{Review}: The Vegetarian

The Vegetarian is full of powerful and graphic imagery but nothing gory, nothing overly disturbing as alluded to in the many rave reviews of this book. I wondered if something was lost in translation.
The words that come to mind when I think of this book, post-read, are minimalist and sparse. Yet the imagery is vivid, and in sharp relief. Each word has been carefully selected, each phrase carefully turned. There is a distinct lack of superfluity.
At the core of this novel is a woman who we don't really get to understand on her own terms. She is defined by her relationship with others. Her husband is quietly unsatisfied with her, though he cannot say she is a bad wife. Her sister pities her, and feels responsible for her. Her father cares little until he cares too much, refusing to understand her.  There are three voices in this book, and none of them belong to Yeong-hye, as central as she is to the book. 
Yeong-hye commits herself obsessively to being a vegetarian, as the result of a dream. The confusion,  wrath and indignation this elicits from her family is outsized. The more she is excoriated for not conforming, the deeper she digs her heels in, turning herself inside out and driving herself insane.
But is she really insane? Or is that an identity foisted on her by those around her as way of understanding her refusal to be like everyone else? It's hard to tell in this novel. We get the sense that she has discovered something about herself and has become attuned to her own sexuality, in a way that was never revealed to her husband. An inverse relationship develops. As Yeong-hye begins to fall together,  those around her who were so sure of themselves begin to doubt themselves and fall apart.

{I received a copy of this book for review purposes from Blogging for Books. This post contains affiliate links.}

{Review}: Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie

I have so many thoughts about this book, it's hard to know where to begin.

First, I have to confess that though I knew of Salman Rushdie, thanks to his notoriety, this is the first book of his I've actually read. And now, I'm wondering what I've been missing all this years. I was only a few pages into this stunning novel before I knew I'd be adding his other titles to my TBR list.

Let me also say this: the older I get, the more pleasure I get out of reading. Being able to bring my 36 years of experience with the world makes reading a much richer experience as I'm able to pick up on cultural allusions and subtexts that would go over the heads of younger, less experience readers.

Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights is what I would call magical realism, is an allegory for our times. Rushdie rips off the veil of complacency, so that we can not ignore, or unsee, the terrible things that the human race has wrought upon itself. We cannot absolve ourselves of our responsibility  and cannot use ignorance as an excuse. Here are our choices: we change, we fight to change or we accept the terrible state of the world and let it lie. We can leave the mess for someone else, in some other time, if we want to. The consequences for all those choices are dire. It's a case of damned if we do, damned if we don't.

In this book, the worst thing that happens is truth-telling. It's the thing that knocks down the house of cards, and does everyone in. The truth-teller takes an unexpected, but not surprising, form.
A few weeks ago, right when I was getting into the thick of this book, I was driving my usual route home that takes me down a winding, sylvan road lined with modest and not-so-modest homes. And I struck by a terrible thought:

Behind closed doors in every town in America, horrible, unspeakable things are happening everyday and we just don't know until we know. Then, we take a collective gasp and ask, "how could this happen right in front of us?" 

Indeed. How could it? And what is our responsbility?

Besides the allegorical message, readers will be taken in by the powerful imagery, the explicit character development, the stream-of-consciousness pace of the storytelling. I have the ebook but will be getting a paper copy for my shelf, to be re-read in a few years. It feels prophetic, this book.

{I received a  complimentary copy of this book from Netgalley for review purposes.  This post contains affiliate links.}

Finding Community.

Since Alice was born, we have lived in three different communities, each one distinctly different from the rest. She was born in New York City, and we lived in Riverdale, a heavily Jewish but still diverse section of the Bronx, along the Hudson River. When I first moved to Riverdale, I was dating my future husband and we had no children. My sister lived in the neighborhood and she was pretty much my only friend, since Riverdale is a family 'hood thanks to the good schools and affordable housing prices. When Alice was six months old,  I finally ventured out to a library story time and it was there that I made my first "mom friend." Alana was a great mom friend to have because she was a go-getter that made things happen. Through her, I joined a playgroup that she started in her playroom (It's where I met Justine of Full Belly Sisters and Caitlin of The Joy of Caitlin!) and suddenly, I had a whole group of moms with kids the same age as Alice, a whole group of women accompanying each other on this journey of early motherhood. Besides these awesome women, I also had great neighbors (Hi, Wittes, Lapins and Rocco!) As a first-time mom who suddenly found herself spending long stretches of time with no other adult in site, this group of mothers and neighbors was a lifesaver.

The Riverdale Gang

When I was seven months pregnant with Stella, and Alice was a few months shy of her second birthday, we up and moved to Greenfield, Mass. This was a big change for me. Greenfield is a small city but it is nothing like the Bronx. Thought Henry had friends there, none of them had kids. It was by chance that I fell in with a group of parents, thanks to a chance run-in with Henry's college acquaintance when we were out for Sunday brunch. Again, I allowed myself to be swept up into a group of amazing parents who welcomed me with open arms and library time schedules. It was my first time living in a place with no family nearby and being taken in by these amazing folks was incredible, especially when Stella was born. Though I barely knew these families, they were delivering food and company to us for weeks after Stella's birth. It was spiritually uplifting and to this day, the memory makes me well up in appreciation.

Happy Valley Friends

Alas, we found ourselves back in the Bronx a year after we left. My friends were still around and I made some new ones, before we up and left again for Connecticut. Here, I have found my community  at the preschool, aptly named Community Nursery School. Again, my sister lives here and she was my only friend in the beginning. Living in this semi-rural area means that it can be easy to feel isolated. I look forward to preschool drop-off, where I can count on having at least one good conversation and maybe a cup of coffee with the other moms before we rush off to get errands done before pick-up. Moving here was another big change for us, and I think making friends as adults is hard--having kids makes it much easier but there's no guarantee of a connection.
These three parenting communities were different in personality and style but they have the most important thing in common--we could count on each other for help, to look out for each other's kids and to support each other in this season of early parenting. It may be a cliche but it still holds true:

It takes a village. 

In Marie-Helene Bertino's novel, 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas, the protagonist, 9-year-old Madeleine is shored up by the people in her life after the death of her mother and her father's subsequent depression. This small community of people proves to be her saving grace.

This post was inspired by 2 A.M. At The Cat’s Pajamas by Marie-Helene Bertino, a novel about hope, love, and music in the snow-covered streets of Philadelphia. Join From Left to Write on August 28 as we discuss 2 A.M. At The Cat’s Pajamas. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

Marie-Helen Bertino is on Twitter and Facebook. Give her a shout-out!

A Staggering Work of Heartbreaking Genius

I really took my time with this book. The story is so rich, with so many layers and I found myself re-reading sections of the book as the characters began to come together in a sad and surprising vortex towards the end of the book. The author begins the story with several separate strands and weaves them together into a story in which the characters touch each others' lives without realizing it. Beyond the characters, I was entranced by the setting itself. Anthony Marra paints a world so dark, gloomy and depressing and yet manages to create little pockets of light that shine through briefly, a metaphor for the redemption of humanity in the midst of the extreme depravity that surfaces in a war-torn society. I will hold this book with me for a long time, and be haunted by the images and the characters. 

You can read an excerpt from the book below! 

  A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra

{I received a copy of this book from Blogging for Books, in exchange for my honest review. This post contains affiliate links.}