Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant

How does one treat adversity? how does one address failure? in our day and age, when negative instances can have a major impact on our lives, we need to look for ways to handle these, survive, move on and eventually thrive.

In Option B, Sandberg looks into a topic that is not easily discussed and is best kept untouched. Taking inspiration from a major incident in her own life, the sudden death of her husband, she consults with Grant and other professionals and seeks to find ways to successfully get out of a black hole that can easily absorb anyone affected.

Just Kids, by Patti Smith

I knew Patti Smith as a performer but nothing more, and that's why I thought reading Just Kids would shed some light into her public and personal life and I would get to appreciate her.  I was not aware of Robert Mapplethorpe, but I regarded that as an added bonus.

Smith narrates her days as a young woman, and her struggles when she couldn't even afford to eat - unfortunately, all this in manner that shows no emotion at all.  When she becomes pregnant and she gives her baby up for adoption, I was astonished to read how calm she was throughout her pregnancy.  Everything organised, everything taken care of -- I may belong to a different era, but her attitude made me think of cold-heartedness.  As she barely earns enough money to eat and have a place to sleep, she is lucky enough to always have people around her to help out.  But still, she is reluctant to return to an otherwise respectable job because 

being on my own in Paris had given me a taste of mobility and I had a difficult time readjusting

Smith goes on to describe her relationship with Mapplethorpe, how he becomes homosexual, how she reacts to this (here I have to admit her reaction made me think she was utterly naive, in an era when people were not...).  She starts her art, she meets all the celebrities of the time (again, her narration is pretty much detached - as if these were happening to someone else, not herself).  She cannot come to terms with Mapplethorpe's homosexuality, and yet accepts everything about him... There is not much material on their couple, even though this book is supposed to be about them.

And then there is Rimbaud.  An obsession I still cannot understand, Smith wakes up at some point with a revelation to go to Ethiopia and find the secret papers of Rimbaud (like everyone does?).  When this does not materialise (because she cannot find a sponsor), she is content to go to Charleville, France, where Rimbaud was born and buried.  I admire and respect plenty of public figures, and I would have the financial capacity to do such travels, yet I cannot see myself doing any of this - people are just people...

I was not impressed with the book: for my taste, it was too repetitive, boring and fairly detached.  If this is supposed to be an autobiography, it really did not warm me up to Patti Smith - on the contrary, I believe I lost some of the admiration I might have had for her.

For the die-hard fans of Patti Smith, this book may bring back memories of a long lost carefree era.  I'm not sure what it brings to the general public...

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, by Erik Larson

I first came across Erik Larson when I read "Garden of the Beasts" for my book-club. I was immediately drawn to his style of writing, that included so much detail but still managed to keep my interest up and make me devour each page...

When we decided to read "Lusitania", I was taken aback.  I had no idea what we were talking about (I am a southern European - when speaking to northern compatriots, they were indeed aware of the whole story...)

The book continues in the same pattern:  lots of details that shed light into the minute particles of the cosmos that is warfare and more specifically submarines.  However, this was its downfall as well - however interesting the information was (and indeed I was surprised to learn some of these things) it is still submarines - I just couldn't warm up to them and I really could do without all the technical specifications ...

I know why the caged bird sings, by Maya Angelou

This is probably one of the more difficult posts in this blog, and I did play with the idea of not writing about this book at all.  But, the use of this blog is primarily for putting down my personal thoughts and feelings about the books I read - and while I always express my own view on issues, I try to play the devil's advocate as well and try to see the other side of the matter.

With this in mind, I also would like to say how far I am from the state of things described in this book:  I'm caucasian, European, middle-class, pretty well educated, never having been excluded from anything because of any restriction, never having witnessed slavery, segregation, racism (although one might argue that nowadays we witness a new kind of racism all over the planet...).  In any case, I know why the caged bird sings had been on my list for quite some time and I looked forward to reading it:

Stories to think about (Cuentos para pensar), by Jorge Bucay

I received this book as a birthday present, after having been astonished to see a whole display of this author's books inside a major bookstore.  I'm (almost) ashamed to say I had not heard his name before - as a result, I was curious to see what I could discover; the fact that he's a Gestalt psychotherapist only added fuel to my expectations!

