A book and a movie

Several years ago I read a fabulous travel memoir by Tim Moore, humorist and traveler. He wrote Travels with My Donkey, an account of his trek with a donkey named Shinto along the pilgrimage path from St. Jean Pied de Port in France through the Spanish Pyrenees to Santiago do Compostela near the coast of Spain.  I loved the tale and I became fascinated by the idea of pilgrimage. What do modern day pilgrims seek? Why do they walk 500 miles just to reach a church that is purported to hold the remains of one of Jesus's apostles?  It has been awhile since I read this, so the details are cloudy but I know he met fellow travelers, ruminated about the history of the pilgrimage and wrote about Spain and being companionable with a donkey for a few months.  I always wondered if it was something I could do.

Last week, I had the opportunity to see a fabulous new movie, The Way, that just came out which follows a man as he journeys on the camino to Santiago.  A fictitious story about Tom Avery (played by Martin Sheen) who travels to St Jean Pied de Port to retrieve his only child's body after he is killed on the trail in a freak accident.  Avery is filled with grief. He has an empty, lonely life and was far from understanding his now deceased son (played by Martin Sheen's real life son Emilio Estevez, who also made the movie).

In a bold move, Avery decides to pick up his son's backpack and gear and take the trek himself, in an attempt to honor his son and try to understand what he was trying to do with his life.  He takes along his son's remains and begins to scatter them along the path.  Of course Tom is sad, angry and alone, but he begins to meet other travelers, all who have their own path and their own reasons for trekking the camino.

Some might call it predictable and the movie might be a little long, but it was beautiful and gave me a chance to see what the pilgrimage might really look like. I did love watching crusty Tom Avery begin to melt away, dig through his layers of grief, and connect with his travel companions.  I love how travel thrusts unlike people together. You never choose your travel companions; they choose you. All the shots are filmed in Spain along the trail with a musical score that made me want to sing: a gorgeous and thought provoking film.

I began to wonder, would I ever have the opportunity to walk this trail?  I told my theater companion that when we retired we were going to take this walk together.  Perhaps get our kids to come and carry our packs?  Will you join me?

Soul to Soul by Deborah Masel

The writer tells us in the first few sentences that her book is a sad one: a woman's story as she accepts diagnosis and struggles with stage 4 metatastic breast cancer and wends her way through and often unkind and mixed-up health care system (Australian).  She requests that we not stop reading even though the journey is a hard one to bear, and it was this simple introduction which lured me in and kept me with it.  I felt that I had been chosen to bear witness to the depths of suffering of the human soul.

The memoir was most interesting early in the book when she is clearly ill and waiting for the doctor's diagnosis.  Her busy life barely lets her rest and it is hard for her to change gears and accept that she must stop and be sick for awhile.  Also in the early chapters of the book she goes back through her life and recounts various adventures she had as a young student and a young wife.  She recounts recent tales of being in Israel during the recent Lebanon war.  I found her method of storytelling, going back and forth and introducing us to her rich and varied life, interesting.  It kept me turning the pages.

The constant turning back to tell a story of and earlier version of herself made me hang in limbo about the Cancer story...so it unfolded painfully, but slowly.

It lost a little steam in the last half when it was simply chapter after chapter of pain and suffering.  She had some epiphanies about accepting death and her journey with the Torah (she was an avid Torah scholar and teacher) always presented divine revelation, but the reading was not as compelling.  I felt that the recent chapters were too close to her.  Like she just had that treatment last month and was just now writing about it.  A writer always needs distance between herself and her subject. But then, it was sad to realize, that Deborah might not have much time to reflect.

The story ends with a craniotomy to remove some tumors from her brain and as far as I know Deborah is still alive in Australia teaching Torah and enjoying her family and her precious life.

I would recommend this to anyone who is struggling with life or death issues or who wants to read about the ups and downs of the medical establishment.

Please ask me if you would like to borrow my copy. This was an early review.

Mockingjay

It did not take me long to finish the third book in the trilogy.  Yes, I will say everything that every other reviewer and blogger has stated:  mesmerizing, riveting, horrifying, perfect ending, couldn't put it down and can't wait for that movie.  If you have made it this far--reading the first two--I don't know how you can not finish and not want to know what happens to Katniss and Peeta and Gale and Haymitch and Prim and the Capitol with their beloved Hunger Games.  I read this waiting in line, on breaks at work, and just about everywhere I could squeeze in a paragraph or two.

What is it about exceptional storytelling that leaves a reader so engrossed in a tale that she cannot forget it?  All I want to do is thinking about these characters and this story and all the themes and symbols and implications.  Moreover, I want to write a story as compelling and engrossing as this one.  How did Suzanne Collins do it?  When I read something like this I am humbled: always wanting more, wondering how to become this kind of supreme storyteller.

After a day or two it will fade.  Other stories and life itself will take over.  The tale will recede a bit, and eventually I will pick up other books to try and recreate this feeling.  I guess this is why I read and why I write, to create this feeling of ecstasy over finding other people, other worlds, other ideas.  I read to become absorbed in something other than myself, to learn about the world, to broaden my scope of understanding.

