Ok. So I've been delinquent in all of my self-assigned tasks. I am terrible at waiting and there is nothing new happening. So I've been stewing in nothingness instead of moving forward with anything. This is a dangerous head space for me.
I'm playing catch-up with my writing because I just can't read my current book in large amounts. Its too slow and I start wandering mentally while skimming the pages.
Christopher Hitchens' book was denser than I thought. It's a mere 141 pages. I thought it would be a breeze!
Hitchens instructs his readers on how to be a free thinker, a dissident. He also explores the cyclical nature of the concept of a dissident. A dissident is often unappreciated in their own time and then as their ideas become popular, a new batch of dissidents arise. This is the nature of being contrary. Hitchens warns that is a life full of unpopularity. He covers politics, religion, and the meaning of life - in 141 pages!
In my own contrary way, I find people who do so much talking to be in need of more living. Why do we have to examine every single moment as if it were momentous? Why? He must have been tired all the time.
In the end, I gave myself time to digest his words - not chapter by chapter but as a whole. Here's what I found: Hitchens wants his reader to rage, rage against the dying of the light. To question, to observe, to dive in with both feet. To see that conviction and time will give you small victories or big ones and that is what it means to be human.
So for us 20-somethings...rage! Rage against the dying of the light! Rage for body cams on police. On marriage equality. Pick a small battle and win it. Then pick another and another. Be passionate. Once, on a walk with my dog through my parents quiet but not quite suburban neighborhood a woman passing me told me she liked my shirt. Then she immediately asked if I was ever afraid to wear it out in public. I looked at her blankly and said why should I be. I was wearing a Planned Parenthood t-shirt. I guess I'm not afraid of being unpopular just yet.
Favorite quotes:
"All human achievement must also be accomplished by mammals and this realization (interesting negated by sexless plaster saints and representations of angels) puts us in a useful spot. It strongly suggests that anyone can do what the heroes have done." p. 93
"In some ways, I feel sorry for racists and for religious fanatics, because they so much miss the point of being human, and deserve a sort of pity. But then I harden my heart, and decide to hate them all the more, because of the misery they inflict and because of the contemptible excuses they advance for doing so." p. 109
"The high ambition, therefore, seem to me to be this: That one should strive to combine the maximum of impatience with the maximum of skepticism, the maximum of the hatred of injustice and irrationality with the maximum of ironic self-criticism. This would mean really deciding to learn from history rather than invoking or sloganising it." p. 138
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Half-Broke Horses: A True Life Novel by Jeannette Walls
Wow - this book was one of those that I slowed down towards the end. Because I really wanted to keep hearing about Lily Casey's life.
Walls wrote Half-Broke Horses about her grandmother, Lily Casey Smith. She notes in the end that she was able to confirm most of the details of her grandmother's life even after her death.
The story starts out a lot like Laura Ingalls Wilder for grown-ups. The life is hard but the writing is simple, a recounting of events. The voice is a little idealized - the way kids remember events so differently from their parents.
By the time Lily is my age, she has: been a teacher, moved to Chicago, been married, had the marriage annulled, worked as a maid, dealt with the death of a friend, and says she is still figuring out what she wants out of life. She never seems to be afraid to be herself. She learns to drive and eventually to fly a plane. She isn't afraid of hard work. She plays poker. It's not until after her sister Helen dies that she decides to "settle down" and marries Jim Smith.
This must be a book for twenty-somethings because the lesson is to keep going. Don't forget your dreams - like learning to fly an airplane - but save them for the right time.
Favorite quotes:
"I realized that in the months since Helen had died, I hadn't been paying much attention to things like the sunrise, but that old sun had been coming up anyway. It didn't really care how I felt, it was going to rise and set regardless of whether I noticed it, and if I was going to enjoy it that was up to me." p. 113
"There was a big difference between needing things and wanting things - though a lot of people had trouble telling the two apart - and at the ranch, I could see, we'd have pretty much everything we'd need but precious little else." p. 134
"Life came with as much adventure and danger as any one body needed. You didn't have to go chasing after them." p. 257
This must be a book for twenty-somethings because the lesson is to keep going. Don't forget your dreams - like learning to fly an airplane - but save them for the right time.
