Books - Discussion - The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

This novel was a bookclub selection, but I haven't written about. I kept putting it off, because so much was still stirring in my mind.

First of all, none of the readers could believe that 25 years had passed since its publication. They remember reading it in college and thinking that the events seemed improbable. But now, events in recent times have them thinking that this dystopian world could happen.

The start of this dark society was the government's reaction to an Islamic attack. Talk about falling out of our seats. After 9/11, there has been more surveillance! At least, that part of the novel has become reality.

Many of the readers weren't sympathetic to the Narrator. She was too passive for many, especially when she first lost her job. However, if she had resisted, maybe a fate worse than Moira's awaited her, like being sent to the toxic wastelands.

The listless personalities of the other women also surprised the readers? Why didn't they rebel against the Aunts? There were enough of them to overpower them! There was a hint in the novel that the women were drugged, so that's why they didn't resist at all.

The readers then pointed out that being a Wife was worse in some sense than being a Handmaid. Even though the Handmaid was raped once a month, if she was lucky, she got some treats and went out a bit. The Wife had to be humiliated every day with the presence of the Handmaid, and if the ceremony "took," then raise a child that wasn't hers. The Wife was always reminded that she was infertile, that she was incomplete.

The readers enjoyed the lighter moments, like the Scrabble Game between the Narrator and Fred. The double entendres amused everyone.

I later pointed out that all of Atwood's dystopian novels are set in the US and that Canada is seen as the promised land. We still aren't sure why she doesn't believe that such an environment could exist in Canada also.

Our discussion just touched the tip of the themes covered in this slim work. We also wondered how it could be updated. When it was published, only the very rich could afford cell phones and the Internet was used primarily by scientists. Could the Narrator use cell phone technology to start a rebellion after first losing her job? Could a Facebook group be formed to protest the government's takeovers? Or, would everything be shut down so quickly that everyone would be in the dark?

Stuff - A Concert

I must confess: I went to this concert in order to hear the Royal Philharmonic. I don't know when I would be back in London, so this might be my only chance.

I was surprised to really enjoy hearing Sting sing. His voice is still strong although he doesn't jump around as much as I remember from MTV videos (when MTV just showed videos).

Sting would tell us a bit about each song. The orchestra members wore pants, vest, and a turtle neck shirt. Steven Mercurio, the conductor, was the only one in a tuxedo.

Most of the audience could be the grandparents of the ushers! But, I enjoyed the subdued yet positive energy.

Here's a review of the concert. Wish you could have been there.

Stuff - Please Send An Email

I attended a meeting to find out about saving the Master's program in Library Science.

The Board of Supervisors hasn't made a final decision. So, an email writing campaign has been started. If you send an email to Mr. Rasmussen ( rrasmus@lsu.edu ), he will forward your email to the Board of Supervisors and to President Lombardi of LSU.

Here is a suggested format. Don't mention my name. Please edit as you see fit.

Thanks for helping me out. You can forward this post to your friends.

*************************************************

Dear President Lombardi, Mr. Chatelain (Chairman), and the members of the Board of Supervisors:

Even though I live in (name of your city), I am writing to support the School of Library Sciences program.

(State some examples of how librarians or libraries have helped you and why you think that new librarians are needed - like many are getting ready to retire.)

Louisiana needs to have positive news; eliminating this program will be sad. Students will go to other states for their education and might decide not to come back home. The state will lose the increased revenue from the higher salaries of the graduates, and the brain drain will continue.

Thank you for reading my email. I hope that you will permit this major to continue educating future Louisiana librarians.

Your name

Your location

Your blog or other on-line affliation

Stuff - Illustration Friday - Paisley

I like my new dress - my paisley dress.

An Illustration Friday entry.

Books - Book Review - Gourmet Rhapsody and The Elegance of the Hedgehog - Muriel Barbery

The International Book Club of New Orleans read both of these books.

We liked reading about writing about food that Pierre Arthen wrote about in Gourmet Rhapsody. As a person, he was one of the worst in literature. My personal theory is that since he is an Arab, he had a inferiority complex. He disguises it by becoming the best food critic in France.

