Book Review: EAST OF EDEN by John Steinbeck

East of Eden by John Steinbeck
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil."

I remember reading only one other Steinbeck back in college (A RUSSIAN JOURNAL), and me being a distracted youth at that time, my only two take-aways were: 1) This guy sure can write, and 2) Russians drank vodka for breakfast! :)

Six days ago, I listened to a friend rave about this particular Steinbeck book and was infected with her enthusiasm. As luck would have it, my sister owned a copy already, so I started reading it immediately after our book session!

I knew I was in for a magic carpet ride when early on I encountered magical sentences like "He was born in fury and he lived in lightning." BOOM.

There are classics that make you wonder why they're in the canon when you get about to reading them, and then there are those that make you go "Oh THAT'S why!!" And this one is definitely in the latter category!

Steinbeck writes, "No story has power, nor will it last, unless we feel in ourselves that it is true and true of us." What separates this family saga from the ones that came after is that this one is the literary equivalent of slicing open one's soul with a scalpel, dissecting our most primal thoughts and feelings about fathers, mothers, and siblings. Of the evils we are too ashamed to discuss yet, if we're being honest, we harbor thoughts of in our darkest moments.

We human beings are both born cursed by circumstance yet blessed with the gift of free will, as Steinbeck shows in the novel that shows three generations of the families Trask and Hamilton, growing up in the turn of the century Salinas, California.

It's been described by others as a retelling of the book of Genesis, and while there are similarities, I feel that this is too simplistic a description. It reminds me of MOBY DICK in some places (a philosophical tract masquerading as an adventure story), especially with the mini-sermons at the start of each section... they would not seem out of place if read aloud on a pulpit.

It's about LIFE! There are parts that cut to the quick and leave you all teary, but there's also a lot of humorous banter and funny stories that give you stitches after laughing so much!

I'm actually left mildly despairing at how to encapsulate the glory that is this novel, which Steinbeck considered his masterpiece. I have not read anything like it and I doubt I ever will. It is essential reading, both hurtful and healing, but I do maintain that the most important character is the Chinese manservant and philosopher, Lee! And I'm no scholar, but I imagine that having a Chinese character in American literature in the 1950's is not common.

JUST READ IT. The world will seem a lot less crazy afterwards, and you will find yourself more understanding and forgiving.

View all my reviews

Book Review: TOO MUCH AND NEVER ENOUGH by Mary L. Trump

Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man by Mary L. Trump
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

While this book didn't say anything that the rational world doesn't already know about the fraud and bully that is Donald Trump, it did provide an intimate peek into the life of what must be one of the saddest and most dysfunctional families of all.

I first heard about the book when the news came out that the family was trying to suppress its publication by taking the matter to court (they lost).

Written by the niece of Trump (the daughter of Donald's older brother), this is not an objective book (despite the legitimate qualifications of Mary Trump's PhD in clinical psychology). She openly admitted to providing documents to help New York Times reporters write an expose on Trump (for which they won the 2019 Pulitzer), links of which can be found here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/02/us... and https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...

Mary Trump is very angry, but not just at the POTUS. She is angry at the entire family, for allowing and creating someone like Donald to ascend as the sociopathic leader of the free world. But also because she blames them for her father's death, and for cheating her and her brother out of money that was, in her view, rightfully hers.

As an educator, I found it compelling reading because it provided specific insights into how the child makes the man.

He had been a failure and a bully in school, had to pay someone to take his SATs for him so he could enter college. But his home (and his father) not only protected and supported him... they encouraged him. And so the child grew up to be a monster whose actions have led to deaths.

This is, at its core, the story of a family's ills. No family is exempt from its share of troubles, but if there's one takeaway from this book, it is this: Beware wealth that comes at the expense of love, and beware a family that prioritizes possessions over values and relationships.

Had to put lots of honey in my coffee, to sweeten the taste of this bitter, angry book.

And oh, look! 50th book of the year!

View all my reviews

Book Review: CULTURE AND HISTORY by Nick Joaquin

Culture and History by Nick Joaquín
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"A nation is not its politics or economics. A nation is people. And a nation changes only when the people change."

