Sunday, January 28, 2024

 

HORSE 

Geraldine Brooks

 My good friend Cindy chose this book for our book club.  

I didn’t ask her why she chose this book, but knowing her, I would guess it was because she loves animals, art & history. 

Horse is a true story of long buried facts and the ugly truths of horse racing, racism, art, greed, slavery, betrayal & ego.  The narrative goes back and forth in time from the 1800’s to present day.  I think I would have enjoyed the book so much more if the present-day portion of the book had been eliminated entirely. 

I opened the book and the very first paragraph is: the deceptively reductive forms of the artist’s work belie the density of meaning forged by a bifurcated existence.  These glyphs and ideograms signal to us from the crossroads freedom and slavery, White and Black, rural, and urban.

What?  I kept running into words I had never even seen before…for example: deshabillement, ferruled, addlepated, obduracy, subfusc…uh…standby while I go grab my dictionary.

The novel begins present day, Jess is an osteologist. I heard you just ask yourself…what does an osteologist do?  Without going all Geraldine Brooks on you, I’ll keep it simple.  It is someone who studies bones. 

Jess finds the bones of the greatest racehorse of all time.  Theo, a Nigerian American, is studying the art of horses as his PhD dissertation.  He digs a painting of a horse out of his neighbor’s trash which over the course of several chapters he finds out it is a very valuable piece of art.  As you may have guessed…this turns into a love connection and their story has a tragic ending.  In fact, this tragic ending of the story is the last 20 pages, and it ruins the book for me. 

Jarret, a slave on a southern plantation, finds his soul mate in Lexington, the GOAT of horse racing.  He has a short-lived racing career due to an unusual bone growth which causes him to become blind.  His career as a racehorse is over and then he is deemed the GOAT for being a stud sire.  To this day, people pay thousands of dollars for horses with Lexington’s bloodline.

I was fascinated by the thoroughbred, Lexington and Jarret who loved him.  That horse was his life. I don’t know anything about horse racing or raising a horse.  But after reading this…I feel like I have read the ugly underbelly of equine and greed in the industry.    

Overall, Brooks delves into the depiction of southern America slavery and the real heroes of the racing world back then…the black horseman. Racism played a central story in the lives of Lexington and Jarret; how could it not also play a role in the story of our modern protagonists? Combining the story of a legendary racehorse in the past with racial injustice that was rampant then, with the racial injustice that is still present now.  Jarret’s story colliding with Theo’s over generations, however, both as targets of racism in completely different times and circumstances.

Horse is so much more than a fascinating story about a racehorse.  It is a powerful story of history, the anatomy of Kentucky horse racing and breeding…the burial and rebirth of art and most heartbreaking…the reality of the victories and defeats of racism.  There is a lot of sadness in these pages…but there is also ambition, hope and the greatest of these…. love. 

Overall, I loved the book until I didn’t.


Tuesday, January 23, 2018

A piece of history unwrapped...




BEFORE WE WERE YOURS
By LISA WINGATE
I remember it was around 1:00 am when I turned the last page. 
 I can’t remember if I was sucked in initially but, regardless of how this one started…it became one of those books I couldn’t wait to finish…and yet...didn’t want it to end. 
The book is told in two narrative strands, past and present.  One of a woman looking into a mysterious past; and the other of a child looking ahead to an uncertain future.
It created a drama that was both bleak and optimistic.  It showed resilience and redemption.   
It was uniquely human.
Avery is a woman finding her roots, while Rill is a girl afraid of losing hers.  Two generations apart…forever changed by a heartbreaking injustice…a real-life scandal.
Georgia Tann and her Memphis Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage cast aside children for profit…
pure f*ck*ng evil.  
I can’t help question how a place like this could actually exist.  How could she do this?  How did she sleep at night?   
But she did…for years. 
All the while…robbing children of their pasts and changing their futures.
Memphis, Tennessee….1939 on the Mississippi River shanty, the Arcadia.  Five siblings live…to me…what seems like a magical life aboard a river shanty boat.  Their days are filled with laughter…fishing…telling stories…running free through the wild.
The story was so rich with details I could smell the river, hear the laughter…and once that was taken away…I could hear the creaking of the floor boards in the orphanage and feel the pain of loss. 
The power of money and politics.  It still exists today. 
As the book went on and the stories unfolded…I thought about all of the lies…the secrets.  Does anyone really know their own parents?  Do we really know our friends?  What questions do you ask?  What secrets does the person beside you in the elevator have…the person in line with you at the grocery store?
It awakens your senses…your curiosity and your wonder…but do you dare? I mean…do we really even want to know?  Should some truths be left undiscovered?  Should some secrets stay hidden inside Pandora’s box?
Stolen children subjected to horrors, a father with cancer, a grandmother with Alzheimer’s, an elderly woman whose sister dies and remains living with the body until discovered...
It’s a dark story to read at times…but in the very end…they find a little light.
In my opinion, it is definitely worth your time if you appreciate learning some history through engaging fiction. 
Peter Pan said, ‘All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.”
IF ONLY…
yet, certainly not in this case. 
 

