lory_enterenchanted's Reviews (582)

Even though it was filled with exhaustive detail, often drawn directly from Pym's diaries and notebooks (she loved the minutiae of daily life), this biography left me oddly uncertain of the underlying motivations and even the personality of its subject. I felt that I had encountered lots of externals but very little of her inner being. The narrative made it clear that Pym's life had been marked by a succession of attachments to unavailable, uncaring, or downright repellent men (including one Nazi!), yet I could never understand quite why she subjected herself to this treatment, nor what she ultimately made of it all. (It doesn't help that the most important pages from the diaries about some of her most traumatic or embarrassing experiences were ripped out and destroyed.) 

Byrne argues that Pym "enjoyed sex" and this made her ahead of her time, that she was a liberated woman and that should encourage and inspire us readers, but it seems to me that this is the sort of liberation that frees MEN to enjoy a woman's favors without offering anything in return in the way of real love or commitment. It's sad, not inspiring.

This does not deter me from wanting to read Pym's novels; on the contrary. I now want to read all of them because I think that I'll find more of Pym's spirit there than in the biography. Her personal life may have all the more given her insight into human relationships, which is what has brought her a loyal and enduring base of fans. I have already enjoyed her first three novels, but now I'm especially interested in reading the later ones that come out of her maturity.

The "therapy memoir" seems to be a new or at least an increasingly popular genre -- a therapist tells the stories of her patients (in forms disguised for privacy) while threading in her own life journey and what she's learned through her work with others. Dr. Eger's is a remarkable and moving example, drawing on her experiences as a Holocaust survivor and pioneering psychotherapist for a riveting, page-turning, beautifully written and heart-wrenching chronicle of human suffering turned into wisdom and love. What she discovers is that we need each other in order to survive, a theme of the primacy and sanctity of human connection that I'm finding confirmed over and over again in various ways. Recommended to anyone who wants to find meaning in the darkness.

I enjoyed this alternate historical romance, set in a Europe where Napoleon prevailed over Wellington; it's interesting to consider how the balance of power would have shifted, and gives a welcome twist on Regency tropes. The political intrigue took second place to the characters, who were pretty standard types (attractive rake with an underlying yen for commitment, feisty girl with a guilty secret) yet I grew fond of them anyway. I raced through the last 100 pages to find out what happened to them, even though I was sure the right ones would end up together and the bad ones would be punished, given the genre. I had not realized that this is a follow-up to two earlier novels, which give some important background. (There's no indication that I noticed that one character is Black, for instance.) A series that will give a lot of pleasure to Regency fans, in a much darker and grittier strain than Georgette Heyer but still with relatively happy endings.

Finally read this popular guide by a British resident of Switzerland. I could do without the stupid jokes and bathroom language -- it's so middle school to find it funny when acronyms in a foreign language spell FART, etc. Spare me. Also, saying "So very Swiss (or un-Swiss)" got tiresome and was unnecessary since we KNOW he's writing about the Swiss, and also, they are not so monolithic as all that, quite the contrary. But there was some useful and interesting information to be found as well, including a pocket history of the country, and advice on some customs and traditions. I was left feeling there was a lot missing, though ... little on literary connections, art, or on connections with health and wellness, for example. Truly, for such a small country Switzerland seems to have endless depths to mine.

Sharp's first novel was apparently written in one month, and it's a remarkable accomplishment if so! I found Ann quite endearing and her adventures in choosing the right man, and becoming herself against the weight of her overbearing but beloved family, an entertaining diversion. Like all Sharp books that I've read, light but not lacking in depth.

Read for my "Make me read it challenge" -- blog readers told me which of five choices on my TBR shelf to complete.

I'm not sure I would have gotten through it without the challenge, because this is a helluva bleak dystopian vision of America 30 years in the future -- that is, now. It is fascinating how much Butler got right -- a California devastated by drought and fire, rampant and destructive drug use, people walling themselves off in fear and distrust and turning to guns as the only answer for self-protection, a hopeless government that is selling out its own people ... I could go on, but you get the idea. Butler could see the writing on the wall, and even though things are not quite as dire as portrayed in this novel, it increasingly feels as though we're teetering on the brink of such total chaos.

The response of the young protagonist is to venture out looking for a place to build a better life, gathering a chosen, trusted set of people as her community, and inventing an artificial, made-up religion she calls "Earthseed" to give them hope and purpose. This latter does not get much actual play in this book, other than verses from her journal at the head of each chapter, and a few scenes in which she tries to explain it to other characters. To their credit, none of the characters seem very excited about the idea, and some of them consider it absolute bosh -- but they like her, so they will go along with it anyway. I can only say, just asserting that something feels true to you, does not make it true. That's not religion, that's fanaticism.

