Story of our Lives

This book is so touching and poignant, a tribute to the human spirit and its connections, the influence our lives have on others, knowingly and unknowingly, our fears and anxiety so well explained.
I cannot say more than what the author has already said.
It is beautiful, sad, lyrical.

“They say that a person’s personality is the sum of their experiences. But that isn’t true, at least not entirely, because if our past was all that defined us, we’d never be able to put up with ourselves. We need to be allowed to convince ourselves that we’re more than the mistakes we made yesterday. That we are all of our next choices, too, all of our tomorrows.”

“The truth of course is that if people really were as happy as they look on the Internet, they wouldn’t spend so much damn time on the Internet, because no one who’s having a really good day spends half of it taking pictures of themselves. Anyone can nurture a myth about their life if they have enough manure, so if the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, that’s probably because it’s full of shit.”

“Because the terrible thing about becoming an adult is being forced to realize that absolutely nobody cares about us, we have to deal with everything ourselves now, find out how the whole world works. Work and pay bills, use dental floss and get to meetings on time, stand in line and fill out forms, come to grips with cables and put furniture together, change tires on the car and charge the phone and switch the coffee machine off and not forget to sign the kids up for swimming lessons. We open our eyes in the morning and life is just waiting to tip a fresh avalanche of "Don't Forget!"s and "Remember!"s over us. We don't have time to think or breathe, we just wake up and start digging through the heap, because there will be another one dumped on us tomorrow. We look around occasionally, at our place of work or at parents' meetings or out in the street, and realize with horror that everyone else seems to know exactly what they're doing. We're the only ones who have to pretend. Everyone else can afford stuff and has a handle on other stuff and enough energy to deal with even more stuff. And everyone else's children can swim.”

“We're trying to be grown-up and love each other and understand how the hell you're supposed to insert USB leads. We're looking for something to cling on to, something to fight for, something to look forward to. We're doing all we can to teach our children how to swim. We have all of this in common, yet most of us remain strangers, we never know what we do to each other, how your life is affected by mine.
Perhaps we hurried past each other in a crowd today, and neither of us noticed, and the fibers of your coat brushed against mine for single moment and then we were gone. I don't know who you are.
But when you get home this evening, when this day is over and the night takes us, allow yourself a deep breath. Because we made it through this day as well.
There'll be another one along tomorrow.”

“One bit at a time, Mom.” She laughed just as loudly, for the thousandth time, the way parents do. Then she held his hand tightly and said: “We can’t change the world, and a lot of the time we can’t even change people. No more than one bit at a time. So we do what we can to help whenever we get the chance, sweetheart. We save those we can. We do our best. Then we try to find a way to convince ourselves that that will just have to… be enough. So we can live with our failures without drowning.”

“Do you know what the worst thing about being a parent is? That you're always judged by your worst moments. You can do a million things right, but if you do one single thing wrong you're forever that parent who was checking his phone in the park when your child was hit in the head by a swing. We don't take our eyes off them for days at a time, but then you read just one text message and it's as if all your best moments never happened. No one goes to see a psychologist to talk about all the times they weren't hit in the head by a swing as a child. Parents are defined by their mistakes.”

“It just hurts so much at times, being human. Not understanding yourself, not liking the body you’re stuck in. Seeing your eyes in the mirror and wondering whose they are, always with the same question: “What’s wrong with me? Why do I feel like this?”

― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

The Song of the Pearl

The man and his words

He writes as he speaks. He speaks to each and every individual one to one through his words
This makes me like his writing more.
He keeps it realistic yet imaginative.

I read his novella- The Pearl

Can money buy happiness?
Is it a guarantee for future well being?
The story is about poverty and greed.
Need and the chance of wealth.
Fate and oppression
Evil-an Inherent Nature of man.

It is depressing from start to finish, even the promise of wealth, leaves the reader with no
hopes for the family.

The story is predictable and does not say anything new about people, culture, values

It is Steinbeck's writing style and prose which has left me captivated.
He is Straightforward, Colloquial, Unpretentious, Earnest.
Even a bad story made me keep going till the end.
He weaves his words to create poetry in prose

“When Kino had finished, Juana came back to the fire and ate her breakfast. They had
spoken once, but there is not need for speech if it is only a habit anyway. Kino sighed with
satisfaction - and that was conversation.”

