porn—it’s just that it’s narrated by a pedophile who has erotic plans for his stepdaughter, ok YUCK YUCK YUCK I’m stuffing it into my backpack.)  With all that aside, Lolita is a very good book.  It has many themes tucked between the covers, such as societal mores and social expectations, and is kind-of like The French Lieutenant’s Woman taken to an extreme. And the writing really, truly is excellent.  A lovely quote by Nabokov about the book: “…an American critic suggested that Lolita was the record of my love affair with the romantic novel.  The substitution ‘English language’ for ‘romantic novel’ would make this elegant formula more correct.” Various snippets of comments online: “a tour-de-force of style and narrative” and “wantonly gorgeous prose” (the amazon.com review is beautiful in its own right).  The writing is beautiful, the narrator is fantastically unreliable and could serve as a model for any creative writing class to strive for, and you are tugged along, unable to put the book down, even as the bus halts at your stop.  8 out of 10. 

books! books! books!

Hey there,

Along with frolicking and touristing and hiking and sweating and picture-taking and everything else I did over break, I read.  And I read and I read and I read.  You'd think grad school had starved me for the written word!

Here are my thoughts on some of the books I finished over Spring break, as well as some that I read over Thanksgiving break and didn't write about here.  (Numbering continues from the end of the list in this post.  I set a goal of reading 50 books outside of school work over the course of the academic year.  So far, I've only really read during the breaks, but I'm still chugging along, and am keeping track of my progress.)

      ®13. All My Friends Are Dead · · · · · · · · · · by Avery Monsen and Jory Jory (11/24/2011).

This book doesn’t even need any thoughts from me, and it may not even count as a book.  It’s about two pages long, and has pictures.  Go look up the title, and you’ll laugh until you cry as you flip through this wee devil of a book.  Luckily, all my friends are not dead, and we all read this out loud to each other on Thanksgiving Day.  It seemed to fit the holiday spirit.  ? out of 10.

®14. Blankets · · · · · · · · · · by Craig Thompson (11/25/2011).

Blankets is a beautiful autobiographical graphic novel that poignantly tells the story of growing up.  It includes breathtaking depictions of the author’s childhood and his wide-open imagination, which seems to burst out of the confinements of the small world of rural Wisconsin, hemmed in by the harsh winters and strict small-town life.  8 out of 10.

®15. Habibi · · · · · · · · · · by Craig Thompson (11/26/2011).

After being blown away by the gorgeous drawings in Blankets, I picked up Habibi, Thompson’s newest graphic novel.  While Blankets is much more personal (it’s a memoir), Habibi is an epic that spans centuries and explores themes of Islam and Christianity, the natural world, industrialism, love, and storytelling.  The drawings are, again, exquisite, and the panel of the story fit together like puzzle pieces. I am not a graphic novel connoisseur, but I thoroughly enjoyed the style of Habibi, and the conventions of a graphic novel.  For example, where a traditional novel needs a lot of excess words to create a frame story, Thompson can simply draw an intricate, geometrical frame around his Scheherazade-like stories-within-stories.  Both his dialogue and wordless images are moving, and tell a masterpiece.  8 out of 10.

®16. The Book Thief · · · · · · · · · · by Markus Zusak (1/14/2012).

Brilliant, sad, and wallopingly funny.  Go read it!  (Or maybe you did way back in ’06, when this was a bestseller.  If you missed that boat, hop on now).  The basic premise is that we (the readers) follow Liesel Meminger through Death’s eyes as she grows up in Nazi Germany.  Death is an oddly cool, detached narrator, and can’t help but observe Liesel as she boisterously goes about her life.  Death travels the world, collecting souls, and stops back every once in a while to check on Liesel.  He also slowly, stealthily, wraps his cold fingers around your (the reader’s) heart and just holds it, waiting, while you traipse through all the warm chapters of Liesel’s young adolescence.  And then he squeezes.  Eee-gadz, I think my heart leaked out of my eyes and is now in a puddle on the floor—I cried that much.  Am I spoiling anything?  It is a book narrated by Death, after all, so I don’t think I’ve given any spoilers by admitting that I cried.  (I cried at the end of When Harry Met Sally, too, so I don’t think that says much.)  There are hilarious bits as well – one of the characters makes a sketchbook by painting over pages of Mein Kampf and then drawing his own pictures (which are included for our enjoyment and are *cute*!) and there’s a sketch of a young Hitler in a Führer Shop, eyeing such items as mini-moustaches and hatred-in-a-bottle.  (!)  If you don’t ever want read another book about Nazi Germany again, this is one to make an exception for.  It isn’t really about Nazis at all, or death—it’s about living.  8 out of 10.

