The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough

2013 Reread #9

This book really epitomizes the word, "timeless." It's always going to feel relevant somehow regardless of the time period it actually takes place in, regardless of all the news media surrounding the Catholic clergy into today's media. These characters will always just blow me away. Their lives will never stop being interesting. I still welled up with tears at the very end.

If you haven't read this book at some point in your life then you're truly missing out. It belongs on that Must Read list you keep in the back of your mind. I initially read this book in high school, I believe, and this is the first time I've picked it back up. I actually remembered a lot of the story whether from the book making an impression or the movie, I'm not sure. I even knew a girl in college who was named after Meggie. It's a family saga, following characters through three generations. Ultimately, it's the few female characters who help us witness the world and learn about the family - their characters are the most developed - although you really do feel like you know this whole family inside and out as the generations go by. The family starts off in New Zealand and eventually moves to Australia. They essentially live in various stages of wealth and work coming to place a high emotional value on the land they maintain - it's really what they build a relationship with more so than people. Lots of things happen although the tragic moments always feel more intense than the happy ones as if the real passion lies in coming out of adversity or just staying strong through it. It's a book about life although I wouldn't call it typical.

Stories that fully develop a reality by focusing on a small amount of people in a very specific location draw a reader into the world and make you as much a character as the characters themselves. Their lives wouldn't go on if you weren't reading them. All of their passions and fears, hardships and love wouldn't be felt if you weren't feeling them alongside them. It gives a book presence and makes it really sink in as you read. I know The Thorn Birds is just such a book. I was reading it in my doctor's office recently and both one of the doctors and another patient saw the book and had that excited, "that is such a great book," type of reaction to it. We all shared a knowing smile and went about our way, but it was a connection made from a story and that's powerful stuff.

Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation by Michael Pollan

I don't typically get into books about food. Being told by someone else what I should or should not eat has always been somewhat of a sore point for me. I know how to be healthy and I know what indulgences I'm not interested in living without and that works for me. Thankfully, this book doesn't come close to this approach to food; it goes in a completely different direction and it totally blew my mind.

Cooked doesn't talk about what to eat or really how to eat, but rather how eating and preparing food has contributed to our evolution, how things have changes over the time inside and outside the kitchen, and what consequences we face in how we process food. Divided into four parts, Pollan uses the four elements to break all this down. 

We start with fire and the art of BBQ but not just BBQ as a cuisine, whole hog BBQ. Pollan talks about the art of cooking the entire animal and how the discovery of fire complete changed the human diet. He talks about how sacred fire has been historically - initially seen as an actual gift from the gods.

Water is next and with it the art of cooking in the kitchen. Pollan primarily focuses on the one-pot meal learning how to cook and mix flavors from an actual chef. He uses this section to talk about the domestication of cooking - the shift from "man's" fire pit outside to the "woman's" indoor stove. Traditional roles in the home as they relate to preparing food are discussed along with corporations' desire to make kitchen life easier for women by selling partially (or fully) prepared foods to, "save time." He makes the point, which I found very interesting, that home cooking today isn't actually cooking from scratch, which is what the term means in our heads. It's like saying a bowl of pasta using a jarred marina is a homemade meal when actually half of it was prepared in a factory.

Baking bread encompasses the element of air in the third section. Pollan talks about yeast here and nurturing the culture for break almost like a pet. Changes in how we view the nutritional value of bread, how we've begun putting stripped-out nutrients back into white bread to make it more marketable to today's health-conscious consume is a big focus. I found it most interesting that baking sourdough bread - which has the least nutritional value as far as ingredients go - is described most seriously as an art form.

Last, but not least, is earth. This ends up being a broad topic as far as food goes with the common factor in all being bacteria. Pollan uses pickling  cheese-making, and beer-brewing to talk about fermentation and how good bacteria contributes to food preparation. He also uses this section to talk about how pasteurization and over-processing has robbed us of access to this good bacterial. Humanity's fear of the bad bacteria has led to us removing it all from our food and now our guts aren't as healthy as they used to be.

No point Pollan makes throughout the book is heavy-handed which I appreciate and they all really made sense. He never calls for any radical changes to the world of food, but rather takes the time to incorporate technique and history into how common items are prepared. I really liked everything he had to say and learned a lot through Pollan's accessible narrative style. I've already  been telling all my friends about this book, so I definitely recommend it across the board.

Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins

2013 Reread #8

I think I will always love this book. Where else can you find so many intriguing elements mixed into one story that will pretty much always feel relevant? This book focuses on art, religion, history, the power of love, the power of enlightenment and self-awareness, and the ability of inanimate objects to grow consciousness and locomote across the country and across the world. Beyond all the strange characters and philosophizing typical of any Robbins book the heart of this story is what I've always connected with - live in the moment if you can and don't let the past dictate who you are nor the future influence who you will be. Just be you, right now. 

It takes a very long time to get to this epiphany and on the journey a lot goes on for our main characters  Ellen Cherry Charles and her husband, Boomer Petway. They encounter a wide range of strange characters who are all obsessed in one way or another with the same thing, the Middle East. Some characters believe the world is nearing its end and the third temple should be rebuilt at any cost, some just feel a change on the wind and want to be in Israel, and others want to set an example of how an Arab and Jew can actually get along in the hopes it will lessen the conflicts going on in that part of the world. The funny thing is though, Ellen Cherry and Boomer don't know anything about the Middle East. They come into the story totally ignorant and yet ride this wave because of random associations. And, it's really the two of them that essentially figure everything out Boomer finds the unity between Arabs and Jews through art and Ellen Cherry comes to understand the conflict through the enlightenment brought on by a very salacious dance of the seven veils.

