Re-reads Archives - Page 3 of 7

The Folded Leaf

by William Maxwell

I finished this book a few days ago, but hadn\’t had time to write yet. It\’s a very slow, quiet novel with lots of subtle undercurrents. The Folded Leaf is a story of friendship, two high school boys who have nothing in common- Spud is athletic, outgoing and quick of temper; Lymie is an introvert- lacking physical strength but keeps to intellectual pursuits. They meet when Spud saves Lymie from drowning in a pool. The two unlikely boys strike up a friendship, Lymie often spending time in Spud\’s home, enjoying the comforts his own seems to lack (it\’s just him and his father after his mother died). Then the boys go off to college, and their friendship gradually starts to fray. Spud gets involved in all the normal things college kids do- parties, fraternities, sports (boxing). Lymie tags along, kind of idolizing his friend. They room together. They befriend a few girls. Spud mistakes Lymie\’s casual affection for Sally as something more- and in jealous suspicion starts to distance himself from Lymie, without of course explaining anything. It seems that the only person Lymie really loves is Spud- although he could never say so- so this breaks his heart. Desperately he starts questioning all the assurances he had built up in his mind before, leading to an unhappy crisis.

This book is really good at depicting the inner mind- how Lymie daydreams and invents reasons for people\’s reactions in his head, how he frightens himself with speculation and turning small insignificant things into giant obstacles sometimes. But all the background material- closely described places, family members, interactions between the adults- parents and professors around them- felt rather dull to me. Sometimes it added to the feel of place- this is all set in the 20\’s or 30\’s I gather- but other times it didn\’t really seem to add anything. It\’s got a lot of similarities to A Separate Peace, which I find I like better, and for a book with university atmosphere I also prefer Tam Lin (although that one has a realm of fantasy so I can\’t really compare them). I guess you could say this is very much a book about ordinary people, the closeness these kids had growing up, and what happened when they got out on their own, how some misunderstandings made it unravel. And as a silly side note, they sure seem to eat a lot of malted milkshakes!

Rating: 3/5 274 pages, 1945

more opinions:
A Work in Progress
A Guy\’s Moleskine Notebook

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Current Reads, General Fiction, Re-reads

Horse Tradin\’

by Ben K. Green

I know I read this book long ago as a teen, found at the public library. So when I came across it recently in a discard sale, snatched it up eager to see how it compared to my fond memory. It was a good read- enjoyed all over again.

It\’s a collection of short stories written by a man who traded horses and mules for a living, back when they were the major form of transportation and power in America (although a few stories feature early cars, or tractors first coming into use). The stories are mostly with a little twist- where the man thought he made a good trade but found out the horse had a hidden fault or behavior problem, sometimes thought he had sneakily played a poor horse off on a better trade, only to discover the animal he\’d acquired wasn\’t as advertised, either.

There were mules painted to look like young, grey dapple, a gypsy mare trained to lie down and groan when saddled, a spoiled lady\’s riding horse that wouldn\’t go more than a few yards from the barn. Many times the author showed how he could make the best of a poor situation, due to his understanding of equine behavior- train them out of their bad habits, or cleverly corral a bunch of wild mules that he\’d been given in trade because the prior owner assumed he would never be able to catch them. Most of the tales take place in Texas, a few further south- he traveled a lot in his work. There\’s one story of a match race on a native American reservation. Sometimes, Green couldn\’t make good on a bad trade, and foisted the poor quality mule or horse off on another unsuspecting person. But there are good, honest transactions in here too, where both parties were well satisfied and respected each other.

I was kind of shocked to read an instance of wasted, sickly horses fed arsenic to fatten them up (and have since read online that inorganic arsenic is commonly used in animal feed to make hogs and chickens grow faster). And the last story surprised me with a little detail that made sense of a totally unrelated book I also read and loved as a kid, An Edge of the Forest. In that one, a herd of deer feeds in a valley that makes them all sleep like death. I always puzzled over that. Here in one of Green\’s stories, some wild unbroken horses were put to graze in a valley of \”sleepy grass\” so they could be pawned off as tamed and gentle. There was something in the grass that made the animals lethargic. I\’ve looked it up, and it\’s a real thing. In some ways, this book also reminded me of Mr. Sponge\’s Sporting Tour.