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Just live. Just live?


 
Me Before you
Novel by Jojo Moyes
I can remember closing the book and laying it on my chest.  Then sitting up wishing I had someone to talk to about it. 
 It is one of those books that gives you an emotional hangover. 
I asked everyone…have you read Me before You?  No one had, at the time.  Until last night. 
Amanda texted Vanessa and I and said, Melib, I was looking on Off the Cuff…where is your review on the book? 
She had just finished it.  I never wrote one. 
 I told her I would. 
My copy is stained with tears.  It’s no secret I’m emotional.  I had used tissue peppered all over the floor. 
Oh my god, this book is good. 
 A total page-turner that kept me up way past my bedtime. 
A year later…I still think about this book.
It is about the issues of euthanasia, which, in my opinion, is brilliantly written like a romance novel….but it’s not a romance novel and it’s not full of politics surrounding the choice.  I liked her approach.  I loved how it was thoroughly engaging and thought provoking. 
How could you read this and not ask yourself what you might do in a similar circumstance?
If you haven’t read it, in a nutshell, this guy had it all…and one day it was all taken away.  He was now a quadriplegic. Lou is an ordinary girl, leading an ordinary life and it seemed to suit her just fine. 
Then they meet. 
I will say Lou’s lack of dreams…of wonder and possibility bothered me, so I was happy she met him.  She couldn’t have predicted to find her place in the world and for someone else to see and recognize her potential…
we would all be so lucky. 
It was kind of like two lost souls with nothing to fight for had crossed paths.  Two blind people found their light…for a while…and for a while…it seemed like enough.

“The thing about being catapulted into a whole new life…or at least, shoved up so hard against someone else’s life that you might as well have your face pressed against the window…is that it forces you to rethink your idea of who you are.  Or how you might seem to other people.” 

I think we all innately want to fix things…and it’s easy to hold on to imaginary hope when you’re not the person who is trapped.
It did seem ironic to me that a man who couldn’t move was the one that woke her up from a life she had settled for. 

But, you can read the book to fill in the story line.  It leads you to the end and HIS choice. 
HIS. 
Don’t forget that when you close the book that it was HIS choice. 
Not yours. 
That’s what I loved about this book.  It makes you think.  It made me think about my choices in life, my fears, people who have affected my daily life…and if love is really enough…if you have nothing left. 
In my opinion, NO. It honestly wouldn’t be for me.  I would have done what Will did. 

 Vanessa and I just had this conversation.  I don’t have a medical directive put in place.  I have a verbal one though, with her.  I said, Vee.  Don’t…whatever you do, let your emotions get in the way of pulling my plug if my quality of life is vegetative…or if I can’t live independently.  I don’t want that life for myself.  It’s MY choice.  She agreed. 
Sometimes, you just have to accept things won’t get better.  That sometimes, even if they are family, you have to let some people go.   Even if it’s hard.  Life can be hard.  And cruel.  It can also be amazing.  Fulfilling and full of blessings. 

I honestly don’t think the book was so much about convincing Will to live, but for Lou to understand that he wouldn’t. 
He reminded us to stand on your own two feet.  Explore your potential.  Broaden your horizons.  I loved how he challenged himself, read, traveled, studied languages…every day, he lived. In whatever way that meant to him. 

Get out there Lou. 
Take the world by storm. 
 Just like we all should. 

 Oh yea...read the book.

 

Sunday, August 23, 2015

All The Light We Cannot See in review




What an EPIC read by Anthony Doerr
ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE

A New York Times Bestseller…
A Pulitzer Prize winner!

I loved it.

If you haven't read this magical novel…
but you plan to…
maybe you shouldn't read this.
I won't be cautious in my writing 
or alert you to any spoilers.

Take a few days…
go read it…
and come back to this.

A quick synopsis of the book…
Doerr takes a moment in history, a rare gem, 
two people with huge obstacles and knowledge of 
communication…
 to weave a story that is 
ridiculously captivating, 
thought provoking and 
deeply moving.

In a little more detail…
A curious French girl goes blind... 
a German orphan boy 
with an amazing talent for working and building radios…
find themselves moving through life
and eventually…
their stories weave together.

