Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977

#287
Title: Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977
Author: Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)
Translator: Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis
Publisher:  Ignatius Press
Year: 1998
Country: Vatican City
156 pages

A memoir of now-Pope Benedict XVI's first 50 years. It's not clear that this was intended for a general audience--Ratzinger seems to have had in mind a reader familiar with Church infrastructure, politics, and historical and contemporary writers (not just those of the stature of Aquinas, but many others whose perspectives are not adequately explained). While Ratzinger's narrative of the Church is interesting, especially in relation to his participation in Vatican II, I can only follow most of it passively.

This memoir is more of an account (and then this happened... and then this... ) than a narrative (and then because that happened, this happened). The points at which a causal sequence of events are identified (I studied this, then was employed to teach it) are generally career-oriented. I found myself wishing for more about Ratzinger's emotions and thoughts. While there is some representation of this more personal aspect of his life, it tends to be told, not shown, asserted but not elaborated upon. In particular, I would have liked to know more about how his dislike for the Nazi regime and his forced servitude as a teenager affected his understanding of authority and ideology. I also would have liked more childhood photos, if they exist; oddly, the book includes a large number of photos from after 1977, when its account ends.

The most interesting aspect of the memoir was the opportunity to read Ratzinger's passionate convictions on the nature of revelation, which help me to understand an aspect of Church doctrine and religious belief that I find puzzling.

Eclipse

#286
Title: Eclipse
Author: Stephenie Meyer
Publisher: Little, Brown
Year: 2007
637 pages

A review of my notes while reading:

Why does dimwitted Bella not think to ask if there are other sorts of undead wandering around the Pacific Northwest?* Why does she not wonder whether she and Edward will still be attracted to each other once they don't smell as nice?** Why doesn't her period send him into a frenzy?* Does it matter that she's so clumsy?* Has she thought about how she's going to manage the blood-drinking aspect of being a vampire when much to-do is made of her nausea at the smell of blood?* Why am I still reading this series?* Why, doctor, why?

*Unaddressed.
**Addressed in one or two sentences

More rapine than vulpine, despite the many werewolves. It's apparently okay, though, because it's not sexual assault if she turns out to have wanted it unconsciously, even if her attempt to signify "no" breaks her knuckle. In a sad conjunction that is common in the real world, Bella continues to met criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder and the men around her fall to the challenge, acting increasingly aggressively and coarsely as they disregard her desires. This applies to her father, the police chief, as well as to Jacob. Even saintly Edward, the bloodsucker with a conscience, denies her the sexual experience she craves. It could be argued that the vision of sexuality in these books is terrifically reductive. Sex equals intercourse, and, along the lines of Larry Niven's essay "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex," this act brings with it the distinct possibility of, as Niven says, "gutting her like a trout." It's a shame these characters, so clever in other ways, have not figured out that there might be something else they could do. Despite their many deceptions and rules broken, however, they are moralistic about sexuality.

This third volume in the series drags considerably and wants about 200 pages edited out. Meyer manipulates the reader's emotions in a way that feels calculated, not naturalistic. Like Bella, I feel controlled. Unlike Bella, this does not make me like the controller.

English as She Is Spoke: Being a Comprehensive Phrasebook of the English Language, Written by Men to Whom English Was Entirely Unknown

#285
Title: English as She Is Spoke: Being a Comprehensive Phrasebook of the English Language, Written by Men to Whom English Was Entirely Unknown
Authors: Jose da Fonseca and Pedro Carolino (Paul Collins, Ed.)
Publisher: McSweeny's Books
Year: 1855/2004
145 pages

If your favorite Monty Python sketch is "Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook" ("My hovercraft is full of eels"), you'll enjoy this English phrase book, written by a non-English-speaking fellow who used a Portuguese-French phrasebook and French-English dictionary to render what appear to be well-formed Portuguese sentences into inexplicable sentiments such as "He burns one's self the brains." Some of the errors make sense--they are literal translations of reflexive constructions, or homophones. Others defy easy explanation. While it may be true that "It must never to laugh of the unhappies," you may find this  a difficult dictum to which to adhere in the face of these translations. I especially enjoy the section presenting anecdotes which are all but incomprehensible in the telling. Laughing of the unhappies, however, may bring about the uneasy realization that your attempts to speak another language probably sound exactly like this phrasebook.

