Booklog for Charlotte

Books to read

Dreamers of the Day by Mary Doria Russell.  Reviewed in the post 3/22

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell.  Reviewed in NYT 11/18/07

Run by Ann Patchett

I listened to much of this audiobook twice because my walking (and listening) were interrupted by sickness.  There are few books that I would be agreeable to listening to twice in such short order.  Run, and probably most books by Ann Patchett are like comfort food -- satisfying, pleasing, and leaving something with you. 

The story moves along pretty predictably, though compellingly, but it is the characters that provide the comfort.  They are all lovable, even the rascal is a dear.  The patriarch, a former mayor of Boston and his saintly wife, after having one son, are unable to have other children, so they adopt brothers who are black.  The wife dies quite young, and the father lavishes all his love on the boys.  The older brother apparently displayed his rascality early on as the father focuses on creating politicians of Tip and Teddy, the two adopted boys.  Clearly he had a plan from the moment of their appearance.  Their birth mother turns up at an opportune moment, pushing Tip out of the path of a car which hits her.  It develops that the birth mother and her younger daughter have been shadowing the family for all of Tip and Teddy's lives. 

The focus on the good qualities of all the characters makes this a fairy tale, except that there is no wicked witch.  What a treat.

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

What a terrific book!  The omnivore's dilemma refers to the result of having many choices for dinner and the complications that brings.  The omnivores in question refer to humans in the long term and larger questions than choosing a restaurant.  Like the rat, humans can digest a variety of foods and must develop ways to determine which will not kill them, learning for example which mushrooms are delicious and which are murderous.  Our communication skills have come in very handy in this area.

In the course of examining the implications of the way we feed ourselves, Michael Pollan begins on a farm in Iowa.  He tells the story of corn and its very large part in our diets.  I love his view of the connection between corn and humans -- he says it is corn that chose us as a partner.  Without humans, corn could not reproduce. Making farms into agri-business has made food appear to be cheap to the consumer, hiding the costs in government subsidies, as well as the health costs we all bear.  Earl Butz is a real villain in this story.

Making corn into a portable long-lasting commodity is not new; in the 19th century, alcohol consumption was a serious problem in the US.  Consumption reached a total of 5 gallons a year for every man, woman and child; now it is at a level of 1 gallon a year.  Alcohol was a wonderfully portable way to use all that corn. 

Moving to a positive view of feeding ourselves, he describes the workings of a farmer here in Virginia, Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms.  They use very low-tech, intelligent, and elegantly simple farming methods.  They raise chickens, pork, cattle, hens to lay eggs, and sheep.  The cattle are moved around the pasture in movable pens so that they eat grasses at their most nutritious without overgrazing the pasture.  Then chickens are brought along in their movable pens to chow down on the leftovers in the cow patties and other delicacies in the grass, leaving their valuable manure to nurture the grasses.  And there are many of these wonderful connections.  The grip of those who benefit from agri-business is unlikely to be loosened anytime soon, but I am heartened at the prospect of eating food grown so beautifully nearby. 

Michael Pollan is a wonderful story-teller; kindly to his subjects (except Earl Butz) and wonderfully clear in his explanations.  His elegant writing is in evidence in this description of those who write about wild mushrooms.  "Their reverence for their subject runs so deep that they will pursue it wherever it leads, even if that means occasionally leaping the fence of current scientific understanding.  In the case of mushrooms, that's not a very tall or sturdy fence."

I heartily recommend this book although it will send you running to your cupboard to look at ingredient lists.

The Gathering by Anne Enright

Ann Enright's Mann Booker prize winner is a grim exploration of dissatisfaction within a large Irish family.  The pivotal event is the suicide of one of the sons, Liam, the favorite sibling of the narrator, Veronica.  The mother is described as a ghost, and her other siblings are alcoholics, psychotic, her husband hates her, she hates him, and so on.  Then she goes back a generation to describe the meeting in 1925 in a hotel lobby of her grandmother, an orphan who was perhaps a prostitute, and the man who upon meeting her, fell in love with her permanently and instantly lost her to her future husband who had a car. 

Sexual abuse at the age of 8 is identified as the beginning of Liam’s problems; the possibility of being abused herself is also mentioned.  Abuse of her mother’s generation is also hinted at as an explanation for her mother’s vagueness and her uncle’s life in an asylum.   

When Liam dies, her own unhappiness is heightened and her grievances, including mundane complaints toward her husband, are aired.  It seems her very comfortable middle class life is undermined by the secrets, real or imagined, of her family’s past.   She goes into a tailspin and is unable to sleep at night for four months after the funeral.  She prowls her house and eventually begins driving around to explore the sites of the abuse her family suffered. 

Just as she begins to see light at the end of the tunnel, she recounts Liam's funeral and you learn what she clearly knew all four months, the happy news that Liam had a son he did not know.  Everyone, especially Veronica, was cheered by that turn of events.  Why this is such a happy turn of events is unclear to me.

I can't say I found The Gathering enlightening or moving.