Oh, Mexico
It sounds so simple I just got to go
The sun's so hot I forgot to go home
Guess I'll have to go now.
I have been to Mexico. I spent a few months travelling around Oaxaca in my early 20s (quite a while ago now) but I never made it to Mexico City. Even then I was warned off because of the crime and polution. There is crime everywhere in Mexico - it is just the degrees that are different. When I was there I could never keep a pair of thongs longer than a few days. And I never cared because the kids everywhere lived in such poverty and by comparison I was so wealthy!
But enough about me - the subject here is a wonderful little book by a girl named Lucy Neville. I feel so protective of her now that I've read this heartfelt, revealing and lovely little story about her time in Mexico City teaching English and immersing herself in culture, food, language and people. She is an Australian with a famous parent, but that doesn't really mean anything as you read her story (the Australian part does, the famous parent doesn't). She traveled to Mexico to have a life experience and she certainly did. I was with her all the way and wanted to rescue her several times. I wanted to tell her to watch out and not to go there. But she went anyway and gives a very honest, without regrets and no apologies account. She is refreshingly candid about her time there without filtering the good from the bad, at least in what she would write about.
Neville has a real gift for capturing personalities and places on the page. It might have been a little bit angsty in the personal love life department, for me (she is only in her 20s I think), but I truly loved reading about the places she went, the food she ate, the school she taught at and her experiences with the social and political scenes. She is expressive and knows how to use adjectives. She made me smile a lot and cringe a few times. Overall it is an easy read but with enough substance to keep even the most nose-in-the-air reader interested. This girl has a real future ahead of her in writing if she keeps it up. I will absolutely read her next book - she is now on my list.
Oh, Mexico
I never really been but I'd sure like to go
Oh, Mexico
I guess I'll have to go now
James Taylor - remember?
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Friday, April 22, 2011
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich
Its been a while since I finished a book. Well, a novel anyway. I have been busy with textbooks about Gothic Architecture and 'what the hell Othello is really about' (really?). I have been catching up on The Tudors and The Wire as well as reading about Chocolates and Confections. (I made the most luscious spice tea truffles the other day.)
But this is a story about a book. A Louise Erdrich book. One I have been reading for a year now. The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse. I believe that reading this book the way I did was not necessarily the best way to read it. It is soft and sweet but has enough guts to anchor one's attention for a long reading event. I loved it and I so wish that I had been sitting in a log cabin in the mountains with a pine-wood fire burning in the fireplace for a few days with nothing else to do but read this book. My path was one of unfortunate interruptions that had nothing to do with not being fully and utterly entertained by the story, the characters and the happiness this book brought me.
It is the story of a strong white woman, one who does not really know her own strength until she is put into a position of ultimate weakness and comes out triumphant. And the story of an unorthodox catholic priest who finds himself in the confidences of a people that he can not hope to understand or minister to. The action switches between 1910 and the late 1990s as the story of Agnes and Father Damien intertwine in unforeseen ways. The Ojibwe people are the other main characters in this story of faith and disbelief, love and hate, truth and lies and the blurring of them all into one extraordinary life.
Louise Erdrich is a prose poet. She can set up a conversation between characters about exactly what you want to know and yet surprise you with every turn. I often wanted to tell someone what someone else had said or was doing, and just as quickly I understood why it was imperative that they not know any of it. The confessional is a lonely place to live. I have a friend who is a small town psychologist who has all but given up a societal life - he no long goes out to functions, parties, etc. for fear of one of his patients wanting to either have a session right there or run away with fear that someone in the room knows their deepest darkests. It is no wonder that priests live a secluded life, well, when and where this book is set anyway. And then throw in the fact that the Ojibwe people have a whole other set of rules about right and wrong and the scene is set.
Secrets are abound in this book and we are privileged to every single one of them. It is delicious, sad, sweet and alluring. "I have never seen the truth without crossing my eyes. Life is crazy." says Father Damien as he tells a story in 1996 to Father Jude at the investigation for the beatitude of one of Father Damien's Nuns.
But the real treat for me was the look into the ways of the Ojibwe - the customs, lifestyles, loves and horrors. I came to love the old ones of the settlement and loved the way they lived and loved. "It was a young love set blazing in bodies aged and over-used, and sometimes it cracked them like too much fire in an old tin stove."
One of my favorite passages - "Some people, they go so deep. They are like a being made of tunnels. Passageways that twist and double back and disappear. You have a foot on one path and you follow for a while, but then there is a sinkhole, bad footing, a wall." Who hasn't felt like this some times in their own lives or met people who were. There are plenty of characters in this book that this line describes perfectly and it was my pleasure to meet them all.
But this is a story about a book. A Louise Erdrich book. One I have been reading for a year now. The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse. I believe that reading this book the way I did was not necessarily the best way to read it. It is soft and sweet but has enough guts to anchor one's attention for a long reading event. I loved it and I so wish that I had been sitting in a log cabin in the mountains with a pine-wood fire burning in the fireplace for a few days with nothing else to do but read this book. My path was one of unfortunate interruptions that had nothing to do with not being fully and utterly entertained by the story, the characters and the happiness this book brought me.
It is the story of a strong white woman, one who does not really know her own strength until she is put into a position of ultimate weakness and comes out triumphant. And the story of an unorthodox catholic priest who finds himself in the confidences of a people that he can not hope to understand or minister to. The action switches between 1910 and the late 1990s as the story of Agnes and Father Damien intertwine in unforeseen ways. The Ojibwe people are the other main characters in this story of faith and disbelief, love and hate, truth and lies and the blurring of them all into one extraordinary life.
Louise Erdrich is a prose poet. She can set up a conversation between characters about exactly what you want to know and yet surprise you with every turn. I often wanted to tell someone what someone else had said or was doing, and just as quickly I understood why it was imperative that they not know any of it. The confessional is a lonely place to live. I have a friend who is a small town psychologist who has all but given up a societal life - he no long goes out to functions, parties, etc. for fear of one of his patients wanting to either have a session right there or run away with fear that someone in the room knows their deepest darkests. It is no wonder that priests live a secluded life, well, when and where this book is set anyway. And then throw in the fact that the Ojibwe people have a whole other set of rules about right and wrong and the scene is set.
Secrets are abound in this book and we are privileged to every single one of them. It is delicious, sad, sweet and alluring. "I have never seen the truth without crossing my eyes. Life is crazy." says Father Damien as he tells a story in 1996 to Father Jude at the investigation for the beatitude of one of Father Damien's Nuns.
But the real treat for me was the look into the ways of the Ojibwe - the customs, lifestyles, loves and horrors. I came to love the old ones of the settlement and loved the way they lived and loved. "It was a young love set blazing in bodies aged and over-used, and sometimes it cracked them like too much fire in an old tin stove."
One of my favorite passages - "Some people, they go so deep. They are like a being made of tunnels. Passageways that twist and double back and disappear. You have a foot on one path and you follow for a while, but then there is a sinkhole, bad footing, a wall." Who hasn't felt like this some times in their own lives or met people who were. There are plenty of characters in this book that this line describes perfectly and it was my pleasure to meet them all.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)