Sisterly Love

Sisters’ relationships are very complex, beautiful, intense and extraordinary, but complex. Having one of my own, I can tell you that there is much more to our conversations than with anyone else I know. The last two books I read, The Sweetness of Salt, written by Cecilia Galante, and Fixing Delilah, written by Sarah Ockler, both focused on the hidden story of sisters. Surprisingly, the relationships developed subtly initially, but then the big ball dropped and BOTH stories had unbelievable details unfold. Dysfunctional might be a kind, and also cliché these days, word to describe the relationships, but true, nonetheless. However, I really enjoyed both these novels because they were true, real. The conversations were snarky, loving, and brutal all at once – something most people with a sister can identify with – there was no hiding behind niceties!

In The Sweetness of Salt, the main character, Julia, was on her way to a life she thought she wanted, her parents sure did. But her sister, the one lurking in the background (actually there was another, as well, unbeknownst to her), threw it all up in the air and watched it all come tumbling back to the ground. This book held me to the end. I could see the conversations in my head, the anxiety provoking experiences and memories unraveling, and, most importantly, the unconditional love between them.

Fixing Delilah was a different kind of story, initially a dark, sad story on some level, because of the sadness that the main character, Delilah, felt, but also because of the vivid loneliness her mother sparked in her. The relationship was more about the relationship between her mother and her mother’s sister because Delilah was an only-child. The sisters were important because Delilah was raised by a single mother, and she only gained true solace with her aunt. The events turned, lightening the story, but then the there were some moments of clarity for Delilah that can only be described at extraordinary. Yet, the story maintained my interest because I felt that the characters were people I might know, feeling the pain of the characters when secrets were revealed and wicked tongues were unleashed.

Sisters are funny. You love them completely, but you can also pinpoint what hurts them most, and sometimes people, as these characters showed, use it when you feel backed in a corner. Much like friends, the characters dismissed what was right in front of them, but then avoiding them (or the memories) didn’t seem to work; family gatherings seem to be always lurking around the corner. So, somehow, sisters work it out.

Our Future...Matched

Last night, I finished the book Matched, written by Ally Condie, after being unable to put it down for the previous 24 hours! What surprised me the most about not being able to put the book down was there was never extreme action, explicit love scenes, harrowing characters. It was just so real – I was drawn in by the consistent pace, slightly building tension. The lives of the characters are so simply intertwined, carefully put together, and I was right there with them. The opening of the story is very ethereal; the reader was placed in a time in the future, in an undisclosed place, with no real connection to the society we were observing, except that I felt connected.

The main character, Cassia, moved along as though this could be one of us, projected in the future; this could be the lives of my great-great grandchildren, and the artifacts they hold so dear could be the ones I have in my home – given to me by MY grandmother. The commentary was there, subtle enough, though, to be woven in throughout the plot line. What kind of society is this? How real can it be? Are we headed to a place where no one stands out, but everyone has secrets that need to be washed away with colorful pills? The details of the traditions gone by and replaced by simpler ones were just enough that you could see why this society chose to be the way it is. But, you remain skeptical about how these people can really remain sane with little or no individualism.

But, there is not the perfect Utopia without dissent, people who don’t belong, characters who wanted to have choices. A general theme throughout the whole story was, “how much freedom do you have, without real choices, to live a full, happy life?” What is the cost of true equity?

The addition to the story of the complete distinction of the poems (and other art forms) that have changed so many of our lives, poems urging us to go forward be unique, challenge ourselves, was brilliant. The society had to choose 100 poems to represent the centuries of literature gone past. The underworld craved these poems and so you have a commodity by just knowing something written that has not only been destroyed, but erased. The author placed the characters in direct conflict with a piece of paper, a line from a poem, a drawing that is forbidden. I have not been so moved by a book, as I have by Matched, because ultimately, I believe that the author just might have our future pinned down to a pretty close projection of where we just might be heading.

Riveting Reads

Daniela Bailey, one of the new additions to the faculty this year, spoke about the books she is reading (or hoping to read, in the near future) and shared a little about her recent move to DC.

As of now, she is reading Disgrace, written by J. M. Coetzee, who among other achievements won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003. The New Yorker reviewed the book and stated, "Disgrace is not a hard or obscure book-it is, among other things, compulsively readable-but what it may well be is an authentically spiritual document, a lament for the soul of a disgraced century." Bailey speaks of the novel in the same vein, in that she found the author has a nice style, readable, yet sophisticated. She chose the book not only because her mother had recommended it to her long ago, but she was looking for something new, an author who is from South Africa and writes about South Africa as well as topics that connect with many people from all different countries because of the possibility of new course offerings at NCS in the social sciences department. She would recommend this book to the juniors and seniors of this school because they would not only appreciate the brevity of his prose, but it is a different subject matter, not Western – highlighting the difficulty in race relations that have paralleled the race relation struggles in the US, in many ways.

In Disgrace, “an uninspired college teacher's affair with a student is discovered, and he seeks solace on his daughter's farm in South Africa. A violent attack launched by three black men alters how he perceives many things including his daughter and the rights of South Africa's aggrieved majority.”

Bailey also just moved to DC, and she has spent some time getting to know the restaurants and monuments, but she has two places she wants to visit for sure: Chef Geoff’s, because of the rave reviews and a refresher visit to the National Gallery that she toured over 10 years ago.

One of the books next on her list to read, though she is struggling to believe that she will have the time in the near future, is Like You’d Understand, Anyway, written by Jim Shepard, a professor she knew of while attending Williams College; it was highly recommended by a friend who was a student of his and a very accomplished writer. The Boston Globe wrote, “Shepard is a terrific mimic, and manages to give each one of his narrators a slightly different voice, wrinkling some stories with subtle irony, leading others the pomp and swagger of a professional boxer.” Sounds like something to pick up!

Another novel on her list is Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom. She had previously read Corrections and enjoyed it, so it seemed natural to want to read his next novel, but also she wanted to see what all the hype was about – reviews cover the spectrum, but there is a true vibe of “brilliance” mentioned about Franzen’s writing. On Amazon.com, “Franzen's new novel is both an amusing and tragic story of the breakdown of an American family struggling with their old-fashioned values set against our modern era of the quick fix, hands-off parenting, and globalized greed.”

Her lasting statement, “I hope everyone reads; reading is such a wonderful escape.”