Teeming with Excitement! If A Girl Can Be So...

As you all know I am a big fan of India writer Amitav Ghosh. His first novel The Glass Palace is never too far from my thoughts, and though I've tried delving into one of his other subsequent novels, The Circle of Reason, Ghosh's enormous imagination engulfed me to the point where I was exhausted by the language dealing with phrenology and had to stop. Recently, while listening to my favorite Internet radio site, NPR, I came across an interview Ghosh did for his latest book (drum roll please...) Sea of Poppies!.

I could spend forever just listening to him recount the process of writing this expansive novel, and you can too over here at NPR's All Things Considered Book Review with Amitav Ghosh. I don't quite know the gist of the novel, but NPR's introductory description "Imagine if Charles Dickens had signed on for a voyage with the Pequod" is enough for me. But if you're at all interested in the ties among India, Britain, and China during the opium trade in the 1800s then this novel promises to be a great read. An excerpt from 'Poppies' is also provided at the bottom of the NPR interview.

Okay, I'm heading out to Barnes & Noble to curl up with my copy and an apple crisp pouch. So good! Happy reading!

Nic

Election Fever, Literary Style

We Did It! Assuming all reader of this blog supported our President-Elect Barack Obama in the election (and if you didn’t I have no qualms telling you to leave now), this is certainly one of the best weeks in our lives. Being a complete bookworm, I immediately consulted Amazon to see what I should be reading up on as we usher in this new era of American History. This is what I came up with:

[Unbought and Unbossed, Shirley Chisholm]

Ms. Chisholm is a true black American icon. She was the first black woman elected to the U.S. Congress and the first black person to run for president of the U.S. Obama’s win surely owes this woman some credit.

[The Audacity of Hope. Barack Obama]

Yes our dear leader penned books even before he took control of the ’08 election. Hope is a huge part of Obama’s plans for our country, so I’d love to get a crack at where the head man’s head is at.

[The West Wing: Complete Series]

I hope that you’ve heard that Obama isn’t wasting any time tooling up for the inauguration. He’s already hired former Clinton staffer Rahm Emmanuel as the Chief of Staff for the new administration. Interestingly, Rahm inspired a character on the politi-drama The West Wing.

Yes We Did! Visit the new administration’s webpage at www.change.gov.

--Whitney

Uptown Literatti Shows Love to the First Family

We congratulate President Barack Obama on a monumental campaign that he led with diligence, compassion, and humility. Let us all make this a catalyst toward continuing in the direction of our dreams!

And should any of you be in D.C on January 20th, please join UL and friends as we stand should to shoulder with fellow Obama supporters at the Inauguration of our 44th President of the United States!

'A Tree' Brings Forth The Early American Immigrant's Tale

I started A Tree Grows in Brooklyn standing in the middle of the aisle in Barnes & Noble, and by page 3 I found myself sitting Indian-style on a little wooden chair nestled between two Japanese comic book shelves, hovered over the book like a die-hard Harry Potter fan trying to burn through the pages of the latest novel. (*I know you love Harry Potter, Whit. I’m the same way with Lord of the Rings :). But I digress.

I thoroughly enjoyed Betty Smith’s cool, easy way of telling a narrative in a very plain spoken manner. Through depicting what during the early 20th century was an everyday slice of life for the poor, Smith uses the voice of a young but very perceptive girl to truly breathe life and color into her narrative.

Of all the themes throughout the novel, I would like to address the one I have an affinity for: the immigrant experience and the class system by which it was affected. Part of what makes A Tree Grows In Brooklyn so unique is that although these very human experiences happened in some form or fashion to millions of individuals every year, the immigrant experience in New York—Brooklyn in particular—was very different from an immigrant living in California or even the Deep South. There were certain commonalities, of course: the country’s transition into war in Europe, adjusting to the language and the politics of the culture, etc. The immigrants in cities like New York and Williamsburg, Brooklyn faced unique challenges such as tenement apartments, low rents and equally low safety regulations. There was the fact that you had no land with which to farm and cultivate your own foods as in your native country or even the broad spaces of the American West or Midwest. Bread, meat, and vegetables, though staples in many homes were often times luxuries that could not be afforded or had to be consumed in moderation. For example, the Nolan’s plan a weekend to buy meat not because they have a surplus of money in which to splurge but because now they have just enough to where they can afford to include it. These staples had to be bought from the store, and in many cases for immigrants they were recycled. Crusted bread was kneaded into more bread that had to stretch through the week by adding water and a little heat.