In the back cover of Stories to think about, Bucay declares that his books "provide material for the brain, they help the reader to think about the world and himself". 

The Red Azalea, by Anchee Min

A book for my book club, the Red Azalea by Anchee Min came with loads of appreciation from the literary circles.  I was really intrigued to read about the broken childhood of a girl in Mao's China.  

A memoir that would reveal the poverty behind the extravagant curtains and the truth behind the lies of the Chinese regime of the time.

While the book did deliver on its promise, I was not mesmerised with its writing.  While I wanted to be swept away into the feelings of Min of the disasters that befell herself and her family, I could just witness the situations one by one, from childhood until she leaves for the USA, without any sense of emptiness, any sense of stolen childhood -- something I thought I would find in this book.

Time for outrage! (Indignez-vous!) by S. Hessel

It was last month when I heard on the radio of the death of 95-year old Stephane Hessel.  A Frenchman, he had several accomplishments to his credit:  he worked for the French Resistance during the  WWII and he was an observer to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The most remarkable, however, was that at age 93 he wrote a little booklet entitled "Indignez-vous!" (be outraged!).  

Why did he bother?  Because, as I listened to a radio interview he had given, he was astounded to find that, after all his generation had been through (and that was not little), he was witnessing the decay of a society that did not look to make the best possible for its citizens and the future generations.  

Just like he had done with the Resistance, or with the UN - people saw the opportunity to set some groundsteps towards a better tomorrow.  At 93 then, Stephane Hessel came to realise that society not only did not do anything towards a better tomorrow, society really didn't care what we thought of it.  And that got me thinking:  society nowadays, let's face it, is at an all-time low.  We keep to ourselves, we step over other people's bodies to get to what we want, we walk past people in distress trying not to catch a glimpse of them, we can even kill people for as little as EUR 50!  

Where is this feeling of belonging to a community gone? why have we reached a point of accepting all this and simply say "well, this is how things are now, we can't change anything...".  No, said Hessel, we shouldn't accept this degradation in human relations!  If anything, we should always look to the past and see what what we can learn to avoid similar situations - we should always aspire to a society full of hope for us, for those we care and for those who do not have:

"a society we can be proud of:  not the society of illegal immigrants, of expulsions, the constant suspicions against immigrants, not the society where there is injustice against the retired and their  proper right to social security, not the society where media are in the hands of a few..."

Hessel makes a point for the ever growing gap between the rich and the poor and he calls for measures to protect the environment and the welfare system.  A society which does not care for its members is destined to collapse...

In 2011, one of the names given to the Spanish protests against corruption and bipartisan politics was Los Indignados (The Outraged), taken from the title of the book's translation there (¡Indignaos!). These protests, in conjunction with the Arab Spring, later helped to inspire other protests in many countries, including Occupy Wall Street which began in New York's financial district (Wikipedia)

Hessel says nothing new.  But the mere fact that a 93-year old has not given up but instead is full of passion about fundamental rights should be used as an inspiration for us to move from our comfortable, idle seats and not passively accept changes to our detriment.  We should engage in a viable environment, with welfare that provides a cushion to those in need, and a stable society that encourages people to work towards a better tomorrow.

La Grande Thérèse, by H. Spurling

Simon has a talent for discovering ... unusual books.  I always read his reviews and see what books I can include in my own list. When I read about La Grande Thérèse by Hilary Spurling, I was - I was cautious.  Surely such a grand scandal cannot be true?  can people be thus trusting (and eager to get a share in imaginative proceeds?) 

My before-the-holidays fried brain was aching for a light and entertaining reading (and a short one at that!), so this book was perfect for the job...

The Lady in Gold

This was a book for my reading group, which is the only reason I read it to the end.  Were I reading it for myself, I would have stopped after about 5-10 pages.  This is thus a caveat:  I did not like the book.