Rating: 3/5 304 pages, 1963

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Animals Nonfiction, Current Reads, Re-reads, Short Stories, Western

The White Puma

by R.D. Lawrence

I\’ve read this book before, but it was so long ago the prior review was written from memory. Had the chance to enjoy it again, as I bought a copy recently from Powell\’s. The nature writing is just as good as I remember, but funny how the dramatic hunting scenes from the final sixty pages made the strongest impression on me before- in reality, most of the book is a slow buildup, showing the life of the mountain lion. It starts with his mother. The female puma has a negative encounter with a pair of wildlife poachers, one of whom accidentally gets his arm damaged in a trap he\’d set for her– and afterwards the puma is touted as a \”man-eater\” who \”almost ripped his arm off\”. The bad experience instills her with a deep fear of mankind that she teaches to her cubs later in the story. A lot of the book is just about how the family of cougars lives- the mother puma and her three young. How they navigate the landscape, find and ambush prey, show affection for each other, learn skills, hold their territory, avoid danger (encounters with wolves, bears and man). Eventually only the main puma of the story- a very rare creature with an albino coat- is left alive of the family. His fear of man boils into a hatred, and when the poachers come after him specifically, he starts stalking them in turn. I had forgotten most of the story about the hunters and their operation, which has just as much page time as the puma\’s daily life. In the end, a trio of conservationists comes to try and protect the rare cougar from being killed- whose existence is accidentally revealed to the public by one of the hunters when he gets drunk and starts bragging of the future trophy. Reading it this time around, I found the parts about the animals\’ behavior and survival methods satisfying, the parts about the people a bit stiff- perhaps it\’s just the writing style or the age of the book. Near the end, I thought the tactics of the woman who camped out in the forest alone to foil the hunters, a bit laughable. Times were different when this book was written, that\’s for sure. The ending gave me a nice surprise- I had completely forgotten the turn of heart one of the hunters takes. Nice that it was the one I found a bit more sympathetic during the entire storyline.

Rating: 3/5 329 pages, 1990

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Animals Fiction, Current Reads, Re-reads

Girl, Interrupted

by Susanna Kaysen

Please be aware of spoilers below.

I first read this story about mental health a long time ago. Prompted to revisit it because honestly, I saw a copy in my teen\’s stack from the library and I wondered what she would find there. I couldn\’t recall the book clearly myself. Poking around online didn\’t help- the only detailed info I could locate pointed out things about the film, not the book- which apparently added more shock value to the story. I haven\’t seen the movie. But from several online reviews, seems like it has quite a bit of sex and scenes of death- from suicide. I can tell you, having just finished the book- there is no actual sex in it. The characters talk about it: one time they have a discussion about blow jobs (the taste) and another time speculate if they had a boyfriend visiting, could they manage to \”do it\” between nurse checks (fifteen or ten-minute increments). Kaysen herself mentions that she went out with a teacher one time, and he kissed her- but in a therapy session she lets the doctor believe they slept together, and apparently the film carried that idea further. As for the suicide- well, it is discussed a lot in the story- the author constantly thought about it, and one time they hear that a former patient committed suicide after going home. That\’s it. In case you want to know!

What is it mostly about? How the author found herself in a mental hospital as a teen, after what seemed to her a very brief interview with a psychiatrist. She was moody, she practiced self-harm, her perception of time had serious lapses, she struggled with uncontrollable thoughts that looped and spiraled downwards- but really, she wondered what she was doing there. She tells about the other young women on the ward with her- most of them seem to have more serious issues than herself, until the day she starts to wonder- frantically- if she has substance, if there are bones beneath her own skin- and injures herself in a quest to find out. I think that was the most disturbing thing to read about. On the whole, I found it to be bluntly honest, frankly questioning, a bit snarky at times. The writing is also very lyrical and refreshing at times, and once again I really enjoyed her voice.

