A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

A Year of Meats (1998) had the same time blend, past and present.  It had the same composure of Space, as well, Japan and the USA.  There’s nothing new under the sun.

 

She was there in All Over Creation (2004), too.  Is she writing the same story, over and over, with new characters to keep things spicy?  Nothing wrong with that, many of my favorite authors do just that. 

 

 

But Ruth is not a master writer, not much of a professional one either, three books in 25 years.  No, she’s no Robert Parker, who ground out fifty variations of the same book in a similar 25 years.  His Spenser was an alter-ego.  He wrote himself as an almost super-hero, with an African-American side-kick.  No ego with Ruth Ozeki, she simply blatantly writes about herself because it’s easier and she wants to communicate her thoughts on life, the world, and her metaphysical ponderings.  The book is a canvas for her with which to paint her story.

 

I’ve read each of Ruth’s three books now.  There’s a pattern here.  She’s always well-researched, always entertaining, and always writes about herself.  She’s not a typical writer.  Well, she’s not an author.  She simply uses the written word to tell us about the seemingly many interests in her life.

 

The alternating chapters didn’t work well for her.  It does for some authors, but didn’t work for Ruth.  It seemed as though it might have been a good device in the beginning, but then she sort of painted herself in the corner and couldn’t get out without metaphysical time-space jumps which got almost Science-Fictiony.

Lab Girl by Hope Jahren

This is the story that asks the question, “Can this girl, from a little mining town in the west, find happiness as the wife a wealthy and titled Englishman, Lord Henry Winthrop?”

Wrong story.  This story tells the tale of a little girl from Lake Woebegon, who moves away from the land of Norwegian bachelor farmers, to seek fame and fortune as a scientist in a Berkeley biology laboratory. 

This is a brilliantly inspirational book for any budding, young scientist.  In a quietly unassuming way, Hope interweaves her memoir (how she got there), with what being a scientist really is really all about, and this, interspersed with those personal perspectives, she tells us the story of earth-based plant life on this planet. 

The tri-theme is an accepted approach these days for authors.  It’s done in order to be considered by the broadest of readership markets.  In Hope’s case, and she’s done a great job of this, she’s blended the memoir category by every fifth chapter or so, including an early childhood remembrance of her mother or father.  She’s captured the novel segment, by mixing in her philosophical musings on what it takes to be a scientist [extreme devotion and boringly hard work], along with her predictably non-sex life, almost monastic life-style.  But getting back to inspirational, she paints this monastic picture akin to some sort of Nun’s biography, devoted to a passionate cause, a greater cause, and one, in the end, which supersedes thoughts of a big kitchen, lots of rug rats, the PTA and a bridge club.

I’ve been focused this past year, on books that I can strongly recommend for Sonoma County teens.  These have generally been for younger teens.  This is a book I recommend for middle to older teens.  The author, Hope, wrote it to inspire girls, but everything she says is equally relevant to boys, some of whom likewise feel alone, different, and more thoughtful than the others.  This is for any teen who is interested in learning.  It’s for those who recognize that they are passionate about a subject.

Doesn’t matter what the subject is, the subject will change over time.  If the passion to learn is burning, it will survive the wanting and getting more education.  This could lead possibly to a career in science, or the arts, or who knows, politics.

Das LavendelZimmer by Nina george

I was hooked once the author’s protagonist recommended, “The Elegance of the Hedgehog”.  This took place ten pages into the story, after the book seller is introduced to us.  Not a normal bookseller at all.  He has converted a river barge into an “Apothocary Library” on the River Seine, in the middle of Paris.  His homeopathic apothecary has the cures for modern life’s travails

A cast of loveable characters is quickly added to the ship, which hasn’t moved away from the dock in twenty years.  That fact introduced as a hint that the reader would soon be joining the crew in a long journey of literary exploration. 

 

We got hints early on that while the bookstore proprietor was possessed of the unique ability at “transperception”, this did not apply to his own problems, which seemed to revolve around a woman.

 

I need say no more.

It’s a little schmaltzy, but that goes without saying for any romantic comedy.  Just like a stage play from the 1920’s, by the end, after many zany adventures, all the characters pair up, and live happily ever after.

 

The Distance Between Us by Reyna Grande

This is a quietly unassuming, new-wave Americana memoir.  I’m a big supporter of memoir writers.  This form of writing can be cathartic.  It certainly allows one to better understand oneself and to reflect on the critical moments of one’s life.  Reyna seems to be smart and skilled at painting a scene in words.

