An Autobiography of sorts

You guys should check out The Diary of Ma Yan: The Struggles and Hopes of a Chinese Schoolgirl. It was a birthday gift, and a very good one (thanks, Cam!). This book is a translation of Ma Yan's diary, which she wrote from age 13-14. The book in theory is a quick read due to the author's youth; however the content may make you slow down a lot.

Ma Yan is a girl living in one of the poorest regions of China: the government has declared her region uninhabitable. However, her family and most of the villagers still remain in the region because they cannot afford to go anywhere else. To give you an idea of their finances, Ma Yan went without food for about two weeks in order to afford a ballpoint pen. She survived solely on a single rice ration a day, whereas normally her money would go to vegetables to suppliment the rice.

Reading her diary reminded me of reading Anne Frank's diary. Both girls face unimaginable circumstances beyond their control, and lead exceedingly bleak and depressing lives, yet still manage to see beauty in the world. Fortunately for Ma Yan, her story ends well, and in the end you want to cry because you are happy, not because you are horribly depressed and emotionally drained, as I experienced with Anne Frank's diary.

Anyhow, this book is a definite must-read, not only for the overall beauty of Ma Yan's story, but also because of the insight it allows us into the lives of Chinese people, the details of which are often closely guarded by the government. Pick up this book (you'll have to ask Cam where he got it). I give it an 8.5/10

I've finally read something worth writing about!

I fully admit that I've been reading absolute crap for the past few weeks. Since finishing Harry Potter 6, I have been re-reading some crap that I loved as a teenager. My sister is reading Marion Zimmer Bradley's Avalon series for the first time. I read them in my late teens, and having nothing but time on my hands, I thought I'd give them another once-over. I can still see why I liked them as a kid, but they seem so trite and overdone now. How many books that I still love would seem like junk if I re-read them? Some of the books that I liked as a child I know are still good; like Richard Adam's Watership Down, C.S.Lewis' Narnia series and a little known Canadian book called Beautiful Joe, by Marshall Saunders. (Which is based on a true story from Meaford, Ontario!) There are so many others that I remember as being great, but I was no critic in those days (though I'm not much of one now, either!) Regardless, I wander.

I finished Barney's Version, by Mordecai Richler, and I highly recommend it to anyone. It's a good book, and an entertaining read. I don't know that I really got much out of it, other than a weekend's entertainment. It's part of a well respected genre of Canadian fiction: the Jewish writer in Montreal. It's also a good story, with a wry twist at the end. It's nothing to sweeping emotional sagas, like MacLeod's No Great Mischief, but it certainly has it's own ...something. Dare I say that it's a very Jewish book? It's funny, sarcastic, self-aware and sad. It covers a whole lifetime in a series of memories and moments. And despite what Craig Cardiff says, it's a wonderful book about remembering.

Speaking of good books about Jewishness, everyone should read The Archivist by Martha Cooley, which was one of our summer recommendations long before this site came into being (I think credit goes to Kris, and David Glassco for this one.) Aw, hell, read it anyways, but keep a copy of T.S. Eliot's collected poems nearby for reference.

Can anyone recommend a good Eliot biography?

Finally, the book I'm actually excited about. Julia recommended this to the Trent English ex-pats while we were at Queen's, and I've finally had the time to start it. Anita Diamant's The Red Tent is an ambitious retelling of sidelined tale of Jacob's only daughter, Dinah. In the Bible, she is merely the unwitting initiate of the downfall of her brothers (long before they sold Joseph into slavery), but Diamant makes it a rich story all in its own, with the main characters of the Bible as mere secondary characters. This is a women's book. I don't know how to describe what a women's book is, but I know that this is one, like Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is one. Not that a man may not enjoy it as a literary work, but its main setting is the red tent of the women, where the wives of Jacob come together during menstruation. Not something that many men could be familiar with... It's a wonderful representation of the herstory that often gets left out of history. Dinah's tale is a rememberance of womens's knowledge and stories, and well as a look at how women shape the outcome of the Bible.

But it still brings the question: how does one define a women's book? I don't mean chicklit, or seedy romance novels for the bored, but books that are genuinely female in their sense and story. This doesn't just mean having a female author or a female protagonist. Like I said, I can't quite put my finger on it. Here are some books I would argue are essentially female: Diamant's The Red Tent, Atwood's Handmaid's Tale, and Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus or Wise Children (but not The Infernal Desire Machine). I would argue that Mrs. Dalloway is not a women's book, despite having both a female protagonist and author. Now I've just got myself all confused. Anyone?

Amazing book alert!

I just finished Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. Holy crap, you guys need to read this book!!

It's about a 20-year-old American man (fictional, but with the same name as the author) who goes to the Ukraine to try and find a woman who helped his grandfather escape the Nazis during WWII. That is the most basic element of the story, but there is really three stories in one. You get Jonathan's story as he searches for the then-girl who saved his grandfather; the story of the translator that Jonathan hires to navigate the Ukraine; and you also get the history of the village that Jonathan is decended from. The three stories are told interchangeably and the whole book is told in an incredibly unique way. I cannot tell very much without giving away the plot. But what you learn about Jonathan and the people he meets in the Ukraine is such an excellent story - it sucks you in and pulls you along, and you can't put the book down. It's one of the best books I've read in a long time. I don't own it, but Kyle does, so you can borrow it from him. I give the a book a 10 out of 10. Yes!