“Part of the far shore disappeared into a shimmer that looked like water. There was no
certainty in seeing, no proof that what you saw was there or was not there. And the people of
the Gulf expected all places were that way, and it was not strange to them.”

I am now curious to read his masterpiece - a timeless classic to appreciate better his writing
and influence on the literary world.

The Pearl- John Steinbeck

Curious and Curiouser

 I felt very close to the writer as I read this memoir.

I could understand what I was experiencing, which others around me are not able to accept.

The book talks about family ties, the struggle to live as an adult with a very difficult childhood and the difficulty in cutting the same ties which shaped you. 

How does education shape you or the lack of it force you to relook at your beliefs and take charge of the situation.

Tara grew up in a strict Mormon background with her fanatic father and large sibling family. Her mom though from a very different upbringing soon adapts to ways of the hills and her husband’s beliefs. She proves to be the stronger parent and self sufficient person when she becomes the local midwife and quack with her potions to cure all ills. 

The family business being an old scrap yard and all the children of the family are initiated into this ritual from young and need to earn their stay.

Love is a questionable emotion in the household. It is exhibited in a very harsh and loud manner with blood and gore being the standard show of affection 

This was the environment in which our author grew up. She was not allowed to step inside a classroom because the father felt that the government was out to control them. They did not wear clothes which exposed skin. Their small world started and ended in rural Idaho. She did not own a birth certificate. 

How Tara escapes the system, finds herself in a world which has not known any like her. She was lucky to have roommates who were understanding, professors who see behind the person she thinks she should be.

The “homeschooling” which taught her to be tough and persevere and self reliant. 

There are several”Facts” which do not add up. The physical wounds which heal without treatment, the bones that mend, the money that pours in, the ability to become so well read when there is no basic knowledge or understanding. 

From someone who thought doing maths meant touching the pages of the book to getting accepted in Oxford and Harvard, Tara through her professors and friends looks at things in a different perspective.  

Her curiosity and eagerness to learn and catch up on lost years give her an advantage over more worldly scholars. 

How education which she seeks for herself helps change her lives and those of her family who accept the change and the lack of education which narrows the views and lives of those who refuse to change.

Some may feel shocked that a person who could be so sensible and mature in many ways, accepts the violence as her punishment for crime not committed other than being born a Mormon in the Westover family.

What did I find relatable in this book,  which is about sadness and survivalist attitude?

Playing God, self proclaimed healer, righteous, the mother’s misplaced affection for the son who is considered weak, the rough it out daughter who is supposedly stronger, religion being stronger than medicine, fault finding, doomsday conspiracy, control freaks, anti government vents. Opinionated, Suspicious, judgmental, "I know everything am always right" attitude. Guilt tripping, demeaning, disconnected conversations.  

They are so familiar to me in my daily life, the slow death I have accepted and unable to escape.
Is it affection that keeps me bound to my family and siblings, cannot be, when there is emptiness inside me, is it an irrational fear of not being accepted anywhere else or of not belonging,  should I walk out? 

Silence a constant, avoidance a necessity, fear of being ostracised for thoughts considered ungrateful, like Tara, I too stick to people who don't judge me for my lack of emotions and need to  conform. 

She won the battles she chose to fight. 

Educated- Tara Westover

 

Cleveland Rocks

I lived 30 minutes away from Shaker Heights, OH. It was the place we went to when we wanted to look at Halloween themed lawns, well decorated Christmas homes, perfection.

So reading the book set in such a perfect familiar location was a must.

I knew the basic storyline, I try and avoid reading in depth reviews and spoilers before I read a book much raved about. 

It is about the perfect Richardson family with the perfect settled in home and the imperfect Warrens with their hand me downs, nomadic life. 

How both their lives merge and integrate. 

How the children Lexie, Trip, Moody and Izzie warm up to Pearl and Mia, 

How hearts expand, homes expand to take on more than its capable of. 

How societal pressures makes us all puppets getting entangled in the hanging threads which are our lives.

 How privileges win over righteous.

How one person’s judgements colour morality and virtuousness.

 How sex changes everything, not just with the two of you but everyone around you.

This is a powerful story in a very silent form. We crave for love in the most unexpected places. The routine, the given are luxuries even for the one’s who seem to have it all. 

