"He had forgotten the Cause."

"... When the guns began firing he had forgotten it completely. It seemed very strange now to think of morality, or that minister long ago, or the poor runaway black. He looked out across the dark field, could see nothing but the yellow lights and outlines of black bodies stark in the lightning."

In The Killer Angels (1975), Michael Shaara captures the human side of the Civil War, specifically the Battle of Gettysburg, by focusing on the key players involved. Much like the movie Titanic, there is no risk of spoiling the ending; everyone knows the South loses this famous battle and most of its men in the processes. However, Shaara breaths new life into an old story by taking it back to the people, by introducing the human element that history books lack, caught up in the whos and the whats but not the motivations, the relationships and the passions.

Not much one for historical fiction, not to mention gory war novels, I was riveted, rushing headlong into the bloody battle, knowing perfectly well how it would end but wanting the soldiers to live. I had become invested. They had become people.

They were real men fighting for a dream, for a cause, for a lie. Each of them with a different motive; each of them with something to prove: courage, loyalty, that they are better men than most. These men were not ordered to fight by a king but willingly volunteered for the Cause, for the idea. My heart ached for the friends, Armistead and Hancock, finding themselves separated by the war and as enemies at the top of Cemetery Hill. "If I lift a hand against you, friend, may God strike me dead." Breaking a vow of friendship for the sake of loyalty to an idea, a Cause. The reason for the war as varied as the perspective of players.

Does it matter in the end? Lee asks the question "If the ware goes on- and it will, it will - what else can we do be go on? It is the same question forever, what else can we do? If they fight, we will fight with them. And does it matter after all who wins? Was that ever really the question? Will God ask that question in the end?"

God must grow tired of being called down on both sides of a war.

Up next... The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor, winner of the 1959 Pulitzer.

Until then my friends... Happy reading.

"But there are still the hours, aren't there?"

"...One and then another, and you get through that one and then, my god, there's another." Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1999, The Hours is a glimpse into the lives of three women: Virgina Wolfe, Laura Brown, and Clarissa Vaughan. All three exist in different places in time, but their lives intertwine in an unsuspecting twist. So understanded, that I almost missed it, and I believe I did miss it when I watched the movie. Perhaps I can pass that off to time and ignorance. I was over ten years younger and spend most of the movie marveling at Nicole Kidmans prosthetic nose.

I digress...

The book revolves around Wolfe's novel Mrs. Dalloway: Virginia is in the process of writing the novel, Laura (a 1950's suburban housewife) is reading the novel, and Clarissa, an independant New Yorker, finds herself in a parrallel universe, unknowingly portraying Mrs. Dalloway as she goes about planning a party in honor a beloved poet. All three women go about their lives, getting through the hours and struggling with their own demons: Virginia with the voices in her head, Laura with the mundane existence as a housewife and her embarrassing failure in baking a birthday cake for her husband, Clarissa with the actuallity of her life and the memories of a past she cannot get back.

At this point in my life, I found this book especially poignant for at times, I find myself frustrated with the mundane events that can take up the hours of a day: loading the dishwasher for the eighth time, washing an almost identical load of laundry as the previous week, picking up my daughter's dirty socks that mysteriously migrate from room to room without the aid of tiny feet. Not to mention the eight hours spend improving the lifes of others, or at leaset attempting to. It is easy to get bogged down in the hours of the day, the hours that you almost have to 'survive,' that you forget to enjoy, to revel in the thrill of living. As Cunningham so aptly states, "We live out lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep - it's as simple and ordinary as that. ... There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) knows these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything, for more."

So here I sit at the computer, the soft glow of the screen drying my tired eyes. The sink is empty, and the dirty clothes safely stored until laundry day rolls back around. My daughter dreams blissful dreams of coloring books, crayons, and cows. The hour is growing late, and it is time to call it a night. And while there are times I desire to run away, to shrug off the cloak of responsibility, I will go to bed wanting another year, another day, another hour of this life.

Up next... The Killer Angers by Michael Shaara, winner of the 1975 Pulitzer.

Until then, my friends... Happy reading.

A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain

A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler won the Pulitzer in 1993. A collection of short stories, this work focuses on the various characters misplaced due to the Vietnam war. Some take place in New Orleans, the area in which most Vietnamese refuges settled as it was most like their home country. Some are simple expressions of longing and hope. All of them are beautifully written.