There was something unique to the experience of Eastern and Western European immigrant groups living on top of one another and not always seeing eye-to-eye. During the early 1900s all the way through the Red Scare of the 1950s, Irish-Americans were against Jewish-Americans and Soviets were against Irish-German Americans, etc. There was plenty of conflict amongst these groups living in such close proximity, and with that melting pot came some form of tolerance that perhaps more “affluent” individuals not accustomed to immigrant life did not always have.

Betty Smith included some very important undertones to the immigrant experience, one being how immigrant parents and children were sometimes taken advantage of by the school system and made to feel inferior, perhaps because they didn’t understand the language, or more importantly because the teachers out right ignored their entitlements. Simple things like acknowledging a child so that he or she can go to the restroom, or feeling that you can whip a child because he or she will never tell his or her parents both contributed to this broken education system. There was also the issue of ignoring the flagrant problem of overcrowding and being deficient of enough resources to allow each child a chance to learn properly.

Think of the characters you despised most. It wasn’t the store keepers who took advantage of their younger customers (i.e the neighborhood kids) by taking more of their pennies than they should, or the man who hurled a tree at Francie or Neely, or even Katie when at times when she appeared unfeeling towards Francie as a young girl. Why not feel some amount of disdain for these individuals? Because all of these characters understood that making a life for oneself on a limited means was hard. Anything you could do to protect yourself or your children towards the harsh realities of living was necessary. The shopkeepers are living on a fluctuating income, too. Their coaxing more money from a child isn’t out of spite for that child but rather a defensive tactic to preserve their own means of living.

The people I disliked the most was the doctor and his harsh words whose meaning he thought would be lost on Francie, and his weak-minded nurse. It was the teacher who made Francie burn her “ugly words” and declared that someday Francie “would be thanking her.” It was the teachers who, having come from a background of similar poverty, now find it pertinent to look down on their pupils with disdain, and worse, pity.

The grand irony to this novel is that the American dream was being denied to the very group of people—immigrants—who, in retrospect, defined the American dream of creating something out of nothing and having it grow from generation to generation. Smith was wise enough to know that poverty worked two- fold: you can be poor in character and full in your pocket, or you can be poor in pocket and become resilient despite being so. Like the tree that still grew from cement, one could continue to grow through one’s inadequacies, if they were strong enough. Smith didn’t view the immigrants themselves as bad or misfortunate. Throughout her narrative she does a beautiful job of showing how many of the immigrants fought to make it work so that their children didn’t always have to live on limited means.

Francie Grows in Brooklyn

[A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith]

Before it's all said and done, you'll tire of hearing me say how much I heart coming of age stories. Something about witnessing a literary heroine go from bookish nerd to awkward young adult just pulls at my heartstrings.

So, I really, really wanted to like A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith instantly. But, I didn't. Francie Nolan, the book's protagonist, was so similar to so many other girls in other books. She read. A lot. She wrote. A lot. She daydreamed, she was teased. In other words, she was the type of girl that writers love to write about. A lot.

As a result, I was pretty bored with the first 50-60 pages, but then I began to love Miss Francie and realize why the book is heralded as a classic, great book. It wasn't her charm or intelligence, it was her love for and commitment to Brooklyn, and everything in it, including her great, big family.

An overview: The Nolans are a working class, second generation Brooklyn family. Mommy Katie's a beautiful, hard-working and practical Austrian while Dad Jimmy is a fanciful, loving and kind of lazy Irishman. They've got two kids: Francie, who's smart and shy plus Neely, who's more outgoing, but doesn't have the patience for more intellectual pursuits. The family's central struggle is with poverty and Jimmy's alcoholism, which costs the family precious dollars and constantly chips at the dignity Katie tries so hard to preserve.

