Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck

Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck
112 pages
Originally published in 1937, republished in 1993 by Penguin Group
Source: bought it

Of Mice And Men is the story of an unlikely friendship between two men, migrant workers who endlessly dream of a better life. George Milton and Lennie Small have traveled from job to job, always hoping to be able to earn enough money to buy a small piece of land.

George, wise and patient, dreams of being able to live off of the land, to work only for himself. Lennie, large, strong and mentally slow, dreams only of being able to care and pet a hutch of rabbits.
Lennie is a hard worker, but because of his slowness, his tendency to overly love things, and his reaction when he becomes frightened, the pair are constantly having to move on before they can get the money together to make their dream come true.

In Of Mice and Men, George and Lennie are starting work at a new place with high hopes once again. George does everything he can to try to keep things calm but there is trouble brewing at this ranch. A lonely, lovely wife and her very jealous husband, who also happens to be the boss, make George nervous from the beginning...with good reason.

Banned Books Week crept up on me stealthily, on all-fours and I couldn't figure out how I was going to squeeze in one more book in order to rebel against those who want to tell us what we can and cannot read. Then last Monday I was in that store I hate to shop in and there sat this little bit of banned wonder. I'm not sure why, but I've never read Of Mice and Men before, never even watched one of the movie versions. In the end, once again I found myself wondering why I had waited so long to read something that so many have spoken so highly of for so long.

When I was pulling up the publication information for this book, I saw this in a review:

"I was not very impressed by this book. The story was simple, the characters sympathetic and, but for a few exceptions, well drawn out, and the final twist of events was emotionaly impactive [sic]. But that's about all I can say that's good about this book."

Really? "The characters were sympathetic, the story was well drawn out and the final twist was emotionaly impactive" [sic]--and that's not enough to make a book good? No? Well, that's definitely not all I can say that's good about this book.

In only 112 pages, Steinbeck manages to craft a marvelously touching friendship, surround his lead characters with a fully drawn supporting cast, and build a feeling of tension all while creating a landscaping and settings that come to life.

"A far rush of wind sounded and a gust drove through the tops of the trees like a wave. The sycamore leaves turned up their silver sides, the brown, dry leaves on the ground scudded a few feet. And row on row of tiny wind waves flowed up the pool's green surface."

The reviewer I quoted above had a problem with the fact that most of the ambiance of the book comes at the beginning of each chapter after which Steinbeck focuses on the story itself. I hadn't even realized that was the case until I read this review; I was so taken with the both the descriptions of the settings and the story of the men on that ranch. It didn't matter to me than one took precedence over another at any one time.In researching this book, I found that Steinbeck had intentionally done this to make the book something that could be read as a novella or as a play. Which may account for why this book came alive for me.

The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht

The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht
338 pages
Published March 2011 by George Weidenfeld & Nicholson
Source: bought it

In an unnamed Balkan country, Natalia and her best friend Zora, young doctors, are heading to an orphanage when Natalia learns of the mysterious death of her beloved grandfather. The mystery isn't so much that he died (Natalia has known for some time that he had cancer) but why he died where he died. As Natalia tries to make sense of what her grandfather was doing, she turns to the stories he told her as she was growing up when they made their weekly trips to visit the tigers at the zoo, stories of the deathless man. With mysteries surrounding her (who are the people digging in the vineyard behind the home she and Zora are staying in?), Natalia begins to piece together the greatest story of her grandfather's life, the story of the tiger's wife.

"Everything necessary to understand my grandfather lies between two stories: the story of the tiger's wife, and the story of the deathless man. These stories run like secret rivers through all the other stories of his life...One, which I learned after his death, is the story of how my grandfather became a man; the other, which he told to me, is of how he became a child again."

Obreht picked me right up out of my family room and dropped me into that unknown Balkans country; I could envision myself in the car as Natalia drove along the coast in search of the town where her grandfather died, I felt a bit of panic imagining myself in the isolated valley where Natalia's grandfather grew up. I was particularly enchanted by the stories of the deathless man and the tiger's wife and eagerly read on to learn more about these characters and how they tied in to Natalia's grandfather. I was equally interested in the story of Natalia, a girl who grew up living in a country first on the cusp of war, then at war but in a way that doesn't directly affect her and then, finally, when war came to her city. Through all of this, Obreht contemplates death at all ages.

