Monday, May 15, 2006

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

A cute story about friends apart for a summer and bonded through jeans they wear from a week subject to self created rules and then mail off to the next friend as they share their summer stories.

I watched the movie and decided to read the book and I loved it. Infact I'm going to buy the second one tomorrow for my trip to Brazil. But one thing concerns me. Y'all know about the Kaavya Scandal? Well you can read about it here. But apparently the ppl that helped her do what she did are the ones who are on the copyright for this book too. For example, Harry potter the copyright says only Rowlings name. Interpreater of MAladies? only Jhumpa Lahiri, but Kaavya's book had Alloy publishing next to her name....and so does this one. This concerns me because it makes me wonder if this is an authentic book or if its just a formula novel? that troubles me.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

The Amateur Marriage- Anne Tyler

I finished this book four days ago but the characters and the story still haunts my unguarded thoughts. What an amazing writer. I have not read a book so well written in a very very long time. For me a good writer is one, that when you're reading, you dont even realize it. You are experiencing what she writes, seeing what she sees and most importantly feeling what she feels. This story did just that for me. The story follows Michael and Pauline who meet by happenstance, have a hurried wartime wedding and proceed to spend thirty years loving one another, raising a family, and arguing. Arguing a whole lot. Ordinarily I do not like such stories of a family as it goes through life but like I said the writing is what sets this book apart. Here are just a few thoughts I had one some of the characters in the book...



***warning: Spoilers***

1. Why did Lindy get to come back and no one confronted her?! I was so furious with her when she came back again and I just didn't understand why even George who felt frustration said nothing. She knew where PAGAN WAS and didn't come for him! How did she account for that? She was sobered up for a while!

2. The love that Michael felt for Lindy choked me up because it was so real. How we want to love our children and think theyr'e special and will desperately hold on to our hopes tha tthey are more good than bad. Even when Pagan was found dirty, filthy and abandoned he tried to find signs that he was cared for.

3. I liked how they didnt even talk about changing his name. I think I might have done that if my kid's name was PAGAN but they didn't do that from him as he had very little identity as it was when they found him. Showed their humanity.

4. I was very sad for Paulline that she was all alone at the end. Actually thi sbook really really gave me a new perspective on aging and growing old. I see older people differently now and it makes me afraid of growing older. She was so alone in the end. Unable to even fix her water heater and stifled in so many other ways.

5. The way Lindy turned out gave me fear. How can you guaruntee that your children will end up being good and stable people when they grow up. how much control do you have? I do think they argued so much and were, as Karen said "such a couple" perhaps they didn't make child rasiing as active a priroity as they should have?