Favorite quotes:
"I realized that in the months since Helen had died, I hadn't been paying much attention to things like the sunrise, but that old sun had been coming up anyway. It didn't really care how I felt, it was going to rise and set regardless of whether I noticed it, and if I was going to enjoy it that was up to me." p. 113
"There was a big difference between needing things and wanting things - though a lot of people had trouble telling the two apart - and at the ranch, I could see, we'd have pretty much everything we'd need but precious little else." p. 134
"Life came with as much adventure and danger as any one body needed. You didn't have to go chasing after them." p. 257
Thursday, April 23, 2015
The Emperor's Children - Claire Messaud
1 down, 99 to go...
Well if there were ever to kick off this list, the EVERYTHING IS CHANGING AND YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW IT also titled The Emperor's Children by Claire Messaud is it. It was as if I were reading a very slow slasher novel. The killer is in the kitchen! Don't go in the kitchen! Except the killer is 9/11/2001 and the characters have to go into the kitchen. Because the kitchen is the future.
I wonder if this was on the list because many early 20-somethings do not have the same memories of 9/11 as those of us in our late 20s. They were as young as elementary school. I was a sophomore in high school when the planes hit the towers. I was sitting in Mr. Elder's health class. Or maybe it was driver's ed. I don't remember. Mr. Elder was teaching.
We often got to watch a few minutes of the Today show before CHS News Live!, our high school's announcements read by classmates on closed-circuit TV, began. Before CHSNL! took over, the North Tower was already smoking. We all watched the 2nd plane hit the South Tower, live. Then the announcements came on.
The TV was off by the time the plane hit the Pentagon. I didn't see the towers fall. Our principal came over the system and announced that given the events that morning, if teachers wanted to suspend classes and watch the news, they could do so. I'll never forget - Mr. Elder said that we had more important things to do than watch TV.
When we left class, there were people in the courtyards crying. I spent the rest of the day watching TV. Watching footage of the towers crumble. Watching images of the plane in the Pennsylvania field - the thwarted attack. No one was calling that quite yet. The smoking Pentagon. The false images of people in our "enemy" countries celebrating.
Everything changes. In a lot of ways, Mr. Elder was right. We had more important things to do than watch TV. I think that moment said a lot about him as a person, even though I was resentful of his inaction for a long time. How could he, how dare he, keep us from one of the most pivotal events of our lifetime? Because that's how life happens. Because that's how you fight terrorism. You keep going.
Back to Messaud...the main characters are all in search of more. It centers on a group of college friends now in early their 30s and the famous father of one of those friends. They aren't particularly like-able; Massaud really focuses on their flaws. In that way, they are real. Fame, relevance, recognition, wealth -- they are all looking for more of something. Messaud does a good job of showing that no one can really know what is next -- hence the slow slasher novel feel. The reader knows what is coming but the characters are oblivious.
Once the mores are met, there are just more mores. It never ends. That is what my 20s have felt like. There is a list that exists and I'm supposed to be checking things off it. Except I don't have the list. My list of mores are all internal expectations -- more vegetables, more yoga, pay more compliments, spend more responsibly. I'm not interested in fame, relevance, recognition, or wealth. Just kidding! Wealth would be great but I don't think of it as a necessity. But if you give a mouse a cookie...
So why is this a book every 20-something must read?
For one thing, it explores a time that we have few concrete memories of -- pre-9/11 and the events of that day. What was I doing in May 2001? I really have no clue. Learning to drive. Crushing on boys. The Emperor's Children also shows that more is unattainable - you're always going to want more mores. This is most clearly shown in the relationship between Danielle and Murray. Finally, it shows the changing nature of friendship. The way that other relationships become more important over time even as people remain friends. Everything is changing - even the way we define friendship.
Favorite quote: "To be your own person, to find your own style -- these were the quests of adolescence and young adulthood, pushed, in a youth-obsessed culture, well into middle age. She saw suddenly how strange it is that adults long to be young, when the young have not had time to become themselves and are therefore largely what the adults make of them, want them to be. What terrible pressure. What relentless falsehood." p203
Well if there were ever to kick off this list, the EVERYTHING IS CHANGING AND YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW IT also titled The Emperor's Children by Claire Messaud is it. It was as if I were reading a very slow slasher novel. The killer is in the kitchen! Don't go in the kitchen! Except the killer is 9/11/2001 and the characters have to go into the kitchen. Because the kitchen is the future.
I wonder if this was on the list because many early 20-somethings do not have the same memories of 9/11 as those of us in our late 20s. They were as young as elementary school. I was a sophomore in high school when the planes hit the towers. I was sitting in Mr. Elder's health class. Or maybe it was driver's ed. I don't remember. Mr. Elder was teaching.