®17. The Shell Collector · · · · · · · · · · by Anthony Doerr (3/18/2012).

These short stories unwound in magical, breathless sequence, and held me in an in-between state so powerful that I didn’t notice or care that my plane was still sitting on the tarmac in Portland, and that I’d probably miss my connecting flight in Tokyo—I was being transported to Kenya, Montana, Chicago, and thousand other emotional places in Doerr’s stories.  I typically avoid short stories because of their tendency to attempt too many symbolic punches, but Doerr laid on the symbolism, plot, character development, and lyricism in exactly the right amount.  8 out of 10. 

®18. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn · · · · · · · · · · by Betty Smith (3/18/2012).

Well… it’s a classic, which is about all I can say for it.  In my quest to finally get through a stack of books someone should have made me read earlier in life, it finally fell time to tackle this one.  Anna Quindlen wrote a rather apt foreword for the book, making remarks like, “It is not a showy book from a literary point of view,” which I wholeheartedly agree with.  I also happen to think there’s not much showy about it at all.  If I hadn’t been in a metal/plastic tube hurtling through the air at 35,000 feet, trapped between the window and a talkative seatmate, I’d have chucked this book out and gone to watch Mad Men.  OK, sorry—I feel like I should at least say a few positive things about this book, since I made it through to the end, and it is a classic for a reason.  This book was revolutionary for its time.  Smith’s depiction of her childhood Brooklyn, full of poverty, misogyny, and corruption, is a powerful reminder that America’s favorite immigrant narrative (rags-to-riches, land of opportunity, yadda yadda) glosses over the fact that many 1^st- and 2^nd- generation immigrants were faced with brutal, short lives.  Institutional racism hasn’t gone anywhere, and if we keep telling ourselves that today’s immigrants should just buck up and work harder, then we are simply perpetuating the cycle of condemning generations of people to being second-class citizens.  5 out of 10.

®19. The Hunger Games · · · · · · · · · · by Suzanne Collins (3/20/2012).

I succumbed!  After thoroughly exhausting myself on my first day in Singapore, I came back to my cousin’s apartment and perused her bookshelf (hooray for expat packages! they even shipped her books from the US!).  She had a boxed set of The Hunger Games, and since, hey, who doesn’t like a bandwagon? I hopped on.  I kicked back, turned on the air-con, cracked open the first book, and WHA-BAM!  I was trapped.  I don’t even know if the writing was good or bad, but OH MY GOODNESS it was engrossing.  Go read this book if you need two hours of your life sucked away because you can’t un-pry your fingers from the book covers. 7 out of 10.

®20. Catching Fire · · · · · · · · · · by Suzanne Collins (3/20/2012).

After finishing the first book in the Hunger Games trilogy, my cousin and I went out for dinner, and since she had the Singapore Flu (a deathly cold brought on by repeatedly going from Siberian air-conditioned buildings to the street that has a heat index of 108^oF with 90% humidity), she went to bed early.  I devoured the second Hunger Games book as a bedtime snack.  7 out of 10.

®21. Mockingjay · · · · · · · · · · by Suzanne Collins (3/21/2012).