I was surprised how much of this reminded me of I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. Not the symptoms, but the atmosphere. Kaysen\’s memoir is placed during the late sixties- cold packs, electric shock and isolation were still common treatments. The feel of the ward is so similar- sitting in the hall outside the nurse station, waiting to make it back outside- or not. On a side note, she managed years later, to get hold of the records from the hospital, and reprinted some of the pages in the book- showing what the nurses and doctors had written about her, what their actual diagnosis was. Comparing that to the inner thoughts she shares about her time spent there, is interesting and puts some perspective on things. Kaysen is discharged after two years, able to hold a job and maintain a relationship, but still often questioning herself- wondering am I sane? are you?

Rating: 4/5 169 pages, 1993

Tags: 4/5- Great Book, Bios / Memoirs, Current Reads, Medical/Health, Re-reads

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

by Joanne Greenberg

I read this book at least twice when I was a teen. It\’s been decades. I was curious how similar it might be to Challenger Deep, and yes, it was a very interesting comparison. Both are about a teenager suffering from schizophrenia. Both kids experience a complex, detailed inner world where other personae speak to them. I thought it was also telling that in each case, there was an aspect of the inner world where the sufferer felt they were descending into a great depth- in Challenger Deep, it was the depths of the ocean. In Rose Garden, it was a bottomless pit of hell.

But there the similarities end. This young woman- Deoborah- is sent by her family to a mental hospital where she receives therapy and lives on a ward with other patients. Use of medication is crude and rudimentary- it seems to be limited to sedatives. I have to make myself remember that the book is placed squarely in its time- it was written in the sixties, and the story takes place during the forties. So please note if you read it that people worked with the knowledge they had, at the time. In the book, a lot of emphasis is placed on the importance of therapy- Deobrah\’s therapist spends hours digging through her memories to sift out the cause of her withdrawl from the world, the reason the people in her head censor her actions and punish her, the traumas she may have suffered when very young that marred her psyche. I don\’t think it quite works like that? As far as I can understand, medication treats the condition and therapy helps, but the cause is not a childhood trauma as this story implies.

Regardless, it\’s very well-written and the characters are vivid- not just Deborah, but the other patients she interacts with, the staff at the hospital, her fierce and compassionate therapist. As a younger reader, I was fascinated with and baffled by the demanding, inscrutable \’gods\’ that peopled Deborah\’s inner world- now I found them more easy to see through. I still enjoyed the wordplay, the codes the patients had of communicating unspeakable things, the often-beautiful way Deborah spoke in metaphors (she also had a made-up language for her inner world). I noticed on this read how much more this book delves into what the family went through at home- what to tell relatives, how to deal with their own guilt and worry. It even has a few chapters from the therapist\’s point of view (personal life as well as her work).

And I appreciated that, just like in the more modern book I read, the main character realizes at the end that while there is no permanent cure for their condition, there can be a great alleviation of suffering, and the capability of leading a productive life. Deobrah\’s story felt a bit rushed at the end- while it did address the very different struggles she had to integrate back into the regular world when her stay at the hospital was over, it went through that without much depth, compared to all the pages spent on therapy sessions and conversations with fellow patients.

Still, a good read, if you keep in mind how long ago it was written. At first, the frequency of the author telling stuff irritated me, but I got used to it as a style of the writing and was okay with it later on (something I often can\’t tolerate in more modern books). The voice overall does feel surprisingly relevant and current, in spite of its timeframe.

Note: the edition I read was published under the pen name Hannah Green. The story was based on the author\’s personal experiences (I don\’t know to what degree things had been fictionalized).