We often got to watch a few minutes of the Today show before CHS News Live!, our high school's announcements read by classmates on closed-circuit TV, began. Before CHSNL! took over, the North Tower was already smoking. We all watched the 2nd plane hit the South Tower, live. Then the announcements came on.
The TV was off by the time the plane hit the Pentagon. I didn't see the towers fall. Our principal came over the system and announced that given the events that morning, if teachers wanted to suspend classes and watch the news, they could do so. I'll never forget - Mr. Elder said that we had more important things to do than watch TV.
When we left class, there were people in the courtyards crying. I spent the rest of the day watching TV. Watching footage of the towers crumble. Watching images of the plane in the Pennsylvania field - the thwarted attack. No one was calling that quite yet. The smoking Pentagon. The false images of people in our "enemy" countries celebrating.
Everything changes. In a lot of ways, Mr. Elder was right. We had more important things to do than watch TV. I think that moment said a lot about him as a person, even though I was resentful of his inaction for a long time. How could he, how dare he, keep us from one of the most pivotal events of our lifetime? Because that's how life happens. Because that's how you fight terrorism. You keep going.
Back to Messaud...the main characters are all in search of more. It centers on a group of college friends now in early their 30s and the famous father of one of those friends. They aren't particularly like-able; Massaud really focuses on their flaws. In that way, they are real. Fame, relevance, recognition, wealth -- they are all looking for more of something. Messaud does a good job of showing that no one can really know what is next -- hence the slow slasher novel feel. The reader knows what is coming but the characters are oblivious.
Once the mores are met, there are just more mores. It never ends. That is what my 20s have felt like. There is a list that exists and I'm supposed to be checking things off it. Except I don't have the list. My list of mores are all internal expectations -- more vegetables, more yoga, pay more compliments, spend more responsibly. I'm not interested in fame, relevance, recognition, or wealth. Just kidding! Wealth would be great but I don't think of it as a necessity. But if you give a mouse a cookie...
So why is this a book every 20-something must read?
For one thing, it explores a time that we have few concrete memories of -- pre-9/11 and the events of that day. What was I doing in May 2001? I really have no clue. Learning to drive. Crushing on boys. The Emperor's Children also shows that more is unattainable - you're always going to want more mores. This is most clearly shown in the relationship between Danielle and Murray. Finally, it shows the changing nature of friendship. The way that other relationships become more important over time even as people remain friends. Everything is changing - even the way we define friendship.
Favorite quote: "To be your own person, to find your own style -- these were the quests of adolescence and young adulthood, pushed, in a youth-obsessed culture, well into middle age. She saw suddenly how strange it is that adults long to be young, when the young have not had time to become themselves and are therefore largely what the adults make of them, want them to be. What terrible pressure. What relentless falsehood." p203
Thursday, April 9, 2015
Starting off
So I have begun.
I start with The Emperor's Children by Claire Messaud. I truly have no intention of going straight down the list, I just happened across that book and what will be reading #2 as both being available from UVa's library. From the same library location. No small feat in the massive library system you come to expect from a major university.
Plugging away at this and I find myself trying to generate guidelines for the upcoming posts and also doing a lot of reading. Slowly. Was I always a slow reader? I was an English Literature major! 20-something reality check number 1 complete. I am a slow reader.
As I think about the "why" of the list - why is this a book a 20-something must read? - and as my co-worker pointed out, why is it for 20-somethings?, it forces me to relate to the characters and their stories. Not as an analyst of the text but as if they existed in the world. Do I know someone like them? When have I encountered something similar and how did I deal with that event?
I imagine my guidelines will evolve as the readings continue.
Stay tuned!
I start with The Emperor's Children by Claire Messaud. I truly have no intention of going straight down the list, I just happened across that book and what will be reading #2 as both being available from UVa's library. From the same library location. No small feat in the massive library system you come to expect from a major university.
Plugging away at this and I find myself trying to generate guidelines for the upcoming posts and also doing a lot of reading. Slowly. Was I always a slow reader? I was an English Literature major! 20-something reality check number 1 complete. I am a slow reader.
As I think about the "why" of the list - why is this a book a 20-something must read? - and as my co-worker pointed out, why is it for 20-somethings?, it forces me to relate to the characters and their stories. Not as an analyst of the text but as if they existed in the world. Do I know someone like them? When have I encountered something similar and how did I deal with that event?
I imagine my guidelines will evolve as the readings continue.
Stay tuned!
Monday, March 30, 2015
Here we go!
Here we are! Welcome! We made it!