I promise I did a whole lot more in Singapore than just sit back and read young adult fiction, but really, I could only push myself so far each day before I melted in the heat.  After spending all day traipsing around the Singapore Botanic Gardens (a fantastic spot), I dragged myself, dripping, back to my cousin’s apartment, and finished the final book in The Hunger Games trilogy.  Sorry—I guess I haven’t said anything about the books themselves.  They are addictive, action-packed, full of (sometimes sappy) romance in full YA-angsty-style, and have powerful political sub-themes.  They are set in a post-apocalyptic North America, where The Capitol holds absolute power over the people of the 12 Districts, who live in isolated labor camps.  The 13^th District was obliterated because it tried to lead the other Districts in an insurrection against The Capitol.  Each year as a reminder that insurrection does not go unpunished, The Capitol holds The Hunger Games, where one boy and one girl are taken from each District and are forced to fight to the death for the “entertainment” of the nation.  A friend of mine, who has close ties to Libya, made the comment that the first book gave her nightmares because she could picture Qaddafi setting up this sort of thing with his dissenters.  It’s not that far-fetched—think of what’s happening in Syria, with the regime’s indiscriminate bombing of Homs.  Or let’s look at Israel and Palestine.  Israel is fencing in the Palestinians, cutting off access between villages, and has engaged in acts such as telling over 100 civilians to take shelter in a house and then shelling it  and  shooting 26 children who crossed the border from Gaza into Israel to collect gravel.  The world sits by and watches on TV—essentially, it’s all bread and circuses.  Book: 7 out of 10.  World peace: so far, 0 out of 10.

solo traveling: vignettes from singapore and borneo

I was craving alone time.  Before setting off for Southeast Asia, I was in a mad flurry of handing in final papers, trying to spend meaningful time with roommates, and preparing for my trip.  As I boarded the plane in Portland, I finally had time to write, time to read, time to think—so I pulled out the first book I had time to read for fun since Christmas break.

During the two weeks of Spring break I spent a lot of time reading and journaling, and spent the majority of every day alone.  Solo traveling for me is terribly, wrenchingly lonely, but comes with the rewards of talking with people I’d never have otherwise had the chance to meet.  For example, on that first flight out of Portland, I ended up sitting next to a woman who owned a Japanese restaurant in Corvallis and who was flying home to Japan for her mother’s funeral.  We talked on and off for most of the plane ride, and I felt like I learned a little bit from this exceptional woman about having an attitude of patience and diligence.

When I went to Borneo, I sat by another remarkable woman on the plane.  I was just settling into my book when the lady next to me said unexpectedly and without preamble, “Hi!”  I answered, “Hi?” a little surprised, not sure what she wanted.  It turned out she was just looking for conversation.  She was traveling home after a long stint of working in Singapore.  She was from the interior of Borneo from an ethnically Chinese community, and had studied Industrial Engineering at the University of Tennessee.   We chatted for the whole plane ride, and ended up sharing a taxi from the airport into town.

***

While staying in the town of Kuching, Malaysia, I was staying at a hostel that I’d found online.  I was lured by the promise of $6/night for a bed, air-con, and free breakfast.  The beds were nice enough for six bucks and the air-con indeed worked, but the breakfast turned out to be stale Wonder Bread and a can of peaches that looked like it’d been opened months ago.

This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because it forced me to get out of the hostel early—6am, when the roosters started crowing and the construction noise next door picked up—and I got to enjoy the city of Kuching during the coolest, calmest hours in search of breakfast.  I was told there was good Malay food across the river, so I hopped on a $.15 river taxi—a long, narrow wooden boat powered by an ageless boatman—and explored Kuching.

because I’m apparently forgetful, I didn’t take a single picture of Kuching, so here’s a picture from the internetz of the main road along the river where my hostel was.  Mostly, the areas along the riverfront were incredibly touristy, with shops boasting names like BORNEO ANTIQUES and THE BONG SHOP.

and here’s an incredibly stylized picture of a water taxi

Because my trip was last-minute and informed entirely by internet discussion boards, I ran into a lot of Western tourists who were doing similar circuits of SE Asia.  One Canadian told me dozens of crazy stories from her 6 months of travel in SE Asia (chasing a monkey that had gotten ahold of her backpack that had her camera, all her money, and her passport in it into the jungle in Thailand; watching a guy hamming it up with a water buffalo in Cambodia, before the buffalo stomped and gored him to death, etc.). She also told me that her brother lived in Singapore, so she made that home base and visited him every few months, but that she hated Singapore because the people were so rude. 