This book is not easy reading. Not just because of the meaty subject matter (perhaps THE ultimate subject: what IS the Filipino? And how did history make him?) but because the answers Nick Joaquin posed will not sit well with a lot of idealistic patriots with romanticized notions of a glorious aboriginal culture. He challenges the idea that the pre-Hispanic Filipino and Philippines was culturally rich, and points out weaknesses in the modern-day Filipino most bluntly, to the point of giving offense. One should not read this book expecting to be comforted by visions of past greatness.

CULTURE AND HISTORY is a collection of fifteen essays written in various decades, some from the 1960's but collected and first published in 1988. To be honest, the book is so rich in material that each essay deserves its own review! But for my future ailing memory's sake, I shall stick to my usual social-media-friendly soundbyte-style.

While some of the essays were critiques of artifact exhibits in Club Filipino and anthologies of essays on Philippine culture, most were miniature historical treatises which seem intended for publication in newspaper or magazine form.

The word "miniature" is one I will forever associate with this book.

One of several controversial themes is Nick Joaquin's observation on the Filipino, throughout history, as having "the habit... of thinking poor... and petty. Is that the explanation for our continuing failure to rise -- that we aim small and try small, that we think small and do small?"

"Why are we as a people so disinclined to face up to challenges?"

"We don't grow like a seed, we split like an amoeba... We make a confession of character whenever we split up a town or province to avoid having to cope with big problems and operations... we are capable only of the small."

Not everything is dark and dreary in the book. The central theme is the use of cultural artifacts to inform us of history... "Culture is itself history."

I was particularly fascinated with the author's essays on the beatas of Manila in the 1600's ("cryptomovements of protest") and the apocalyptic Christian-Socialist cult known as the Guardia de Honor of Pangasinan, with their Apo Laki and their New Jerusalem in Cabaruan and Santa Ana. Here were peasant revolts and feminist protest movements pre-dating the Philippine Revolution, with the latter continuing up until the movement was taken down by the Americans.

One essay, "Our Hearts in the Highlands?" tells of the time he and his friends went up to the Cordillera mountains in search of the noble natives uncorrupted by Western civilization... and were disappointed.

"The journey in search of identity had ended not in the highlands but back home... where the heart is."

This book, I think, was written with that goal: to provoke self-examination, for us to look inside and sift out the good (along with the evils) that our colonial past brought us, and learn from that good. For to deny any part of our history is to risk a fractured identity.

When an author (whose father fought alongside Emilio Aguinaldo) has lived through World War II and Martial Law writes thus, one would do well to listen and reflect. I take comfort in the ending phrase of the last essay (with the same title as the book): "... this nation-in-the-making called the Philippines, this identity-in-progress called the Filipino."

The revolution ... and our evolution ... are not yet finished.


View all my reviews

Book Review: EXHALATION by Ted Chiang

Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"The universe began as an enormous breath being held... all my desires and ruminations are no more and no less than eddy currents generated by the gradual exhalation of our universe. And until this great exhalation is finished, my thoughts live on."

This was my second Chiang book! I think I would have enjoyed this collection of short stories more, had I not read the earlier collection ("Stories Of Your Life and Others"), which I thought superior to this one.

EXHALATION is still very enjoyable and educational, though! Reading Ted Chiang is more like being inside various philosophy thought experiments instead of hard core sci-fi material, although the "flavors" of the stories vary. His stories are answers to questions such as "What would the world look like if we had scientific proof that God created us 8,912 years ago?", "What if parrots could speak?", "What if we could speak with our paraselves - ourselves in parallel timelines?" and so on.

In this collection of 8 stories and a novella, I thought there were stories that were "stronger" than the others. The novella ("The Lifecycle of Software Objects") was too long and not as compellingly written as the others, I thought. I had to force myself to plod through it.

But the second story (and the title of the collection) was a gem. The book is worth reading just for the second story alone... a meditation on a civilization of robots that lived - and died - millenia before us. Beautiful, soulful writing!

I thought that the four-pager "What's Expected of Us" was also great! Chiang captured the angst of extreme existentialist despair in so few pages. I think it would be a great reading in Philosophy classes for the discussion on Determinism versus Free Will. Will include it in next year's reading list, for sure.