Rating: 3/5 318 pages, 1964

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Current Reads, General Fiction, Re-reads

Queen of Shaba

the Story of an African Leopard
by Joy Adamson

Joy Adamson, famous for raising the wild lion Elsa of Born Free, went on to raise and release a cheetah as well. Her final ambition was to do the same with a leopard, which had never been attempted before and many cautioned her against it, because leopards were a lot more unpredictable and considered more dangerous than lions and cheetah. It took a long time for her to obtain a leopard cub (with permission from wildlife authorities). The first orphaned cub she acquired died from an overdose of a vaccine, the second one she got seven years later, and it died when left in a hot car too long – very sad. The third orphaned cub that came into her hands remained healthy, and she named it Penny. First it was kept in an enclosure near her home in the bush, but after a lot of consideration she an her small crew of helpers found a suitable location to release the leopard, and they basically moved there and lived out in the bush, letting the leopard roam and keeping tabs on her. They fed her regularly, and supplied her with water to keep her from frequenting the river where they feared she would get taken by a crocodile. They put a radio collar on her (it looks crude and bulky in the photos) but it often fell off so they spent hours searching for the leopard and calling, to find her location and provide for her. The leopard must have learned to hunt eventually, because often she appeared well-fed, but Joy continued to support Penny by taking her food at her regular haunts, even after she birthed a pair of cubs in the wild. She rarely got a glimpse of the new leopard cubs; this big cat was secretive and didn\’t bring her young to visit her surrogate human mother as Elsa had done.

Joy obviously cared a lot about her cats. During the time she was working with Penny she also took charge of an abandoned lion cub for a brief time, and an adult male leopard who was later released into Penny\’s territory in hopes he would become her mate- and she devoted all her efforts and time to their care and watching over them. I\’m amazed she did all this work even though her health was becoming frail- when she first got the cub she suffered a broken ankle from a fall, and had hip replacement surgery. She seemed prone to injury and the leopard itself often turned on her- I can\’t count the number of times she wrote that she was stroking Penny- who appeared to solicit the attention- when the leopard suddenly turned and tore her skin, or bit a hole in her arm! It didn\’t deter Joy from continuing the project. She was careful to keep other people at a distance, only one or two men who worked directly with her became trusted by the leopard; Penny remained wary of other humans and Joy made sure to stay away from areas frequented by tourists or tribesmen, so the leopard would remain as wild in behavior as possible. (In the case of the wild male leopard, nobody at all handled it, that one was fed at a distance from outside the cage until it was ready to be released).

A fascinating true account of one woman\’s relationship with a wild leopard. But, as reading material goes, I\’m sorry to say the book itself is rather dry. I know the author took pains to avoid anthropomorphising the animals she wrote about, so that her words would be taken seriously- she was afraid that otherwise, nobody would believe her stories. So that means her books are very factual accounts, without a lot of emotion or descriptive writing. I\’m debating if I should keep this one on my shelf- I feel I ought to, to make my collection of Adamson\’s writings complete- but I doubt I\’ll ever read it again (this was the second time).

Rating: 2/5 180 pages, 1980

Tags: 2/5- Just Okay, Animals Nonfiction, Current Reads, Re-reads

Paddle to the Amazon

by Don Starkell

In 1980, Don Starkell and his two sons undertook an amazing canoe journey- at the time, it was a world-record accomplishment. They paddled a 21-foot canoe from Winnipeg, Canada to the mouth of the Amazon River in Brazil. 12,000 miles in two years. I\’ve written about this book before, but that time was from memory, I hadn\’t actually read it in over a decade. Now having obtained my own copy through a book swap, I enjoyed reading it again.

Their canoe journey took the Starkells down the Red River and the Mississippi, along the Gulf of Mexico\’s coastline, past the Panama Canal (they were denied entry- which would have been just for fun), traversing the coasts of Colombia and Venezuela, down the Orinoco River and up the Amazon through Brazil. They suffered many hardships- some of which I remembered vividly- salt sores, hunger, exhaustion. A lot of the trip was in ocean waters which sounded incredibly difficult and dangerous. One of the sons dropped out not long into the journey. The other, Dana, struggled with asthma for much of the trip, then found the South American climate agreed with him and he was able to quit using his medication. They travelled through thirteen countries- in some areas were met with great generosity and hospitality, in other places strong suspicion and thievery. They undertook quite a few grueling portages, a few times across an isthmus where they insisted on hauling the boat on a trailer by hand, refusing assistance offered with vehicles because they wanted to make the entire journey via manpower. A lot of people thought they\’d never make it to the end, and sometimes they thought that, themselves. Don says he\’d never do it again- but years later he made another canoe journey from Canada to the Arctic, which I\’d like to read someday.

