I've hit a crisis point with my blog. In fact, with my life. I don't know what I'm doing with it, what I want to do with it, or why I'm doing it and the basic lack of traffic depresses me (not that I started this for the traffic, but, well, it's depressing anyway). So, on the blog-front, I'm not sure if I'm going to continue on. I need to reevaluate before I drown in this existential muck.
But since I haven't totally decided what to do, I thought I'd at least note the books I've read in the last month, even if the noting is only in brief:
#12: The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
I had been considering teaching The Red Tent next year so I thought I would re-read the book and make sure it was what I remembered - which was fantastic. (This is one of the few books that I consistently recommend.) Based on just a few lines in the Bible, The Red Tent focuses on Dinah - the only daughter of Jacob - and her journey as she goes from beloved daughter to wife to widow and mother, and from Israel down into Egypt. It's an exceptional book but in the end, I realized, perhaps not the best choice for semi-innocent/awkward ninth graders. They will have to read The Joy Luck Club - another fantastic book about mothers/daughter and journeys - instead.
#13: Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster by Dana Thomas
I read about this book on Jezebel.com at least a year ago - at the same time I heard about Fashion Babylon - but it took me awhile to get around to it. This well-researched book is essentially about how, as fashion houses have moved from being owned by individual designers (often the company's namesake) to a few large companies, the shift in fashion has moved from quality and clothes to $$$. Thomas did an INCREDIBLE amount of research for this book, traveling to France to smell perfumes, Italy to visit designers, and China to visit factories (where a chunk of clothes are made, even if some houses rip out the labels and replace with "Made in Italy.") I was never one for spending thousands of dollars for a piece of clothing or a purse but if I was, I would certainly think again after reading this book. The only downside to Deluxe, really, was that it was published in 2007 - it's the kind of book that would benefit from an update. (And I'd totally read it again.)
#14: The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
I had also been considering Highsmith's classic for a spot on my students' syllabus next year and wanted to re-read it to make sure it was what I thought it was. I hadn't read The Talented Mr. Ripley since spring 1996, the semester I took a law/jurisprudence class on murder at my liberal arts college.
Since my upcoming class is focused on the heroic journey (starting with The Odyssey), I thought The Talented Mr. Ripley might be a nice, end-of-the-year book to look at what happens when the hero - who is on a classic quest, like Odysseus or a Knight of the Round Table - turns out to be the villian. Because Tom Ripley is absolutely the villian - he is a poseur who convinces a man named Mr. Greenleaf to send him to Italy to convince his son, Dickie Greenleaf, a man-about-town of independent means, to come back to America. But then Tom decides he wants to lead the kind of life that Dickie has, and is willing to do anything to get it.
On my first reading, I don't think I really saw how much Tom's paranoia contributes to the out-of-control spiraling of events - how there's what Dickie says/does and then how there's what Tom says Dickie says/does...which are probably two completely different things. It reminded me quite a bit of Revolutionary Road, a book I appreciate more and more as time goes on, in how you can't be certainly what April has said and done because most of her speech/actions are relayed by someone else.
In (not-so) short, The Talented Mr. Ripley is a fascinating book - both in the plotting and in the icky feeling you have as the reader that you kinda, sorta want Tom to get away with it. (Apparently Ms. Highsmith herself was quite the unlikable character/sociopath - before the end of the year, I'm hoping to dive into Joan Schenkar's The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith.)
#15: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
I have been quite the good employee this June; I also managed to read my students' assigned summer reading book, Hurston's classic, which I never had to read myself in school. I really loved this book - I don't think it's perfect (and apparently Hurston wrote the entire thing during a seven-week working trip to Haiti) but it's a captivating story about one woman's quest for self-awareness. I think Hurston had roped in me in by page 10, when she sets 16-year-old Janie's awakening under a blossoming pear tree. "She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her." If you haven't read Their Eyes Were Watching God, run to the bookstore now! Really, it's incredible. I'll probably come back to this one in the fall, as I go over it with my students - there's so much more to say.
Alright, so there you have it. Even if I am conflicted about all things blog, I am mighty pleased to point out that I have reached Book 15 at the halfway point of the year! I think I might actually reach the finish line this year. :)