Barbery's second novel is about all the people who live in a building in Paris. Arthen is one of the tenants, but he dies early on in this novel.

Rene'e Michel is the concierge. A very grumpy lady with one friend, she reads a lot but passes herself as an idiot. Kakuro Ozu moves into Arthen's apartment and notices how much she knows about literature and history and they become friends.

Rene'e also becomes friends with Paloma Josse, a lonely pre-teen who doesn't feel there is anymore to learn in life. Paloma sees a boring future ahead for her.

The novel alternates between Paloma's and Rene'e's stories but their voices sound the same. I had to look at the title of the chapter to see who was talking. Other book club members had trouble also.

All the members felt that Kakuro's friendship with Rene'e was improbable. None of us liked the ending!

We see a future for Barbery; there are still more tenants in the condo and more life stories.

Book Review - The Ice Princess - Camilla Lackber

The novel was sent to me courtesy of Tandem Literary.

I don't like to read mysterious too much. It frustrates me that I can't figure out the bad guy. But, I enjoyed The Ice Princess, even though I did manage to pick out the wrong person AGAIN.

Camilla Lackberg is a best-selling author in Sweden and around the world. She's published 9 books in Swedish, but only two have been translated into English and six in Spanish.

The curious person in the novel is Erica Falck, a biographer who returns to her hometown of Fjalbacka to clean her parent's house, after their death.

Her childhood friend, Alex, is murdered, and she is asked to write an tribute. Her curiosity leads her to find out what caused Alex to end their friendship so many years ago and to discover how this event shaped the rest of Alex's life and choice of men.

Despite her success as a biographer, Erica doesn't feel that she is a true author. She wants to use her research into Alex's murder to write a novel.

Because of movies and the global economy, Erica does things that remind me of what young women would do in the US. When she doesn't feel like cooking, she gets a hamburger from McDonald. She also can't decide whether to wear the sexy underwear or the comfy granny panties for her date (shades of Bridget Jones.)And, she worries about Weight Watchers points.

But since Erica lives in a cold climate, she something that is not done in the South. She doesn't have time to take a shower, so she washes her underarms and then puts on her clothes. No deodorant! I would be smelly after 10 minutes.

There was only one element missing: what happened to Erica's brother -in-law? Maybe it will be explained in the next novel.

If you want to try your hand at writing mystery/crime novels, she has some guidelines here.

Books - Book Review - The Bradbury Report - Steven Polansky

I received a copy of this novel courtesy of Tandem Literary.

In the year 2071, a reluctant rebel in the United States writes a report about cloning.

The narrator, code name Ray Bradbury, (after the author who wrote novels about the future) really didn’t think too much about the process. “The very terms we use - “original, “ “copy” - ..to be less scientific, less clinical, more palatable, ultimately blinding...cloning is taken, gratefully, for the centerpiece of a federal health care system.”

Ray was a grumpy widower who is contacted by Anna, a college roommate of his late wife. She wants him to help her take care of a clone that escaped.

Anna’s husband was very active in the anti-clone movement, and she took it up after her husband’s death. Through Anna’s conversations, Ray finds out what has been going on in the rest of the country, what the government has been covering up.

For example, people in North and South Dakota were expelled to create the Clearances, the cloning factory. No anti-clone member has been able to get in to discover what went on there. But, one clone did escape, and the pieces of information were shocking: the clones worked from childhood to grow their own food, they were not educated, they didn’t speak English, they attacked each other for sexual release, they are drugged in order to be compliant.

The 20 or so year old clone had a hard time in the withdrawal phase. Anna taught him how to read, eat, and behave socially, Ray couldn’t “think about him as fully autonomous,fully human. This is deplorable, beyond a doubt, but one can almost be forgiven feeling this way at the very start of things. He had no name. Going forward, I wlll call him Alan.”

The trio travel through Canada to evade the US government. Anna has no contact with her children, so they won’t be implicated. Alan becomes more “human” as time goes by.

This page turner has aspects of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novels that protray the US as a place of genetic manipulations and Canada as a place of refuge and reason. And the clone’s story reminds me of Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, even though Alan really doesn’t tell too much of what happened to him.