View all my reviews

Book Review: LINCOLN IN THE BARDO by George Saunders

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"Whatever way one took in this world, one must try to remember that all were suffering... therefore one must do what one could to lighten the load of those with whom one came into contact... his current state of sorrow was not uniquely his... its like had been felt, would yet be felt, by scores of others... and must not be prolonged or exaggerated, because, in this state, he could be of no help to anyone and, given that his position in the world situated him to be either of great help or great harm, it would not do to stay low, if he could help it."

First things first. The bardo is the Tibetan Buddhist interlude, the middle place, between death and re-birth/ judgment... "from a place where time slows and then stops and we may live forever in a single instant."

The Lincoln in question is Willie Lincoln, Abraham's third of four sons, who died aged 11, at the start of the Civil War. Willie was the favorite of all, the one closest to his father in nobility and intelligence, and warmth in love for his fellow man.

Holy. Cow. Well no wonder this book won the Man Booker Prize!

"Literary fiction" as a genre is hit-or-miss. Sometimes the story gets lost in the beauty of the prose, or the length of the novel works against it.

LINCOLN IN THE BARDO hit the masterpiece bull's eye, through and through. I thought each word was remarkably planned and placed, phrases balanced, a multitude of voices present, different, yet clear in meaning.

How to make sense of the unspeakable, unthinkable grief of a parent outliving their child?

Saunders tells us of a poor boy's spirit trapped in a scary place, the in-between where other souls linger, either out of ignorance or choice. The damned intermingle with the lost, all holding on to something.

Saunders' Christianized bardo reminded me a bit of Dante's contrapasso in The Divine Comedy, except that this bardo's souls manifest as reflections of the objects they loved most on earth.

This is unforgettable, a book unlike any other. It's the perfect blend of tale and technique, a singular story, told singularly by a singular master. It touches on the deepest emotions of despair and hope, redemption and salvation. Not a light read, but a life-enhancing one, to be revisited again and again.

The descriptions of every day miracles, as written by Saunders, are reason enough to read the book!

Saunders points out that the Civil War was more than about preserving the Union. Ultimately it was asking of the nation: "How should men live? How could men live?"

A novel for the times. When there is so much sadness all around, when countrymen are divided and fates of nations being decided. Saunders acknowledges all of this, but points the way forward:

"Ruinmore, ruinmore, must endeavor not to ruinmore. Our grief must be defeated; it must not become our master, and make us ineffective, and put us even deeper into the ditch."

"All we can do is what we should."

And yes, you SHOULD read this book!


View all my reviews

Book Review: CUTTING FOR STONE by Abraham Verghese

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"Make something beautiful of your life."

THIS MADE ME CRY!!!

Okay. I'll admit that I'm probably predisposed to crying, because I happen to be an identical twin myself. But I dare anyone to read this novel about two Ethiopian twin doctors with dry tear ducts. It's impossible!

Warning: Clear your schedule over a three day weekend for this 657 page tome. It will consume you from the first page, with the most vivid description of a problematic birth that could only have been written by a physician. That first scene seized me by the throat, I was invested!

Focusing on the lives of medical heroes in Addis Ababa and New York, the operating room narratives are fascinating and skillfully written, yet always focusing on empathy rather than expertise. I have never cared so much about fistulas and liver transplants until now!

"Everything you see and do and touch, every seed you sow, or don't sow, becomes part of your destiny."

I loved the elegance of the frame narrative, and how Verghese's use of the smallest and most trivial anecdote would reveal a greater significance later on. This novel gives new meaning to the term "full circle," and I am in awe of how masterfully all the threads came together at the end to form a beautiful tale that makes one believe in a Master of the universe at work, in the pain and joy of family, and of course, in the beauty of two bodies sharing one soul: the miracle of twinship.

"You know what's given me the greatest pleasure in my life? It's been our bungalow, the normalcy of it, the ordinariness of my waking... my work, my classes, my rounds..."

" 'Another day in paradise' was his inevitable pronouncement when he settled his head on his pillow. Now I understood what that meant: the uneventful day was a precious gift."

Dr. Verghese has written a classic. I hear it has been optioned for a movie and I just can't wait to see it onscreen!

And I know it's selfish to want him to write more when he is busy teaching and saving lives, but he has written one of my new all-time favorite books and the world needs more of his writings!

View all my reviews