If I was asked to write a blurb for the back cover of this little books I'd say: "This shit really works!"
We got this as a hand-me-down and left it on the book shelf with all of the other hand-me-down books on the "we'll get to it later" pile. Then Mrs Crumbolst came over and said it was a good book, so we checked it out sooner rather than later.
There's a lot of clutter - annoying examples of what not to do, what we have done as North American/yuppy parents for generations, and what other cultures/non-yuppy parents do for their crying newborns - before they finally land on the practical advice of how to calm your freaking out newborn. When our newborn starts to freak, we apply the advice in the book and within a few seconds we have a non freaking out newborn. Rarely does it take a whole minute.
I strongly, strongly recommend this book if you are about to have a baby.
19 August 2011
3. What to Expect When You're Expecting
We were expecting so I read it. It helped me manage my expectations. A lot of it is stuff you already know if you are a big brother or have a niece or nephew, but it's good to review when you're the parents responsible for the decisions.
2. Desolation Island by Patrick O'Brian
We begin again at Ashgrove Cottage, with Jack Aubrey zealously spending the prize money and earnings from The Mauritius Command. This time new orders come in for Jack and Stephen at almost the same time. They are to take the Leopard, an old 50-gun, fourth rate ship, to Australia and restore order after William Bligh (of the Bounty) suffers another mutiny. Since they are going that way, they are tasked to bring a set of prisoners, including a spy, for delivery in Australia's penal colony.
Doldrums; gaol fever (typhus that infects a lot of the crew, including our beloved Pullings); a stop to drop off the sick in Brazil; a long and stressful chase with the Dutch 74 Waakzaamheid in bad weather and stormy seas in the Roaring 40s that finally, finally comes to blows; icebergs; and a very near sinking from icebergs where Jack allows some of the crew off in lifeboats; Desolation Island where the Leopard attempt some repairs; and a visit from an American whaler. There is also a lot of neat natural science research for Stephen on Desolation Island.
This was a good combination of Jack and Stephen's character development. The entire book is one, long passage, where nothing in particular happens. Stephen does have a lot of opportunities for development with the health of the prisoners, trying to figure out what the deal is with the American spy Mrs Wogan, and all of the research he is able to conduct on seals, albatrosses, and penguins once they reach the Southern Ocean and Desolation Island - which my Harbors and High Seas companion book suggests is probably Kerguelen Island. Jack is developed in the usual way - long letters to Sophie and ruminations on the effectiveness of the crew he inherits and collects - but we also get to see him in two emergencies, the slow, long run from the Waakzaamheid, and the near sinking from the iceberg. The first is a chess match played in foul weather and the second is a frenetic puzzling while the ships slowly sinks into frigid seas.
I enjoyed this one as much as I did the first book. And the next book, Fortunes of War, is a direct sequel to this one.
Here's a nice sentence: "The sun rose on a sea in labour, the crests riding ahead of the swell and breaking: creaming water from horizon to horizon except in the bottom of the troughs, much deeper now; while from every height the wind tore foam, drops and solid water, driving it forward in a grey veil that darkened and filled the air" (245-46).
Doldrums; gaol fever (typhus that infects a lot of the crew, including our beloved Pullings); a stop to drop off the sick in Brazil; a long and stressful chase with the Dutch 74 Waakzaamheid in bad weather and stormy seas in the Roaring 40s that finally, finally comes to blows; icebergs; and a very near sinking from icebergs where Jack allows some of the crew off in lifeboats; Desolation Island where the Leopard attempt some repairs; and a visit from an American whaler. There is also a lot of neat natural science research for Stephen on Desolation Island.
This was a good combination of Jack and Stephen's character development. The entire book is one, long passage, where nothing in particular happens. Stephen does have a lot of opportunities for development with the health of the prisoners, trying to figure out what the deal is with the American spy Mrs Wogan, and all of the research he is able to conduct on seals, albatrosses, and penguins once they reach the Southern Ocean and Desolation Island - which my Harbors and High Seas companion book suggests is probably Kerguelen Island. Jack is developed in the usual way - long letters to Sophie and ruminations on the effectiveness of the crew he inherits and collects - but we also get to see him in two emergencies, the slow, long run from the Waakzaamheid, and the near sinking from the iceberg. The first is a chess match played in foul weather and the second is a frenetic puzzling while the ships slowly sinks into frigid seas.
I enjoyed this one as much as I did the first book. And the next book, Fortunes of War, is a direct sequel to this one.