The Lady in Gold, by A.M. O'Connor, has the subtitle The Extraordinary Tale of G. Klimt's Masterpiece, Portait of Adele Bloch-Bauer.  When we were deciding in my group about which book to read, I was under the impression that it would be the legal proceedings between Adele's heirs and the Austrian State.  I knew the basics about the case, but I definitely knew the outcome:  the sale of this very portrait for over USD 100 million to the Lauder family...

This already made me slightly averse to the story:  I'm not keen to see art of this grandeur being bought and sold.  I truly believe it should be publicly available, and not just the privilege of an elite class.  Still, I was interested enough to seek for a fact what the background of these proceedings was and decide for myself whether I would agree with Maria Altman, the heir who initiated the proceedings, or not.

My first difficulty was the subtitle itself, however trivial it may seem.  The fact that the author (or publisher) decides that the tale is extraordinary makes me all the more cautious:  I get to decide what is ordinary or not, based on what I read.

The second difficulty, which would have me stop reading almost immediately, was the prejudice I sensed.  While I have no connection to Austria, I'm not particularly in favour of a non-fiction book where sides have already been taken.  The beauty of non-fiction is exactly the possibility to lay down all the facts for a subject and have the conclusion come on its own.  In addition, such generalisations are almost always dangerous:

"Hitler was Austrian, though the world forgets this" (I personally am offended by this remark)
"Austrians learned not to ask too many questions"
"(in Austria) the Jewish tradition of aiding their widowed, orphaned and handicapped inspired envy"

The book is about 300 pages long, over 220 pages of which are dedicated to what I call the saga of the Bloch-Bauer family and their entourage.  Endless descriptions of the cafés, the parties, the clothes, the romances - not only of Adele, which I could accept, her being the main character of this story, but also of distant relatives and friends of friends (I may exaggerate here a little).  For someone interested in pre-war Vienna, that's great.  Unfortunately, I was not.  I wanted to read about a specific story and I only got to it towards the end.

And even then, the narrative is too "pretty":  how the polite, soft spoken Maria Altman managed to be heard and lead the way to the court (parenthesis:  I hope the courts are not seduced by the "Italianate German of the Habsburg empire" and look only on the "boring" hard evidence).- when it is proven even in this book that there was huge support from the Commission for Art Recovery and the personal intervention of Ronald Lauder, heir to the Estée Lauder cosmetics.

Whether or not Adele's heirs were right to take this painting away from Austria and  sell it  (to R. Lauder) along with others, is a matter of personal opinion.  The only point I'll make from the information in the book, was the fact that from all the money made (almost half a billion), there was no donation made back to the Austrian State - so was it all for personal profit then? 

Ada Lovelace Day: Alex and me, by Irene Pepperberg

Today marks the Ada Lovelace day, celebrating the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths around the world. Ada was Lord Byron's daughter, one of the first mathematicians and a scientist whose research notes inspired Alan Turning’s work on the first modern computers in the 1940s.

One of the women scientists who have inspired me is Dr. Irene Pepperberg, who tiredlessly worked with Alex, perhaps the most famous African grey parrot, to discover intelligence in an animal whose brain does not surpass the size of a shelled walnut.  The discovery was proven to be comparable to human intelligence and from there on, it opened the door to all the concepts of animal cognition.  This incredible journey and its effects on so many levels but also the relationship between Irene and Alex is the subject of the book Alex & Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence--and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process.



The Classics Club: Ten Days in a Mad-House

(photo credit)

Ten days in a Mad-House by Nellie Bly, may not be your average work of classic litetrature - it is actually non-fiction.  I include it, however, in the Classics Club, because of the tremendous impact it had on people - just like some of the world-renowned works of literature ...

This has been a revelation to me, in more ways than one: a woman reporter, in Victorian time, decides to commit herself in an asylum in order to reveal the way these institutions worked.  Her courageous work resulted in an official investigation taking place and a USD 1 million funding to be allocated to the improvement of these services.