Because it is a Latina memoir, we have to expect a little more Spanish language dialog than we normally run across in a fictional coming-of-age novel.  I think the author and editor made the right decision to go against the grain and call this a memoir up front.  That was a brave decision because it certainly limited her potential readership.  I thought it allowed her to more completely be herself, rather than forcing herself to think like a gringa. 

Reyna does an excellent job of writing a believable, pre-school character.  This is unlike last month’s McDermott, who didn’t convince me with her childhood remembrances.  Reyna doesn’t stretch for adult-like memories.  I’m guessing this difference is cultural.  The Latin culture of large families with emotional interactions probably led Reyna to discuss her childhood, the good and the bad, extensively within the family.  McDermott’s character was quiet, unemotional, and detached.

Another thing that seemed to work well for Reyna’s writing was staying on point at being the recording secretary, the diarist for this history.  The temptation is always great when writing a memoir vignette to expand the central character to grand proportions with deep thoughts and contemplative motivations.  Reyna’s life is described as though she were a leaf in the wind: blown this way and that, barely able to make it to the next short-term landing spot.

I thought last winter’s Sonoma County Reads, “Into the Beautiful North”, was a good book that could be enjoyed by teens and so I donated a dozen copies to the County jail system, half in Spanish, half in English.  This book is equally as good, but from a different angle.  “North” was an action-adventure that would be fun for teens; “Distance” is an inspirational book providing hope for those in the struggle to be American.  I’ll be donating three in each language to the Juvenile Justice Center.

The Grand Jury Wants You

The Sonoma County Civil Grand Jury will be holding five Q&A sessions in March at various Libraries across the County.

These one-hour discussions may be of interest to:
n  Prospective jurors: next year’s Civil Grand Jury
n  Citizens wondering, what is the Civil Grand Jury
n  Citizens with complaints about local government

We will have applications for the 2016-2017 Jury.
We will have information pamphlets available.
We will have complaint forms as well.


 
The five scheduled meetings are:

n  Wednesday, March 9^th  Guerneville Regional Library

                                           5:30 – 6:30       14107 Armstrong Woods Rd.
                                                                           Guerneville, CA 95446.
                                                                           (707) 869-9004
  n  Friday, March 11^th  Rohnert Park Cotati Regional Library
                                                                         3:30 – 4:30        6250 Lynne Condé Way
                                                                         Rohnert Park, CA 94928
                                                                                   (707) 584-9121
 n   Saturday,  March 12^th    Petaluma Regional Library
                                                         11am – noon    100 Fairgrounds Drive
                                                                                        Petaluma, CA 94952.
                                                                                        (707) 763-9801
 n  Tuesday, March 15^th  Sonoma Valley Regional Library
                                                2 – 3 pm           755 West Napa Street
                                                       Sonoma, CA 95476
                                                              (707) 996-5217
  n  Wednesday, March 16^th  Sebastopol Regional Library
                                                      4 – 5 pm           7140 Bodega Avenue
                                                                                  Sebastopol, CA 95472.
                                                                                      (707) 823-7691
Application Deadline for the 2016-2017 Jury is April 6^th, 2016.

Someone by Alice mcDermitt

Trite – banal – boring. That about sums it up.

I certainly thought I recognized the author’s name when the book was passed out for out Library Book Club.  When I went to the “Also By” page in front, however, I didn’t know any of the titles.  She’s had a book published every five years since the nineties.  I’ve kept track of most everything I’ve read since about then and not a wisp of her.

Probably like most readers, for each one I finish, there are three others where I either browse a few lines here and there, or take out (or buy) and then stop after a chapter or two.  I think Alice McDermott falls in the latter category.  I’d bet there’s one of her books on my bookshelf with a dog-ear, 40 pages in.

For me, this was a bad retro rewrite attempt at Betty Smith’s, “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.”    There was nothing new in “Someone”.    No sparkle   –   I wanted Gene Kelly and Frankie out “On The Town”. 

No hopes, no dreams – a funeral parlor?   I get that this was sort of her idea, just someone, nobody special.  But there’s a reason successful authors write about special people  --  it’s interesting ! ! ! or at least entertaining.  This book was neither.

The writing was sophomoronic – she used all the [see my opening line] gimmicks taught in memoirs IA.  This works if the author can balance achieving disbelief (in her remembering all these “growing up” images) with the sorts of things a child remembers (p.47 – “There was a tall brown dresser against one wall, Mr. Hanson’s doorman’s cap on top of it and, between two windows, a dressing table with perfume bottles and jars of cream and a silver-backed brush still threaded with Mrs. Hanson’s black hair.”) age 9.