My memory had exaggerated some things and dismissed others. In my mind, the incidents involving snakes and crocodiles had stood out for years, but upon re-reading, those things were really minor. They had one close encounter with an anaconda (approaching it to take a photo) but all the crocs they saw were at a distance, none threatened. This time around I noticed the writing about the scenery, and descriptions about how various native people eked out a living on the coast. Don sometimes mused on how travelling by canoe equated his experience with that of early explorers- in some cases he used their writings to know what to expect on little-travelled stretches of river. My favorite part of the book was the last thirty pages, which describes their journey on the actual Amazon River- lots of wildlife sightings.

Rating: 4/5 316 pages, 1987

Tags: 4/5- Great Book, Current Reads, Re-reads, Travel/Adventure

The Ra Expeditions

by Thor Heyerdahl

This book was a re-read for me. Seven years ago I was kind of floored when I read about Heyerdahl\’s trips across the Atlantic in handmade boats, to test his theories about how ancient peoples might have travelled the oceans, in particular going from Egypt to the American continent. For some reason I had this book on my TBR shelf next to The Tigris Expedition and decided to read one before the other (chronologically). I was only a few chapters in before incidents and descriptions began to feel familiar, and I realized I\’d read it before. It was still pretty darn interesting, and is sticking around in my collection (this time properly shelved).

In Kon-Tiki Heyerdahl crossed the ocean on a balsa wood raft, in this case he built papyrus reed boats. He travelled the world to find men who still built reed boats on various lakes, and with their expertise handling the materials, followed the design of reed boats depicted in Egyptian tombs- he was convinced by their shape they must have been seaworthy. However he didn\’t know the purpose of certain parts of the design, so although they copied the images faithfully, once at sea they made some mistakes which caused the boat to start falling apart. They made it most of the way across- just a few hundred miles short of their goal before being rescued by a ship. The bulk of the book details the research, how the boat was constructed and the first trip- how the men settled their differences on board (being from seven different nations), how they learned to steer the reed boat, sightings of whales, porpoises, sharks, jellyfish and other oceanic life, difficulties with the weather and all things you\’d expect to read about an ocean voyage. Mostly it\’s about how the structure of the boat held up (or didn\’t) to the rigors of wave and wind, and how their provisions held out- they took only foods that ancient Egyptians might have had, and packed them the same way- clay jars and baskets. It all worked out surprisingly well.

Thor Heyerdahl launched a second trip not long after, to prove they could make it all the way with the boat built and loaded properly. This time they didn\’t have nearly as many difficulties, and the second trip is told in a mere one chapter. It wasn\’t as exciting because not so much went wrong- the boat still took on water and they broke steering oars, but it didn\’t fall apart like the first one.

While I liked reading this again, I did notice it got really repetitive telling about all the historical similarities between ancient cultures Heyerdahl was trying to prove. There\’s an entire chapter or two in the middle of the book where he just reiterates all the arguments he brought up at the beginning of the book, fleshed out from some reading the crew did while on board to while away calm moments. Then he rehashes it all again at the end. I didn\’t really want to read a bunch of history, I wanted to read about the adventure- I could have done with all that just told once and summarized again…

Rating: 3/5 341 pages, 1971

My earlier review is here.

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Current Reads, Nonfiction (general), Re-reads, Travel/Adventure

Julie of the Wolves

by Jean Craighead George

The pains of growing up and culture clash meld into a story of animal communication and survival skills with some beautiful nature writing. No wonder this book is a classic. It is told in three parts, and the first one is about Julie\’s interactions with a wolf pack, which hooked me from the beginning. In the opening scene Julie, a thirteen-year-old Inuit (or Eskimo as they are called in the book) is lost on the Arctic tundra. She had run away from home, trying to reach the coast where a ship would take her to San Francisco. She ran out of food and in spite of finding ways to hunt and forage, is slowing starving. She comes across a small wolf pack and decides that her only hope is to gain their trust and share their food. Incredible patience and close attention to the subtle ways the wolves communicate allows her to do this. I really loved reading about how Julie integrated herself into the wolf pack, and how she lived alongside the animals. It felt quite plausible.