84 Charing Cross Road

There are novels that analyse themes through the use of complicated language; then, there are novels that use an exchange of letters to discover issues and manage to have the same impact.  I consider 84, Charing Cross road by Helene Hanff to be such a novel.

A simple reply to an advertisement is the trigger to a 20-year correspondence between Hanff and Marks & Co. Chief buyer Frank Doel, that is a showcase of human relations and everyday situations that bring out the best in all of us.


Where to start... Already the fact that an American would prefer corresponding with a store in the UK to find the good quality second-hand books she's looking for is very intriguing... She already makes this point in the beginning, complaining about bookstores selling overpriced copies (was that the start of their demise?).  It's true that as a bibliophile, she cares as much about the content of a book as its appearance ("joy to the touch"), thus opting for quality copies, which are rather expensive than mass-market paperbacks (not that there's anything wrong with those - it's good that there is a choice for the consumers).


Little by little the correspondence turns away from the pure ordering and invoicing of books and starts including questions about post-war rationing in Britain.  While Hanff cannot be considered wealthy, she makes an effort to provide whatever little parcel she can with goods to ease up the austere living conditions of the employees at Marks & Co.  Would that have happened today?  that was my first question.  Would I actually have made the enquiry in the first place?  would I care about my fellow citizen's living conditions? (for that matter, would anyone care about mine?).  The end of war brought out this humanity in people - they saw the devastation in the areas hit, they knew what it meant to live on rations, and most importantly they CARED about the person next to them. A lot of food for thought...


Hanff's good deed does not remain a secret.  Other employees from Marks & Co. start corresponding with her, at first wishing to express their gratitude for the gifts, but also to provide more information about the store and about life in London.  There is an explicit trust in people, as soon enough they also propose to Hanff to go together on holiday and be put up by relatives, so as to economise! I really enjoyed this rather carefree atmosphere of the letters - the war was over, only good things could happen from then on... It made me think about the doom that surrounds our lives, where we may not fear for war, but we cannot see anything good happening anytime soon... is this a matter of mind-setting or do we have our priorities wrong?


(In the meantime, Hanff becomes an anglophile, and even enquires the recipe for Yorkshire pudding)


As the exchange of letters develops, and the correspondents get to know each other more, the style of the letters changes as well.  From the formal letterhead, the salutations and the proper closings and signatures, we see that the letters now resemble more to scribblings, with words in all capitals to show excitement, no capitals to show typing in haste in the middle of the night, exclamation points to make the point!  Slowly, proper letters between costumer and seller are transformed into little messages between friends, where more personal information is included.  Let no one question the power of a personal letter...


The story ends with the death of Doel  - after 20 years of correspondence, without ever having actually met with Hanff. Their acquaintance has made a full circle and is now ready to be published.  I found the length of the book (it is rather small)  sufficient not to turn into a melodramatic story.  This is a celebration of humanity, of books bringing out the best in people, and of the support to the person next to us (or far, far away from us).  Let us get away from our petty preoccupations, let us hope again and see the light at the end of the tunnel, and let us regain our interest in our fellow human.

The Memory Chalet

This is a peculiar subject - what happens when you find yourself trapped inside your body?  What thoughts, what regrets, what needs, what worries go on in your mind, while you await your death?  I started having an interest in these questions, after reading Tuesdays with Morrie, an excellent wake-up call of what really matters in life, and what to avoid in order to fully benefit from it.  I then read about The Memory Chalet by Tony Judt in Nigella Lawson's blog, and I was interested to see how these questions are seen through the eyes of someone whose actual work is to jot down the history of the world.

The Memory Chalet, despite its sad content, does not have a melancholy theme.  The author explains already in the very beginning of the book the cause of his slow demise, Lou Gehring's disease, without any emotional attachment.  While I cannot imagine how I would have reacted to similar news, I can fully sympathise with his intention to make the most out of a sinister situation.