You can learn to say "My hovercraft is full of eels" in many tongues, including Esperanto, at http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/h

overcraft.htm

The Wandering Border

#284
Title: The Wandering Border
Author: Jaan Kaplinski
Publisher: Copper Canyon Press
Year: 1987
Country: Estonia
96 pages

Kaplinski is largely a poet of the every day, with the occasional philosophical musing thrown in for contrast. It's clear from his imagistic focus and here-and-now observations that he is a Buddhist. I enjoyed the sensory descriptions of Estonian farm life, flora (including genus and species in many cases), and fauna, though I didn't find the poems especially moving or thought-provoking.

New Moon

#283
Title: New Moon
Author: Stephenie Meyer
Publisher: Little, Brown
Year: 2006
563 pages

Neither the plot nor the writing are worth much analysis; this is the second in the series of soft core porn without sex for teenage girls who have not yet learned that the reason Romeo and Heathcliff are bad news is not because you are star-crossed lovers, but because you are a whiny self-centered shrew and he is a depressive abuser.

I do wonder whether Bella and Edward will continue to smell indescribably delicious to each other once she's made a vampire. No one else finds Edward as compelling as Bella; on the other hand, all the undead find her scent irresistible, so we must hope for her sake that if she remains smellicious, she is not gnawed on too frequently by salivating ghouls, lest her truculent and possessive manpire be forced to kill again.

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

#282
Title: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Author: Omar Khayyam (1048–1123) & Edward FitzGerald
Publisher: Dover
Year: 1990
64 pages

I missed one back there, so here it is. This is not the edition I have; I may update later. The strongest convention is to package FitzGerald's first and fifth editions together; they form an interesting contrast.

Twilight

#281
Title: Twilight
Author: Stephenie Meyer
Publisher: Little, Brown
Year: 2006
498 pages

I am ashamed to admit that I really enjoyed this. In repentance, I will write a lesson plan that offers a critique of its gender relations. Still, I can't deny that it is appealingly written and has a compelling erotic undertone. This is, of course, disturbing in conjunction with the characters' behaviors, which oddly enough both replicate the cycle of interpersonal violence and yet, in its extended metaphor of humanity-as-virginity, shows the male vampire to be more moral and scrupulous than the young woman. In this I agree with Edward's assessment that Bella does not prioritize her own well-being.

After a few thousand pages of sequels, I might well tire of the narrator's petulance and the vampire's handsome, godlike attributes, as well as the ways in which the vampires consistently take control away from Bella. However, there's a lot that's funny and interesting, which goes a long way. There are a variety of not-too-important issues (for example, there's no evidence that Bella was clumsy prior to moving to Forks), but it still hangs together pretty well and should serve as mildly salacious beach reading.

Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer

#280
Title: Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer
Authors: Rosita Arvigo with Nadine Epstein and Marilyn Yaquinto
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco
Year: 1994
Country: Belize
214 pages

My edition has this title; the edition linked has a slightly different title.

This documentary memoir describes the author's intention to live off the land and practice non-allopathic medicine in Belize. There she met a Mayan healer, apprenticed to him, and carries on his work. It's interesting to watch her commitment to her life and profession in her adopted country grow. I appreciated her balance of syncretic spiritual and scientific aspects of her work, including those aspects where she acknowledges that she does not believe--a refreshing change in this genre.

What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng: A Novel

#279
Title: What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng: A Novel
Author: Dave Eggers
Publisher: Vintage
Year: 2006
Country: Sudan
569 pages

This is one where the audiobook was superior to the print book. I have tried several times to read this, but the sameness of the tone put me to sleep. Dion Graham's narration brought it alive.

