bunnicula. deborah and james howe. (149)

so i have to admit that it was urban outfitters that inspired my rereading of "bunnicula".  sue me, i have hipster tendencies.  so their site was selling the book for halloween and i decided i should reread it for halloween.  being a kids book i saved it for actual halloween to read and to celebrate.  (it took me like 2 hours to read.)

i remember reading "bunnicula" as a kid, i remember loving how clever the title (and name of bunny) was.  being a gemini, i have always had an appreciate for word play.  and i mean a bunny vampire, too cute.  (ps i am thinking a bunnicula costume next year!)

rereading as an adult, i feel even more in love with "bunnicula" because of its cleverness.  i had forgot how the book is "really" a manuscript the authors found on their doorstep,  so cute! as an "educator", i think this book would be great as the basis for so many lessons:  parody, character analysis (which is mentioned by name and given an example), homophobes, foreshadowing, and prediction. it's almost as they wrote this book with these lessons in mind!

and back to the homophobes, i was very disappointed with chester confusing stake with steak.  he was such an intelligent cat, as demonstrated in his parrot definition that he would have not been an error he made.  also how sad was the image of him beating that poor bunny!

i also appreciated how harold, acted as a means to define words that kids could not understand.  this was very clever since it is a kids book.  often times i forget students do not have the same vocabulary as me, so i appreciated how howe used high-level words but also gave definitions.  (note:  add context clues to the list above.)

if you didn't encounter "bunnicula" in your youth, he is a vampire bunny.  he sucks the juices from vegetables leaving them white.  i have to add i was impressed with the howe's call for eating organic back in 1979.  since the organic trend is so 2010's, i was a bit caught off guard by their discussion of buying organic but way to go "monroes" and howe.  (i don't necessarily buy organic but i would if i bought grocery regularly and cooked.)

the family and harold is obliviously to the fact that bunnicula is the source of the white vegetables.  but chester who is a bookworm and has a wild imagination starts to put two and two together. the story is told from the perspective of the dog, harold, and through his eyes we see all of the wildness that unfolds as chester sets out to stop bunnicula.

in the end, harold, realized bunnicula is harmless, sure a tomato and cabbage are harmed but they are just vegetables.  chester goes overboard and tries to starve bunnicula, but the family intervened and put chester in therapy and bunnicula on a juice diet (which he stayed on, so no more weird veggies).  and they all lived happily ever after, until the next adventure.  this book is apart of series,  which i will prolly read every halloween.  can't wait til next year!

ps how cute is this book club page that james howe wrote:

unaccustomed earth. jhumpa lahiri (147)

(i forgot got to take a picture of the book i checked out.)

as seen in previous post, i am on a jhumpa lahiri kick.  prior to this i read, the namesake, and afterward will read the lowland.  i am actually proud of myself for reading her works in order of publication!  (sorry it's the same things that excite bookworms).

unaccustomed earth is another collection of short stories, and after having read both a novel and her collections of short stories, i have to say i think she is a better short story writer.  her novel seemed to meander around, uncertain of where to go or now to end.  in retrospect, i felt like things would go off on a tangent and not truly enhance the overall story.  whereas her short stories are concise and to the point which actually allows for a deeper emotional experience.  

if you haven't read this, i would stop here.  highly recommend this collection of short stories, which you should read and experience on your own first.  my post does go i to a lot of detail and has some spoilers.

i absolutely loved part two of the book:  "hems and kaushik".  i was not ready for the ending, and as much as i wanted it to end happily ever after, i know that it wasn't the way things were meant to be and i would have been unsatisfied with a fairy tale ending.  

"hema and kaushik" is three stories.  the first story, "once in a lifetime" is told from hema's perspective. it tells the story of how as an adolescent she fell in love with kaushik, when his family returned to the united states and lived with hema's family while they looked for a home.  kaushik discovered a family's burial area in the woods behind hema's family's home and there he shared with her that his mother is dying from cancer.  something she never shared with her family even when they complained about kaushik's family overstaying their welcome. 

the second story, "year's end", is the story of kaushik dealing with his father remarrying after his mother's death.  his father needing companionship, married a woman from india with two daughter from a previous marriage.  kaushik, initially unable to accept the marriage initially began to accepted it due to his two stepsisters.  however, one night while babysitting the girls, they discover a hidden box of photos of his mother.  overwhelmed by the memory of his mother and his father's new life, he attacks the girls verbally and leaves the house.  he ends up never returning home and begins a career as a photojournalist.