Judt begins by describing the thought-arranging process, something like compartmentalisation (I use this technique particularly with painful/difficult memories, in situations when I have to remain calm/cheerful/optimistic).  He uses a chalet for this purpose, which I found rather peculiar.  Is it a matter of size?  of country? no, he simply does not want to impress, he wants it to serve. Just a thought...


From then on, he begins taking advantage of his sleepless, motionless nights and goes back in time to his austere childhood (rationing in post-war Britain) and how this developed his character.  I have not had that experience, but I can well imagine his dislike for present-day extravagance.  From corruption to the 15 minutes of fame, most parts of our lives have been shattered to pieces and provide no motive for improvement.  Why should I study, learn a profession, be good at my job to set an example for the next generation, when the person next to me will be on Reality TV, make headlines and set a (bad) example and laugh all the way to the bank?  True, it's the law of demand and supply, but in our days these two are highly suspicious...  


In this point I also liked Judt's differentiation between being and becoming.  It is really that small difference that can have a major impact on one's life - being, passive, the duty, rather unchanged versus becoming, developing, the journey, embracing change.


He is displeased with many of today's shortcomings - I suppose every generation is for the following one.  And although I am that generation he's referring to, I myself can see these same shortcomings in the generation after me:  educational standards are getting lower (I have to admit that even at my time, education was only for those who really wanted to learn on their own - the rest did not stand a chance from teachers who knew even less that they did...); politics is happening elsewhere (this was true then as it is now) - and indeed, we have missed the boat; reforms for the sake of reforms have created  mayhem in our public / professional / industrial life, with the result of sub-average products and services.


And then he turns to language... one of my favourite subjects, I have to say:  it's the use of language that sets humans apart from other animals (here I can recommend the documentary Planet Word), and yet, we don't seem to care.  The times we live in promote the use of language to mystify rather than inform:  "we speak and write badly because we don't feel confident in what we think and are reluctant to assert it unambiguously.  Rather than suffering from the onset of "newspeak", we risk the rise of "nospeak"".  If this is painful for me, still in top form, I'm wondering how excruciating it must be for a professional user of language who, in the grip of a neurological disorder, loses control of words.  We are so lucky to have this ability to use a wealth of words - we should never take it for granted.


Tony Judt has had the opportunity and the ability to live a full, hands-on life and, when facing a horrible end, proved he could conquer this feat as well.  He has put his thoughts in this book to shake the rest of us from our comfortable seats and take (back) control of our lives. It certainly has shaken me...

Also read for the What's in a name challenge

Elizabeth and her German garden

After reading Alex's review of Elizabeth and her German garden, I knew I would have to read it as well.  If a non-gardener thoroughly enjoyed it, I thought, I would simply love it, given that I'm an avid gardener!  (That, and the fact that it was available from the Gutenberg project made my choice fairly easy). 

Reading this book is very relaxing - there are no serious (at least not very serious) ideas coming through, and I have to say it's really like reading a diary.  At times I did feel uncomfortable peeping into the world of someone else (I might as well have taken her diary...), but on the whole I was able, with this book, to shut the outside world and its troubles!

At first, I thought that it was a contemporary book.  Until I got to the part where she mentioned that as a woman she could not inherit her father's house, I would never have guessed that it is that old (I hadn't read her bio at that point).  The sentiments towards the garden, of willing solitude, of comfort, of home away from home, all these and more I could easily see in myself and my garden today.

However, as much as I loved Elizabeth talking about her garden (and her books) in the first part of the book, I couldn't say the same for when she talks about her life and the people around her in the second part.  I found her at best spoilt, 

"I can understand her disliking Irais, but she must be a perverse creature not to like me"

but also fairly naive, especially in the presence of her husband, the Man of Wrath - of course, one has to bear in mind the time in which the book was written as well as Elizabeth's situation:  privileged, sheltered and solitary.  I admit I found her relationship  to her three children, who she names the April, May and June babies, rather peculiar, as she seems to prefer to have her quiet moments in her garden rather than tending to them. And in general, I felt a slight sadness on her part when not in the garden, something I cannot relate to.  I find that the garden and my books are only one part of me, which I enjoy as much as all the other parts of my life.

