The Giver by Lois Lowry-- The Giver Quartet, #1

I've been pretty blue these past couple of days and wishing for a simpler time. High school, specifically, and I read The Giver for the first time in high school, so in my mild regression I decided my next review would be of The Giver, first in The Giver series which, coincidentally, will have its fourth installment released in October.

The Giver takes place in an uber-futuristic world, in a community that, in an effort to minimize difficulty and pain, has eliminated things like weather, hills, and personal choice. There is no sunlight. There is no rain. The people have lost the ability to see color. Adults apply for a spouse and one is assigned to them. Spouses apply for children and they are assigned to them- one boy, one girl, no more, no less, not ever.

At the annual ceremony where infants to children of  11 (turning 12) receive the items, responsibilities, age, and hairstyles of the next year. The 11 year olds that are turning 12 are given the job assignments they will have for the rest of their lives, and the story centers on one of these 11-to-12 year olds, Jonas.

At the ceremony, Jonas is named the next Reciever of Memory. The community only has one, one man that holds the memories of generations past and feels all the pain and love that the rest of the community never gets to experience. In order for him to retire he needs to transfer the memories to Jonas.

Jonas then begins to see the problems in his community. The literal and metaphorical lack of color. The reason why they are so serious about precision of language (parents don't love their children, they enjoy and take pride in them. You're not starving, you're hungry-- no one in the community is starving, or ever will be. Etc.) Jonas decides after gaining so much experience from the memories, that things need to change.


One of the things I love most about this book is the amount of detail Lowry packs into such a short book. The way she has the community set up is watertight, no element of life in the community is left out. You aren't distracted halfway through going, "Wait, how do they...?" because it's covered.

In fantasy criticism there's a rule that's been repeated so often it's cliche: the book or movie needs to establish a set of rules of what is and is not possible in the world being worked in. Chandler and I say this all the time on Movie Gaga. It's this seemingly small rule that, not followed, can destroy a fantasy work. The Giver stays well within its own bounds. More than that, it just barely goes outside the bounds of the natural world. The only magic that actually occurs is in the transfer of and the ability to almost enter the world of the memory.


This book is also the perfect introduction to dystopian stories. Too young for Fahrenheit 451, 1984, and Brave New World, but old enough to begin questioning authority and the world around them? There isn't another book for tweens/young adults that shows how dangerous mind control can be.

There are layers of symbolism and allegory that can be analyzed all on their own, as well, which is what makes this book something you can return to over and over again for years, even as an adult. I love it.

5 stars out of 5

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

I really enjoy books about Asian cultural history-- probably because my American education refused to believe there was an Eastern hemisphere, but I digress. The point is, nowadays, I can't get enough of it and Lisa See is one of my favorites.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan gives an in depth look into the secrets of women's lives and relationships in 19th century China-- foot binding, cloistering, women's writing, and the special friendships forged. The story takes Lily and Snow Flower through their early childhood together as a matchmaker-made relationship between young girls called laotong.

We follow the girls through their brutal, painful, dangerous foot bindings and their lives as young girls locked away in the upstairs women's chambers, sewing and painting and doing "womanly" things. Then there's their meetings with the matchmaker, wondering about their husbands, and preparing for their weddings in both the traditional ways and the special ways reserved for laotong. After comes their lives during and after their marriages and children. Throughout everything, as was the intention of the pairing, the girls are there to help each other through anything the other needs.

Secrets are the main theme of the story. The women's secret lives in their cloisters, the secrets of the care and creation of the perfect bound foot, the secret language women developed to communicate with each other, and the secrets shared and forged between best friends. And as the novel progresses, the secrets surrounding Snow Flower's life are uncovered, one heartbreaking discovery after another.

Lisa See is an amazing writer, and this is the kind of book you can become completely engrossed in for every one of your multiple readings.

5 stars

A note about the movie: While I want to keep my movie-related rants confined to Movie Gaga,

I did want to mention that if anyone saw the (very poorly reviewed) movie without having

read the book I can tell you with complete confidence, even though I have never seen the

movie, that the two have very little do with each other. To sum up that point I will say only that there is not a single character in the book that is not Chinese, yet Hugh Jackman was one of the film's stars. No, I'm not kidding.

The Lost Life of Eva Braun by Angela Lambert

I found this on The Onion last night:

New Documentary Focuses On Life Of Eva Braun's Late Husband

NEW YORK—The History Channel announced Thursday it will air a new documentary this fall examining the life of the late husband of prewar German model and amateur photographer Eva Braun. "This film is a fascinating, in-depth look at a central figure in Eva Braun's life," said History Channel spokesman Charles Lansing, adding that the broadcast will feature more than 300 archival images of Braun with her husband, a German civil servant and vegetarian noted for his charisma and interest in art. "Braun's longtime lover had a significant impact on her views regarding politics and aesthetics, and the footage of him we've unearthed highlights the persuasive power of the man she often wrote about." Lansing added that the new documentary, entitled The Man Behind Eva Braun, will cover the very active life of Braun's spouse right up to his sudden passing in 1945 in the basement of the couple's Berlin apartment.