the final story, "going ashore", told from hema's perspective, as fate, would have it, hema and kaushik's path cross again in rome at a friend's lunch party.  they began a relationship but hema is to be married.  kaushik asked her to stay with him but hema realized does not ask her to marry him so she refuses.  a doomed fate as foreshadowed by the leaving of her grandmother's bracelet at airport security.  and sadly in the very end, kaushik died due to an earthquake in thailand.  it broke my heart that things ended this way.  i really wanted them to be together, but life doesn't always work out the way we want them to.  and sometimes we have to thing with our head as opposed to our heart.  furthermore, i was impressed that lahiri had me on a rollercoaster of emotions in just three stories, i kind wished she had turned hema and kaushik into a novel.  i also secretly hope that mira nair turns it into a movie.

the other stories were just as sad and emotional, the same beauty of "the interpreter of maladies" can be found in this collection as well.  four stories compose the first part of the book. i enjoyed "only goodness". it demonstrated what can occur when children are overindulged and addiction is ignored. it was sad that how the family was ill-equipped to deal with addiction and did not get the brother the help that he needed.

"hell-heaven" was my favorite because it demonstrated how often we forget that our parents have a history as well.  it's the story of a young girl and how her mother was secretly in love with a family friend, pranab chankarborty.  her love almost resulted tragically after pranab married an american.  the mother planned on setting herself on fire, overwhelmed by grief and love lost but a neighbor with a simple compliment ended up stopping her.  a story the narrator was told after a man broke her heart. 

but yes, another beautiful work by jhumpa lahiri.

the love affairs of nathaniel p. adelle waldman. (145)

 think i heard about "the love affairs of nathaniel p." via my friend julianna's goodreads.  it came up on her "to-read" list so i decided to check it out.  the cover looked cool and the title enticing.  it reminded me of a book i wanted to write in college called "the asshole diaries" (this would have been a great blog if blogs existed back then).  basically it would be a book about all the horrible guys my roommates and i met, dated, hooked up with etc.  though in the great irony of life, it would turned out that we were the crazy ones, well at least i was . . .

but back to the book.  as much as i am impressed that waldman, a female, was able to capture the male mind and perspective, this book did not really do it for me.  trust me i have loved my fair share of literary assholes, (see:  any male in a nick hornby book) but could not get on board with nate.  this could be a testament to waldman's writing, she made such a believable asshole of a guy that i couldn't see things from his perspective even when i saw things from his perspective.  and to get even deeper, it's because he was essentially an asshole that i spent my early twenties trying to get.  like nate, a guy that once admitted via a blog (this was when we were out of college) that he got bored with women once they were invested in him because there was no longer any chase.  (ok, my hate for nate is definitely due to this guy).

i must admit equally annoyed by the females in his life, primarily because they reminded me of myself.  i have hung out with the nate of my life and cried and hashed out why things never worked between us, like elias.  i tried to be the nonchalant girl, okay i'm fine with keeping things casual but not like juliet.  even been hannah, the i'm not that type of girl, girl.  

and the gender/sex politics discussed were kind of on pointe.  when relationship due end, men do focus on the why versus women focusing on the what could have changed to make it work.  i agree with nate's theory that its harder for a guy to say no to sex than a woman because men expect to get shot down but with women feelings get hurt.  (i know i have been shot down for sex, and my feelings were hurt!).  and the double standard about singlehood and maturity, it is true we do judge males as immature but this can not apply to women.  i found this little discussion and thoughts quite interesting.

i mean i probably would have gotten over nate's assholeness (i have forgiven the assholes in my life), but the thing that ruined this book for me were the #whitepeopleproblems.  i love the hbo series "girls" and never understood the critique about it being #whitegirlproblems.  as a girl of color, i could totally relate to what they encountered, granted i never had my parents support me completely after college but other than that never saw girls as a racist show.  this book on the other hand made me want to punch nate and his pretentious friends in the face.  and perhaps waldman discussion of class politics was critiquing brooklynites for their white man's burden guilt but people like this do exist and that is why i upset.  minorities have it bad enough without white people's pity. for example, when hannah shared her story about her ex and the hispanics doing work on his house and him being oblivious about their station in life made me want to dump her.  yes there is an imbalance in the world but her consciousness of this made her look like a snob.  manual labor may be beneath her but can be gratifying work for others.  that hispanic person was probably grateful for the work so he could have his paycheck.  and i know that nate was trying to critique this in his writing but he was essentially apart of the culture as well.  it was great, seeing nate and his friends bitch about injustice but no one doing anything to change it.