Here's a nice sentence: "The sun rose on a sea in labour, the crests riding ahead of the swell and breaking: creaming water from horizon to horizon except in the bottom of the troughs, much deeper now; while from every height the wind tore foam, drops and solid water, driving it forward in a grey veil that darkened and filled the air" (245-46).
1. The Mauritius Command by Patrick O'Brian
Captain Jack Aubrey is sent to Mauritius to beat on some Frenchies who have established a base in the Indian Ocean. This French naval base is a real problem for the East India merchant ships, and so Jack is sent to take the islands and establish a British naval base on them.
Another great book by Patrick O'Brian, the fourth in the series. We get a lot of gunpowder porn, some Marine work on the beach at La Reunion and Mauritius, and some Naval bureaucracy.
07 January 2011
10. The Sound and the Fury Wm Faulkner
Man, was this a great, great book. I'm not even sure how to describe it. First of all, it's damned difficult. My beloved Moby-Dick is also a difficult book: it's long, it's about a lot of things, and the things its about are heavy. But The Sound and the Fury is difficult in a different way. The story is told in such a bizarre fashion that you almost have to read it twice. And there's almost no way I could have read the story in isolation, outside of the class I took; without that I would have needed a guide of some kind. The first section is told by...well, maybe I shouldn't tell you...the joy in this book is puzzling out of the narrative. I'm sure you think this is a cop-out, but I could write a review ten times as long as the book and still not do it's majesty justice.
9. As I Lay Dying Wm Faulkner
The craziest, saddest story you ever heard about a family's journey to bury their mother in her home town; it's told in small vignettes, each from a different family member, including the dead mother.
8. Go Down, Moses by Wm Faulkner
Five stories, one of them the famous longer story "The Bear," arranged out of order. The five stories tell the long tale of the McCaslin family. It's Faulkner, so you know what you are going to get before you start: partial narrative, a very limited point of view, lots of history mixed up with family secrets, race, racism, the Old South and the New South, and sex.
09 July 2010
7. Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
I can't believe how long it has taken me to read anything Roth has written. I was so into Goodbye, Columbus that I immediately went to the library and took out Portnoy's Complaint and American Pastoral. And the hype was definitely worth it.
Portnoy's Complaint is actually a complaint: Alexander Portnoy ranting about his parents to his psychoanalyst. The whole book seems like a first meeting between therapist and patient.
And it is hilarious. I thought Goodbye, Columbus was funny, but that was nothing compared to this. At more than a few points I was actually laughing out loud, laughing so hard I had to put the book down and wipe my eyes.
Alex has grown up to be a successful lawyer working for NYC as a Commissioner of Equality, or something. But, he feels, this is not good enough for his parents. He feels trapped by their expectations of him. They have raised him to be a perfect gentleman, to be so nice, and kind, and polite, but whenever he exercises any free will, makes any decision of his own, they act like he is murdering them with his lack of gratitude. And there's his trap: he wants to be himSelf but he also wants to be a good son (mostly, it seems, to keep the bitching to a quiet minimum).
And mostly he expresses himself in two ways: whacking off (the title of the famous second chapter) and having sex. No woman is ever good enough, physically, socially, emotionally, or culturally (even when he goes to Israel), and so he winds up treating his girlfriends like his parents treat him: carping on them, insulting them, never letting any praise sink in long enough to be felt, if any is to be dished out in the first place.
The end left me a little unsatisfied; it ended kind of abruptly for me. But don't get me wrong, the journey was very satisfactory and I'm looking forward to American Pastoral.
Portnoy's Complaint is actually a complaint: Alexander Portnoy ranting about his parents to his psychoanalyst. The whole book seems like a first meeting between therapist and patient.
And it is hilarious. I thought Goodbye, Columbus was funny, but that was nothing compared to this. At more than a few points I was actually laughing out loud, laughing so hard I had to put the book down and wipe my eyes.
Alex has grown up to be a successful lawyer working for NYC as a Commissioner of Equality, or something. But, he feels, this is not good enough for his parents. He feels trapped by their expectations of him. They have raised him to be a perfect gentleman, to be so nice, and kind, and polite, but whenever he exercises any free will, makes any decision of his own, they act like he is murdering them with his lack of gratitude. And there's his trap: he wants to be himSelf but he also wants to be a good son (mostly, it seems, to keep the bitching to a quiet minimum).