The second part of the book is a flashback to Julie\’s childhood, which tells how she got into her present predicament. Her father, a great hunter who taught her many traditional skills, disappears one day on a trip and is presumed dead. She is forced to move away and live with an aunt who only seems to want Julie in her household as a source of free labor. Julie escapes this situation via an arranged marriage to an Inuit boy, but this new home is also insufferable. Having run away, got lost in the wilderness and found ways to survive, Julie (whose Eskimo name is Miyax) gradually discovers that she loves living close to the land, that she has a deep appreciation for nature and finds satisfaction in using her skills (not without some major challenges, though). When she finally reaches populated areas again, she\’s no longer sure if she wants to live among men. Her value system is different now. She directly sees the threat modern man poses to her wolves (who follow along towards the village). And when she makes contact with people, she discovers that far more has changed than her own perceptions. I really felt like the ending was too quick, and I had forgotten what sad notes it contained.

But it does make me more eager to pick up the second book and see where the story goes. Julie of the Wolves was a re-read for me. I\’m not sure if I read the sequel before. I have a dim memory of abandoning it, but will see how much is familiar.

Rating: 4/5 170 pages, 1972

more opinions:
Inkweaver Review
Rhapsody in Books
Smart Bitches Trashy Books
Skipping Along

Tags: 4/5- Great Book, Animals Fiction, Classics, Current Reads, Juvenile Fic, Nature, Re-reads

The Other Wind

by Ursula K. LeGuin

I loved LeGuin\’s books of Earthsea as a teen. I was ecstatic when years after reading the original trilogy I came across her collection of short stories set in the same world, and much later, the fourth book Tehanu. A number of years back when I heard The Other Wind was published, I was so eager to read it, but somehow never got around to it until now.

Now Ged is an old man. He used to be Archmage but those powers have left him and he lives on his mountaintop on Gont, keeping goats and tending a garden. A young sorcerer comes to him, a man whose skill is mending things- broken pots and fences, the like. His beloved wife had died and he is harrowed by dreams where he stands at a low wall, his wife reaching to him across it from the dry land. The dreams become more distressing, with other dead figures troubling him until he can no longer sleep and frightens those around him- shouting in the dark at nightmares. He comes to Ged for help but the old man points him to Roke- he senses that these dreams show a significant change coming to their world, something gone wrong in the basic order of things. The young man\’s journey takes him to the center of their world, where me meets Tehanu the burnt girl, a foreign princess offered in political marraige, and the young king himself. I had forgotten how much I liked Lebannen\’s character, even though when I first met him in an earlier book I thought he was something of a brat! There are delicate relationships between the characters, strangers and friends, foriegners and those familiar to us. I had forgotten than in this world, some people exist who are really dragons, and some dragons can take human form. The depth LeGuin goes to exploring the foundations of her island world explains why that is so. It\’s very satisfying in that regard, and I liked that her final version of the distinction between life and death wasn\’t the expected one, that it took into consideration the ancient tales and superstitions of her foreign, \’barbaric\’ characters as well. It\’s very good at looking at how opposing cultures view each other. Most of all, this is a story about the relationship between life and death.

It was a good read, but somehow did not touch me vividly as the earlier books have done. LeGuin is a master of understatement- when I was a kid this let my imagination free to fill in the gaps, to invent all the details. Now I find it just a little bit flat. I was more interested in the ideas presented, than the characters themselves. I admit I had a sudden throb of nostalgia when I first opened the book and saw the map. How I remember poring over that map as a younger reader, following the characters on their journeys between the islands, imagining the different peoples and customs on each. A lot of it came back, reading this final novel. I have a borrowed library copy in hand, but will have to get another to add to my own collection, just to have this series complete.

Rating: 3/5 273 pages, 2001

more opinions:
have you written about this book? let me know and I\’ll link to your post

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Current Reads, Fantasy / Sci Fi, Re-reads

Tag: Re-reads

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