The book was presented like short chapters
of a journal entry. 
It didn't captivate me until I got to
around page 80.
By the way, this is another doozie…530 pages.

Vanessa and Amanda had both read it and 
encouraged me to keep turning the pages.

I'm so glad I did.

I kept thinking about the title.
What did it mean?  

I thought…could he be referencing the light 
they found in the darkness of wartime?

As you read the dual story,
you wonder how soon it is before the two 
are going to meet.
Let me tell you...
You read almost the entire book 
before they actually
come face to face.

I was hoping for a romance and a fairy tale ending…
because it seemed like that is where it would go.

However, true love would be too predictable as an ending. 

We are often reminded that life doesn't always
turn out as planned.
I kept waiting for their lives to intersect…
and it was for less than 24 hours.

Why?

Why did she protect the diamond to then toss it away?

Why is there no resolution about her father?

Why was Frederick in the wrong place in life at the wrong time? 

The unknown questions were frustrating but created 
a realistic and real world.
No fairy tale here.

When do we ever get things wrapped up all pretty
and from what I have read about war…
you end up with a lot of things we may
never know.

You would think we would be hardened to 
the descriptions of war…
the chaos, the bloodshed, 
depravity…
the evil.

War…
so destructive.  
Yet these two…it never
annihilated their hope…
or mine for them.

This young man trapped in darkness…
listens to a girl's voice over the radio…
he hoped…she hoped.

I paused sometimes in my reading…
thinking about some of my why's.
I thought about the metaphors and his lyrical writing.

I thought about when Vanessa and I were little girls.
One day our brother wanted to show us a prism he had.
I can distinctly remember being in the back yard and he said 
watch this.
We watched him take this gem like stone and tilt it and 
it reflected light.
How was it possible this prism separated white light
into a spectrum of colors?
It was so beautiful…we wanted to hold it…
we wanted one of our own.

Our own Sea of Flames.

Light we cannot see.

It brought the book together for me in a way.
All the light we cannot see…could this be my interpretation.
His radio waves…unseen…but heard.
The stone…unseen…but wanted.
The journey.

The brain has power to create light in darkness…
he was in the darkness of the coal mine listening to her voice…
her blindness never shown as something to pity. 

The light in this book shoots from 
many different directions and every time I saw it…
it seemed like pure magic.

Gems are made valuable and in this case, powerful by
those who seek them but remain nothing
more than stones found in a creek to others.

What did he do with the stone?

Why did Doerr have them meet for literally an instant…
and then he died…
 his death came out of nowhere for me.
Unexpected.

I loved his bravest moment…
when he confronts Von Rumpel.

It states, "All your life you wait, 
and then it finally comes, and are you ready?"

Are you ready to open your eyes and see what you can with them?
Do you want to be alive before you die?
Do you want to LIVE before you die?

Perhaps, instead of pursuing diamonds,
money, treasures…

instead of going to war and destroying lives…
instead of listening to nationalized propaganda…

instead of the mundane…mindless…meaningless
things we choose to pursue…

Why don't we pursue "all that we cannot see"…
Why don't we listen to and become more aware?

The plight of everyman is to live the life presented...
even under the most discouraging circumstances. 

These two lives are
beautifully embodied in this epic tale.

They lived.  

They plodded.

They held out hope.

They were the light.







  

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Cowboys Are My Weakness...in review

My friend Cindy texted me before Christmas…
have you read Cowboys Are My Weakness?  
I hadn't.  
Next thing I knew…I had a copy of the book.  
She is so cool like that.


I'll be honest…
cowboys are a weakness…
have you ever seen or been around a real cowboy?

Whoa.

In truth, men are a weakness…
don't act like you don't feel the same way.  

Marlboro Man come to mind?  
He did for me.

 I was looking forward to reading it.  

I wrote this today because I finished the book this morning and 
it just so happened Cindy texted me asking how I was enjoying it.
I felt compelled to write her a review of my thoughts…
and overall, I liked it.

This book is a vignette of stories…
but I found the themes and characters wound so closely together…
it feels like there are barely any spaces in between them.  
There is a certain redundancy to the stories…
similar themes…kind of like a country song on repeat.

 Most of the time as I was reading..
I wondered if it wasn't really her story…
Not Cindy's…the author's.
I'd like to ask her…is this really fiction? 

The beauty I found was in her writing…
how it created this feeling…
the truth of her words…like I'd been there before.  
We all have.  

We've all dated that guy before.  
The one where we change who we are. 
Do we really love all of the adventure?  
Or do we become what we think they want?  