But back to the leisurely aspect of this book, there are passages throughout that reflect the period Elizabeth lives in and which are just hilarious:

"if Eve had had a spade in Paradise and known what to do with it, we shold not have had all that sad business of the apple"

"... and shelves and shelves full of - I was going to say books, but stopped. Reading is an occupation for men; for women it is reprehensible waste of time."

"If you are not careful, April", I said, "you'll be a genius when you grow up and disgrace your parents"

When reading this book, one should not look too deep for "political correctness".  Rather, I would look at the joy and gratitude and love of the beauty found in nature.  Elizabeth rediscovers herself in her garden, and I rediscovered myself in mine too. A gentle, light-hearted, lovely book to read.

In the garden of beasts

 A bookclub reading, this was the third of four books I'll be reading on WWII and I believe the hardest to digest.

Its title theme is Berlin's Central Park, the Tiergarden, which used to be a former royal hunting reserve (the metaphors with the "huntings" carried out during the Nazi regime are just endless...)

In the Garden of Beasts, the first thing I noticed was the writing style of the author, which is simply excellent:  each character is fully developed, for the most part with substantial evidence and with only minimal personal contribution, to the point that it really was overwhelming and difficult for me to continue reading about one naive father and one even more naive daughter thrown into the lion's den - Hitler's Berlin.

The story begins just prior to the appointment of Dodd as ambassador to Germany.  The US is still in the Great Depression era, with the result that noone wishes to take up this post in Europe, a post to primarily make sure that Germany would repay all the bonds to the US (100 million dollars - even by today's standards, a respectable sum).  Dodd is the nth choice to go there, and already here I see (in my mind at least) the difficulty in accepting him as a serious personality:  He accepts the post, thinking it will enable him to finish his book. 

I can not describe enough the length to which Larson went to accumulate all the information to capture this era just before the full outburst of the Nazi regime.  It's astonishing to read how "clueless" people in the US but also in Europe were when it came to the first indication of  violence and the race towards absolute power.  It's even more disturbing that people tended to agree with this attitude, claiming that "we sort of don't like the Jews anyway"


In this turbulent situation, Dodd is rather passive, a caricature more of a diplomat, who regards these incidents of violence as "one-off", given that they are carried out by "16-year olds who will soon tire and fade into history"


Did Dodd really had the qualifications for that diplomatic post?  I think not.  An academic who can only think about his work, tends to live in a bubble and not take notice of situations happening just under his nose.  Did he actually do more damage?  In the beginning at least, yes.  He is shown to actually tone down some of these violent attacks and trying to hush them (calling them "nuisances"), fearing reaction from the US.  Once he retires from his diplomatic post in Germany, his stance is different, and a lot more vocal to the atrocities of the Nazi regime (was he successful?  Nope - people still did not want to listen.  Lesson for the future...)


One word about the writer:  while it was clear from the beginning that Larson is supportive of Dodd, his writing and presentation of evidence is so well thought-out and objective, that it allowed me to form my own opinion (I tend to dislike Dodd, in case you hadn't realised).


One other character I thoroughly disliked:  Dodd's daughter, Martha.  I can understand that young girls at that time, the debutantes, strived for excitement and attention, but this one was naive beyond any limit.  She seizes the opportunity of being an ambassador's daughter to go to dances, meet with Nazi authorities, and she becomes so dazzled with their charms that she can only see the good they will do to the emerging "New Germany" (that's before she turns to Soviet intelligence and communism).  Obviously, I'm speaking from a point where I know how the story ends, but I did try to imagine how people felt at a time when the first bouts of violence were actually carried out. Certainly the information flux would not be as developed as it is nowadays, but surely in the circles of diplomacy news would travel fast.  Was there no warning sign?  How would people content themselves thinking that "... reports must be exaggerated, surely no modern state could behave in such a manner".