The tree referred to in the title is a Tree of Heaven, suspiciously planted in the concrete jungle of Brooklyn, but still managing to survive. This is, of course, akin to the Nolan's. Like Ashleigh pointed out, so much of the book is about the will to live, and for that life to be meaningful/dignified, which I think makes it so relatable to nearly everyone.

Throughout the book, Francie grows from a little, awkward girl, freezing in threadbare clothes and feeling inferior to prettier, cleaner girls that manage to get the teacher's attention, to a similarly awkward teenager forced to leave school and work reading newspaper headlines after her dad dies and her baby sister is born.

All in all, it was a really good read. I enjoyed Smith's acute attention to detail in recreating everything about her beloved Williamsburg, Brooklyn. From the way it looked, to the way it smelled, sounded, felt and how it was able to nurture a small, poor immigrant family.

What did you think about the book?

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Okay, better late than never, right?

I finished reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn quite a while ago. Life (and a few other good books) has gotten in the way of me writing about it, but here I go. I absolutely loved this book. Admittedly, when I started out I didn’t think I’d make it through the hundreds of pages I was facing, but once I got into it, the pages flew by. I sometimes measure how much I like a book by the feeling I get when I know I’m close to the end. In those last few pages I felt myself trying to read a little slower to savor those last moments on Francie’s journey. She was just such an amazingly relatable character that I really didn’t want to leave her. During the five year journey through some very formative years in Francie’s life, Betty Smith takes her readers through the raw emotions of a little girl not only on her path to womanhood, but in a struggle to survive her daily life. With the added struggles of poverty, isolation, and family breakdowns, Brooklyn is a tough place to grow up. In midst of all that, Smith still created a character in Francie that is able to shine through; her courage, her passion, and her spirit allow her to make it through, and cause the reader to cheer her on throughout the novel. You see Francie come into herself as time goes on and there are so many scenes that stick out in my head (think the vaccination scene), but there is one quote that was so beautiful to me I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since I read the book.

"Let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry...have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere-be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost."

Now, my journey hasn’t been as much of a struggle as Francie’s, but the last five years of my life have been full of so many huge life changes, especially this past year and a half that really shook up my world and set me off on a completely different path. I’ve learned to appreciate life in such a different way and to really be present in the moment and truly living life. In this passage, Francie basically put words to thoughts I’d been having on how I want to live my life, and I’m grateful to Betty Smith for giving that to me. It is such a simple line of thought, but I think its simplicity that makes it great. She’s not asking to be delivered from the life that she’s had to experience. She doesn’t ask to be beautiful or perfect or rich (and considering her life, could you really blame her if she did?), she just wants to live. And to live in such a way that she is something and every experience is meaningful. Who wouldn’t want that?

I think I’ll leave it at that and wait for my fellow bibliophiles share their thoughts. And if you haven’t read it, do it!! This really is a great piece of literature that every woman should read. And if anyone knows where I can get a copy of the movie on dvd, PLEASE let me know. My days of tapes and vcrs are long gone and I want to see the movie!

National Book Festival

Just a heads up my fellow book worms:

The National Book Festival
Saturday, September 27, 2008
The National Mall, Washington DC
10am to 5pm

Man, the Mall is going to be crowded this day, with people checking out the new ocean exhibition at the National Museum of Natural History and more than 100,000 bibliophiles attending the Library of Congress's annual book love-in. The festival takes place between Third and Seventh streets.

More than 70 authors will be in attendance including Salman Rushdie, Bob Schieffer, Michelle Singletary, R.L. Stine, Paul Theroux, Neil Gaiman, Philippa Gregory, Kimberly Dozier and more.
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?node=cityguide/profile&id=1093050&categories=Book%20Events&venueid=1025752)

Meet Your Bloggers: Mademoiselle M.

Mademoiselle M.