"But children die how they have been living - in hope. They don't know what's happening so they expect nothing, they don't ask you to hold their hand - but you end up needing them to hold yours. With children, you're on your own."

The story introduces a tremendous number of characters, giving the readers the back story for many of them. This gives the reader a well-rounded vision of the characters but it can become confusing. I can't imagine reading this book over a long period of time without taking notes to keep track of everything.

The Tiger's Wife was the Omaha Bookworms' September selection. Usually we try to read the Pulitzer Prize winner, but after one of our members read (and hated) Jennifer Egan's A Visit From The Goon Squad, we opted to go with the Orange Prize winner instead. We usually try to time our reads so that those who use the library have plenty of advance time to secure a copy and those who buy the books can get it in paperback. Unfortunately, we made our decision too late to get library copies for some people and the book which is only available in hardcover until November which meant that most of our members either didn't get to the book at all or had only managed to get to part of it by the time we met. Those of us who had read the book enjoyed talking about it but it's pretty hard to talk about a book when so many people are still planning to finish it!

Sunday Salon - September 25

Wait! Can this really be the last Sunday of September already? Goodness, I've all but lost the past few months! Of course, it shouldn't surprise me - fall did officially kick off this week although I've felt like it was fall since the first kick off of the football season.

My reading schedule for the fall is looking very clear - only a couple of reviews that are scheduled and I've already read my book club selection for October. I've got the food theme going on in October but I'm also going to be using the rest of the fall to work on books for challenges. I've got a couple I'm working on right now, The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine for the Sense and Sensibility Bicentenary Challenge and This Republic of Suffering by Drew Gilpin Faust for the War Through The Generations Reading Challenge.

Anyone else enjoy listening to Kurt Anderson's "Studio 360?" If you haven't yet discovered it, I heartily recommend seeking it out on your local public radio station. This week Anderson interviewed Lev Grossman about making the switch from literary fiction to magic-based fiction. I was unfamiliar with Grossman's work prior to The Magicians so it was interesting to hear him talk about how hard it was to begin writing in that genre. A few weeks ago, Anderson interviewed Jonathon Franzen as Freedom was getting ready to come out in paperback and Philippe Petit, whose tightrope walk between the towers of the World Trade Center, was the centerpiece of Colum McCann's Let The Great World Spin.

Other books that I've been hearing about on the radio this week that have really piqued my interest are Susan Orlean's Rin Tin Tin: The Life and The Legend, Michael Lewis' Moneyball, and Life Itself by Roger Ebert. What new books have you added to your wish list this week?

Kamala Nair And The Story Behind "The Girl In The Garden"

When Kamala Nair approached me about reading and reviewing her debut novel, The Girl In The Garden, I was immediately interested based on two things: the book is mostly set in India and Nair's publisher calls the book a "dark grown up fairy tale." You know now much I love fairy tales!

But what really convinced me to make the time for this book was the story that Nair included in her pitch. One of my favorite things about talking with authors is learning about the inspiration behind the book and Nair's is as interesting as most books.

The story behind the novel:

"The idea for The Girl in the Garden came to me one night in the winter of 2004, during a trip to India. I had just completed my first term as a graduate student in the Creative Writing program at Trinity College Dublin and had flown to Kerala, along with my parents, to visit relatives.

As a child, I loved the novel The Secret Garden. Leaving behind the modern comforts of the West to enter the old-fashioned, culturally confusing world of my father’s village, full of strange new discoveries, I often felt like Mary at Misselthwaite Manor. The verdant jungles, wild and untended, were the perfect place for a curious child to uncover buried secrets.

We were staying in the rambling farmhouse where my father grew up and one evening after sunset, a group of us headed to the village temple. Unlike the bustling city where my mother’s family lived, my father’s childhood home seemed untouched by time. We had only a few flashlights to guide us through the dirt roads, which were surrounded by forests and blanketed in an impenetrable darkness.

Only able to see the few inches of ground directly in front of my feet, the rest of my senses were heightened, alive to the sounds and scents of deep India.

Like Rakhee, I slipped off my sandals when we arrived at the temple and winced at the sharp stones underfoot, while my family walked about with relative ease. The temple idols were bathed in the glow of flickering torches, while bells rang and sticks of incense burned. One of my cousins grabbed my hand, pulling me away from the swarm of worshippers and guiding me toward the remnants of a stone wall, with a vast green field just beyond, and an ancient-looking well at its center.