I highly recommend this book, not only for the true story of the Dodd family during the first years of Nazi Germany, but also for a rare insight into the society of that time (in the early '30s only 1% of the German population were actually Jewish - how could they be held responsible for taking jobs away from the rest?), which decided to blindly believe what they wanted and to let the situation get out of control and end horribly.  There are many details I found interesting - the struggles among the various groups within the Nazi government, Haber's rule for cyanide gas, inside information on the Reichstag trial and a very good piece of advice (from Dodd himself) for the future: "... warn men as solemnly as possible against half-educated leaders being permitted to lead nations into war"...


Also read for the European Reading challenge

Introduction à la culture japonaise

Walking around the rue du Bailli in Brussels, I came across a little bookshop near the church, called "Peinture fraîche" - in it, a whole different world of primarily photography, architecture and art books.  It was there that I discovered Introduction à la culture japonaise by Hisayasu Nakagawa and I just had to buy it.  I have more often than not bought a book because of the bookstore, and I've yet to be dissapointed.  The originality of the book is that it is actually written in French, not Japanese.  The author, a Japanese having studied and lived in France (specialising in Diderot and Rousseau), has the ability to understand both worlds so well, that he can provide examples and definitions to us Westerners to all "different" ideas of Japan.  The purpose, according to the author, is to prove exactly that Japan is just a different culture and not something exotic.  The book itself is small - 100 pages - and is furthermore split in chapters covering the various main ideas, making reading it very easy.  The author's personal experience and evidence in the situations described further enhances the readability - I particularly liked the difference between "I" and "we" as well as the religion split.  In the end, I may not be in a position to view the world like a Japanese, but I can say that I know why there are these essential differences between the two cultures.

I found the book to be intelligent, not only in terms of me understanding a different culture, but also in learning about my own, as it is seen by others.

Peinture fraîche: 10, Rue du Tabellion, 1050 Ixelles

The Glass Castle

The purpose of book clubs is to introduce us to books we would otherwise not even have looked at.  Such was The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, the first book I would be reading for my book club.  Just reading the back cover, I thought in dismay what nuisance this book would be.  Another autobiography to bring us all to tears, I reflected (yes, I am that cynical).  I was totally wrong.  This is indeed a heartfelt, true story, of a thoroughly eccentric family in Appalachian America and how each of the members managed (or not) to overcome situations that most can only see in films.

The descriptions in the book really shocked me, all the more because I still have an idealised version of how a family should function, where parents respect each other and provide and care for the children - nothing like two parents who, though they may love their children, are  so self-absorbed that they play with the idea of pushing the author towards prostitution, they don't notice when she falls out of a moving car, just as they don't see a problem with the family living in extreme poverty (even though, towards the end of the book, we learn of an amazing fortune left unexploited). Still,  the tone in the book is not about self-pity - surprisingly, the author describes all incidents in a neutral, balanced manner that lets the story tell itself.  There is a lot of neglect but, most accurately put forward by the author, there is also a lot of complexity in the relationships within a family.

While reading this book, I felt at times like a witness in a car accident - it's horrible, there's broken glass and blood everywhere and people have been injured, but I just can't help myself standing there watching.  I wanted to see (read) more ugliness.  The bad incidents are plenty in the life of the author, but of course, she and her siblings regard many of them as the usual way of things.  And here I questioned myself:  how do we judge a situation? what makes an incident horrible to a child, when the child itself does not regard this as such? Everything in life is so subjective, I truly believe the author went by her childhood without feeling sorry for herself for the ugliness she went through - on the contrary, she became an adult early on and learned very important survival skills that eventually helped her get away from home and thrive.

So while three of the four children manage in the end to lead a "conventional" life, the parents sink even further, willingly continuing to rummage dumpsters and living an "unconventional" life.   This was the  part that was most difficult to comprehend and accept. My comfortable, unadventurous, traditionally-educated self made me want to shout at these characters (actually, I think I did at some point) with frustration :  What is wrong with you people? How can you NOT want to escape this diresome existence?

The  Glass Castle is not a light story to read, but I'm glad the author decided to share it with us, if only to marvel at the strength of courage and determination in all of us, as well as the resilience against difficult situations.