Fill the Void

My sister told me about the film Fill the Void, about a young orthodox Jewish woman named Shira Mendleman whose older sister has died, leaving a newborn baby and a young, grieving husband. It soon becomes clear that the recent widower will find a new wife and leave with the baby. The mother of the young woman who has died conspires to have the Shira marry her brother-in-law (thus fill the void) . . . and Shira struggles.

My sister told me about the movie because there's a great scene where the Shira's mother and father are talking and the mother says, "I think I'm falling apart" and the father says, "So fall apart. I'm here."

Which is great.

But there were other scenes I liked as well. . . such as the mother's overt/covert passive/aggressive manipulation trying to get Shira to make the decision she wants. The mother says, "No one is pressuring you . . . but he's such a good man . . . it's your decision . . . this is what you need to do."

Oy vey! The mom guilt!

It reminded me of the Mom in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, where she's trying to get her kids to eat breakfast and she says, "When I was your age, we didn't have food!!!"

It transcends cultures, really it does.

I also like the part when Shira is sitting with the wise rabbi and he asks her if she wants to marry her brother-in-law. Shira says she will do her duty and hopes she can do it well. But the rabbi just shakes his head and says, "Shira-le, oh, Shira-le"and then HE DOESN'T MAKE HER DO IT because he wants her to marry for a better reason than duty. Love that man.

But my favorite part. My very favorite, favorite part, is the part with the woman and the rabbi and the stove. I started to laugh and laugh and called to Eric, "Honey, come quick! You have to see this! It's not just us! Jewish rabbis have to stop what they are doing too!"

If you like foreign film, slow film, and subtitles, try this one.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

I was reading another (great) book when my friend Mariann recommended The Fault in Our Stars by John Green about a girl with terminal cancer who falls in love. There's some language, there's lots of sass.

I read the first few pages and I was hooked. Line and sinker.

Jillaire and Mel, have you read this one yet? Put it on your list.

The back cover says The Fault in Our Stars in "Insightful, Bold, Irreverent, and Raw", and yes it is.

The back cover also says, "This is a book that breaks your heart---not by wearing it down, but by making it bigger and bigger until it bursts" which sounds so cliche that I didn't think it was possible. But it is and it was.

And that's my recommendation for TFIOS: It lives up to all the hipe-y, sappy, you'll-think-this-is-great blurbs on the back cover and front flap.

Hard to do, but it does.

Recommended by me? Oh yes.

Okay?

Okay.

The Big Year with Jack Black and Steve Martin

I don't like movies with violence.

I don't like movies with love scenes.

I don't like immodesty or anything illegal.

Kids movies and animal documentaries general bore me.

Makes the quest for movies tricky. They can only re-make the Jane Austens so fast . . .

But every now and then I find a movie that's clean enough and quirky enough and interesting enough.

Like The Big Year, which came out in 2011, with Steve Martin and Jack Black (be impressed that I know any actors' names at all).

It's about.

Birding.

You know, people who roam the country looking at birds.

It was just about my pace.

And I liked it.

Liz, have you seen this one? You'll like the national sweep of landscape and the portrayal of people obsessed with birding.

But caution: There is swearing and some sensuality. So watch it before you watch it with your kids.

The Rent Collector by Cameron Wright

The Rent Collector by Cameron Wright, got good reviews on Amazon. But it was a miss for me. A serious miss.

The Rent Collector is about Sang Ly, a woman living in a garbage dump slum in Cambodia. She and her husband, Ki Lim, sort through garbage to survive.

Sang Ly isn't educated. She doesn't read. So I kept getting tripped up when her character would think things like: "I have been told that there is a specialized college degree that studies civilizations by sifting through layers of their trash." (page 23) and "How could I explain the illogical feelings swirling and swelling inside, forcing my action?" (page 30) and "administer a course of antibiotics" (page 40).

What? This from an illiterate woman living in a garbage dump slum?

I doubt Wright has ever lived in or near a garbage slum or known personally people who live there. Because he'd realize the people there aren't stupid, but they just aren't educated enough to know about specialized college degrees or be able to describe swirling, swelling feelings, or know that antibiotics have a course.

So Sany Ly's voice wasn't believable to me. Perhaps it's because I've lived near 3rd world dumps and known the people who lived there; seen glimpses of the world through their world-view. They taught me many things, truly, but it would be wrong for me to try to write their view by superimposing an educated voice on top of it.

I skimmed the rest of the book: Sang Ly learns to read and is inspired by great stories and great literature. All very noble. That's the message. Got it.

But it just didn't work for me. Any one really like it?

And one last thing: Where was the editor? There were way, way too many . . . . And then some---And then again . . . And then again---. It was like a car that kept braking for cats that kept darting in to the literary road and could never make it across town.

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

Orphan Train by Kline was on my book club's reading list.

You can tell it's not Kline's first novel because it has a nice story arc. Develops well, not too fast, ends well, not too rushed. Good character development.

The most fascinating thing is that Kline takes something real: the orphan trains that brought kids west, adds fictional characters, parallels it with a fictional story of a young woman in modern-day foster care, and POOF!

Story, there you go.

A good solid summer 2014 read. I'll pass my copy on and not necessarily need it back.

So if you see a copy at Costco . . . . :)

P.S. I hear there's another book by the same title. So if this is what you are looking for, make sure you get the one by Kline.

Who knew you could write a mother's day poem about a lanyard?

In honor of mothers, children, and those blasted camp crafts, on this Mother's Day. Best read out loud (of course): 

The Lanyard - Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

Included in the book (OCT 2005), The Trouble with Poetry. 

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

Just as I can only take so much Holocaust historical fiction, I can only take so much antebellum South  and slavery books. But again, it had been a while, and again, there was that book at Costco. (Costco tables make me pine for the book stores of old. I hope those stores come back. I miss them.)

So I read The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom, historical fiction of the antebellum south. You can find a good plot summary somewhere that would do it better justice than I could.

Plot: Good. Characters: good. I always like it when authors can tell the story from different character's points of view. Loved the portray of how the lives of the landowners and the lives of the slaves/servants intertwined. I thought the end was a little rushed, but there has to be an end somehow. For a first work of Grissom, pretty good.

Violence. There's violence. Skipped it. If it bothers you that there's violence and you can't skip it, pass on this book.

I'd actually like to read it with a book group and talk about some of the characters. I found Marshall incredibly pathetic, both "pathetic" meaning full of pathos and "pathetic" meaning despise-able. And there's conflict to discuss for sure, for sure.

Would I recommend it? Maybe. If the topic interests you, yes. I wouldn't put it on a "must read classics" list (like Book Thief, like These is My Words, and like Guernsey), but worth the time if you are interested or are looking for a decent read for this summer.