I really have to remind myself that I often stumble across inspiration and fabulous storytelling in the most unlikely of places.  Several good friends and avid readers had recommended these stories to me, and I waved them all off. The topic sounded too grisly:  children put in an arena to kill each other off!  Not my cup of tea. That is what has made this reading experience doubly good.  I did not expect to be so captivated by this tale.

Thanks Suzanne Collins.  Looking forward to your next adventure.

Catching Fire (and a confession)

If you caught my post of a few weeks ago you know that I am starting to read The Hunger Games trilogy with my son.  We read it almost every night, chapter by chapter, and it really got so exciting that I was losing sleep.  For my own sanity, I snuck off one morning (I can only read this in the morning.) and finished it.  Of course like any captivating story, I find that I can't stop thinking about it and this drove me to pick up the second book and begin to read it right away.

Now here comes the confession:  Rather than go to the bookstore or order it on-line, I picked up my husbands I-pad where he has already downloaded all three books and read, yes, I  did it, I read Catching Fire almost entirely as an e-book.

Whew!  That was a difficult confession.  When I was done, I felt slimy, like I needed to take a hot shower and get the shame of e-book reading off me.  Reader's know that I loathe e-books and have vowed never to get an e-book reader.  A few months ago the Nook seller at Barnes and Nobles approached me to take a look at his little device, and I bit his head off.  (I think he was a little surprised at my ferocity over the device.)

Anyway,  now no one can see from my shelf that I have read this book, I can't loan it to you, and when I am reminiscing about favorite books, I'll need to stare at a tiny icon on a screen.  The actual reading experience, however, was probably not any different from holding a book.

When I was three chapters from the end, my husband took his i-pad and went to work.  I had the day off, so I went to Barnes and Nobles, planted myself in a comfy chair and read and sobbed my way through the last three chapters in the intimacy of the bookstore.  Afterwards, I bought Mockingjay, the third book and happily began reading the real book version of that.

So if you began reading The Hunger Games after my last post, I think you will enjoy this sequel.  It is storytelling at its finest including a gut wrenching love story.

A Tea Reader: Living Life One Cup at a Time

Enjoying this sampler of writings about tea, given to me by dear friend and fellow blogger Steph who, along with Sweetcakes,  introduced me to the beauty and mystery of the age old custom of a cup of tea.

The editor, Katrina Avila Munichiello, has compiled an incredible array of contemporary essays on tea and tea culture as well as pulling poems and stories from historical writings.

Its a perfect rainy day read, perfect with my own cup of tea, and made all the more special as my good friend has a piece included in the collection.

A great gift for lovers of tea everywhere.  Pick it up at your favorite tea shop or of course, on Amazon.

Blowing my Cover: My Life as a CIA Spy by Lindsay Moran

My reading life has me all over the place: a magazine article, chapters of the Hunger Games, a false start or two on some new books, reading manuscripts for writer friends.  This is all to explain why so many days have come and gone between my last post and this.

I picked up this funny and fascinating memoir at the Red Cross Book Fair two weeks ago.  I have always enjoyed non-fiction chronicling what people do for a living and there's always been a lot of question in my mind about the CIA and what it means to be a spy for the USA.

My husband asked me right away, how on earth can someone write about how and why spies do what they do, isn't it all a big secret?   She never explains what sort of censors needed to read her book and approve of it, but my gut instinct tells me that why and how spies do what they do isn't really secret.  In fact, many of the things she does, we have seen in the movies a million times over.  What is secret, is who is doing those things.  I feel fairly certain that she did not blow anyone's cover but her own, and now she is decidedly on the outside, it doesn't matter.

Lindsay Moran is a likable person who questions her motives and the CIA motives from the very first day. She presents an honest and often hilarious look at what she does.  The places and the work while fascinating also lends itself to soul crushing loneliness.  You really can't have too many friends when you can't tell people what you do for a living.

Roughly one half (probably more) of the memoir chronicles her process for getting in and the extensive training she is sent through in order to prepare her for what lay ahead in the field.  Spending about 10 years of my own career in Residential Housing at a University, I remember how much we relied on role playing games to teach Resident Assistants how to do their jobs. Guess what?  The CIA relies on the same sort of training techniques.  Learning of all the extensive role playing games (including fake kidnappings, hostage takings and embassy cocktail parties) that go into training a spy was half the fun.  No kidding.

You can probably pick this book up on Amazon or at your local library.  Let me know if you would like to borrow mine.

The Hunger Games

Now that Grayson and I have finally packed away Harry Potter, we searched for a new reading adventure that we could read together.  It was hard to pick a Young Adult Book that would appeal to mother and son as much as HP did.  Many, many friends have encouraged me to pick up the Hunger Games by Susanne Collins.  So starting this past Monday night, the kid and I are getting to know Katniss Everdeen.

After three nights, all I can say is it will be hard to read this one chapter at a time (perhaps I'll have to borrow it and sneak ahead)  and it is keeping me up.  Did you all know there's a movie coming out in 2012?  Imagine that a strong female protagonist!  Thanks Suzanne.