Not all is gloom and doom, though. Alan enjoys seeing old photographs. Ray observers that “they are faithful, if misleading, copies of reality As he himself is. Alan is a Winnipeg Jets hockey fan and is able to enjoy one live game.

This novel will get you thinking about a misuse of cloning and the consequences of the recent health care act.

Books - Book Review - The Unwanted - Kien Nguyen

This book is my fifth selection in the War Through the Generations - Vietnam (Reading Challenge)! I have completed the minimum requirements of this challenge, but I still want to read a couple of more novels.

This memoir by Kien Nguyen follows his family at the end of the Vietnam War and the beginning of the new regime.

Kien's mother, Khoun, learned how to speak English and worked with Americans. She had two sons without marrying the fathers. When the men left Vietnam, they left money to her and she was able to buy a home. What surprised me is that her parents lived with her; I would have thought that they would be embarrassed by their daughter's actions, even though she provided well for them. Her sister, however, did not approve of her lifestyle and was very happy when Kien's mother lost all her property and money.

Kien's grandparents didn't want to leave Vietnam, despite all the pleading by Khoun. Khoun and the boys just missed the last helicopter out of Saigon and were trapped.

Khoun was a beautiful but haughty and vain woman. She treated most servants with disdain. She mostly ignored her children. When the new government took over, the former gardener took over her house and threw her out. She went to live in a tiny house, next to her sister and brother-in-law.

The family was able to somewhat survive due to Khoun selling her jewelry and working in a stand selling soup. She needed permits to do other work, but she was denied most of them because of her being a capitalist. But, instead of treating her children and parents better, she became bitter and thought mostly of herself. Even her last boyfriend, a horrid Vietnamese, would bring grief to the family.

The ones who suffered the most were the boys, Kien and Jimmy. Having round eyes gave away their paternity. They experienced discrimination in school. Their own cousins beat them up, and the authorities really didn't care.

Kien's early life was difficult; no child should ever live through what he did. But, despite all this, he was essentially a good person, who never gave up.

Kien did have some happy moments; he made some friends, he reunited with a servant who loved him a lot, he was able to study. However, at one point, he realized that he had no future in the new Vietnam and started writing to the United Nations and the US Embassy in Thailand to ask for asylum. I am surprised that the letters were allowed to travel to their destination. And, one day, his wish did come true.

The Amerasian children in the village heard about his success and came to Kien to seek his help in filling out the application. "Two black girls, the first in line, grinned at me." They needed help in filling out the paperwork, since they couldn't read. " "We saved some money to pay for your services." She opened her hand to show me a wrinkled twenty-dong note. She must have held it so long and so tightly that the bill was nearly decomposed from the perspiration of her palm." Despite needing money for a trip to Saigon, Kien told them to keep the money.

Khoun remembered the girls from a noodle store and asked about their mother. "She died last year. The doctors said it was from syphilis. We have been on our own since."

This memoir is difficult to read but he considers himself one of the luckier one.

Books - Book Review - This Must Be My Brother

This is the fourth book that I have read for War Through the Generations - Vietnam Challenge.

Carol Dey and LeAnn Thieman are two moms from Iowa City who did volunteer work for FCVN (Friends of Children of Various Nations). They did low-key activities like raising money in bake sales. The Thiemans were in the process of adopting a FCVN child.

But in 1975, they took a plane ride that could described as terrifying and blood-curdling.Dey and Thieman were supposed to take just six orphans to the United States, but the end of the Vietnam War was very near. They ended taking 300 babies to the US!

Remember, during this time, cell phones and the internet were at its infancy. They called the State Department for updates on conditions in Saigon. Each lady made about two calls to their husbands, so everyone was in the dark. It must have been trying time for the husbands and families, not really knowing what Dey and Thieman were experiencing.

On arriving at the orphange, they started helping in taking care of the babies. There were many dedicated Vietnamese women who worked there. Despite the high humidity and heat, everyone did their best to fed, clean, and cuddle the infants.

Many of the children were not really orphans; they were of mixed race or Vietnamese whose fathers were not known. The mothers knew that their society would not treat their children well, so that's how many ended up in the orphanage. Some mothers even heard of the flights and gave up their older children at the door of the orphanage, denying their maternity, so that the child would have a chance of surviving!