“In Canada, when you pass by people on the sidewalk, you smile and greet them.  If you’re about to go through a door at the same time as someone else, you hold the door open for them.  In Singapore, nobody smiles at anybody, and you have to push and shove to get through any doorway.”  Her observation seemed fairly accurate—I found myself using my elbows a lot, and getting elbowed a lot in return, especially when pushing my way through the rush-hour subway crowds—but I was still surprised at this girl’s judgement on Singaporean politeness.  Politeness strategies vary by culture. In the US, for example, there are elaborate rules for how we eat food (think of all your mother’s “table manners”) but we would never dream that showing the bottom of your feet to someone could be rude—which it is in many Middle Eastern countries.  Imagine how many Middle Eastern visitors we routinely offend by crossing our legs, kicking our feet, stretching (think of all those early-morning runners), and whatever else we do where we inadvertently show the soles of our feet to the world!

Singaporean “rudeness” is similar—it is simply unheard-of to hold doors open for people when air-conditioning is so precious, and if you smile at random people on the street, they’ll probably assume you’re a prostitute.  My own impressions were actually that Singaporeans can trip over themselves to be polite—when I was shopping (yes, I’ll admit to going shopping in Singapore.  When in Rome…) the salespeople would follow me around the shops, and if I help up a certain dress they would fetch ten more that they thought I’d like, and they’d tell me how great this one would look at a garden party, and how beautiful that one would be for an evening party… right, since I go to so many garden and evening parties?  Anyways.  This Canadian was obviously a seasoned traveler, but she seemed very quick to impose her home culture’s rules on others.

As a traveler, I probably unknowingly fall into the same traps, and there’s no way that I can say that a 5-day blitz through Borneo allowed me to come to any understanding of Bornean culture.  However, I hope I approach the endeavor with an open mind.  For me, the point of traveling is to further my neverending quest to be a better person.  I don’t think I can grow without being exposed to new people and new places, even if that exposure is superficial at best.  Through conversations, which are so easily sparked by being a solo traveler, I do feel like I can learn more about the world.

***

Here’s one last story about the world’s endless possibilities:

While at Bako National Park, I started talking to one of the guides who had studied zoology at Cornell, and then stayed on for a year in New York working as a tattoo artist.  He said that the first time he saw a tattoo parlor advertising “WE ARE EXPERTS IN TRADITIONAL BORNEO HEADHUNTERS’ TATTOOS” he got super excited, but when he went in to look at the designs, most were from Polynesia or were somebody’s creative imaginings, and weren’t even close to the tattoos he’d grown up seeing and giving.  One of his friends from New York happened to own a string of tattoo parlors, so this friend brought him on as a tattoo artist who could give people actual traditional Bornean tattoos. 

The story of how he met this tattoo-parlor friend was one to remember: before going to Cornell, this guide was at the local university in Kuching, and one night he had a dream where he met an American woman.  A few nights later, he had a dream where he also met her son.  A little while later, this guide was walking through the university, and he saw the American man—the woman’s son from his dream—walking towards him.  The American did a double take, and shouted, “This is fucking bullshit!” and almost started a fight, because he, too, had had a dream where he met the Malaysian man.  The two men finally calmed down enough to argue about who was more freaked out, and the Malaysian recounted how he had met the American's mother, and had been to his his house and met his dog.  The guide told me, “I’m a scientist—a zoologist—and I’m a Muslim.  I don’t believe in witch-doctors or magic, but I swear this dream was real.  It was like a path for me, for my life.”   This path led both men back to New York where they reconnected at Cornell and then worked in the tattoo business together.

The guide said that now, he sees a lot of white guys (and girls) who are covered in tattoos, and who have gauged ears (which was apparently a Bornean thing) and he said he though it was cool and respectful in a way for white people to embrace other cultures’ art forms.

What an interesting world!