The idea of Earthseed is that human beings need to escape from this hopelessly damaged planet and find a new place among the stars. I think it would be far more interesting to consider how people could deal with the problems on this world than just run away to another one. The human mind seems irresistibly attracted to pouring resources, energy and ingenuity into creating complicated machines, rather than transforming and healing relationships. This is probably why I'm not a huge science fiction fan. 

Another random aspect of the story is the main character's "hyperempathy," a fetal-drug-induced condition that means she shares the feelings of other people, or rather what she thinks their feelings are. This brought up the question for me of why she couldn't train herself not to imagine their feelings -- but I suppose that would make her a psychopath. As it is, the condition has led her to be very cold and calculating about feelings and sensations, and (ironically) not very sympathetic in a normal sense. A creepy romance with a man 40 years older than her adds another bizarre touch. 

I was curious by the end how the community's experiment would turn out, so I will probably read the next book, but I'm not terribly hopeful that it will be an enjoyable experience, based on this one.

Reviews and more on my blog: Entering the Enchanted Castle

I loved this book and want to read it again and take better notes. I think that the new approaches to trauma and recovery that have been growing in the last few decades form the most exciting development of the current century. We have an unprecedented potential to get beyond our habitual, unconscious, reactive ways of living, which generally involve hurting ourselves and each other in a misguided attempt to protect ourselves, and lead to an unending cycle of violence and/or disconnected woundedness. We now know that "disconnection is disease," as Perry puts it, and that connected relatedness is the cure -- grounded in a wise understanding of how the human being is built. That is, from the bottom up, starting with bodily sense experience and not with abstract, disjointed concepts that misinterpret and further damage the person to whom we apply them.

Correct thinking is built upon the foundation of healthy, robust, self-regulating, and above all humanly connected body-and-soul experience, and if we don't start to support this development with all the resources at our disposal, we may see the end of civilization at the hands of people with fatally incorrect, damaged thinking. If only the ideas in this book would be taken seriously on every level, from personal relationships to public policy, it would truly change the world. Everyone can make a start with their own lives -- I see many of my own habits and those of my family, friends, colleagues and opponents in a new light. I'm excited to see how I can implement more healing practices myself.

I would like to know more about how to work with people who are so sensitized that even the well-meant question "What happened to you?" provokes resistance and denial in them. I think the answer lies in the practices that Perry calls "regulating," which bring rhythm and balance to a disturbed person. I'll be looking for more resources about this aspect.

Reviews and more on my blog: Entering the Enchanted Castle

Read for Daphne du Maurier Reading Week 2021 (and finished on her birthday!) 

I enjoyed this memoir that covered du Maurier's early life, from childhood through the publication of her first book and ending with her marriage. It was fascinating to learn how she was already a storyteller from age four, wondering about and questioning the things and people around her, already creating her own imaginative world to escape the social mold expected of her. Her fascination with Cornwall and with the house Menabilly that figures so importantly in Rebecca and other novels is also interesting to learn about. But the writing gets sketchier and hastier at the end, as she finds freedom through her writing and then escapes on a boat with her new husband. The reality must have been more complex, but one senses that as in her fiction, she plays with both hiding and revealing information to the reader.

Update: read for a second time as required preparatory reading for a Spiritual Direction training that I'm starting. I was less troubled by the problems I complained about below and found lots of valuable nuggets to think about. Rohr does say what he is talking about is not a chronological phenomenon exclusively. And he does describe what it involves, using some compelling images. I don't know why I was so dissatisfied before. I do see in my own journey how confusion about first-half and second-half of life goals caused me a lot of suffering. Just sorting those out can help a lot.
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I really love Rohr's core message in all the books I've read. I do wish he would resort less to emotionally-charged assertions and sweeping generalities and ground his argument more in well-developed, thought-through particulars. In this case, I think one could better pinpoint what "second-half-of-life" spirituality really involves. What he's talking about does not happen exclusively after middle age, nor is it an inevitable development -- it is possible to age and not mature, while there are young people who are wise beyond their years. And what exactly is it about the process of aging that brings us to the challenging point of transformation? Once more, I find much more satisfying explanations in the ideas of anthroposophy, which give a thorough picture of the different "members" of the human being and of how their relationship to each other and the outer world metamorphose through life. On the other hand, Rohr's compassion, humility, and heartfulness are refreshing, and much needed in order to enliven more cerebral considerations. I wish these two streams could come together for a powerful, fully effective approach to the desperate spiritual needs of our time.

Reviews and more on my blog: Entering the Enchanted Castle

I finished a book in German! A simple children's tale was perfect for me.