weldman did a great job of creating thequintessential male, but didn't blow me away this novel. 

ps had to share this little piece because i totally get aurit:

"the waitress scrolled and walked away.  aurit's nostrils flared.  bad service was a great source of frustration for her, an inerrant that might at any moment set her off, like science was for the medieval church."

i will add that aurit was eating an arugula prosciutto pizza which is my least favorite pizza because it got some annoyingly trendy.  i refuse to eat pizza with arugula on it.  i hope waldman was poking fun at it as well.

pss i get that this is probably one of those ironically being about whatever the hell is generation is called, well done but still annoying.

the grapes of wrath. john steinbeck. (144)

 

i follow the penguin truck online and was excited to discover that it was coming to bakersfield!  it would be joining a group of people that will be retracing the route taken by the joad family from john steinbeck's classic, the grapes of wrath.  i am so excited to be able to purchase books from the penguin truck, we know my love of food trucks, now imagine the bookstore equivalent of one!  since the truck would be in bakersfield for an event for the grapes of wrath, i decided i should read it.

as i mentioned in my post for of mice and men, since steinbeck writes about okies, i perceive his book as being lowbrow, in addition to that i figured it might be tedious and boring at times due to its discussion of the dust bowl but how i misjudged.  the grapes of wrath is a beautifully written novel and well deserving of the pulitzer prize.  i was thoroughly surprised how much i enjoyed it but then again steinbeck is an excellent storyteller.

the thing that surprised me was how much truth was in this book.  there were a handful of topics that steinbeck discussed and shed an interesting light on.  i will discuss each topic as they appeared in the book.

first, since tom joad was an ex-con, steinbeck discussed prisons.  growing up in delano and being a frequent rider of the greyhound (they send prisoners home on it), i have very solid opinions on the prison system.  in a nutshell, i think prisoners have too many rights and luxuries.  furthermore, i believe prisons have become a cesspool of corruption and promotes the same immoral lifestyle the prisoners are supposed to be rehabilitated for.  it is often discussed that prisoners become accustomed to prison life and are therefore unable to function in the "real" world.  steinbeck expressed this same idea and i found it interesting that 50 years ago prisons were considered too comfortable for prisoners and that there has been no call for reform.  about 20 pages later, joad explained that he wasn't rehabilitated in prison but would commit the crime just the same if he situation arouse again.  (he killed a man who had started a right with him, the killing was done as self-defense.)

but again a critique of the US prison for not rehabilitating people.  and before you say, but wait tom joad was an honest man but he had that heart the whole time, he didn't gain it in prison.

another character with a heart of gold was pastor casy, he was filled with wisdom and truth.  i valued what he said about sin in a discussion with uncle john.  uncle john wanted to know if it was a sin that he let his wife die.  casy said "well, for anyone else it was mistake but if you think it was a sin--then it's a sin.  a fella builds his own sins right up from the groun'."  this is true, we can not judge our neighbor and label their wrongdoings as sin.  we can only be responsible for ourselves, and we are the only ones who truly know what our sins are and are the only ones that can ask for forgiveness for them.

there was also a great point steinbeck made about bad mouthing parents.  in today's world, there are some many single parents and one thing that happens is the bad mouthing of the other parent.  i have talked with friends about the negative effects of it on kids.  steinbeck wrote that "it ain't good for a baby to grow up with folks a-sayin his pa ain't no good".  if kids do they will internalize what they hear and think themselves to be no-good as well.

another thing that steinbeck wanted to make clear was the fact that when people are in need it's poor people who will help them out.  ma joad told the store owner, 

"i'm learning one good thing.  learning it all the time, ever'day.  if you 're in trouble or hurt or need--got to poor people.  they're the only ones that'll help--the only ones."  

the reason for this is that poor people understand the need.   they have been down and out with no alternatives so when they see others in that situations they try to help.  my mom was homeless for a while because our house went into foreclosure, and she always tries to help others because of that situation.  Steinbeck further demonstrated this by the story of the family and their little boy that died while traveling.  the family did not have enough money to bury him, but the other poor families that were travelling gave what they could to help bury the little boy.  poor people are often seen being needy but in fact they are usually the most charitable. 

in addition to discussing class, steinbeck also discussed gender roles as well.  towards the end of the novel, ma begins to tell pa what needs to happen in order for the family to be safe.  upset by being told what to do, pa said

funny! woman takin' over the fambly.  woman sayin' we'll do this here, an' we'll gothere.  an'i don't even care. 

