Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Addressing the void

Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death - Irvin D. Yalom (Jossey-Bass, 2008)


One nice thing about having a blog which few (if any!) read is that I can be fairly forthcoming when it comes to self-disclosure. So I can tell you that this book was recommended to me recently as I've been going through a struggle with anxiety that has taken the form - in part - of death panic.

It seems so banal somehow to state "I'm afraid of dying" and so I've perhaps had a difficult time doing that. And my reluctance to just say it gives the fear more power. In this fear, I must realize, I am far from alone. Which is one of the many helpful takeaways from Yalom's work.

Oddly, as I start to try to describe the book, I find it slipping away from me. I'm not sure why that is. But let me try to reel it back in. Yalom explores the prevalence of death anxiety, and ways in which he has found the words of past thinkers helpful. He uses copious examples from his own work as a therapist. He challenges us to consider what about death terrifies us, and in what ways we can find comfort in confrontation.

I was also struck by his emphasis on connection. It's a theme that I've come back to again and again in my life, particularly in challenging times, and in this book I almost felt as though my focus was being validated.

This is almost useless as a book review, so let me try to sum up my reading experience. I struggled at times with this book, finding myself alternately receptive to its message and entirely the opposite. I argued with it, and raged over the places where it seemed to be speaking to someone entirely other than myself. I even found myself wishing for more spirituality, although Yalom very eloquently explains his reasons for the omission. And yet, these experiences enriched the book, because they forced me to ask myself why I reacted so strongly. For an introspective reader, this book offers ample food for thought, and certainly a dose of comfort.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Hotshots

Hot as Sin - Bella Andre (Dell Books, 2009)


Sometimes library books get misdirected. Like this one which showed up yesterday. So obviously I had to read it before sending it to its rightful destination. In brief:

  • car accidents cause a lot of miscarriages
  • all firefighters are hot
  • if you run away from love when you're 18, you'll eventually run into the guy 10 years later, and fall in love again
  • especially if he flies across states to see you after a second car accident
  • and then helps you trek through the woods to save your kidnapped sister
Aw, ain't love grand? Seriously though, this book was pretty cute.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

A dish best served....

The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas, translated and abridged by Lowell Bair (Bantam Classic, 1844, 1956, 2003)


My boyfriend and I had the following exchange after he encouraged me to read this book since it was a) one of his favorites, and b) both a movie and (especially) an anime series that he liked quite a bit:

Him: I don't know if you'll like [the anime]. I mean, it's pretty different from the book.
Me: [quizzical]
Him: Like for starters, it's set in the future.

Hmm, in typing this story, I suppose I can see how you the reader would not be quite as tickled by it as I was. I don't know if I'm very good at telling jokes. Anyway, I thought it was hilarious, and I definitely want to see a version of the Count where they travel around in spaceships and he is maybe a vampire. But that isn't the novel, so.....

I felt a little bad about getting the abridged version, but when I realized it weighed in at 531 pages I got over my shame. Fortunately, it is a quick-moving 531 pages. I felt like I got through big chunks of text and events every time I picked up the book. Seriously, so much happens.

Basic premise: poor guy spends years in prison, and when he gets out (and how!), he sets about taking the most intricate revenge on those who wronged him. Along the way, we get to see how often the bad guy finishes first. But we know that the race isn't truly over, because the Count has a different ending in store.

Except.... the Count kinda creeped me out. I think I already get why he is (maybe) a vampire in this anime adaptation. He knows all and does all and has everything and ... I don't know. It's creepy. You start to think that his younger self really did die in prison. He redeems himself for me, but I can't reveal much more than that. Suffice it to say that I appreciate it when passion overtakes a cool, hardened facade.

...and I'm babbling. Anyway, good book. Sad I waited so long to read it. And can't wait to watch it on screen.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Institutionalized Injustice

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness - Michelle Alexander (The New Press, 2010)


Alexander provides an impassioned monograph arguing what we - if we're to be honest with ourselves - already know: the criminal justice system in this country has systemic problems that make it racially biased. And  our criminal justice system legitimizes ongoing and permanent discrimination against those that fall into its hands. In effect, we have created a new set of structures that mimic many of the effects of Jim Crow.

What I found particularly compelling was Alexander's analysis of the impact of the War on Drugs, and how a "public consensus was constructed by political and media elites that drug crime is black and brown." Furthermore, court decisions have essentially given a green light to racial profiling. And what is especially fantastic about this is that African Americans engage in illegal drug behavior at no greater rate than Caucasians. And yet they are caught and punished so far disproportionately that it becomes a joke.

I might have been precisely the target audience for this book. And yet, in reading, I sometimes got caught up with things that took away from her argument. Like following footnotes to discover sources, and seeing how often the reference was another scholarly work, not the primary source itself. (And then in one case spending a whole bunch of time online trying to look up old Congressional Records in order to figure out whether the cited source attributed a quote to the correct person.) This made me cranky, which seems particularly unfair of me when you consider how few works of popular scholarship offer footnotes whatsoever. But this, I fear, is just who I am.

Give this book a shot. It broadened and deepened my understanding of the incarceration crisis in this country, and made me wonder how taking voting rights away from felons isn't a violation of the Fifteenth Amendment. And so on. Excellent food for thought.