Thought it was fitting.


I can't tell you how much I loved The Lost Life of Eva Braun. I'm kind of sad to give it back to the library now...anybody wants to get me a present I'd gladly take a copy of this book.


I did my thesis on Lee Miller's photojournalism during WWII so I spent 4 months completely immersed in the war and at the end of it all I sat back and said, "Wait a second. Hitler had a girlfriend through the whole thing. WHO WOULD EVER-?! WHAT?! WHY!!??? HHHHOOWW?! WWWWHOOOO????????!" So I decided to find out. Like I said above, I found this book at my library and it's in nearly pristine condition, I doubt it's been taken out more than 4 times. It's pretty new, too, published in 2006. Come to think of it, the librarian that checked it out for me didn't even know we had it.


On to the review:


It's been the intention of history to remove all humanity from Hitler & co., to portray them strictly as monsters and not human beings. Documents like personal letters were destroyed in order to keep evidence of their humanity from the public. I take issue with that, as holding them up as symbols of evil, caricatures even, removes the elements that we all have in common with them which makes it so easy for us to say "That will never be me" or "I'll never fall in love with a fascist dictator" but...it's possible. It's possible, is all I'm saying.


The Lost Life takes an amazing perspective on the war because it's not in the concentration camps or Anne Frank's attic or any of the many many armies involved, it's civilian life in Europe, particularly Germany, at the time. Angela Lambert's mother was actually born within a few weeks of Eva Braun, so Lambert uses stories from her mother's life to supplement the little information available about Eva's childhood, and also to give her back that bit of human-ness: Eva's practically a ghost, floating through modern history as we know her name and little else.


That's about as much as most people knew at the time, as well. Hitler refused to make their relationship public, and Eva didn't end up even moving in with him until the late thirties even though Eva was essentially promoted to Hitler's #1 lady after his niece, Geli Raubal, committed suicide. And even after they began living together only the very, very top of the Nazi hierarchy and the personal maids of Hitler and Eva even knew who she was- on the phone directory for the Berghof (Hitler's main house in the German countryside) she was listed as a secretary. The few times they attended the same public event she was forced to sit far from Hitler with the other, actual, secretaries. At the Berghof she was confined to her room.


And while it's easy to view her as an anti-Semite and racist Nazi, Eva and most of her family never joined the Nazi party (except for her father, but he only did it to please Hitler). In fact, Hitler even presented her with an award he had made for non-Nazis that provided him with great services. And given her strict Catholic upbringing and patronage of Jewish clothing and shoe designers throughout the war (even after the ban on Jewish merchants was placed) it's unlikely that she was anti-Semitic. And given Hitler's strict orders that no one ever discuss anything war or politic related with Eva it's possible she never even knew about the camps, and even attempted to intercede with Hitler on behalf of a few friends (of course he ignored her, but she tried and reacted to the few incidents she did hear about.)


Lambert's book is impeccably researched (did anybody know that we, the United States, actually hold Eva's personal diary in our archives? We confiscated it during the war and it now resides in the National Archives in Maryland, along with Eva's own personal photo albums and home movies she took while living at the Berghof) and richly detailed. Her chapters on the last few weeks of Eva and Hitler's life in the underground bunker are vivid and emotional. The paragraphs on how Eva and the maids pitched in to make the last few days of the six Goebbels children as comfortable as possible knowing that their parents had already decided to murder them when the time came are particularly heartbreaking.


It's an incredible book with a unique angle on history and human nature. It also gives an in-depth look to German childhood in the early 20th century, showing how the stars aligned to make Hitler and Eva perfect for each other (Fathers, love your daughters for who they are so they don't fall in love with the first older man that shows them the slightest bit of positive attention). An absolute must-read for anyone that...no. An absolute must read for anyone, period.


5 stars

The False Friend by Myla Goldberg

"Myla Goldberg sets a steady hand upon her brow

Myla Goldberg hangs a crooked foot all upside down

...

Pretty hands do pretty things when pretty times arise

Seraphim and seaweed swim where stick-limbed Myla lies"

-- from Song for Myla Goldberg by The Decemberists

Myla Goldberg has officially made my list of favorite authors. She's written 5 books, but as my library only has her three novels that's all I've been able to read-- the 4th book is a non-fiction "walk in Prague" called Time's Magpie and the 5th is a children's book called Catching the Moon.