The  author delves into the mysteries of relationships, why it always seems that the other has it better. About motherhood, the bond. 

Not necessarily finding the love in your own but seeking it in people shunned by society. 

How secrets, misunderstandings and miscommunication can cause so much damage.

Why we need to care, the lives we touch and change because of love. 

“It came, over and over, down to this: What made someone a mother? Was it biology alone, or was it love?”

The book focuses more on the plot and getting there, rather than building characters of the children to justify their action. 

They are spoilt and have always got what they wanted. Except for one. 

The beginning is the ending and the story is more of a build up towards the conclusion justifying the act.

I would like to watch the TV series to see how they could recreate the passion which like fire can burn a house down.

As things are going out of my control in my life right now, I feel this is what resonates with me most. No, I would not burn my house down, but would like to start over. 

“Sometimes you need to scorch everything to the ground and start over. After the burning the soil is richer, and new things can grow. People are like that, too. They start over. They find a way.”

Celeste Ng- Little Fires Everywhere

A Promise Kept

Words can move you, words have the power to transform your life,

Words can take you places within and outside.

This one book made me cry. 

The tears rolled down my cheek as I read. I could not stop, I finished 380 pages in half a day. I had to be part of the journey. 

So well does this author weave magic into her books. 

I read one of her books ( The Nightingale) early this year and wanted to explore more of her writing, but delayed buying anymore books due to the lockdown and need to check my spendings. 

When I realised the lockdown was not going to ease, I needed solace, I an ardent paperback lover, turned digital.

It took a while to get used to, but the love for reading converted me quickly. 

This book is not my life, it is nothing related to my experiences.

Yet I could feel the loss and need to belong in the main characters.

It deals with friendship, teenage years, the carefree lives, the age my daughters are at right now.

Maybe I do see a little bit of them in the characters, that is why I cried so much or maybe I wish they had that life as shown in the lives of the characters and that is why the aching. 

Or maybe my fragile mind can't take so much of emotional drama.

It is about love, loss, fear, retribution, guilt.  Sacrifice, second chances. Abandonment, Forgiveness. Mortality and living while dead inside. 

It is a rollercoaster ride  and emotional marathon. It drains you, every word wrings your heart, you don’t stop, you go on, you finish and then when you finish you are left in a state of shock but content. Her writing is so heartfelt, you know this is not a real life account, yet you believe it could be true.  

The characters come to life with her writing, the emotions are not just words but experience you go through. 

" Maybe time did not heal wounds exactly, but it gave you a kind of armor or a new perspective. A way to remember with a smile instead of a sob"

Its about love yes, a mother’s fierce love, which sometimes seems overbearing, a child’s easy going take everything for granted love, a father’s caring seemingly distant love. The mystery and excitement of first love. Love between friends, powerful, all consuming, 

The relationships so real.  I was left remembering first loves, curfews, strict parenting. 

The ending came too soon, forgiveness takes time for me, sometimes I fool myself into thinking I have accepted and moved on.
So when the storyline changed into a more forgiving and giving nature, I felt the author is trying to tell me something and that made me cry even more.

This is one book which will remain etched in me forever, I have not shed so much tears over mere words in a long time. 

"People think love is an act of faith", her mother said. " Sometimes it's an act of will"

Kristin Hannah- Night Road 

A Family Affair

"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents, grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.

It's so dreadful to be poor! sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress.

I don't think it's fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all, added little Amy, with an injured sniff.

We've got Father and Mother, and each other, said Beth contentedly from her corner."

Jo the hot tempered tomboy, Meg the sweet natured romantic, Amy childish spoilt brat , Beth the shy musical prodigy.

I followed their lives glassy eyed as an impressionable 12 year old.

Yes, I too wanted to be Jo, I wanted to be a writer! 

I wanted sisters, I envied my friends who had that bond.

Even though this book reads a bit old fashioned given the societal norms of the time during and after the Civil war, overall,  there are universal and timeless messages about the bonds of family, morality, gratitude and love. 

The struggle for girls and women to be themselves while following convention is an experience that resonates even today.

Young readers may find the domesticity in the book unnecessary but it was and is still necessary for people to have domestic skills or they could not and still cannot survive. 