Perhaps it is because I am a mother, but my favorite short story is a mother spending a quiet moment before her husband returns from work to talk to her unborn daughter. Her mother spoke to her so she will speak to her daughter and her daughter will then share secrets with her child, as is the way with customs.

She tells her daughter secret things, "to begin counseling (her) in the matters of the world that (she) will soon enter. She tells her daughter of a time when she was young, sixteen, and she met the love of her life, Bao, at the Mid-Autumn Festival. Her families at agreed for them to marry, but fate would take them down a different path. Bao was called into the Army before the ceremony and died in battle somewhere in the mountains.

Tragically beautiful, but at the same time full of hope for the future of her unborn daughter, her daughter by a good man.

There are other great stories within the fairly short collection of work. The people are likable for the most part, some of them not quite developed as others (or perhaps I simply didn't pick up on the subtle nuances). However, I believe the work fills a gap in the American experience as I travel on this journey.

At the age of 29, I wasn't even a glimmer in my parents' eyes (I am not even sure my parents were even dating at the time.) What I know of the Vietnam War I learned from the history books or from the wonderful writings of Tim O'Brian. While the Civil War is a common subject upon which to write, Butler covers an equally important era in our nation's history and in an unsuspecting way: from the perspective of an immigrant. How fitting for a nation of immigrants!

Up next: The Hours by Michael Cunningham, winner of the 1999 Pulitzer.

Until then... Happy reading.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

 I was very excited to start this book. It sounded great, and I had received many great reviews from fellow readers whom I love and admire. My excitement dwindled like a bored crowd the further I got into this work. With that said, I can get past my general dislike for the book and understand why it is great enough to be considered for and win the Pulitzer Prize.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao won the Pulitzer in 2008, and as the title suggests, it follows the brief life of one Oscar Wao, told from the mostly omniscient voice of Yunior, Oscar's on-again-off-again roommate and would-be boyfriend to Oscar's sister, Lola.

Oscar is a tragic character, an unattractive Dominican American who's most erotic years occurred at the age of 11. Through his awkward teenage years and on into young adulthood, Oscar is a depressed individual, immersed in graphic novels and longing to be a successful writer with the love of a beautiful woman. In the end, he obtains the love he seeks but at a great cost.
 
At times, I found this book a struggle, getting bogged down in the Spanglish and trying to brush back the cobwebs of the dark recesses of my brain where the intermediate Spanish classes I took nine years ago are stored. I also found it depressing as Wao is a self-destructive glutton feasting on trouble. It reminds me slightly of Wuthering Heights in the fact that it sent my own spirit into a downward spiral of depression.
With that said, I appreciate the skill that Diaz displays as well as his reverence, brushing off the flowery language of glorified literature and writing in the common man's prose.
 
Hopefully, I have not detoured anyone from taking this book in hand and learning it's inner-most secrets. Perhaps, I have fallen short in this regard. However, there is always another book to pick up and other characters to befriend. Perhaps I will have better luck next time.

Up next: A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler, winner of the 1993 Pulitzer.
 
Until then... Happy reading.

Interpreter of Maladies

So, I must admit... I am a little behind. While I find it somewhat easy to pick up a book for a few minutes every other day or so, I find it increasing difficult to write about what I read. I finished Interpreter of Maladies a month or so ago, and I am just now sitting down to the computer to write my thoughts. If I were to be completely honest, I would tell you that I have already finished The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao as well. I haven't written about it either. And while I am not diligent, I find it necessary to record my journey through some of the greatest novels America has to offer. And so I continue....

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri is a wonderful short collection of stories. All of which relate to the author's native country of India. Some take place in India; others depict Indians adjusting to the American way.  Lahiri has a wonderful way of weaving such a fine seam between the two countries, I found it difficult, at times, to know on what side of the Atlantic to picture myself.

Within each story, I felt dropped deliberately into the middle of a person's life to decipher the who, what, when, where, and how of the matter, like when you tune into a 10-year-running soap opera for the first time. Lahiri has a quality reminiscent of J.D. Salinger in Nine Stories (this collect also has nine stories, but I am sure that is just coincidence), and she is able to capture emotion in the simple moments, leaving the reader uncertain of themselves.

