University of Hawaii Press
Honolulu, Hawaii 96822
$24.95
eds. 1972, 1973, 1980
I happened upon this book in an airport, returning home from Hawaii. It is a wonderfully rich novel about missionary Hawaii. The humor and cultural values are authentic as far as I can vouch, my family being from Hawaii, but the most enthralling subject of the book was the interweaving of the destinies of native and haoles. The complexities of how an ancient culture merges uncomfortably into a modern world are deftly detailed by O.A. Bushnell, whose characters alternatively provoke sympathy, anger, love and awe. The author captures perfectly the unique balance native hawaiians try to maintain between their respect for their unshakable, cultural beliefs and their adopted Christian religion. Bushnell encapsulates in ths novel a remarkable period in Hawaiian history, without persuading the reader as to a right or a wrong position to have. He begins the novel with a Hawaiian king sworn to the task of surveying the politics of Oahu. He ends the novel with that same king having obligated a sympathetic and sometimes unlikable haole to finish the story that he had started. His request is only that this same man, Saul, include his own story in the retelling. In much the same way, the Hawaiian Islands have become a place of interwoven stories. Each person, native or visitor, kanaka or kamaaina, is a part of the story of Hawaii, and from generation to generation, this story is passed on.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Memory Keeper... YOU keep it!
The Memory Keeper's Daughter is a soap opera on a stick.
I picked up, having had it recommended to me by so many people, and the deal was sealed when the one of my favorite authors, Sue Monk Kidd, had her quoted on the front cover. I paid money for this book, and I wished I had checked it out at the library first.
It has an interesting premise, a doctor who delivers his own twins, and makes a quick decision about requesting his nurse to take the baby girl with Down's Syndrome to a home for children. He does not tell his wife. Now, that that part is over with, we spend the rest of the book bemoaning about his choice and how his wife is haunted by the 'death' of the missing twin girl.
The nurse, on her own impulse (so much impulsive decision making!), flies off to another city, to raise the baby as her own child. She struggles, she finds a miracle job which does not question her lack of references (she's a runaway nurse, remember?) and pays her well enough to live with her adopted daughter. She flirts with a long running romance with a persistent truck driver who eventually tracks her down and they make a life together.
The doctor, the child's father, escapes into photography as a hobby, enjoys a bit of fame for his work, to the point it could have been a second career, then drops it, perhaps out of his long running depression over his choice, so many years ago. His silence shuts out his wife, who also escapes into love affairs and developing a successful travel business, and eventually it all dissolves into divorce. There's more... at this point, I DON'T CARE ANYMORE.
Now, I finished the book, because I am that way, BUT... seriously, this is not my style of book.
I picked up, having had it recommended to me by so many people, and the deal was sealed when the one of my favorite authors, Sue Monk Kidd, had her quoted on the front cover. I paid money for this book, and I wished I had checked it out at the library first.
It has an interesting premise, a doctor who delivers his own twins, and makes a quick decision about requesting his nurse to take the baby girl with Down's Syndrome to a home for children. He does not tell his wife. Now, that that part is over with, we spend the rest of the book bemoaning about his choice and how his wife is haunted by the 'death' of the missing twin girl.
The nurse, on her own impulse (so much impulsive decision making!), flies off to another city, to raise the baby as her own child. She struggles, she finds a miracle job which does not question her lack of references (she's a runaway nurse, remember?) and pays her well enough to live with her adopted daughter. She flirts with a long running romance with a persistent truck driver who eventually tracks her down and they make a life together.
The doctor, the child's father, escapes into photography as a hobby, enjoys a bit of fame for his work, to the point it could have been a second career, then drops it, perhaps out of his long running depression over his choice, so many years ago. His silence shuts out his wife, who also escapes into love affairs and developing a successful travel business, and eventually it all dissolves into divorce. There's more... at this point, I DON'T CARE ANYMORE.
Now, I finished the book, because I am that way, BUT... seriously, this is not my style of book.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Life of Pi.. Why?
Boy was I glad this was an amazing book.