And mostly he expresses himself in two ways: whacking off (the title of the famous second chapter) and having sex. No woman is ever good enough, physically, socially, emotionally, or culturally (even when he goes to Israel), and so he winds up treating his girlfriends like his parents treat him: carping on them, insulting them, never letting any praise sink in long enough to be felt, if any is to be dished out in the first place.
The end left me a little unsatisfied; it ended kind of abruptly for me. But don't get me wrong, the journey was very satisfactory and I'm looking forward to American Pastoral.
06 July 2010
6. Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth
My first experience with Philip Roth, who I have been wanting to read for so long. I'm definitely headed to the library for some more, maybe Portnoy's Complaint, or American Pastoral.
Goodbye, Columbus is a novella about the summer love affair between Neil and Brenda. And as Neil tells us the story, we realize it's also a story about the different experiences of Jewish immigrants as they get more experience points in American culture.
Neil lives with his aunt, an immigrant who still leans on her Yiddish speech patterns and vocabulary. He is done with college and has also spent a year in the Army.
Brenda's family has been here a few generations, and they have assimilated into American culture and built a successful business manufacturing sinks. She is going to Radcliffe, the woman's college of Harvard (this I did not know).
And so we have the conflict of class. Brenda and Neil don't think of it that way, they just want to hang out and have fun. Brenda's mom doesn't quite like Neil in that he's-not-good-enough-for-my-daughter way. And Neil's aunt is suspicious of Brenda's family in/with a working-class snobbery kind of way.
The writing was great: Roth has a subtle use of detail that, like Dickens, makes you realize how awkward people, or certain situations, really are. And he's also very funny. I won't copy out any text, because out of context I think it would lose some of its rich flavor.
Goodbye, Columbus is one of Roth's early works, and it won the National Book Award in 1959. It's short, too, and you should be able to read the whole thing in those quiet hours you spend drinking coffee waiting for your wife to wake up.
Goodbye, Columbus is a novella about the summer love affair between Neil and Brenda. And as Neil tells us the story, we realize it's also a story about the different experiences of Jewish immigrants as they get more experience points in American culture.
Neil lives with his aunt, an immigrant who still leans on her Yiddish speech patterns and vocabulary. He is done with college and has also spent a year in the Army.
Brenda's family has been here a few generations, and they have assimilated into American culture and built a successful business manufacturing sinks. She is going to Radcliffe, the woman's college of Harvard (this I did not know).
And so we have the conflict of class. Brenda and Neil don't think of it that way, they just want to hang out and have fun. Brenda's mom doesn't quite like Neil in that he's-not-good-enough-for-my-daughter way. And Neil's aunt is suspicious of Brenda's family in/with a working-class snobbery kind of way.
The writing was great: Roth has a subtle use of detail that, like Dickens, makes you realize how awkward people, or certain situations, really are. And he's also very funny. I won't copy out any text, because out of context I think it would lose some of its rich flavor.
Goodbye, Columbus is one of Roth's early works, and it won the National Book Award in 1959. It's short, too, and you should be able to read the whole thing in those quiet hours you spend drinking coffee waiting for your wife to wake up.
04 July 2010
5. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
I heard so many great things about this book that even as I collected significant evidence to the contrary I finished it anyway. Beware, a SPOILER lurks below:
The plot/setting: Okonkwo is a great warrior and leader in his small African village. He thinks everyone around him is soft, especially his son. Unfortunately for him, he accidentally kills someone on a high festival day and so must be exiled for seven years. In this seven year absence Christian missionaries come and ingratiate themselves to the villagers. When he returns Okonkwo realizes that things have changed too much, that things have fallen apart, that the old traditions and cultural rules are lost forever. So what does this fearless warrior do? He hangs himself from a tree behind his hut. Lame!
The story sucked. The writing was very average. I suspect (white) college undergraduates who feel bad about European colonialism in Africa and the slave trade have given this book way too much credit as a means of appeasing their pointless, guilty feelings.
The plot/setting: Okonkwo is a great warrior and leader in his small African village. He thinks everyone around him is soft, especially his son. Unfortunately for him, he accidentally kills someone on a high festival day and so must be exiled for seven years. In this seven year absence Christian missionaries come and ingratiate themselves to the villagers. When he returns Okonkwo realizes that things have changed too much, that things have fallen apart, that the old traditions and cultural rules are lost forever. So what does this fearless warrior do? He hangs himself from a tree behind his hut. Lame!
The story sucked. The writing was very average. I suspect (white) college undergraduates who feel bad about European colonialism in Africa and the slave trade have given this book way too much credit as a means of appeasing their pointless, guilty feelings.
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