My two favorite stories with this collection are "A Temporary Matter" and "Interpreter of Maladies." In "A Temporary Matter," a couple has received a letter that their electricity will be temporary shut off at 8:00 every night. Under the protective covering of darkness and candlelight, the wife uses this as a way for the two to reveals things about themselves that the other doesn't know. As the story continues, a temporary matter takes on a new meaning, and the end leaves you dangling in the uncertainty of the couple's future.

In "Interpreter of Maladies," the main character is Mr. Kapasi, an interpreter for a doctor during the week and a chauffeur on the weekend. This particular weekend, he is chauffeuring an Americanized Indian family who is visiting their native country after a considerable absence. They are more tourists that family returning for a visit. Mr. Kapasi is flattered when the wife begins to take an interest in him and his position as an interpreter of maladies. To his own wife, he is merely a doctor's assistant, a failure, but to his passenger, his position was "romantic" and carried great responsibility.  He finds himself growing infatuated with this glamorous woman, too busy for her children and not really paying much attention to anyone other than herself. He is quickly reminded, however, that brief moments can't last a lifetime.

It's king of funny to think, though, that that is what a lifetime is: a series of brief moments and small beauties. And it is ofter the little things that we remember about a person: Nanny cutting fabric holding pens between her teeth, coloring my dad's toenails with a #2 pencil, brushing off my daughter's knees after a fall. Small brief moments that make up a lifetime. I want to collect them all.

Up next, my report on The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

Until then... Happy reading.

All the King's Men

So after a few long months, I have finally finished Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men, winner of the 1947 Pulitzer Prize. I wasn't excited about reading this one. If I were honest, I would say that I was dreading it... about as much as I am dreading Gone with the Wind. Reading the back cover (and I know you shouldn't judge a book by its proverbial cover), I was anticipating a book about Louisiana politics. If there is one thing I hate more than a boring book, it's a book about politics. But in an effort to keep an open mind, I greeting the ambitious task with a large cup of coffee and nothing by time.

Sure. Time. Something I have loads of as a full-time employee, wife, and mother. But I digress.

I will be the first to say that I enjoyed the journey, the ambling pathways and detours it took, in a winded but even pace. And while it was largely about corrupt politics (as if there is any other kind), it was more about the journey of the narrator, Jack Burden.

Appropriately named, Jack Burden is a man carrying the burden of a successful family and his inability to rise to the challenge in his own right. He quites his job at the paper when he refuses to publish an article in favor of a candidate whom he can't support. He seemingly finds his salvation in Willie Stark, a good ol' boy from the country with no experience in politics but a good heart to help the common man. My how power can change a man!

You know from the end of the first chapter (might I mention that they are about 50 pages long!), you know that things are not going to end too well for Willie Stark and his pawns. It just takes another 550 pages for you to find out why. Through those pages, you wander in and out of the past, learning how Willie Stark became the Boss, why Burden is the way he is, and how everything fell apart upon uncovering a pretty hefty secret.

While the book centers around Louisiana politics, the heart of the novel rests in human nature and moral courage. Is it human nature to lie, cheat, and steal to get what you want? Perhaps. When left to our own devices, are we just like animals: survival of the fittest? Perhaps.

My daddy has always said that the measure of the good in a person is also the measure of the bad. I think my dad is a pretty smart man. The most beautiful places on earth are also the deadliest, full of venomous animals, and carnivorous creatures. While man strives to be good and do good things, the means do not always justify the end. While Burden tries to be a good man, he misses his opportunity to rise up and do what is morally right, and while Willie Stark wants to do right by the common man, his means are neither moral or ethical. Perhaps he has just learned to play the game.

Something, I think, I will never learn to do.

So I leave the realm of politics for the Taj Mahal. Up next, Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpta Lahiri, winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize.

Until then... Happy reading.

March

A few months ago, I took another dip into the "Civil War" pool with March by Geraldine Brooks, winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize. I was intrigued from the start as it is based on the absent father of Alcott's Little Women. What young girls hasn't ripped through the pages of that particulate novel, wondering if Jo will marry Laurie and what will become of the sickly Beth. No little girl wonders what happens to the father. Not even when he returns to the homestead, but, then this novel is about the March women after all.

Geraldine Brooks takes the reader into her idea of Mr. March's life as he leaves his family to experience the war as a chaplain to Union soldiers. When the reader is first introduced to March, he has just escaped death as his unit crosses the Potomac, and he relives the death of a fellow soldier and his own inability to help him. Brooks depicts a man torn between two worlds: one full of violent and hate and the other a beautiful work of fiction he writes to Marmie in his letters home. "I never promised I would write the truth," he admits.