I'm on the fast track to the big 3-0. 29 is coming around the corner. I don't think there will be six white horses.
At this moment, my 29th year is TBD. Almost everything about it. I'm leaving my job June 1. My current housing situation ends in August with no chance to renew. I've decided to move to Charleston, SC to be in the same city as my boyfriend. We've always been long distance.
The summer after I graduated college I went to a wedding. The couple was the first of my friends to get married. The maid of honor, also a very recent college grad had a break down on the dance floor. The booze was flowing. Her bobby pins might have been causing some neurological distress. But there she is, in her tastefully hot pink dress screaming and crying. On the dance floor. At the reception. I don't think it was even dark out yet. Her message: EVERYTHING IS CHANGING.
7 years later. She's still right. Everything is changing.
In my 20s, everything has changed with great fits and some small starts and a lot of tears. The big changes have been BIG. Cross country move (and back again). Abusive relationship. The first great break up. Being a single dog parent. Graduate school. Depression several times over. Finding the person that makes you realize what relationships are supposed to be like. The small changes are the ones that sneak by and catch you up in a "when I was your age..." moment. I walk uphill both ways to work for what its worth. My city has a lot of hills.
Things have turned out ok, as they often do. They have turned out like they are supposed to, whether you want them to or not.
So I'm curious about these lists - books you should read in your twenties! books every twenty-something should read! I haven't read most of them. Whoopsies!
So now, with about a year to go, I'm challenging myself. I'm going to read all the books! Not really. I'm going to read approximately 100 books. My inspiration is the Twenty-something Bible known as Buzzfeed.
The 65 Books You Need to Read in Your 20s
The Emperor's Children - Claire Messaud
What She Saw... - Lucinda Rosenfeld
The Deptford Trilogies - Robertson Davies
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
Giovanni's Room - James Baldwin
A Visit from the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan
The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz
Lucy - Jamaica Kincaid
The Moviegoer - Walter Percy
White Teeth - Zadie Smith
The Amazing Adventutes of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney
The Namesake - Jhumpa Lahiri
Call Me Your Name - Andre Aciman
The Rachel Papers - Martin Amis
Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison
The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
Never Let Me Go - Kazou Ishiguro
A Home at the End of the World - Michael Cunningham
The Sandman Series - Neil Gaiman
The Group - Mary McCarthy
Quicksand - Nella Larsen
Passing - Nella Larsen
Pastoralia - George Saunders
Ready Player One - Ernest Cline
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - Dave Eggers
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Main Street - Sinclair Lewis
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Generation X - Douglas Copeland
The Fortress of Solitude - Jonathan Lethem
Housekeeping - Marilynne Robinson
I Love Dick - Chris Kraus
On The Road - Jack Kerouac
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues - Tom Robbins
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Murakami
Bossypants - Tina Fey
Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People - Toby Young
The Dirt - Motley Crue and Neil Strauss
Lunar Park - Bret Easton Ellis
Just Kids - Patti Smith
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City - Nick Flynn
Oh the Glory of it All - Sean Wilsey
I Don't Care About Your Band - Julie Klausner
Wild - Cheryl Strayed
Lit - Mary Karr
I'm with the Band - Pamela Des Barres
Dear Diary - Leslie Arfin
The Complete Poems of Anne Sexton - Anne Sexton
Actual Air - David Berman
The Collected Poems of Kenneth Koch - Kenneth Koch
Alien vs. Predator - Michael Robbins
The Collected Poems of Audre Lord - Audre Lord
Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris
How to Be a Woman - Caitlin Moran
My Misspent Youth - Meghan Daum
Slouching Towards Bethlehem - Joan Didion
Up in the Old Hotel - Joseph Mitchell
How to Cook Everything - Mark Bittman
How's Your Drink - Eric Felten
The Elements of Style - Strunk & White
Letters to a Young Contrarian - Christopher Hitchens
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain - Betty Edwards
He's Just Not That Into You - Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo
35 Books You Need to Read in Your Twenties (Buzzfeed Community Article)
Wild - Cheryl Strayed*
Yes Please - Amy Poehler
On The Road - Jack Kerouac*
My Year with Eleanor - Noelle Hancock
The Answer to the Riddle is Me - David Stuart MacLean
Beloved - Toni Morrison
The Opposite of Loneliness - Marina Keegan
Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albom
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
The Secret History - Donna Tartt*
The Art of Asking - Amanda Palmer
The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides
Walden - Henry David Thoreau
Not That Kind of Girl - Lena Dunham
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman*
The Year of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion
The Myths of Happiness - Sonja Lyubomirsky
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
The Defining Decade - Meg Jay
Ready Player One - Ernest Cline
Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham
Giovanni's Room - James Baldwin*
Hyperbole and a Half - Allie Brosh
Exit Here - Jason Myers
Half Broke Horses - Jeanette Walls
A Single Man - Christopher Isherwood
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott
East of Eden - John Steinbeck
Native Son - Richard Wright
Demian - Herman Hesse
The Solitude of Prime Numbers - Paolo Giordano
The Fall - Albert Camus
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) - Mindy Kaling
*About those duplicates...only going to read them once. Instead I will sub in my own "must reads" to round out the group. They will be chosen randomly when I need to get crazy and stray from the plan.
