It was an interesting experience starting this book because it was enthusiastically recommended to me by a dear friend who has called Rachel Hollis a It was an interesting experience starting this book because it was enthusiastically recommended to me by a dear friend who has called Rachel Hollis a "coach." I listened to the Intro on audio, and I quickly discovered from everything she described that I am not the target audience for this book. Everything she was talking about is exactly what I've found not to work in life, but it may just show you different messages speak to different people.
I would just say that if you've wanted to make a shift in your life, and this kind of method isn't working for you, there are other things out there that I've found do work. This is the kind of message I would call "action" coaching, versus "causal" coaching, and it may work great for things that come easy to us, but I find it very shaming and ineffective for areas where we struggle. ...more
When Cowboys and Aliens came out, I was basically ecstatic � cowboys in space with Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig? Yes, please! I didn’t watch it at tWhen Cowboys and Aliens came out, I was basically ecstatic � cowboys in space with Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig? Yes, please! I didn’t watch it at the time because I was in school, but a few weeks ago, my snake-in-the-grass intern lured me to watch it. So, I can never get those fifteen hours of my life back. It was not like Firefly and Cowboy Bebop. It was a Western, you guys! Just a plain old Western with some “aliens.� It was like if Starship Troopers were earnest. Ugh.
Anyway, the point is that Westerns are not for me. I don’t know what to do about it. I like The Matrix and Star Wars and probably the other stories that people will tell you are actually based in the “Western� plotline, but, c’mon, people. Let’s not generalize too much. So, I don’t like Westerns. I don’t like loveable hokeys and endearing arrogance and referring to penises as vegetables and stories where people just walk and walk and walk and wonder about their dads. They are just not for me.
So, I’m putting this one down because I just don’t really care about these guys getting a poke for their carrots or this girl going to San Francisco. I can’t find it in me to care. Sorry, characters.
I will say this, though: this edition of Lonesome Dove has the most hilarious introduction from Larry McMurtry. It’s about one page long, and he basically says, “You know, I wrote this book about the most despicable people possible, and they take what I like to think of as Dante’s trip through hell. Then, people start reading the book, and they fall in love with it. I’m like, what?? People get all inspired and think it’s romantic and the new Gone With the Wind, and now I can’t walk down the street without getting hit in the face with some stupid Lonesome Dove spinoff toy or another. It’s kind of ridiculous. So, have fun reading the book.� Obviously, I fell in love with that. So awesome. I think I read for a little longer than I would have otherwise (I got to page 180), just because of that intro. But, I have to agree with McMurtry. It’s got an Inferno feel in a hot, dusty town. And, that’s not my thing.
Strangely enough, I just watched the Ken Burns Civil War documentary, which I think could also be described as a hot, dusty, western Inferno, and I loved it. But, Ken Burns. Taste is weird.
On to something else.
___________________________ I received this book from the publisher for free. ...more
I believe the audio of this book is read by Santa Claus, so that is nice. Not nice enough for me to finish it, though. I tried the printed copy and thI believe the audio of this book is read by Santa Claus, so that is nice. Not nice enough for me to finish it, though. I tried the printed copy and the audio, and while I made it slightly farther in the audio, I just can’t do it. I think listening to this in the car creates a severe hazard because of the imminent danger of me falling asleep.
Having read Olive Kitteridge and this, I’ve come to the conclusion that the Pulitzer committee is looking for books about bumbling old people whose kids may or may not like them. It’s probably a somewhat universal theme, except for someone like me who knows how I feel about my parents and does not have children, but is it a compelling theme? After a while, I don’t really care whether the kids like them or not. I just want them to stop talking about how bread was cheaper in their day, uphill both ways in the snow barefoot.
It seems like there are two completely valid reasons this book would be a compelling read for a person. First, I can hypothetically see how the nature of an older father writing to a young son before the father dies might hit some kind of nostalgia button for people concerned about their own or their parents� death. That seems understandable. I don’t really have anything to say about that or feel that way, but maybe the rambling nature of this book would hold some kind of charm if you felt like that. Maybe if this old gentleman were my grandfather, I would feel more interested. But, then again, maybe not. Maybe I am just hardened to this type of thing.
Second, I think there might be something about the religious and spiritual ideas in here that might seem charming and identifiable to either someone who hates religion altogether or someone who is surrounded by unreasonable religion. Again, that seems fair, and I don’t really have much to say about it.
I don’t think I am in any of those spaces, so this book to me was more like someone approaching me on the street, when I’m late to an appointment, and trying to tell me about how he recently bought gum, and what the clerk who sold it said to him, and his various thoughts about sprinkling versus emersion baptism. I am happy to say I have no opinion about those things, nor do I think they are interesting. Luckily, I have the option of walking away from this rambling stranger and moving on to other strangers who might be talking about things that are more actively interesting to me....more
I have this terrible, dreary feeling in my diaphragm area this morning, and I’m not positive what it’s about, but I blame some of it on this book, whiI have this terrible, dreary feeling in my diaphragm area this morning, and I’m not positive what it’s about, but I blame some of it on this book, which I am not going to finish. I have a friend who is mad at me right now for liking stupid stuff, but the thing is that I do like stupid stuff sometimes, and I think it would be really boring to only like smart things. What I don’t like is when smart (or even middle-brained) writers take an important topic and make it petty through guessing about what they don’t know. I can list you any number of these writers who would be fine if they weren't reaching into topics about which they have no personal experience (incidentally, all writers I'm pretty sure my angry friend loves. For example, The Lovely Bones, The Kite Runner, Water for Elephants, Memoirs of a Geisha, etc.). These are the books for which I have no patience, topics that maybe someone with more imagination or self-awareness could have written about compassionately, without exploiting the victimization of the characters. They’re books that hide lazy writing behind a topic you can’t criticize. The Help is one of these.
