Review: Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves, by Naomi Aldort

Respect, authenticity, and logic. Those are the three key ingredients to raising a healthy, happy, and productive child as I heard them in reading this book. Aldort presents a lot of good points and great suggestions here, but it wouldn't be a parenting book if it didn't come across as a little self-indulgent and didn't have some kind of agenda. For Aldort, who actually either falsified her credentials or is the biggest dope on the planet (source), the agenda begins with attachment parenting and moves smoothly into gentle parenting. That sounds good, but many of her expectations felt downright unrealistic to me, and the supposedly real dialogue is incredibly stilted. I did take a lot away from this book, but I was looking to it for general guidance and rough ideas, not as a parenting bible.

Review: In the Garden of Beasts, by Erik Larson

In the Garden of Beasts, by history writer Erik Larson, came out just a few weeks ago. It may be the most recent book I ever review. I rushed to grab it in part because of a Border's coupon, but also because I absolutely loved Larson's Devil in the White City. In Devil, Larson uses succinct but eloquent writing to tell the story of Chicago's World's Fair from the perspectives of the fair's architect, Daniel Burnham, and, conversely, the fair's serial murderer, H. H. Holmes. Devil read almost like a novel, flowing neatly even as it jumped between the two perspectives, and at the end not only had I enjoyed it, but I was newly acquainted with Chicago, the fair, and with these two men, as well as others. I highly recommend Devil to those who enjoy history and historical writing.

In the Garden was a disappointment to me. Here Larson is focusing on Berlin during the rise of Nazi power, mainly from '33-'37. As in Devil he aims to paint a picture of Berlin through the eyes and actions of two individuals, namely William Dodd, ambassador to Germany during these years, and his daughter, Martha. The story does not flow as well as in Devil but feels choppy. Much of the book is actually about Martha, perhaps because so many of her letters and diaries are available, as she flits from love affair to love affair and political ideology to political ideology. She is shown as promiscuous and silly for most of the book, so I was surprised when Larson described her as "not precisely a hero but certainly a woman of principle", in his closing pages. In that case the history told here seems to be more about women's lib and sexual freedom in the personage of Martha, although she is a weak heroine even for these causes. Other than that, the tidbits and tales about Nazi Germany are of course not new, but it was interesting to see them through the diaries and writings of people there at the time.

Book 20 on my way to 52.

Review: The Monk in the Garden, by Robin Marantz Henig

The best thing I can say about this book is that I found it disappointing. Though put forward as a biography, in some places, like the extensive paragraphs on Mendel's (non)relationship with Darwin, it reads more like historical fiction. Many times, after reading page upon page of anecdotes, we are told that it couldn't have happened that way after all (but imagine if it had!) and I found myself wishing for the last 10, 30, even 60 minutes of my time back. Even after finishing the book I find it difficult to decide whether Henig admires Mendel or disdains him, which isn't altogether hard to understand since some of the scientific community is divided on this as well, but I kind of wonder why she titled the book so exclusively around Mendel when she spent so much of it either referring to him in the diminutive or talking about other great names from science altogether. In fact, the parts I valued most from this book were the tales about those other scientists, many of whom I knew less about than Mendel. I read this book for my library non-fiction book club (which meets next Tuesday) and I am interested to hear what others have to say about it, so maybe I'll come back and update then.

Book 17 on my way to 52

Review: A Man Without a Country, By Kurt Vonnegut

I enjoy reading Kurt Vonnegut, and if I had it to do over I would read this, his final book, only after I had read all the rest (which I have yet to do). The man has a talent for interesting humor into the most horrific of things, a talent he accounts for early on in this memoir of sorts, but this book ultimately reads like the final disgruntled rant of a disillusioned old man. Which, incidentally, it is, and he openly acknowledges it as such. It is Kurt Vonnegut, and that was the point of most of his work, but the difference here is the saturation of bitterness because it isn't embedded in a well written story.

Reading this there were many moments when I found myself laughing outright, others when I was nodding my head vigorously in agreement, and still others when I succumbed to frustration with the constant negativity. He repeats ideas, even phrases, throughout the book and there were times when I wanted to say enough already. It comes across as just bitterness, and that's a wasted emotion in my book. But every time I was about to set the book aside intending to never pick it up again, he would renew my interest with another fabulous observation or statement that got me hooked back in.

For many, especially the true fans, the people who grew up on Vonnegut's acerbic wit, this will be an enjoyable must read. And people who are one-hundred percent in line with his political views will enjoy it even more. I fall into neither of those categories, but I would still give it a three out of five.

15 down on my way to 52 in 2011

Review: Out of Africa, by Isak Dinesen

The Natives, who have a strong sense of rhythm, know nothing of verse, or at least did not know anything before the times of the schools, where they were taught hymns. One evening out in the maize-field, where we had been harvesting maize, breaking off the cobs and throwing them on to the ox-carts, to amuse myself, I spoke to the field labourers, who were mostly quite young, in Swaheli verse. There was no sense in the verse, it was made for the sake of the rhyme:–"Ngumbe na-penda chumbe, Malaya-mbaya. Wakamba na-kula mamba." The oxen like salt,–whores are bad,–The Wakamba do eat snakes. It caught the interest of the boys, they formed a ring round me. They were quick to understand that the meaning in poetry is of no consequence, and they did not question the thesis of the verse, but waited eagerly for the rhyme, and laughed at it when it came. I tried to make them themselves find the rhyme and finish the poem when I had begun it, but they could not, or would not, do that, and turned away their heads. As they had become used to the idea of poetry, they begged: "Speak again. Speak like rain." Why they should feel verse to be like rain I do not know. It must have been, however, an expression of applause, since in Africa rain is always longed for and welcomed.

—Isak Dinesen (The Baroness Karen Blixen), from Out of Africa

I think poetry can sound like rain, and I don't think the nature of this is really all that much of a mystery. Rain is rhythmic and flowing, and to me so is the greatest of poetry. But should some of our most celebrated poets be told that their meanings were of no consequence I think there might be a lot of broken hearts. That's not to say, of course, that a good silly rhyme isn't fun now and then. I'm not fond of them myself, but Calvin has been working out the business of rhyming for himself this week and I've heard many a verse about fleas with knees or dogs on logs.

My Somewhere in Time book club read Out of Africa for our February meeting (which will take place on Valentine's day just after the usual dinner hour—no romance for the weary). I had seen the movie but shamelessly never read the book. It's lyrical and beautiful. She writes with a rhythm that makes me feel Africa as much as think it. Having already spoken to one of the other club members I know she didn't like the book's non-linear layout, but I think this was an important aspect of the story and its message: if the stories were written linearly and connectedly would they not merely lead up to a final conclusion? The individual stories, and the individuals, after all, are the love in the work, not the epic as a whole. And the book certainly gets my love.

Book 1 on my way to 52 in 2011