As a working mom, it's disappointing to plod through "yet another" hopeful fifteen minutes of bedtime peace without some type of satisfaction, but also because I am dedicated (there is NO way that I am not finding out what this book is about) I will grind through a good portion before I give up. In fact, I hate giving up. As a reader and a fan of good books, I always hope that my effort will be rewarded. In this case, it was!
The beginning of the book is nothing like the end. The writing is fluid, and reads like good prose, and there are interesting universal observances about life, as seen through the eyes of a zookeeper's son. You'd think that this boy's life is, apart from his heritage and occupation, rather ordinary. But the story builds ever so carefully to a near fantastic situation: adrift, at sea, with wild animals as companions.
We meet our hero as a East Indian zookeeper's son, and he is experiencing a crossroads (if you will permit me this) of religion... potentially scattered, I thought, but oh, well, I got my children into bed before 8:30pm, darn it, I need some kind of reward, so keep reading...
My effort (or faith... hee hee ) was rewarded by the slow evolution of this young man's journey toward God. There is an interesting sidebar of characters of a priest, a guru, etc. who meet and argue over the young man's 'actual' faith. I imagine we can spend hours rolling around in the mud of the religious themes that naturally abound in the book, but, to heck with it, this book is fascinating on many different levels.
The book is well written, because although we begin at a rather slow pace about the ins and outs of zookeeping, we then find ourselves transported adroitly into the life of a desperate castaway, whose zookeeper experience possibly saves him from death on the open sea.
I was a little confused when the hero complains of his misguided efforts to save "Richard Parker" until the narrator eventually reveals to me that Richard Parker is the name of a Bengal tiger. I was impatient with this, finding no value to the sloooooowwww tease of the revelation, so I am telling you now who Richard Parker is. An interesting, bordering on weird, story origin: zookeeping, it's this zookeeper background which is excellent prepartion for our hero's eventual conquest of the tiger... or is it of himself?
We are left wondering, even at the very end, exactly who the tiger is. So, after reading it, is it the Lady? or the Tiger?
As a working mom, it's disappointing to plod through "yet another" hopeful fifteen minutes of bedtime peace without some type of satisfaction, but also because I am dedicated (there is NO way that I am not finding out what this book is about) I will grind through a good portion before I give up. In fact, I hate giving up. As a reader and a fan of good books, I always hope that my effort will be rewarded. In this case, it was!
The beginning of the book is nothing like the end. The writing is fluid, and reads like good prose, and there are interesting universal observances about life, as seen through the eyes of a zookeeper's son. You'd think that this boy's life is, apart from his heritage and occupation, rather ordinary. But the story builds ever so carefully to a near fantastic situation: adrift, at sea, with wild animals as companions.
We meet our hero as a East Indian zookeeper's son, and he is experiencing a crossroads (if you will permit me this) of religion... potentially scattered, I thought, but oh, well, I got my children into bed before 8:30pm, darn it, I need some kind of reward, so keep reading...
My effort (or faith... hee hee ) was rewarded by the slow evolution of this young man's journey toward God. There is an interesting sidebar of characters of a priest, a guru, etc. who meet and argue over the young man's 'actual' faith. I imagine we can spend hours rolling around in the mud of the religious themes that naturally abound in the book, but, to heck with it, this book is fascinating on many different levels.
The book is well written, because although we begin at a rather slow pace about the ins and outs of zookeeping, we then find ourselves transported adroitly into the life of a desperate castaway, whose zookeeper experience possibly saves him from death on the open sea.
I was a little confused when the hero complains of his misguided efforts to save "Richard Parker" until the narrator eventually reveals to me that Richard Parker is the name of a Bengal tiger. I was impatient with this, finding no value to the sloooooowwww tease of the revelation, so I am telling you now who Richard Parker is. An interesting, bordering on weird, story origin: zookeeping, it's this zookeeper background which is excellent prepartion for our hero's eventual conquest of the tiger... or is it of himself?
We are left wondering, even at the very end, exactly who the tiger is. So, after reading it, is it the Lady? or the Tiger?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