You’ve got this narrative telephone game in this book. The telephone game is pretty fun sometimes, and it is really beautiful in monster stories like Frankenstein and Wuthering Heights because what they are telling me is not intended as trustworthy or earnest. All of the seriousness in monster stories is an impression or an emotion reflected back through the layers of narrative. I don’t feel that way about the topic of The Help, though. In this book, a white woman writes from the point of view of a black woman during the Civil Rights movement, who overhears the conversations of white women. It's an important topic, and I don't want to hear it through untrustworthy narrators.
So, I can basically get on board with the dialect of the black maids, but what throws me off as a reader is when the black maid is quoting the white women and they’re all speaking perfect English without a trace of an accent. It becomes particularly weird when one of the black maids starts to comment on the extreme accent of one of the white women, Celia Foote, whose written dialogue continues to be impeccable. Who is this narrator? Why does she choose not to speak proper English if she can speak it? Why does she choose to give proper English to someone else who she has told me doesn't speak it? Also, usually the layers of narration in a telephone-game book are only within the book. In this case, it’s the author’s voice stabbing through the story. I am convinced it is her whose brain hears the white woman speaking TV English, and the black women speaking in dialect. It gives away the game.
Even the quotes from the movie have an example of this. A conversation between her and Minnie goes like this:
Celia Foote: They don't like me because of what they think I did. Minny Jackson: They don't like you 'cause they think you white trash.
Celia speaks in a proper sentence, but Minny misses the "are" in the second part of the sentence. Celia says "because," but Minny says "'cause." If the reader were supposed to understand that Celia does not speak in dialect, that would make sense, but since it specifically states that she does, it doesn't make sense.
To attempt to be clear, I didn't have a problem that the book was in dialect. I had a problem that the book said, "This white woman speaks in an extreme dialect," and then wrote the woman's dialog not in dialect. Aerin points out in message 111 that I am talking about , which is about spelling, not pronunciation, as in the example above. Everyone, in real life, speaks in some form of non-standard English. Though I have seen some really beautiful uses of eye dialect, as Aerin points out, writers typically use it to show subservience of characters or that they are uneducated, which often has racist overtones. If it troubles you that I'm saying this, and you would like to comment on this thread, you may want to read other comments because it is likely someone has already said what you are going to say.
I’m not finishing this one, and it’s not because I think people shouldn’t like it, but rather because I’m almost 100 pages in and I can see the end, and it’s failed to engage me. When a few IRL friends have asked what I thought of the book and I said I didn't care for it, they have told me that I am taking it too seriously, that it is just a silly, fluff book, not a serious study of Civil Rights. Again, I don’t have a problem with stupid books, but when it’s a stupid book disguised as an Important Work of Cultural History, all I want to do the whole time is tear its mask off. And a book about Civil Rights is always important cultural history to me. Anyway, the book becomes unpleasant; I become unpleasant; it’s bad news. If you loved this book, though, (or, really, even if you hated it) I would recommend Coming of Age in Mississippi. I think that book is one of the more important records of American history. Plus, it’s beautifully written, inspirational, and shocking. It's been years since I read it, so I might be giving it an undeserved halo, but I can’t say enough good things about it.
"Whenever you read a good book, it's like the author is right there, in the room, talking to you, which is why I don't like to read good books." - Jac"Whenever you read a good book, it's like the author is right there, in the room, talking to you, which is why I don't like to read good books." - Jack Handey
This is one of the only books I plan never to finish. I thought the writing was beautiful, and I don't even know that I would say it was badly edited (a comment I read in another review), but I hated all of the characters. I loathed them by the time I stopped reading. I even hated Chick a little bit. I skipped some and glanced at the end to see if it would be worth finishing, but I couldn't get too excited about anything I saw. If anyone has a good reason for me to finish this book, I would be interested to hear it.
I was recommended to read it by two very different people - the prom queen my Senior year of high school, and a friend of mine who was later locked up in a high security mental ward in Seattle. Made me want to give it a try, you know? I don't know if I've ever hated so many characters in a book as though they were my personal enemies.
This book sat inside my nightstand for a couple of months, and then I just couldn't stand having it there any more, knowing it might be sneaking out and watching me while I slept. I took it to the library and handed it to one of the customer service people, asking him if I could give it to the library. I didn't want to sell it to a used book store and then have someone make the mistake I made of actually spending money on it; and I couldn't throw it away because I do think it's well written, so I had to give it more respect than that. The man tried to scan it for about thirty seconds as though I was returning it. "No," I explained, "I'm not returning it. I just want to give it to the library, if that's okay." "Oh," he said, looking at his computer screen and not giving any other response. I walked away quickly, just in case he was planning to tell me I couldn't leave the book. He's the librarian here at the Eugene Public library with the handlebar mustache, and the greying hair with a bowl cut, who looks like he's part basset hound. That's a pretty irrelevant story, but why are you still reading this? (that's what Katherine Dunn said)...more
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