The Wind Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami

This book was like reading a long dream, which vacillated between interesting and nightmarish stories with quirky characters.  The protagonist, Toru Okada, who calls himself The Wind Up Bird, quits his job and hangs out at home doing chores and waiting for his wife, Kumiko, to come home every night from her work. One day she does not return.  He sets out to find her and runs into a series of very odd characters ranging from Lieutenant Mamiya who serves in the Japanese Army during WW II witnessing some horrible atrocities such as the skinning of a live compatriot to Malta and Creta Kano, sisters who are clairvoyant and spend a lot of time listening to Toru's ruminations. In much of the book, I spent trying to figure out what is real, what is a symbol and what is pure fiction. It is a book about a young man finding himself and his strength of character after many years of aimless drifting (with periodic meditations at the bottom of a dry well).  The ending ties many of the complicated parallel stories together that revolve around Toru's life. I like weird endings so I particularly liked this book!

The Mormons by Wallace Stegner

Wow I realize it's been quite awhile since I have made an entry for books I have read. I have tried a number of them recently, but quit many of them as they just were not that good, including The History of Love. Dave and I went on  a vacation to Utah and stopped in Salt Lake City. I became a little obsessed with the Mormons. The Temple Square is interesting. I loved seeing the Tabernacle- it is a shiny gray dome building with a big organ inside. All this made me want to buy a book about Mormon life, plus recently in Texas a cult of Fundamental Church of the Latter Day Saints were busted for their polygamous ways (or multiple marriages as they call them) and forcing young teenage girls into marriages with older men. 

I saw this book by Wallace Stegner who is one of my all time favorite writers. So naturally I paid $17 at the Capitol Reef Ranger Station bookstore to read it. Each chapter deals win a vignette on Mormon life. Stegner spent part of his life in SLC and hung out with Mormons - going to their social events, etc.  He is attracted to the family fun they have and is not overly critical of them as they were so welcoming to him.  I was most interested in how Brigham Young sent out little groups of people to found new towns all over Utah and near by states. We went through many of these tiny towns - Orderville, Torrey, Dixie, etc. And it was fun because I had read a little bit about them. Orderville operated on communist principles where the Mormons gave up their personal wealth for the common good and ate boarding house style for all meals. In Dixie, the Mormons grew cotton to support the Confederates during the Civil War. I learned that for Utah to become a state, the Feds forced the Mormons to give up multiple marriages, which is not exactly what Sister Laura (young woman on a mission as a tour guide at Brigham Young's house) conveyed about the end of multiple marriages to our tour group. So while this was not a book for everyone, it was a good read as we travelled the small towns of Southern Utah and pondered how the Mormons could move into these areas and start from scratch to make a new life under trying environmental conditions.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

Okay this will be my last book for awhile on the environment and healthy eating! I was interested in how Barbara Kingsolver managed to feed herself and her family on food they grew for a year. While she inspired me to sign up for a CSA and to think much more about what I eat, I don't think I could do what she did to raise all that food, weed the garden, harvest the garden, can it and cook it (much less kill the chickens and turkeys). She and her family clearly took a great deal of pride in what they did but seem almost too consumed in it. While the book is not too preachy and she has a great sense of humor about her turkeys and daughter Lily raising chickens, there were times when her husband's political bits he must share with his college students and her daughter, Camille's musings on eating healthy made me fast forward. In the end, I admire what they accomplished. The point that we eat food trucked from all over the world burning fuel with little regard to eating within our own season is well taken. I like the idea of supporting farmers in our area through buying a CSA share. I will even work on eating organic meat and chicken from the coop. However, I could not resist the blueberries from Chile that were at  Top Foods the other day. They were some of the best I have ever eaten!

Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee

J.M. Coetzee is a South African (white) writer. This story is about a twice divorced man, Prof David Lurie, who seduces young women  (often his students). His obsessions catch up to him when a complaint is finally filed and he is tried by his colleagues who try to help him repent, but he declares himself guilty and unwilling to repent and thus looses his teaching job. He heads out to the country to reconnect with his daughter, Lucy, who eeks out a living farming on a scrap of land. While he is there, a roaming group of young black men come to the house, rape Lucy, kill her dogs and steal David's car. Lucy's reaction to the event "I am staying and not filing charges" baffles her father. His anger toward the young men who commit the crime is full of ironies considering his conquests of young women. Life in the new South African and the relationships of men and women, whites and blacks made this short book a good quick read.

The Deep End of the Ocean by Jacquelyn Mitchard

While this book is not high prose, it is a riveting story about a mother, Beth, whose three year old son, Ben, is kidnapped from the lobby of a hotel when she takes her family to her high school reunion. Beth's plunge into severe depression and fixation on the loss of her son create disintegrating relationships with her family but most especially Vincent, her older son, and Pat, her restaurant manager husband. This books has a surprise twist, which seems a little implausible when the lost boy is found nine years living nearby with a "step dad".  The  mother  in me was affected at  a gut level...I don't know how I would ever cope with such a loss, but I might have taken on some of the same behaviors of guilt and resentment toward those I lived with that Beth does. It reminded me of The Good Mother by Sue Miller. Life can be perfect one day with your young child and the next day a turn of events makes your life hell and you cannot think of anything else but the loss of your child. 

White Oleander By Janet Fitch

I started out liking this book a lot. It was the heart breaking story of a young woman, Astrid, who grows up with a free spirited poet mother. Her mother kills an ex lover and goes to prison leaving Astrid to struggle through a number of foster families in search of  a normal family to love. Many things happen along the way -- she first lives with a born again woman "Starr" and has an affair with her boy friend and "Starr" shoots her in anger, then she lives with Marvel and her family with 2 kids whom she is the live in nanny, but finds an interesting woman, Olivia, next door whom Marvel does not approve of. Then she lives with a woman who padlocks the fridge and starves the girls living there. Then she moves in with Ron and Claire who give her love and attention, but that ends with Claire's suicide...by this time I am in the "enough already" mode and had to skim very lightly the rest of the book. Janet is a good writer but does not know when to quit.

Atonement by Ian McEwan

I wanted to read this book before I watch the movie. It is the story of a British family's disintegration as told by several members of the family as well as  childhood friend of theirs. There is the usual class stuff, which annoys me. Can Brits write about anything else?  But the telling of the tale from the 11 year old Briony who misjudges the relationship of Robbie with her sister Cecilia and her cousin Lola is well done. The young budding author and playwright, is convinced that Robbie has committed several crimes attacking both Cecilia and Lola. She has misunderstood the situation and Robbie is sent to prison for a crime he did not commit.  Cecilia cuts herself off from her family. I was less enamoured with the telling of Robbie's point of view when he is a soldier in France retreating from the collapse of the country during WW II after his prison sentence.  His painful retreat to meet up with Cecilia once again was a long tale and  a bit out of place.  The author relished talking about war equipment and gory wounds and frightened French peasants.  It seemed a little too easy for Briony in the end to have gained atonement through her work as a nurse in the war and telling her parents and the legal authorities that she had lied.  She continues to live a long life, but her Cecilia and Robbie die untimely deaths before the war is over.