Through the course of the novel, we see March evolve from an idealistic dreamer to a broken man, forced to live with the consequences of his actions, the lives that his weaknesses have cost. He attempts to improve the lives of the "freed" slaves working the plantation for "fair" wages, to save them from a worse fate. But in the end, it is the slaves that save him.

Upon his return home, he is a weak and broken man, unable to live with the guilt. "So this was how it was to be, now: I would do my best to live in the quick world, but the ghosts of the dead would be ever at hand." Returning home to a world that has continued without him, a life seperate from his own. How does he return to that? To find comfort in the arms of his wife and daughters when he has witnessed and caused such devastation and and pain, where the lines of right and wrong are blurred and the rules are unclear.

In the end, however, there is a glimmer of hope as "for an instant, everything was bathed in radiance."

For me, March was similar to Lamb in His Bosom as it made me think of the Civil War in a different way, in a way not taught in the classroom. March comments, "One day I hope to go back. To my wife, to my girls, but also to the man of moral certainty that I was... that innocent man, who knew with such clear confidence exactly what it was that he was meant to do." While this is a nice thought, can we ever go back to the innocence we once had. Like Adam and Eve, once our eyes are opened and we have tasted the sometimes bitter fruit of truth, we can't go back. And like Eve, he becomes aware of the cost associated with ideals and the number of people that are affected by his moral certainty.

I enjoyed the journey with Mr. March. Although at times it was tough to trudge through, I remained a faithful companion to the end of his journey and am better for it.

As Kansas so aptly wrote:
Carry on my wayward son
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more.

Rest well, Mr. March. Rest well.

Up next, All the Kings Men by Robert Penn Warren, which won the Pulitzer in 1947.
Until then... Happy reading.

... the finest bridge in all of Peru

...broke and precipitated five travellers into the gulf below.

Thus begins the moral journey of The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder (1928).

First, let me preface by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed this book. As my first introduction to Mr. Thornton Wilder, I was impressed; but then he's no stranger to the Pulitzer, winning two more Pulitzers for Drama (Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth). Wilder has a way with the written word that is striking and fresh. For example:

Some say that we shall never know and that to the gods we are like the flies that the boys kill on a summer day, and some say, on the contrary, that the very sparrows do not lose a feather that has not been brushed away by the finger of God.

Sadly, my favorite quote in the book as well as the crux of the story is found so early in its reading. The story of The Bridge of San Luis Rey is Brother Juniper's attempt to rationalize or moralize the death of the five unfortunate travellers.

Brother Juniper, a Francisan monk, witnesses the event on his own journey to cross the century old woven bridge. Was this a mere accident, the five traveller simply at the wrong place at the wrong time? Playthings to dispose of at a god's whim? If not, how could God let such a tragedy occur? In an effort to make sense of it, Brother Juniper adopts a scientific approach, interviewing anyone and everyone who knew the victims and gleaning any scrap of knowledge that may or may not be relevant. He then compiles everything into a volume, which is later burned except for one copy that sits neglected in the library at the University of San Marco.

In the remaining three books, we are introduced to the five travellers: Marquesa Montemayor, Pepita, Estaban, Uncle Pio, and Jaime. Amazingly, the lives of all five intertwine in a seemingly random series of events, creating a sense of oneness, a sense of "it could have been me."

In the end, no conclusions are drawn. Rightly so. How ambitious Wilder would be to take on such a conclusion. Yet, we ask are ourselves the very same question today. A hurricane dislodges thousands from their homes and their lives. A terrorist kills thousands of innocence children, mothers and fathers for an idea, a belief. Good things happen to bad people. Bad things happen to good people. How could God let these things happen.

Wilder said that he was posing a question: "Is there a direction and meaning in lives beyond the individual's own will?" According to Wilder, he intentionally left this question unanswered. "We can only pose the question correctly and clearly, and have faith one will ask the question in the right way."

Well said, Mr. Wilder. Well said.

Up next, March by Geraldine Brooks, winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Until then... Happy reading.

To Die for an Idea...

 It has been over five years since I have read the moving writings of Willa Cather, since I turned in my senior thesis and walked across the graduation stage. What a fickle friend it appears I have turned out to be.

