the odd woman and the city. (296)

i picked up vivian gornick's the odd woman and the city because it was on flavorpill's list of must read for may.  they wrote:

A wonderful and clear-eyed memoir of Gornick’s time in New York City that doubles as an appreciation of friendship — which more and more avails itself as the most important theme of our time.

i had never read anything else by gornick, but i liked the title and a memoir about nyc sounded interesting.  i must add that now i do want to read her other works, esp the feminist one.  she also inspired me to check out charles reznikoff's poetry after reading his poems in this work.  i might also check out the george gissing novel that inspired the title.

so even with being unfamiliar with her work, i found this work to be a delight.  it's a memoir but more like a journal.  we get tidbits about her life, friendships, and what i loved most vignettes from her life in new york city.

i must admit that it made me wish i loved in nyc.  as i read about the streets of new york, i regretted that my images were from memories from visits and not from living there.  none the less, the little scenes i read made me fall in love with nyc.

i loved the story of the man and the woman on the subway discussing the christian's hatred of jews.  the woman sharing, "after all, it the romans who killed him.  why don't they blame the italians."  the story of the boy and his father signing on the subway made me smile.  the boy deformed and as gornick at first surprised by his look later saw his beauty.  i also felt her frustration about the man on the bus talking too loudly on his phone.  i think good bus ettiquette is a lost art and am always silently angry at people who play music or talk loudly on a bus.  and the end, i loved the evasdropping she shared with us, esp these two conversations:

"when i was young, men were the main course, now they're the condiment."

and 

"i didn't realize you were such good friends.  what did she give you, that you miss her so?" "it wasn't what she gave me . . . it was what she didn't take away."

so many delightful and insightful things one hears.  i also learned that i shouldn't judge my friend markley, for all the evasdropping he does in nyc.

the work also focused on friendship.  she shared different friendships of hers, especially her friend leonard.  she examined why she was friends with particular people. n she also shared a handful of stories of authors and their friendships, looking at what draws people to each other. but in the end, the work is really about loneliness, as flavorpill noted.  it's actually more about finding solitude versus loneliness.

as she discussed, she discovered whole reading edmund gosse's memoir, father and son, that "one is lonely for the absent idealized other self, but in useful solitude i am there, keeping myself imaginative company, breaking life into silence,

filling the room with proof of my own sentient being."  

and this i feel is the heart of the memoir.  in solitude and keeping herself company, gornick wandered around and enjoyed new york city.

the work also had some beautiful life lessons that i didn't pay attention too because it became too wordy for me.  however, one day when i am older, i will revisit this work but for not will take the lessons that i saw best for me.  

flora & ulysses. kate dicamillo. k.g. campbell. (170)

i follow the new york public library (@nypl) on instagram and they posted the winner of the newbery medal award for 2014:

so of course, i immediately went and requested the flora & ulysses! i was also shocked to discover that delano actually had it and i didn't have to wait for it to come.

i was very excited about the book on cover and page flipping.  first, it is about a girl and a squirrel! adorable!  second, it is written by kate dicamillo who also wrote newbery medal winner the tale of despereaux, which i haven't read but have a copy to read.  and third, it is part graphic novel!  i thought this was clever because kids the graphic novel part would attract kids but majority of the book is real text.

my excitement was soon met with disappointment.  though an interesting premise, i didn't completely enjoy the story myself so it did not seem newbery medal worthy, but i can see why it would appeal to kids.

flora & ulysses is the story of a girl flora and ulysses, a squirrel has super powers after he is sucked up by a vacuum, ulysses 2000x (yes, he is named after the vacuum.) his superpowers are super strength, ability to understand humans and communicate with humans via typing, flying, and writing poetry.  i really loved the idea of him writing poetry.  he is revived after his accident by flora, a self described cynic.  she is an avid reader of a comic book and that is how she discovered ulysses is a superhero.  the books is their adventure as they discover what ulysses can do.  oh and i should add that ulysses, arch-nemesis is flora's mother.  she wanted ulysses dead for fear that he had rabies.

the characters in the story are great.  i loved that flora was a cynic and gained so much knowledge from a column in the back of the comic book called terrible things can happen to you.  it would make a great companion book to this novel.  she was a very clever child.  ulysses is a poetry-writing squirrel, need i say more? just read his poem:

words for flora

nothing

would be easier without 

you,

because you 

are 

everything,

all of it--

sprinkles, quarks, giant donuts, eggs sunny-side up--

you

are the ever-expanding

universe 

to me.

(seriously the sweetest poem! i would actually take a book of his poetry as a companion to this novel as well.)

my favorite character had to be dr. meerscham, flora's father's neighbor, she was eccentric but filled with truth.  i loved the mystic way she shared stories, for example,

all things are possible. when i was a girl in blundermeecen, the miraculous happened every day. or every other day. or every third day. actually, sometimes it did not happen at all, even on the third day. but still, we expected it. you see what i'm saying? even when it didn't happen, we were expecting it. we knew the miraculous would come.

i loved that she had a painting of a giant squid attacking a boat to remind her that "loneliness makes us do terrible things".  but the best that came from her and what i will steal from her to used is what she used instead of good-bye growing up in blundermeecen, "i promise to always turn back towards you."  so sweet.

i know that my praise of characters seems to contradiction my lack of praise for the book, but even with these wonderful characters the book lacked an interesting storyline and plot.  i became bored with the book, the incident at the restaurant was ho-hum and i think that was meant to be the first amazing adventure.  even the climax when flora's mother squirrel-napping ulysses wasn't all that nail bitting or exciting.  dicamillo had a great cast but just did not know how to direct them.  the episodes of each chapter were good but didn't make for a great book.  

i have to add this book was great in terms of vocabulary.  there were words that i had to look up!  if a kid takes the time to look up words they come across in this book, it could build their vocabulary.

it was a good read but not a great one, but still check it out.  it did win the newbery medal, so maybe i am the one that is off versus vice versa.

i 

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.