So here's what I've read so this year:
A book for children: The Horse and His Boy, by C.S. Lewis
The Narina books are the books I tend to pick up when I'm in between books. This one is, I think, my favorite in the Narnia series, with one caveat. I love the Narnia books so much, so it's a little troubling how in this book the heroes of the story are the pale/fair-haired people of Narnia and Archenland, while the evil people in the story are described as being dark-skinned and wear turbans. I want to believe that Lewis is not intending to be racist, but the distinctions he makes between the two people groups are unsettling nonetheless. In spite of this, at the core of the story itself, is an amazing picture of how Aslan (the Christ figure) is always present in the boy's life, acting behind the scenes - and sometimes right in front of him - to bring about His plan and purposes for the boy. And, this time around, these lines particularly struck me:
Then Hwin [a Narnian Talking Horse], though shaking all over, gave a strange little neigh and trotted across to the Lion.A novel that won the Pulitzer Prize: The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
"Please," she said, "you're so beautiful. You may eat me if you like. I'd sooner be eaten by you than fed by anyone else."
"Dearest daughter," said Aslan, planting a lion's kiss on her twitching, velvet nose, "I knew you would not be long in coming to me. Joy shall be yours."
I have never seen the movie made from this book, nor had I ever read the book. It was okay. I'm a little apprehensive about not having a lot of great, gushing feelings for the book, as it seems every review I read on it can't speak highly enough about it. I'm probably not looking deeply enough into the meaning of the story, so maybe that's why I feel the way I do about it. The main character, Celie, experiences horrific abuse at the hands of her step-father and eventually finds herself in a loveless and abusive marriage. The person Celie is closest to - her sister Nettie- is absent for much of Celie's life, living as a missionary in Africa. The two sisters are only reunited later in life, after it's discovered that the letters Nettie had been writing Celie over the years were hidden by Celie's husband. By the end of the story, Celie has transformed from a down-trodden woman who seemed to have very little hope or happiness in life to a strong, confident, independent woman. I did like how this part about her evolved and developed. There were other pieces to the story that felt a bit contrived, and the long descriptions of Nettie's time in Africa felt like it didn't flow well with the rest of the story. Nevertheless, I'm glad I read this book, as I know it has made a great impact on many people.
A book by C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien: The Abolition of Man, by C.S. Lewis
This book was one I was assigned to read as a part of a worldview training program I've been a part of this past year, called the Colson Fellows Program. I feel like reading this book is one of those "rights of passage" books that many Christians say they've read and that have had a profound impact on them. I wish I could say the same, but to be honest...I didn't get this book. It was hard to understand. It's a short book, but it took me forever to get through it, because I had to re-read so many parts of it. And - true confession - I ended up watching a series of YouTube videos on the book that broke it down and explained it. Even with all of that, I'm not sure I can really describe what the book was all about! I was feeling pretty bad about this, until my dad told me that he also has a hard time understanding Lewis sometimes. Knowing the caliber of stuff my dad reads, this made me feel not so bad! From now on, when it come to C.S. Lewis, maybe I'll just stick with Narnia.
A novel set in a country that is not your own: All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr
I really enjoyed this book. It's set in Germany and France during WWII. It follows the stories of two young people: Werner, a German orphan boy with a gift for radios and electronics who is recruited/forced to join the Hitler youth, and Marie-Laure, a young, blind French girl who lives with her father. The main bulk of the story covers the years just before the war, and during the war. (The book ends things nicely by flashing-forward some years to when the children are adults.) The story goes back and forth between Werner and Marie-Laurie's experiences as war engulfs their respective countries. A couple of things that stand out to me: First, the love that Marie-Laure's father and great uncle show for her is so moving - her father especially. You see the incredible lengths he is willing to go to in order to give his daughter - who has been blind from birth - every possible chance in life. He never treats her as an invalid, but teaches her how to be strong and independent. These are lessons that serve her well when war comes crashing on her doorstep. Secondly, the story of Werner showed a much more human aspect to Hitler's war machine, and showed how some of the men and boys who were forced into fighting did so only because they were forced, and not necessarily because of their commitment to the cause. This book portrays both extremes of humanity: the very worst that man can do to each other, alongside the very best.
A memoir: The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly: A Physician's First Year, by Matt McCarthy
I started but did not finish this book, so I'm not really counting this as one of my books read this year. I couldn't get past the first few chapters for this book for these reasons:
1) The author seemed to take every opportunity available to remind the readers that he graduated from Harvard Medical School. This got way too annoying, especially when he admitted to an older physician that - even though he graduated from this hoity-toity medical school - he didn't know how to draw blood. This fact made me more annoyed with Harvard than anything else - how good of a medical are you if your graduating physicians can't even perform a basic task like drawing blood? Oh, that's right, I guess Harvard doctors leave those types of tasks to the nurses. Which brings me to...
2) In describing some of his co-workers, when talking about one nurse in particular, the author uses the phrase "upwardly mobile Filipino nurse". What? Perhaps he meant this as a compliment? I felt like he was making sweeping negative implications about the perceived typical work habits of people of Filipino heritage, and therefore to encounter someone dedicated to her job and desirous of making a good living was something so contrary to the typical that he had to call it out. I found his statement incredibly insulting and racist. Would he have said "upwardly mobile white nurse"? Probably not. So why say it for another ethnic group?
3) And then in another passage the author was describing some bags of fluid that were hanging by a patient's bedside by an IV line. He described them as the same size and shape as "breast implants". Really? For all of the words at your disposal, Dr. Harvard, this is the best way you can come up with to describe this bag of fluid? That they look like boobs to you.
At this point, I was only about a quarter of the way in, but I was already so annoyed that I decided to not waste the rest of my time on it.
A book by a female author: Orphan Train, by Christina Baker Kline
I'd seen this book around for a while, and was eager to read it. The concept of orphan trains - where orphans from cities in the East were literally put on a train and sent out West to be adopted - was so fascinating, and I was hopeful for a good story about this period in history. Sadly, this was not that good of a story. The story if told from two perspectives: one, a woman in her 90's (Vivian) who was an orphan in the 1920s and sent out west via the "orphan train" to live with a family in Minnesota, and the other main character is a 17-year old girl (Molly) about to age out of foster care and has had tumultuous relationships with all of her foster parents. Molly is described as being very "goth", quite a contrast to Vivian's prim and proper ways. Vivian and Molly's paths cross, and the story is about how these two seemingly very different people find that they have much in common. Vivian's story is told in flashback scenes to the 1920s when she was an orphan. I was really hoping for more out of this story. I think it had potential, but it just fell flat. I liked Vivian's story line the best, but found Molly to be a bit hard to swallow. Molly supposedly had this really traumatic childhood, yet the author writes her as all of the sudden getting this amazing insight into herself and why she acts the way she does. I found it a bit unrealistic for someone who had that type of traumatic childhood to "heal" so quickly and independently. I also found one of the sub-plots totally implausible: Molly gets caught stealing a beat-up copy of Jane Eyre from the school library, and instead of getting sent to "juvie" has to do 50 hours of community service...which she does at Vivian's house, hence the two of them meeting. Getting thrown into "juvie" for stealing an old library book? Really? I understand that the author needed a way for these two characters to connect, but this seemed too forced. If she wanted the girl to be forced to do community service, at least have her commit a crime deserving of it. For all its faults, the book does end sweetly - if a little too neatly - so I guess it's not a total loss.
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