“People say that well is haunted by a yekshi,” whispered my cousin with a smirk, “A ghost.” She was in her late teens, too old to believe in such things, as was I, and while I knew that she was pointing it out more as a curiosity than as something to be feared, the moment was nonetheless arresting. I began to imagine that we were not two sensible adults standing at the edge of that wall, but children, still imbued with the innocence to believe in a world where ghosts and enchanted wells could exist.

I lay in bed that night, thinking about the field and the well, and I imagined into the picture a tree with branches covered in red flowers. I dreamed of two little girls huddling under the tree and the petals of the flowers showering down around them. I knew I wanted to write about that image, so I began to think about who those little girls were, how they got there, and why they were huddled under the tree.

The stirrings of a story growing in my mind caused me to see India in a new way. The village, the paddy fields, the Ayurvedic hospital that my grandfather had founded — they all became characters, as well as the house. My grandfather had built it shortly after he married my grandmother, and gradually expanded it to accommodate the nine children that would eventually be born within its walls. It always seemed to be a thriving center of life and activity, and even in my early visits there, I remembered cousins, uncles, and aunts flowing in and out, and my grandmother, the queen of the house, sweeping through the halls.

My grandmother had recently passed away, and this was the first time we had returned without her. Her absence was palpable. The house seemed to have degenerated. I noticed small changes—door hinges that creaked, treasured photographs destroyed by age and heat, peeling paint. Most of the farm animals had been sold and their stalls stood empty and overgrown with vines.
 

Thus began Rakhee’s journey."

The Girl In The Garden by Kamala Nair

The Girl In The Garden by Kamala Nair
320 pages
Published June 2011 by Grand Central Publishing

As her wedding day draws near, Rakhee Singh leaves her fiance a long letter and her engagement ring and makes her way to India to come to terms with something she has been keeping secret from her fiance, something that has been causing Rakhee pain since the summer when she was ten years old.

That summer Rakhee's mother began receiving mysterious letters from India, letters that seemed to affect her parents' relationship, letters that seem to have convinced her mother not to take the pills that made her a happier person. As isolated and alone as Rakhee feels in small town Minnesota, she is not at all happy when her mother announces that the two of them will be traveling to India for the summer.

Once they arrived in India, however, Rakhee became completely absorbed in life in the small village where her mother's family has lived for generations. In Malanad, Rakhee's family, the Varmas are highly respected and live in the biggest house. Rakhee immediately noticed, however, that everything in the house appeared to be a little shabby and the hospital that her family owns was being operated by a man, Dev, Rakhee instinctively disliked.

The longer Rakhee was in Malanad, the more questions she had. What was  going on with the hospital and what hold did Dev have over the family? Who was the "old family friend," Prem, who seems to be the only person who could make Rakhee's mother happy? Why did the family seem to blame Rakhee's mother for their problems?  But most importantly, what is the secret of the forest behind the family's home? The cousins had been told that a rakshasi (a she-demon) lived and that only adults were allowed to go into the forest to make offerings. But Rakhee did not believe in things like she-demons and when she saw her mother and aunt go into the forest late one night she became determined to discover the truth for herself. When she did, everything changed.

Is it possible that there just is not a book set in India that I will not like? Once again, I have found myself utterly engrossed by a book set in this country. Library Journal calls The Girl In The Garden a cross between Francis Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden and Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake. Nair has clearly drawn inspiration from both but she has certainly crafted a work that is utterly her own (**tomorrow the story of the inspiration for this novel**).

"They were washing the clothes in the river, roughly and efficiently, then standing and slapping them dry on rocks. Each time they brought a piece of cloth down upon the rock it made a resilient thwack. It was almost a dance; the women in their stained, monochromatic saris, their prematurely graying hair pulled back into frazzled buns, crouching, washing, standing and beating, the rhythm of their movements imbued with a surprising grace."

India comes alive in Nair's hands; while I was reading, I completely forgot my own surroundings. Book clubs would find much to talk about with this book; the many ways Nair explores love alone would make for a lively discussion. Family relationships, guilt, shame, responsibility...all included as well.

Thrity Umrigar, author of The Space Between Us, calls The Girl In The Garden "an impressive debut." It certainly is.