April 29th, 2008 kellyschnell
Wow, talk about a book that took me out of my element. Drop City is the story of a hippie commune that gets pushed out of their ranch in California and so heads north to Alaska to escape “the man” and freely live off the land. The first few chapters of this book paint a somewhat glamorous picture of hippie-dom. Free love, an eternal buzz, the beauty of brother and sister-hood… But as things progress, and as the Alaskan days grow darker and colder, the drug-induced bliss is peeled back to reveal people’s tendencies toward jealousy, greed, and selfishness. And things get messy. Train-wreck messy. Staying-up-way-past-my-bedtime-to-finish-just-one-more-chapter-messy. This was an enthralling story. My only complaint is that all the mayhem was a little too quickly and neatly resolved in the final few pages - I wouldn’t have minded a few loose ends.
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March 12th, 2008 kellyschnell
This is one of those books that I could sit down with for several hours at a time, if only working and sleeping would just quit getting in the way of my reading time. Eat Pray Love is written from such a personal point of view - funny sometimes, sad sometimes (I appreciate her transparency), and chock-full of interesting insights into what life can be like in Italy, India, and Indonesia. And, though I don’t want to get all “self-help” preachy about this book, it’s true that each section had a lesson to offer me: The author’s time in Italy (”Eat”) reminded me that the pursuit of pleasure (to a certain extent, of course) is actually a very worthy endeavor. Savor and appreciate life’s pleasures - don’t guilt yourself over them. Her time in an ashram in India (”Pray”) wasn’t quite so fun to read about as Italy, but the hours upon and hours and days upon days that she spent in deep, focused meditation did beg this question from me: when is the last time I sat down in a quiet room, silenced my mind, and did nothing but revel in God’s presence? Another worthy endeavor… And finally, the chapters on Indonesia (”Love”) were about relationships, and Lord knows, I do love reading about/talking about/watching movies about relationships, so this section was right up my alley. The strength of the friendships she formed in just a few short months was a reminder to me that I must let my guard down a little if I want to experience closeness.
Two thumbs up.
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February 24th, 2008 kellyschnell
After spending the past couple weeks reading about architectural contracts in preparation for my first licensing exam, I was eager to take a break and spend a few days digging into some good old take-me-away fiction. I love the idea behind Girl with A Pearl Earring - the author created a fictional storyline based on the real paintings of Johannes Vermeer. She carefully studied the minute details of much of his work to inspire a story filled with love, jealousy, torment, and all that stuff that makes for a good girly read. I just wish it had been a little more believable. The dialogue sounded so contemporary for something set in the 15th century, and the main character (Griet - the “girl with a pearl earring”) often acted in a way that seemed pretty unlikely (her extreme concern for propriety didn’t quite align with her “promiscuity”). Would I recommend this book? Sure. Will you walk away from it feeling enlightened? Probably not, but it’s the perfect choice for a lazy afternoon when you just want to curl up on the couch with a cup of tea and indulge in some easy reading.
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February 13th, 2008 kellyschnell
It had been awhile since I’ve read any poetry, and I’ve had this book sitting on my bookshelf for years, looking very forlorn and neglected, so I decided to give The Colossus a try. And I’m glad I did. While you shouldn’t count on Sylvia Plath to raise your spirits when you’re feeling down (one of her poems is about a body that was buried with a live rat in the coffin and the damage that ensued…), at least she is fully able to transport you to a different time and place (usually a place where white-capped waves crash under gray skies and withered leaves slowly drop from trees). Dark and brooding, but beautiful.
I love these lines from “The Ghost’s Leavetaking”, speaking of that nebulous time when night turns to dawn:
“So these posed sheets, before they thin to nothing,
Speak in a sign language of a lost otherworld,
A world we lose merely by waking up.”
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January 26th, 2008 kellyschnell
In an effort to read a more well-rounded body of literature, I decided a few months ago that one out of every four or five books I read will come from the Modern Library’s List of the 100 Greatest English-Language Novels of the 20th Century. Thus, I decided earlier this month that it was time to tackle some James Joyce. Yikes. A Portrait of the Artist as A Young Man was a difficult read. Even painful, at times. It started off alright, but I got lost somewhere in the midst of one of his 8-page philosophical stream-of-consciousness tangents and never regained my footing again. I had to read some sentences 20 times. Seriously. So I must ask myself the question: am I reading primarily for pleasure, or primarily for literary well-roundedness? Is it possible to do both? Probably. One thing is for sure: the next book I pick of the list will not be Ulysses.
Difficulty aside, I appreciate the simple premise of the novel: it is the story of a boy becoming a man, learning to think for himself, to form his own opinions on religion and nationality and art. I just wish this simple premise had been expressed in slightly simpler terms…
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January 15th, 2008 kellyschnell
Finally wrapped Le Petit Prince up last night. This was my first real attempt at reading a substantial piece of literature in French (yes, some consider this to be a children’s book, but there are parts of the book that go 4 or 5 pages without any pictures, so I’m going to call it “substantial literature”). I went through the book in two rounds: Round #1 consisted of a sentence-by-sentence translation, where I wrote down any words or phrases I didn’t know and looked them up in my French dictionary (by the end of the book, I had a list of nearly 500 words…). For round #2, I read the book out loud to myself, to work on my verbal skills a little and review the vocab I listed in the first round. 90 pages later, I was tongue-tied and mentally exhausted, but pretty proud of myself for getting through it. And it actually turned out to be a great little story about the joys of imagination that we often miss out on as adults. The illustrations were simple but whimsical and fun - I love the image below (the little prince imagines that baobab trees will engulf his planet if he doesn’t stay on top of his gardening). Two thumbs up - I like to think that I will read this to our future children someday…
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