to which ma responded

'women can change better'n a man . . . woman go all her life in her arms.  man got it all in his head.

later on in their talk she explained, after pa said that life was over and done:

it ain't, pa.  an' that's one more thing a woman knows.  i noticed that.  man, he lives in jerks--baby born an' a man dies, an' that's a jerk--gets a farm an' loses his farm, an' that's a jerk.  woman, it's all one flow, like a stream, little eddies, little waterfalls, but the river, it goes right on.  woman looks at it like that.  we ain't gonna die out.  people is goin' on --changin' a little, maybe, but goin' right on."

maybe i'm must biased because i am woman but we are more flexible than men.  we are more easily adapt to adjust to a new situation than men.  i am not sure why this is and will save that analysis for another day.  and of course our ability to go with the flow, i'm going to say has to do with our period.  if you can endure that once a month, that you have the ability to get on life filled with hope!

perhaps the most famous quote of the grapes of wrath, was tom's joad's speech, he gave when he left his family.  he said,

then, i'll be aroun' in the dark.  i'll be ever'where--wherever you look  wherever they's a fight so hungry people can eat, i'll be there.  wherever they's a cop beatin' up a guy.  i'll be there.   if casy knowed, why, i'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad an'--i'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready.  an' when folks eat the stuff they raise an' live in the houses they build--while, i'll be there.  see? god i'm talkin' like casy.  comes of thinkin' about him so much.  seems like I see him sometimes.   

in my high school history class, my teacher was so excited when he shared the rage against the machine song, the ghost of tom joad*.  at the time i loved me some rage against the machine, i even had a band shirt with thequote, "who controls the past now, controls the future . . ." (which i learned found out was actually from 1984, god i was such a tool in high school, lol)  but even then i didn't get the hype.  i mean i thought it was cool that rage decided to be literary in their songs but didn't see why mr. myovich was so excited about sharing it to us, to be honest, i don't recall studying the dust bowl, when he presented the song to us.  however, now as an adult and having read the grapes of wrath, i see how interesting it is that a rap rock band from the 90s decided to have such a politically charged message. 

but back to tom joad's speech, that small speech embodies the greatness of steinbeck.  his words are so simple just they speak volumes (i apologize for being so cliché but it is the best way to define his writing!)  his words are so simple but provoke profound thoughts.  if you look back through the quotes i shared, it reads like hicks talking but there is so much more to the words.

this book is truly a masterpiece and truly deserved the pulitzer.  not only is it a beautiful tale of a family and what they endure to survive, but it works on a whole other level politically about how we treat the lower classes.  this work can applied to all farm workers.  as i read, i was reminded of my grandfather and what he had to endure, not only being a farm worker but also one of color.  the migrant farmers from the midwest had to endure so much hatred that i can't imagine what the mexican and filipino farm workers had to endure since they had to deal with addition of racial prejudices.  i also tried to contextualize it for myself right now.  growing up in delano, which is a migrant farmer worker community, i can admit that i do discriminate against migrant farm workers.  not so much for taking my jobs, this may sound horrible but i always say that my grandfather toiled in the fields so that we didn't have to (meaning we should have a better life because that is what he wanted.)  but for abusing the systems that are in place to help those in need.  being in the school systems i see the amount of aid there is now for the poor and there needs to be reform.  when steinbeck wrote the grapes of wrath, there was nothing to help those in need, however, everyone now just gets a free ride from the government.  if he were to rewrite this today, it would be a different story.  yes, the joads utilized a government camp, which we saw, but we also read how they wanted to be able to make it on their own without the help the government.  if the joads were around today, they still hold tight to their morals and use government assistance to help them get on their feet as opposed to making it their lifestyle and means of income.  there is nothing wrong with working in the fields there is something wrong with abusing government assistance.  my grandfather worked kn the fields and both my grandparents worked to help support my mother and her siblings without any government hand-outs.  aide is fine as long as it is helping those that need it.  the grapes of wrath was not a call to take complete care of the lower classes but rather not to discriminate against them and allow them the opportunity to achieve their american dream. now that i think about it if steinbeck were to write this today it would be a tale of the 99 percent against the 1 percent.  

but politics aside, this is a truly wonderful book and if you have not read it, make sure to pick it up!!!

also it's banned book, for god knows why?  maybe the call to stand against a unjust government and unfair economy?  not sure, but it should not be banned but read and studied as a part of american history.  

*i just now, thanks to wikipedia discovered that this song is actually by bruce springsteen