Like, you've never once thought of jumping out of a plane but he suggests it…
 or buys the opportunity for you on your birthday
 and you feel like you should because he is so excited about it…
 and you want him to like you. 
(Btw, this really happened to me…
 and I told him to take someone else…
I don't jump from planes…I can barely get on one).  

Or, you become a class five kayaker 
because every weekend you are scouting for the best rapid?  
Yea, I get it.

I really do. 

One of those weaknesses a few of us share…
we want the bad boys.  

It's funny…as I kept reading…I kept thinking the same thing.  
How does she stick around for this beating?  
(I am sure I have friends who have thought this about me)

She should have known better…
and she probably did…
but she did it anyway…
and then, somehow within the midst of it all…
 she got confused and then she was surprised
 and then thankfully…
she finally left.  

We can only hope that we continue to learn from each relationship 
and not keep repeating the same mistake…
even if we are smart…
independent and not really quite sure what we are looking for.
We hope that our fear of testosterone dependency 
doesn't get the best of us so we keep returning to…that.

"…I should know better, but I love it when he calls me baby." 
That about sums it up sometimes…
what he says…how he says it…
and you don't care how it really is…
you just take it for what it isn't.

The book, as it turns out…if you haven't picked up on it…
it's about the wrong guy, over and over.  
UGH.  

These smart women choosing the wrong man…and they know it. 
 I would guess…they don't think they deserve any better.  

"He was smart and selfish and lied by omission.  
I was addicted to him like cough syrup, and I didn't respect his mind."

We all have dreams about what our perfect man would be like.  
Maybe you date him…or maybe you married him?  
Maybe you are still looking for him?

Perhaps…like me…it would be the Marlboro Man.  
That's who I envisioned the entire time I was reading this. 

The reality is…
or what you eventually find out in life, is that they are all real men…
the kind of men you meet everyday.  

One of the characters says, "Is sex ever love?"

What is love?

Love is a drug.  
A person can become an addiction regardless of the commitment.  

For me personally…
the book made me want to head back out west.
With her writing I could see the sunsets…
and feel the water from the rapids.

We all want to be loved by someone…
regardless of what we feel we deserve.

I think I've said it before…
I have a knack for choosing the wrong guy…
just like these women.
It's the reoccurring themes in these relationships that I have been ignoring…
just like these women.

I keep searching for answers where the questions are unseen.

Advice for future lovers:  
Don't ask me what I'm looking for…
I only know how to tell you what I am supposed to want.

And, if you listen to what I am supposed to want…
how quickly that relationship will become boring
 and uninteresting...
as dull and ugly to me as the color yellow.

Now, I'm off to find some of those red cowboy boots...


Tuesday, June 10, 2014

What If?


My sister Amanda recommended this book to me.  
She had recently read it for her book club.

So, I picked it up and I liked it.

Mostly, I liked it because it makes you think…
it makes you wonder and it keeps you curious.

The Husband's Secret…
and boy does he have one. 

We all have secrets. 
Don't we? 

No one's life is as neatly contained as it may appear.

Life gets messy.
Shhh….

 I am not into the retelling of a book…
breaking it down or providing a synopsis.
 I want to write what I thought of it...
in hopes that you might pick it up in your free time…
 and read it if you are so inclined.

Here is the jist...
There are three women who the book is built around and this secret…
this theme runs throughout the book; 
what do you do when you would rather not know something?

It is like trying to unsee something you have seen.

You can't.
So, what do you do?

This book is filled with betrayal…lies…
tragedy…anger…resentment…sorrow…guilt…
ultimately…forgiveness…
and truth.

Ah, the truth.

 For my wife, to be opened only in the event of my death.

There it is.
Written on the outside of a sealed envelope that you stumble upon.

Would you open it?

Before I tell you what I would do…
I feel compelled to mention that the contents of this letter..
 wasn't the real meat and potatoes of the story.

I do want to say that unlike in The Goldfinch…
I guessed what the letter admitted.
You probably will too.  

So, back to the three women…
one woman discovers a life-changing secret by her husband…
another woman is betrayed by her husband…
and finally a woman who can't let go of the pain of the past.

However, it is the consequences of this truth and the deep connections 
between the characters that unfold in the telling of the story.

The ultimate question in the book asked…
 if you found a letter addressed to you…
 with instructions not to open it until a certain event has happened…
would you go ahead and read it anyway?  

I thought about it.
What would I do?

I like to think I have a strong moral compass…
but…
I WOULD OPEN THE LETTER!
I would open the letter because it would have been written by my husband. 

I am responding to this under the pretense that
my husband wrote it and I am still happily married and I find it.

