Reads
Funny to watch the changes of my life as they show in the details. I ended a subscription to the New Yorker that was eight years running when the wind started blowin' me around, away from Portland; now that i've settled back down, i have magazine subscriptions again, but now they're for Yoga Journal and Mother Earth News--out of my head and onto the floor mat, or to the dirt. Coming down to earth. Whew, i feel safer, saner here.
I'm also reading stories again. After becoming disgusted with too much bad fiction and discovering the wonders revealed in non-fiction, i spent years engrossed in the latter, peppered only with poetry and New Yorker fiction. And that was wonderful--lots of brilliant science writing, some international-affairs perspectives, and as much high-quality astrology, psychology, healing, and other transformative literature as i could get my grubby hands on. I got what i needed, and i'm still getting my fix. But now! Oh, the novels are back.
Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine is hilarious and beautiful, with really superlative prose and no slow parts. It's about two families on an Indian reservation from the 1930's into the 80's, narrated by several of its members in turn--and that's another quality i love about this book, how Erdrich takes each of her characters on his or her own terms: no good guys or bad guys. Some of it reads so real it could have been taped from life, but a golden thread runs through the whole thing, subtly linking everything into a greater whole and lending it a sparkle you won't find in what the eye can see. Five stars!
I'm also reading stories again. After becoming disgusted with too much bad fiction and discovering the wonders revealed in non-fiction, i spent years engrossed in the latter, peppered only with poetry and New Yorker fiction. And that was wonderful--lots of brilliant science writing, some international-affairs perspectives, and as much high-quality astrology, psychology, healing, and other transformative literature as i could get my grubby hands on. I got what i needed, and i'm still getting my fix. But now! Oh, the novels are back.
Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine is hilarious and beautiful, with really superlative prose and no slow parts. It's about two families on an Indian reservation from the 1930's into the 80's, narrated by several of its members in turn--and that's another quality i love about this book, how Erdrich takes each of her characters on his or her own terms: no good guys or bad guys. Some of it reads so real it could have been taped from life, but a golden thread runs through the whole thing, subtly linking everything into a greater whole and lending it a sparkle you won't find in what the eye can see. Five stars!