Goldberg's first novel, Bee Season, was brilliant. Eliza, the daughter of a Jewish scholar, was an average student until her talent for spelling was found. The talent takes her to the National Spelling Bee twice (unlike the movie) and she begins to study a word-related arm of Jewish Mysticism with her father, while her mother's mental health slowly breaks down and her brother explores Hinduism.

Her second novel, Wickett's Remedy, was excellent-- and managed to have a unique format, and when was the last time you saw a novel with a unique format? Exactly. Lydia Wickett and her husband begin a mail-order business in the late 19-teens, and after her husband's sudden death the 1918 influenza epidemic hits and, compelled to act, Lydia joins a (historically accurate) medical study of the deadly flu using convicts on a remote island facility. Running through the novel is fan club literature and information on QD Soda, whose secret recipe is suspiciously close to that of Wickett's Remedy. Throughout the story is also a running commentary in the margins provided by the souls of the dead, correcting or expounding on the thoughts, actions, and memories of the living characters in the story.

This newest novel, published in 2010, tells the story of Celia Durst-- a woman in her early 30s struck one day with the memory of a childhood friend, Djuna, she is convinced she saw fall down a well in the middle of the forest, not getting into a stranger's car like she told everyone after it happened. Celia returns home to tell everyone the truth, but no one believes her. As Celia goes through reconnecting with people she hasn't spoken to in 20 years, details of the moments leading up to Djuna's disappearance are brought back to light for Celia, including (and especially) their bullying of a classmate, leading to the fight between Celia and Djuna before she disappeared.

This book is an absolute must-read for anyone who wants to better understand women and their relationships to each other, and just what the hell was going on between the girls on the playground.

Parts were extremely emotional, remembering...just remembering what it was like. Goldberg so perfectly captures the delicacy and brutality of the world of young girls you have to wonder what Goldberg herself went through.

Goldberg even deftly handles what it's like watching your hometown and parents age-- it's difficult enough to live through, let alone write about.

The writing is sharp and witty, the pacing is tight, and the characters and their relationships are realistic. It packs a lot of punch in its 250 pages and I couldn't put it down.

5 stars

The World I Live In by Helen Keller

If you have an Amazon Kindle, or a Kindle App, The World I Live In is available for free here:The World I Live In. If you have some other kind of E-reader do your thing, whatever that may be, because I have a Kindle so that's all I understand.

What I'm trying to say it's available online, for free. It's sitting out there waiting for you to find it in its free-ness.

And you should absolutely find it. Find it now.

My experiences with the Helen Keller story are like everyone else's: you read a story in elementary school about how deaf and blind Helen learned to speak and went to college because of her teacher, Annie Sullivan. Then a little while later you see one version or another of The Miracle Worker because every few years, without fail, The Miracle Worker comes on TV and you're like, "Oh, yeah, I remember that Helen Keller thing..." And between those experiences you hear the jokes about rearranging the furniture and "reading" the waffle iron. Then later on you discover Apples to Apples and learn that a (more or less) properly played "Helen Keller" card is an instant win because it's pretty freaking hilarious every time. In fact, you can even Like it on Facebook: "Apples to Apples: The Helen Keller Card".

People make offhand Helen Keller jokes all the time, but their thoughts never seem to go much deeper than "Being deaf and blind would suck a lot." I myself never really thought that long about it even though I had my mother rent The Miracle Worker every week for months. But I never really thought about it.

Maybe it's because I never had to-- that I was never faced with it on an everyday basis. Or maybe I did think about it as in-depth-ly as my 8 year-old brain could go and when my questions went unanswered they dissipated.

In any event, while reading The World I Live In, I was continually surprised by the little things that never occurred to me and I found myself saying, "Oh, yeah! How does she do/experience that? What's that like?"

Helen takes us through her world in 15 chapters and explains how her world compares to ours in day to day life- speaking, reading, writing, and her life before Annie Sullivan.

Then, in Chapter 15, Helen lets loose a rhapsodic torrent of ethereal beauty. Chapter 15, "A Waking Dream", weaves history, literature, and fantasy into a veritable tapestry of...of...of...beauticiousness. I sincerely want Herbert to come over and read "A Waking Dream" to me while I drift off to sleep. I loved this chapter. I think it was included to show that her imagination is just as good as-- if not better than-- the average person's, and it is. It's most certainly better than mine; my actual dreams are only half as good and that's only because of the drugs I'm on, and she's talking about a daydream. That's serious creativity.

The World I Live In is a quick, pretty, and interesting read, and absolutely worth it.

5 stars