The preparation of papers to release the children, the trips to the airport, the loading of the children on the plane, and the waiting for takeoff were difficult. I would have had a hissy fit at any point of this process.

The frantic flight to the US was surreal. "all but a few seats were removed and had been replaced with long benches along the sides. Down the center was a row of about twenty cardboard boxes..Two to three babies were lying in each box. A long strap was secured at the one end of the plane...Toddlers and the older children sat with seatbelts on the long benches."The food and supplies were inside metal trash cans.This flight was not the only one that carried children. Dey and Thieman helped load children heading to Australia; there were probably others going to Europe and Canada.

This book has pictures of the orphanage, so you can see how the children lived and were transported.

The epilogue is great; the authors traced many of the children and workers at the orphanage. Most are living in the US; some of the adults were able to return to Vietnam or went to other parts of the globe, where children need help.

This is a hopeful story. I am glad that some of the children were able to be rescued.

Stuff - Need Advice

My happy report about being accepted into graduate school for library science has been spoiled a bit; the university is considering eliminating the program in about 2 years!

An email from a dean of graduate school assures all participants that they hope to help all students starting in the Fall of 2010 to finish their program. However, I never planned to take a full load, since I work full-time. Plus, I have elder care obligations and can't devote all my time to studying, even though many of the courses can be completed on-line. I am afraid that the courses that I need will start to be eliminated.

Do you know anyone who is encountering this problem? Did getting a degree from a soon to be defunct program affect their job prospects?

My plan so far is to take courses in the Fall and maybe transfer to another school in the future.

There are protests and a letter writing campaign and a Facebook page to fight the closure; however, I believe that the state will pour all its resources in fighting and cleaning up the BP oil release, so there won't be much left for education.

Books - Isabel Allende's Reading/Rebecca Scott's Research

Sorry for not writing more. I've been a bit down in the dumps about the oil spill and its effects on everyone. Now that it's spread to Florida, maybe something will be done. The white, sandy beaches are more exciting than the boring marshes.

So, now I want to share what I did recently.

I spent on delightful Friday evening (May 14th), listening to Isabel Allende reading from her latest novel, Island Beneath the Sea. And, I wasn’t the only one; there must have been about 300 to 400 people at the reading, which was held at a Catholic school auditorium. The most amazing thing to me was that everyone was able to find parking; a large synagogue was having Friday services, and both locations are in an older part of town, where off-street parking is hard to find.

Allende came a bit late and was tired; her flight from Dallas was delayed, and New Orleans was the last city in a multi-city book tour. But, when she started to talk about her latest novel and how she came to write it, her energy level went higher.

Allende came to New Orleans to do research for a previous novel, Zorro. She ran across information about the Haitian Slave Revolt and migration of Haitians to Cuba and later to New Orleans.

Her characters a New Orleans that was a major slave trading center. Free people of color existed at this time, and some of them also had slaves.

Zarite’, the main character, is of mixed races. She is sold as a child and suffers a lot. She travels from Haiti, Cuba, and New Orleans, while trying to get her freedom.

Allende explained that through this novel, she wants her readers to be aware that slavery still goes on today in all over the world, even in the US. Child laborers and sweat-shop workers are some examples. She also wants to bring awareness to her foundation, which helps to empower women.

If you think that such events really didn’t take place, then you need to read this essay by Dr. Rebecca Scott, whom I met in my previous job.

She is writing a non-fiction book about Rosalie, who traveled the same route as Zarite’. Dr. Scott went to archives in Haiti, Cuba (before all the hurricanes and earthquakes hit those islands), and New Orleans and was able to piece together Rosalie‘s life, through the legal documents that Rosalie filed.

Rosalie‘s son, Edouard Tinchant, wrote some letters, that are in Havana, talking about his business. The family sold cigars and eventually moved to Belgium, to prevent from being enslaved again.

Dr. Scott was able to meet Rosalie‘s descendants; some were happy to learn of their brave ancestor. Dr. Scott explores legal implications of slavery, so this book, Freedom Papers: An Atlantic Creole Itinerary, will be deep reading. I’ll be keeping an eye for it.