Avid Reader, [insert: Slacker] Blogger

About me:

• I have subscriptions to more magazines than I can possibly read in a month (how stupid right)
• I have more books on my "to-read" shelf on GoodReads than I will probably ever finish, considering the fact that I keep adding like 15 new ones for each one I complete
• Somehow I still believe that I will one day finish reading all of those books
• My dream house will have a library with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves
• Every morning you will catch me reading on the Metro as I make my way downtown to work
• Every evening you will see me reading on the Metro as I finally escape from work and back into my book of the week/month
• I love talking about the books I read!

Which book had the greatest impact on me as a kid?
Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman was my favorite childhood book. It was about a young girl with a BIG imagination. One day she decides to try out for the role of Peter Pan in her school play. Despite being told that she could never get the part because she's a black girl, she goes on to get the role and proves that you can do anything you set your mind to. I loooved this book so much back in the day. And, it was a Reading Rainbow book (for those of you who remember those days... man I'm getting old)!

Top 5 books?
I have like 12 all-time favorites (aside from my #1), but I'll go with these five - with the last four in no particular order. Each of these have moved me in ways that no other books were able to do...

1. Black Girl in Paris by Shay Youngblood - read my review here
2. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston
3. Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
4. Here on Earth by Alice Hoffman
5. Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

I love Uptown Literatti because...
I mean, do I really need to answer this for you? Where else can you find such intelligent, beautiful, fabulous, and witty ladies who are so passionate about reading? Pshhhh. Only on UL!

Oprah's Book Club Selects New Book: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

Greetings fellow bibliophiles. For anyone interested in keeping up with Oprah's picks for her book club, I just received this in the inbox and thought you'd be interested to read. I haven't followed Oprah's book club save for her recommendation for "100 Years of Solitude" if I'm honest, but this story of a mute child enduring this life sounds pretty engaging. Take a look at the review, and feel free to read along with Oprah and book club members the world over!

Oprah, Barnes & Noble, reviewers, and readers all agree — The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is one of the best books of the year! Barnes & Noble recently picked the book as a Fall 2008 Discover Great New Writers title, and today it was named the newest Oprah's Book Club Selection. This sweeping debut novel about a sheltered mute boy thrust out into the world has been praised as "a big, mesmerizing read" (The New York Times) and "a literary thriller" (The Christian Science Monitor). Said Stephen King, "[It is] wonderful, mysterious and satisfying... Readers who pick up this novel are going to enter a richer world."

*Review courtesy of Barnes&Noble.com

Books + Life, Life + Books

I've made some ab fab book discoveries in the past month and think that you should know about them as well. They are:

Exhibit A: David Pearson-designed Book Covers. Imagine a book that's well-designed, precise and downright gorgeous cover was as much a piece of art as the words inside. I've found those books. David Pearson, an award-winning designer was commissioned by Penguin Books to design artful covers to some classic Great Ideas books which, to date, include The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli, Common Sense by Thomas Paine and Where I Lived, and What I Lived For by Henry David Thoreau. All books available on Amazon.com.

[The Communist Manifesto's bold, artful cover, as visioned by David Pearson]

[Henry David Thoreau never looked this good on a bookshelf before...]

Exhibit B: The New Yorker Fiction Podcasts. I love books, but it is very (very) difficult to sit down and read as I get older. I always seem to think about the million other things that I need to do and get distracted. Melissa is obsessed with books on tape, so I decided to look into some book podcasts when I discovered these. They are a wonderfully curated collection of short stories that have appeared in The New Yorker available on your iPod or iPhone. Amazing!!! Right now I'm "reading" Head Cold by Harold Brodkey.

[The New Yorker, digitized]

Exhibit C: Persephone Books. This little printing house in London is the book-maker that could. Their venerable editors find little known literary works by women and re-publish them in classic, muted grey covers and vintage-inspired endpapers.

[Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day's Endpaper]

[Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day cover]

They have gotten up to 78 books published, all worth checking out. I plan to order Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson, a story published in 1938 about a Governess' wild day, which, coincidentally, is now a movie of the same title.

What cool/weird/fascinating ways have books become part of your life?

P.S. We're almost done with A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, look for reviews soon!

Whitney