Of course it's easy to fall in love with Laurie and I wished Jo had married him, but then the story would have changed directions 

“I do think that families are the most beautiful things in all the world!” The March family has their own hopes and needs and fears. They sacrifice, support each other, cry together, and survive their losses. 

Support at times also means acceptance of the other standing in the way of your dreams. 

I learnt from their lives. 

While sitting home under a lockdown during the COVID pandemic, the whole family is together all the time. Friends and outside connections mattered more.

We are frustrated, the freedom which came easy and taken for granted, now has been curbed.

The first month was difficult where everyone tried to find their own space, getting on each other's nerves, each one's peculiar habits causing irritation, small issues blown out of proportion.

Now we have all settled into a comfortable routine , accepting the peculiarities as individualities. Allowing the habits to grow on you. 

We still have our differences, but now they don't turn into arguments. 

The family matters. 

A very progressive book for the era it has been set in, the girls much ahead of their times with their thinking and giving.

If you believe love conquers all, you will enjoy this book.

And I finally watched the movie adaptation.

My imagination as a young kid was wild, still is.

The movie caters to that remaining faithful to its roots. The film moves between two timelines as flashbacks, which the book does not.

For a first timer who has not read the book, it may take a while to relate the two. 

The dialogues are simple and conversations and acting reflect the emotion the book allowed readers to experience.

The ending with Jo being decisive is a lovely touch.

Not all women have to be sacrificial lambs, she stood for what she wanted and got the best of both worlds. 

This slight twist will go well with the feminists and the go-getters.

All the actors have played their part well, bringing to life for me the story read years ago.

Timothee Chalamet plays the playboy role so well as Laurie with his childish charm, easy to fall in love.

Greta Gerwig's adaptation pays a wonderful tribute to the literary classic and deserves a watch.

Little Women- Louisa May Alcott/ Greta Gerwig

Bird song

Almost 800 pages!! Of small print. But I had the time and the patience, you require both to go through this detailed tome.

There are times I wondered why the book was so detailed, at times I loved the vivid detailing.

Moments when I loved Theo for his innocence, moments when I wondered if his coldness could get tot me. 

Can love it, easy to hate it. A coming of age novel spread across cities, visiting countries.

The central figure as the title mentions is the painting. It revolves around loss and finding.

The protagonist Theo loses his mother to a bombing incident very early in the story. But he finds something at the same time. Something his mom loved- the Goldfinch. painting of a bird chained to a perch.The rest of the story is about  the bad choices Theo makes, the company he seeks, the opportunities he loses, his binge drinking, drug addictions, thieving, cheating, wily ways.There is a sense of disgust for the person he has become for the shallow life he leads. The storyline repels you, there is no reason to pity the person he has become, just disappointment. Sure there is PTSD, but that does not justify the reclusive behaviour .

But I kept reading, 

The author weaves the story around the main character with so much detail, the imagery is so vivid.

I could smell the old furniture store, walk  the deserted street in Vegas where Theo lives with his dad and Xandra, burn with the fever which punishes him in Amsterdam, hear Boris coaxing Theo to run amuck.

At times the descriptive writing goes on for pages without much being said. The ending could have come sooner.

The book will not be a recommendation from me to my daughter for it is a lesson on "how not to live your life and ruin it" or in a rebellious mode, it could turn into "how to live my life to ruin it”T he author makes it worthwhile through her descriptive prose, if she wanted us to be disgusted and repulsed, she has done well with the story.

The movie which I watched almost 4 months after I read the book, left me wondering if this was the same story.

It has been shredded, to fit into an acceptable screening time.The descriptive writing is absent in the movie and does not do justice to the details in the book.

It is rushed and seems to go back and forth between the years. The 2 1/2 hours of movie time had to be broken down to allow the mind time to recover between the various stages of life.

There is no humour at all and leaves you frowning, And I liked my visualisation while I read the book better than what is portrayed in the movie.

Give it a miss if you are a reader. Give it a miss if you like watching movies!

“But sometimes, unexpectedly, grief pounded over me in waves that left me gasping; and when the waves washed back, I found myself looking out over a brackish wreck which was illumined in a light so lucid, so heartsick and empty, that I could hardly remember that the world had ever been anything but dead.”

― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch