Mao's Last Dancer by Li Cunxin

"I felt sad that they [my nieces and nephew], like most of the next generation of children growing up in China, would have no brothers or sisters [because of the one-child policy]. We had survived through generations of dark and impoverished living because of this one strength, because of the unconditional love and unselfish care of each other within our family unit. It was all we'd had." p. 413 This amazing book is a biography of the internationally renowned ballet dancer, who was taken from his family in a small Chinese commune to be preened and groomed as a communist puppet to promote Madame Mao's cultural plans. It is an incredible story of oppression and poverty, starvation and hopelessness that changes with one small taste of personal freedom. It is also a story of determination and drive beyond one's natural abilities in order to achieve a dream. I love a book that teaches me, inspires me, and that makes me appreciate the countless blessings I enjoy in my life.  I want to see the movie now, so I need Netflix!

Wild Swans

"I realized then that when people are happy they become kind."  "Having been brought up in a privileged position, I did not realize that in China dignity was a luxury scarcely available to those who were not privileged."  "I could understand ignorance, but I could not accept its glorification, still less its right to rule."  "In bringing out and nourishing the worst in people, Mao had created a moral wasteland and a land of hatred.  But how much individual responsibility ordinary people should share, I could not decide."  This amazing book is the history of a grandmother, mother and daughter who lived in the last 100 years in China.  The grandmother was a foot-bound concubine of a War Lord, the mother is a devout communist (until it all goes wrong), and the daughter is an intelligent girl whose country closed schools for 8 years during the Cultural Revolution.  The book is banned in China for the truth it exposes.  I never realized how bad things really were there (as it was so well-hidden from the western world!).  Poppy read this book cover-to-cover and that's rare for him!  It's enthralling and engrossing and I promise you will learn so much, mostly to be grateful for democracy!  But it's not a "beach read"--you have to dig in and it will leave your head spinning--but what a ride.  I feel like I've taken a full semester course in Chinese history. 

A Room with a View by E. M. Forster

"It is so difficult--at least, I find it difficult--to understand people who speak the truth." "There's enough sorrow in the world, isn't there, without trying to invent it." "The kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world; it will accept those whom breeding and intellect and culture have alike rejected." "At times our need for a sympathetic gesture is so great that we care not what exactly it signifies or how much we may have to pay for it afterwards." "But Italy worked some marvel in her. It gave her light, and--which he held more precious--it gave her shadow." "It isn't possible to love and to part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal." I had to leave out four more quotes I highlighted so as not to overdo. This was a really fun read. The heroine (who lives in England) was discovering who she was with the help of a trip to Italy. Watching her mature from an ingenue to a woman sure of her self and her personal ideals was a great road trip. Written in 1908, there are social mores that were beginning to change and Lucy was one who urged those changes along. Now I want to see the movie again!  It's a great love story.  I'm happy to have my Kindle because I often looked up words I didn't know with the dictionary!  If you like Jane Austen, you'll like this, too.

The Weird Sisters

This is a review for a book I just read for Blogher.  It's up on my other blog as well. 

I'll admit--Shakespeare's not really my thing.  I read a few plays required in high school, but Shakespeare is really more Jeremy's thing.  He read it, acted in it, even sacrificed his body for it when he had his nose broken by broadsword during Macbeth--turns out that stage blood wasn't necessary after all. 

But I thought this book The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown sounded interesting, about three adult women all returning for their own reasons to the home of their parents, where their father, who is a college professor on Shakespeare speaks to them and tries even to give cryptic advice to them through lines of Shakespeare.



The book is fascinating in that it is narrated by the sisters collectively. The sisters tell of sister number one and her problems and then move on to sister number two, still speaking strictly collectively but omnisciently.

It’s a story about life and struggles, and though my life is quite different from everyone in the book, I still found some parts that really spoke to me.

After a conversation with her fiancé Rose, the eldest, considers the way she has lived her life, “[C]hasing some shadow of the way things were Supposed to Be? There were days, yes, when Rose felt as though she had been on this earth forever, since the dinosaurs at least, but she knew she was young. It seemed so early to have signed her whole life away, but it seemed so exhausting to change anything” (p 119).

I’ve found as I get a little bit older that I really have held myself back according to some standard of the way things are “supposed to be”. In many different areas of our culture there are a lot of unspoken rules that I find myself rebelling against these days.

At one point, reflecting on their parents’ marriage they say, “We have always wondered why there is not more research done on the children of happy marriages. Our parents’ love is not some grand passion, there are no swoons of lust, no ball gowns and tuxedo’s but here is the truth: they have not spent a night apart since the day they married” (p 156).

Though Jeremy and I spent our first night apart less than a month after being married (he was traveling with BYU Men’s Chorus) I like this thought of the simple things being meaningful in a marriage of true love—though I’d still like a ball gown!

After Cordy, the youngest sister, witnesses her Mom’s true frailties the sisters ask, “How old were you when you first realized your parents were human? That they were not omnipotent; that what they said did not, in fact, go; that they had dreams and feelings and scars? Or have you not realized that yet? Do you still call your parents and have a one-sided conversation with them, child to parent, not adult to adult?” (p 262)

I still remember the moment I realized this. The experience is too personal to share. But, though I do still call my parents as a child, I hope that I also often call as an adult as well.

Perhaps because I’ve been appreciative of my own ecclesiastical leaders recently I really welcomed Bean, the middle sister’s, “confession scene” and counseling from Father Aidan. In confronting the true source of bean’s behavior he advises her, “We all have stories we tell ourselves. We tell ourselves we are too fat, or too ugly, or too old, or too foolish. We tell ourselves these stories because they allow us to excuse our actions, and they allow us to pass off the responsibility for things we have done—maybe to something within our control, but anything other than the decisions we have made” (337).

If that doesn’t cause pause for a moment of reflection on our own lives and behaviors then I don’t know what will.

I recommend this book with reservations. The “F-word” (and variations) was used about 6 or so times, and there was talk of sex—not descriptions of sex, but talk of it. If you feel capable of skipping past a few things like that then I think you’ll be able to find plenty of interesting things in this book.

 

So I really wanted to add to this blog, but I don't really read a lot with school in the way of everything. This is the ONLY book I have read out of pure enjoyment in the past year, so I am going to share it with you :) Maybe when I get time this summer, I can catch up on all these other good books you guys have. Anyways, it's an LDS book about a group of 6 girls that knew each other from high school. They are 30 now and just looking for husbands. Not exactly the situation any of us is in...but they are really cute and uplifting! There's also a bit of a mystery throughout this series of books. Each book in the series is about one girl finding her true love and getting married. Only 3 are out right now. I think she has 2 or 3 more.

This one is about a girl who is living in New York trying to design clothes. Of course she's Mormon, so she has trouble fitting in and being accepted by the fashion industry. My favorite one of the series is the second one. It was really slow at the beginning, but then it got so cute and romantic that I couldn't put it down. It's based in a little town in Washington, basically where I dream of living every day. The third one is about one of the girls going on a show like the Bachelor.

Anyways, they are totally girl books with the perfect romance and quite a bit cliche and unrealistic, but some of the church things they bring in are pretty inspiring and brought some kind of new insights to me. When I was first reading them, I thought it was so silly how the author kept throwing the church in there. Then I began to realize how our life really is all about the Savior and getting back to him. These books kind of helped me understand how to incorporate and always remember the Savior in my everyday life. So if you are looking for a total girl's night or in a chick flick mood, you should read these because the men are so dreamy and the situations are sooo romantic... :)