I am glad that I have been able to find her again, and like old friends continuing an interrupted conversation, I have enjoyed her poignant words over morning cups of coffee and felt a homesickness for the smell of cut hay and overturned earth.

While many books on this literary journey have impacted me, this one has touched me like no other. Winner of the Pulitzer in 1923, One of Ours was Willa Cather's fifth and lesser-known novel about a young man, Claude Wheeler, trying to find meaning in his life.

The son of a wealthy Nebraskan farmer, Claude dreams of life outside of the fenced-in fields he so diligently plows. He catches a small glimpse of other worlds at the community college he attends in the fall and spring. His brief visits with the cultured Erlich family only increases his desire to know  there is more to life than cows and wheat.

His chance to live his life came due to the fact that others were losing theirs. World War I raging overseas, and though America wasn't in the battle yet, young men were enlisting; there's a limit to the dirt that can get under a farm boy's skin. Claude enlists in the army and travels to France, finding his purpose in life through fighting and dying. Perhaps I have said to much. But I do not feel that I have cheapened the experience for you, dear reader. For meaning is in the story, not in the ultimate destination.
     
Cather writes:
            

             "As the troop ship glided down the sea lane, the old man still watched it from the turtle-back. That howling swarm of brown arms and hats and faces looked like nothing by t a crowd of American boys going to a football game somewhere. But the scene was ageless; youths were sailing away to die for an idea, a sentiment, for the mere sound of a phrase... and on their departure they were making vows to a bronze image in the sea."

In a way, it seems foolish. Picking a fight, a war, over ideals, over the mere sound of a phrase. But people have been doing it for centuries, and it will continue long after I am gone. But in a way, if you are not willing to fight for an idea, a belief, then what are you willing to fight for?

"Life was too short that it meant nothing at all unless it were continually reinforced by something that endured; unless the shadows of individual existence came and went against a background that held together."

Thank you, my friend, for this brief but comforting reunion, for taking me "home" to hay, earth, and hard farming people, and for finding meaning in life in the midst of the meaningless. May it not be too long before we meet again.

 Next in the queue is The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder (1928 winner). I am excited about this one as my father, a man whom I dearly love and respect, loves and respects this book.

Until then.. Happy Reading.

Breathing Lessons

Every once and a while, you stubble across something truly great. Something that resonates within you, and you say, "I get it."

Well, dear readers, I get it. But I get it without knowing how or what, almost as if it surpasses all conscience thought. What I do know is that one this journey of award winning books, I have found few authors from whom I would like to glean more. However, in some ways, I feel that I have found a kindred spirit in Anne Tyler upon reading Breathing Lessons, winner of the 1989 Pulitzer.

Anne Tyler once said "It is very difficult to live among people you love and hold back from offering advice." That pretty much sums up Breathing Lessons, which covers a single day in the life of Maggie Moran.

You first meet Maggie preparing to go with her husband, Ira, to the funeral of her oldest friend's husband. Before they can leave, she has to walk to the shop to pick up the car. In leaving the shop, Maggie hears what seems to be a familiar voice on the radio declaring that she is getting remarried, this time for security. Distracted, Maggie pulls into the road, crashing into a passing vehicle.This single event creates a domino effect, derailing Ira's best laid plans into an uncharted exploration of past grievances and new attempts at redemption.

I immediately feel in love with the character of Maggie Moran. Perhaps it is because she reminds me a little bit of my mama and a little bit of me.  A hopeless Romantic to her very core, Maggie seeks to make everyone happy. Plotting her little disastrous plans, she tries desperately to  reunite her son with his estranged wife and daughter, and her sporadic efforts to rekindle her husband's affections are heartbreakingly humorous.

Anne Tyler is exquisite insight into the vase realm of human emotions and the uncanny ability to accurately depict the depth in the human existence. Her characters are so relatable - so human - because they are flawed people. Flawed, but all the while trying to become better, hoping to become better.

Yes, Ms. Tyler, it is difficult to live with the people you love and hold back from offering advice. I struggle with that daily. Like Maggie, I offer advice with the best of intentions, but the road to Hell is also paved with them, so I am told. I just pray that, in the end, Adah will forgive me.

Up next, One of Ours by Willa Cather, winner of the 1923 Pulitzer.

Until then... Happy reading.