Quite often I am known to suggest that an author had a great short story, but then the publisher made them expand it into a novel for commercial reasons.  Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t.  In McDermott’s case, I fear she wrote an epic novel to start with and the publisher kindly chopped the middle of it out.  What’s left is a two-part book – both parts short stories – fictionalized memoirs.  Well, maybe not so fictionalized.  McDermott is at that age where one has to start dealing with the aging and death of parents. 

That’s probably where all these themes in this current book are coming from. 

Maybe it’s not fiction at all.

The Accidental Universe by Alan Lightman

This book was a collection of lectures on cosmology.  I thought I’d make the gist of my comments about further readings, sometimes podcasts, that each “chapter” of his brought to mind for me.

This was a new format for me to use in writing about a book.  So I asked my muse (ex-wife Gisela, if it would work).  She wrote:
All the links work if you pay attention and use Ctrl Click. It will ask you to do that..  For the Scientific American podcast it will ask you to subscribe to Apple iTunes RSS, but it works without it.  For YouTube it opens the webpages, but if you don't pay attention you don't see them, because they open behind the browser page, This might be idiosyncratic to my computer, but then, maybe not.  What I am trying to say is: every link works if you take your time and pay attention. None of them work with just a mouse click.  GISELA

1. The Accidental Universe
The lead-off lecture is on the mind-bending theory of the Multiverse.  I’ve picked up on the article, 5 Reasons We May Live in a Multiverse[1] (click below), written by Clara Moskowitz, SPACE.com December 07, 2012.
But there was also the introduction of the idea of Dark things: matter & energy.
I liked the current National Geographic issue, February 2016 article, “Hidden Cosmos”.
I got to it through, http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/01/hidden-cosmos/ferris-text but I don’t think that’s going to work from my Word document.

2. The Temporary Universe

A conversation between Steve Minsky and George Musser on Sept 21^st, 2010 titled, “Could Time End[2] - Scientific American”.  I still remember this article blowing my Sci-Fi mind, as it describes time winding down.
I found it at http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/could-time-end-10-09-21/#

3. The Spiritual Universe
I can think of nothing more on point about science and religion than the movie “Contact” two decades ago.  That was clearly the theme of the book and the movie, from start to finish.  I’ll try and include a URL from uTube to remind us all about the movie version.
But first read Roger Ebert’s 2011 reprise of his thoughts on Contact.
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-contact-1997
Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRoj3jK37Vc
Sorry about the 10-second advertisement.

4. The Symmetrical Universe

  Alan waxes poetic about symmetry in art and nature, but the scientific symmetry he talks about is at the Quantum level.  I thought I’d introduce http://smc-quantum-physics.com/blog.php a current Canadian blog.  If you go to this, click on the navigational tab, “Theses”.  I though the one labelled “Time asymmetric extensions of general relativity” was a perfect way to take a reality check from all the “layman’s articles” we’re reading. All the guys like Alan Lightman and Carl Sagan are real physicists that can read this stuff like we read poetry.  They think in mathematics.
I’ve added this one for Padma & Robin:
 http://www.rroij.com/open-access/finding-bilateral-symmetry-of-the-human-brain-from-mri-33-37.pdf

5. The Gargantuan Universe – I will be passing out 8 X 10 glossy prints of parts of our infinitely large universe as party favors, courtesy of NASA’s Hubble Deep Space telescope.  [It’s our annual Valentine’s Day party].

6. The Lawful Universe – The reason I loved Science Fiction so much growing up was that it flaunted the known laws of nature.  People traveled at “warp” speed, had time machines, had robots smarter than humans, met alien cultures.  I guess these books didn’t flaunt the Laws as much as they discovered ways around the Laws of Nature.  Here’s a list of books that should go to that little 10-12 year old grandchild or cousin with an inquisitive mind.  We readers always like series, so Foundation, Lensman, Dune, and Gateway are great starters.  http://flavorwire.com/347374/awesome-infographic-the-best-selling-sci-fi-books-of-all-time

7. The Disembodied Universe --   I was just ten year’s old when my family moved to San Jose after World War II.  I was discovering libraries and book stores at that age.  Someone -- teacher, Cub Scout leader, church leader – took me/us to the Rosicrucian Museum and I became hooked on Astronomy and later Cosmology.  The planetarium show had the birth of the universe and of our solar system and all the stars in the sky. Awesome.  They’re still doing it.  Take someone.

http://egyptianmuseumscribe.blogspot.com/2009/02/dream-of-stars-brief-look-at-historic.html

 

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[1] 5 Reasons

[2] Sci Amer 2010 Sept 21