To the question of whether this is fiction or non-fiction, Deng's story or Eggers's conceit, my impression is both/and, not either/or. Like many (auto)biographies, events are re-arranged and dialogues imagined in order to heighten tension and symbolic relationships. Here, Deng's story is told as a series of internal monologues directed to people he encounters in the course of about a day, which provides a structure on which to hang the theme that when people look at him, they do not see his experiences. This is certainly an artificial framework imposed by Eggers, but it provides a plot on which to hang Deng's story of his life in Sudan. This format allows types of exposition that straight autoibiography might not. Since Deng asserts in the introduction that the events are accurate, it may be best to treat this as what Audre Lorde calls "biomythography," with a healthy dose of ethnography.

Audiobook here.

First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria: How a Peace Corps Poster Boy Won My Heart and a Third World Adventure Changed My Life

#278
Title: First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria: How a Peace Corps Poster Boy Won My Heart and a Third World Adventure Changed My Life
Author: Eve Brown-Waite
Publisher: Broadway Books
Year: 2009
305 pages

Brown-Waite's account of her Peace Corps and CARE experiences starts poorly but is worth sticking with. Either that or skip to the Uganda section. The memoir reads like two memoirs written at different times and in different styles. The first section, on her Peace Corps induction and placement in Ecuador, is told in what attempts to be a humorous, snappy tone; it reads as immature, brittle, and conversational in a way that suggests that this is the part of the narrative that made her friends tell her that she should write a book about her hilarious experience. The second part, on Uganda, is more mature and considered and holds my attention. Brown-Waite emphasizes her whininess throughout, which contributes a constant, low-grade irritation to the story. She does not really answer the questions most interesting to me, such as whether her earlier anxiety and panic returned, and if not, how she understands this. I'd also have liked to know more about her relationship with her husband in the domain of foreign service. Did she want to go to Uganda? She seems to have consistently worked in social and human services, but the interior process--what she thinks and feels about it, why she's moved to do it, the effects of moving closer to her husband's world view--are largely unspoken.

I have a hard time identifying with the author, though we have some experiences and interests that are similar. However, for whatever reasons, my overseas service has been different from hers. I spent over a year without television, a car or bike, treats from the US, or new clothes. I ate vegetables and powdered chicken soup with rice because I had no oven and the meat looked creepy. I had no cappuccinos. I was also in a second world country, so the cultural contrasts were not as great. Sometimes that congruence was the problem, and I would make assumptions I wouldn't have made had it been more divergent. I'm not suggesting that I was better at having my experience than she, but rather describing it because I did not miss or fantasize about US luxuries, so it's hard for me to understand many of her areas of preoccupation.

A Photographic Guide to the Birds of the Indian Ocean Islands: Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, Reunion and the Comoros

#277
Title: A Photographic Guide to the Birds of the Indian Ocean Islands: Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, Reunion and the Comoros
Authors: Fanj Andriamialisoa, Ian Sinclair, & Olivier Langrand
Publisher: Struik Publishers
Year: 2006
Country: Madagascar
128 pages

This bird identification guide features large, clear photos and parallel text in English and French. (Yes, I also read the French.) The authors rely heavily on the word "unmistakeable," which is annoying but innocent. More problematically, some birds, which perhaps correctly pictured, appear different from their descriptions (for example, they are not the color given in the text).

Thirsty

#276
Title: Thirsty
Author: M. T. Anderson
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Year: 2008
237 pages

Not a standard teen vampire book, though it starts out as if it were. Anderson depicts teenage angst well, though I did not find it as engaging as some of Anderson's other work. I may have reached a point of Anderson saturation for the moment. Some reviewers have claimed that vampirism here functions as an extended metaphor for being gay, and I read with this in mind but don't find the argument compelling. I imagine that this novel would serve as an anodyne for books like Twilight.