And so it begins...
The 65 Books You Need to Read in Your 20s
The Emperor's Children - Claire Messaud
What She Saw... - Lucinda Rosenfeld
The Deptford Trilogies - Robertson Davies
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
Giovanni's Room - James Baldwin
A Visit from the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan
The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz
Lucy - Jamaica Kincaid
The Moviegoer - Walter Percy
White Teeth - Zadie Smith
The Amazing Adventutes of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney
The Namesake - Jhumpa Lahiri
Call Me Your Name - Andre Aciman
The Rachel Papers - Martin Amis
Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison
The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
Never Let Me Go - Kazou Ishiguro
A Home at the End of the World - Michael Cunningham
The Sandman Series - Neil Gaiman
The Group - Mary McCarthy
Quicksand - Nella Larsen
Passing - Nella Larsen
Pastoralia - George Saunders
Ready Player One - Ernest Cline
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - Dave Eggers
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Main Street - Sinclair Lewis
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Generation X - Douglas Copeland
The Fortress of Solitude - Jonathan Lethem
Housekeeping - Marilynne Robinson
I Love Dick - Chris Kraus
On The Road - Jack Kerouac
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues - Tom Robbins
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Murakami
Bossypants - Tina Fey
Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People - Toby Young
The Dirt - Motley Crue and Neil Strauss
Lunar Park - Bret Easton Ellis
Just Kids - Patti Smith
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City - Nick Flynn
Oh the Glory of it All - Sean Wilsey
I Don't Care About Your Band - Julie Klausner
Wild - Cheryl Strayed
Lit - Mary Karr
I'm with the Band - Pamela Des Barres
Dear Diary - Leslie Arfin
The Complete Poems of Anne Sexton - Anne Sexton
Actual Air - David Berman
The Collected Poems of Kenneth Koch - Kenneth Koch
Alien vs. Predator - Michael Robbins
The Collected Poems of Audre Lord - Audre Lord
Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris
How to Be a Woman - Caitlin Moran
My Misspent Youth - Meghan Daum
Slouching Towards Bethlehem - Joan Didion
Up in the Old Hotel - Joseph Mitchell
How to Cook Everything - Mark Bittman
How's Your Drink - Eric Felten
The Elements of Style - Strunk & White
Letters to a Young Contrarian - Christopher Hitchens
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain - Betty Edwards
He's Just Not That Into You - Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo
35 Books You Need to Read in Your Twenties (Buzzfeed Community Article)
Wild - Cheryl Strayed*
Yes Please - Amy Poehler
On The Road - Jack Kerouac*
My Year with Eleanor - Noelle Hancock
The Answer to the Riddle is Me - David Stuart MacLean
Beloved - Toni Morrison
The Opposite of Loneliness - Marina Keegan
Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albom
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
The Secret History - Donna Tartt*
The Art of Asking - Amanda Palmer
The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides
Walden - Henry David Thoreau
Not That Kind of Girl - Lena Dunham
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman*
The Year of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion
The Myths of Happiness - Sonja Lyubomirsky
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
The Defining Decade - Meg Jay
Ready Player One - Ernest Cline
Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham
Giovanni's Room - James Baldwin*
Hyperbole and a Half - Allie Brosh
Exit Here - Jason Myers
Half Broke Horses - Jeanette Walls
A Single Man - Christopher Isherwood
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott
East of Eden - John Steinbeck
Native Son - Richard Wright
Demian - Herman Hesse
The Solitude of Prime Numbers - Paolo Giordano
The Fall - Albert Camus
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) - Mindy Kaling
*About those duplicates...only going to read them once. Instead I will sub in my own "must reads" to round out the group. They will be chosen randomly when I need to get crazy and stray from the plan.
And so it begins...
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