My favorite element of this story is the inanimate objects - a spoon, a dirty sock, a can of beans, a conch shell, and a painted stick journey from the mid-west to New York City then over to Israel. Conch Shell and Painted Stick are artifacts from before the first temple in Israel who have somehow managed to survive. Robbins uses them to fill in the gaps in history since, of course, Can o' Beans is so interested in learning how the Middle Eastern conflict really got started. These characters move without a real concept of time or sense of urgency, but with a level of determination that goes beyond anything a human could muster. Eventually, Conch Shell floats across the ocean from New York to Israel with Can o' Beans riding on her. The patience and determination to accomplish that is just mind-blowing. I love the idea that the pull toward Israel is so strong, even inanimate objects feel it and gravitate toward it. It's a feeling I myself experienced when I was there visiting. There's just something about that part of the world - you feel the origins of life, of your story in the air. After visiting the country I had this residual compulsion for a few months to return and find a way to live there. Being in Israel gave me this sense of calm that I haven't had anywhere else in the world, which is a little odd when you think about it since that part of the world is anything but calm.

Using the Middle East and the long history of conflict there as the backdrop for this story was really a stroke of genius. The conflict has been going on for so long, it's not going to stop any time soon, so this book will always have a relevant element to it. The idea of peace as well is never going out of style, and a tandem theme to any conflict as long-going as this one. It's a way to talk about grudges and peace and learning to let go in a context that everyone can relate to. If you're not directly involved in the conflict or haven't been learning about it your whole life because you're either Arab or Jewish, you've watched the news, you've seen the craziness that goes on over there, you understand. 

This is just a long, strange, trip of a book and an amazing read that I still, after letting it sit on my shelf for over a decade, would recommend to anyone looking for something a little off the beaten path of today's popular fiction.

Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis

2013 Reread #7

There are so many reasons why I had to make this book a reread for the year and they all have to do with the tone of the story. This book is funny. Not in-your-face funny or sarcastic, but subtly and intelligently. I love the humor Lewis uses to delve into the life of every-man, George Babbitt.

George is a conformist. He believes what the "good" men of the community believe. He belongs to all the right clubs, holds the right kind of dinner parties, has the correct hobbies, and well, essentially doesn't think for himself at all. His place in society is what's important so he owns the right things and behaves the right way to stay included. Yet, he's constantly contradicting himself between what he thinks and how he acts. It's almost like he's blind to how unoriginal he really is. So, we send a lot of time with George in the early part of the book, watching him do what he should to build his popularity within the outstanding sect of society. It doesn't mean he's a good person, he has just sided with the "right." It's comical how completely Babbitt can rationalize his choices and his behavior to keep him both "right" and good. For example, this book takes place during Prohibition, but it's okay for Babbitt to drink since that law should really only be in place for the poor who can't control themselves, or it's okay to make shady real estate sales because he's being supported by officials in local government who would never to do anything that was truly illegal. Scenarios like that pop up frequently at first.

So, poor George simply looks like another lemming until one day the switch flips and he suddenly things for himself. Of course this then leads to liberal ideals, having an affair, drinking too much, and hanging out with the "wrong" crowd. He loses his friends and begins to get bullied to come back over to the proper side. All for having an opinion and daring to live outside the straight and narrow of the elitist. Babbitt's new-found independence doesn't actually cause any major uproar in real terms. He still works and keeps his family roughly together even while cheating on his wife, but the fact that his choices become his own totally ostracizes him from all the daily activities he's used to doing. The whole concept of, "if you're not with us, you're against us," is a huge theme in this book. All it takes is one slip from where the ruling societal group thinks you belong and that's it.

Babbitt eventually gets his mid-life crisis out of his system and goes back to his old ways which he now fully believes in because he has chosen the lifestyle this time around rather than just gone with the flow. It doesn't change the fact that he ends the book where he began, unable to think for himself, giving in to the bullies.

The observations throughout this story are what appeal to the essayist I am at heart. There's so much to think about. Is Lewis saying conservatism is right because it's safe and is what everyone else (who has the power) agrees with? Is he saying that original thought, acting outside the lines of propriety as set by these big bullies will get you nowhere fast? We hardly ever get a liberal perspective in the story. Most of those characters drink and smoke too much, gossip too heavily, and party all the time while all the business owners and success stories in the community are conservatives. It's so tough to tell because of the element of humor. Babbitt is a funny guy regardless of which side he's on. Most of the characters have funny-sounding names so it's hard to take either side very seriously. The way everyone acts is just a little on the silly side as well. It's almost as if Lewis is poking fun at society as a whole, showing off how both sides are a little ridiculous, that extreme thought is a little silly no matter what direction it's heading. This vagueness of message in the commentary is another very appealing aspect of this book for me. I feel like it's a serious testament to society wrapped in a light blanket of ridiculous.

I'm glad I reread this book and that it had the same effect on me this time around as it initially did. I love books that feel timeless even though they cover a very specific time period. And while the outrage of seeing a woman's shoulders in the story really doesn't play today, the idea of extreme thought getting you into trouble does as does the idea of free-thought. This book doesn't feel like classic literature so even if you shy away from the old stuff, this one shouldn't be crossed off your list just yet.