Let me tell you that if I was married…which I am not and I never have been…
 my man better not have a secret like this.

I have always had a person…
not always the same person…
but someone I could share something with.
I would hope if I ever have a husband…he will know ALL of my secrets.

I have some secrets.
Nothing like what was in this letter.
But…a few things not everyone knows.

I think everyone does.
Let's also realize…most people don't need to know everything.

What is a secret? 
Something unknown.

This guy had a secret. 

The problem with this particular secret is that it has 
a transformative effect on lives.

Secrets build walls.

I keep thinking of this…
what a tangled web we weave when we first practice to deceive.

It seems to get easier…or does it?

No, you just have to keep building the wall.

Have you read this book?  
Do you know the secret?

I guess I don't have to tell you what it said.

I will say this again…
I would have opened the letter right when I found it.

I wouldn't have thought one second about that.

I would have had to think about what to do next.

Throughout the book the author, Liane Moriarty, writes about how one woman sold Tupperware…
and her daughter was obsessed with the Berlin Wall…
and she refers to opening Pandora's Box. 
All used as metaphors, right?  

Keeping things either in or out.

What if?

There are so many secrets about our lives we'll never know.
What if I had said yes when he asked me to marry him?
What if I had taken that job in New Orleans a year or two before Hurricane Katrina?
What if I had never left San Francisco?

We could what if ourselves to death.

At the end of the book, 
the author answers some of the potential 'what ifs' 
you may have had while reading…

I liked that.  
Sometimes, I do that too.
What if I had said yes…and I create my own conclusion…
I usually end up right here…
where I am now…knowing in my heart of hearts…
I made the best decision for myself at that time.

Moriarty ends the novel with this...

None of us ever knows all of the possible courses our lives could have 
and maybe should have taken.  
It's probably just as well.  
Some secrets are meant to stay secret forever.  
Just ask Pandora.

Shhhh….


























Friday, June 6, 2014

They Effing Forgot My Birthday!


I was sitting on the couch last night flipping channels.  
Nothing was on.
I was about to shut it down and go read or write or do something..productive…
but then I saw Sixteen Candles...

I love this movie!
And, although I've seen it a few hundred times, I stopped...
and decided to watch it again.

You remember what it's about, right?

Sam is turning 16…no one remembers…the geek loves her…she loves the stud muffin…
lots of funny lines…a character named Long Duk Dong and a happy ending.
  
What I may have to remind you of is that it was made in 1984…
let's see…I was about to be a freshman in High School.  

My gawd…that was 30 years ago.

And, just like the movie…that is silly and funny.

A simple-minded story of a girl turning 16…
her sweet-sixteen…which is anything but.

We can all relate to her, right?  
Use her as a springboard for our own remembrances...
I think the best part of re-watching it was seeing 
things of the not so distant past on display…
the headgear, leotards, bad hair, bad clothes, floppy disks.

They did have an epic party…pizza spinning on the record-player…
the place is a complete disaster..
a parent's worst nightmare.  
I forgot how much I hated the part where Jake finds Anthony Michael Hall underneath the small glass coffee table.
Do you remember?  
Ugh.
Thinking about it is making it hard to breathe.  

High School…thankfully, just a phase…
and it's all easily forgotten as time marches on.

Let's also be thankful for the simple truth Facebook wasn't developed back then.

I don't need to remember what I looked like in braces, bad hair and weird clothes.

I will say while I was watching it…
I was thinking that things do matter more when you're a teenager,
because you're experiencing it all for the first time.
Shit becomes a big deal.

The entire movie she is pining away for the Senior jock.

Jake Ryan.

What girl among us has never been in love with 'that guy'…that man…
you know the one…
the one who didn't even know we existed.

A crush.

Everyone's had one.  
It didn't even have to be the hottest guy in school.

I like this line Sam's dad says,
"That's why they call them crushes.  If they were easy, they'd call them something else."

Crushes.  

But, maybe why I love this movie so much…is because her crush comes through.
I mean…she got Jake Ryan! 

I can't even list all the other reasons I like it…
except AMH is the best played geek --
maybe EVER.
His voice even cracks at all the right places.
He is really quite adorable.
No wonder he gets his happy ending too.
I would have nominated him for an Oscar…I would have. He is that good.

Seriously, if my boyfriend is reading this…
On my next birthday, I want a cake with candles…
sadly, there will be more than 16…
but, I want us to sit indian-style 
on a big table with the lights down low…
just the blaze from the 44 candles burning…
then…quietly…whisper to me…
make a wish…
and, I'll get to say…
it already came true…

*sigh*

Perfect ending to a perfect movie.
In my humble opinion.