The Heart of a Woman

I feel as if I go through ebbs and flows with my blogging. I get really passionate for a little while, then I get busy and forget all about it. However, the other day I realized, I am reading all of these books and have no record of it save Goodreads, but because I read so much, how can I possibly remember the plot of all the books I've read? Now that I have included audiobooks, I am really going to forget. Suffice to say, here I am, giving this another go. With a new job and more time on my hands, I am hoping I stick with this much more. With the encouragement of my fiancé and the many books I have acquired in the past two years since I last posted, I think we may have a bright future ahead of us.

Now, all the books I am currently reading are not on the 1001 Book list. For instance, I just bought five books from Amazon and none of them are on the list. I will be reading them as I go along. Now, I won't be blogging about some of the mysteries I read that are a part of a series such as Agatha Christie's Poirot series but stand alone books unless there is a book I read that is part of a series that I think people would really be interested in.

I just finished this morning, The Heart of a Woman by Maya Angelou. This is my second Angelou autobiography. The first one, which goes without saying, was I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She wrote a series of autobiographies starting with Caged Bird and ending with Mom & Me & Mom. I received a copy of this book from a former coworker and this book happens to be in the middle of her life and covers a three year span. Her son, Guy, is a teenager and she moves him out to New York City where she becomes engaged to a bail bondsman but ends up falling in love with an African freedom fighter named Vus.

In this part of her life, we see Ms. Angelou getting more involved in the struggle for Black America for equality and their rightful place in society. In her previous biographies, Angelou has never been so immersed in black society as she was in New York City. She lived in a black community in Brooklyn, (the books starts off with her getting a place in Laurel Canyon, all white community so her son would go to the best school) gets involved in the Harlem Writers Guild, and gets a gig at the Apollo Theater. In the first half of this book, Angelou is the embodiment of a strong, black American woman. She gets her own job, provides for her son, goes toe to toe with racists and gets a job at SCLC and meets Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. As strong of a woman as she is, when she meets Vus, everything changes. He doesn't want her to work, he wants her to be a "good African wife". Angelou is in love with him at first and while she is not used to being home, keeping house and not working, she preservers. Guy has a father figure, Vus is a great provider who is out fighting for the African cause, to bring down colonialism and to help his brothers escaping from South Africa.

Angelou is bored in this period and I am amazed at her transformation. I always took her to be someone who would never take the backseat to a man, but I can imagine, at least in the beginning, this was a new role for her. She was no longer the breadwinner, but was on an allowance and being an exemplary African wife supporting her freedom fighter husband who provided for her and her child. Guy even called Vus "dad". This was my least favorite part of the book only because I was getting angry at Vus' treatment of her. He didn't want her to work, didn't want her to act in a play but only agreed to because another man said she should, and doesn't even pay the damn bills. Yet, she stays with him! And he whisks her off to Cairo, where he continues to cheat on her, still doesn't pay the bills, and allows her to get a job because a MAN said she should. That infuriated me. I realize it is a different culture but I felt personally victimized by her husband, as if he was doing all of this nonsense to me (which goes to show how GREAT of a writer Maya Angelou is). I love the way the book ends which leaves me wanting to read the rest of her books.

She is a great writer and I think everyone should have a required reading list with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings on it, which would hopefully spurn others to read the rest (I read so many books, I can't keep up). I gave this book four stars on Goodreads (you can find me there). I am trying to be more discerning with my ratings. I find I give five stars to lots of books, in hindsight, I probably shouldn't have. Great writing and such a quick, easy read.

I am currently listening to another biography on audiobook called Marie Antoinette: The Journey. This was the book that the movie starring Kirsten Dunst was based on. It's good so far, I won't be reviewing it but it's a pretty good listen. My next book is Watership Down, suggested by my fiancé. It's a little over 400 pages so I hope it's a good one. I also have the third book in Lost Illusions by Honore de Balzac to read to finish out the novel and then I have Glamorama which I have been trying to read for almost a year but the book is terrible. Why it's on the 1001 list, I can't even describe. I am halfway done but refuse to abandon. It will take me another year to read, I bet.

Until next time, happy reading!

The Jungle

When most people think of The Jungle, they first say "oh, isn't that the book about the meat packing industry?" And that is if they know the book at all. While the first third of the book is a graphic look of the meat packing district as it was in the turn of the 20th century, the book deals with more issues than just the poor working conditions and severe health code violations that were rampant in the business.

On it's surface, the novel is about Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant who comes over with his fiancé, her step-mother, cousin and numerous half brothers and sisters. It chronicles their life, struggling to survive, keeping jobs, falling prey to con man and other issues that continue to arise. However, the family saga is just a back drop to the main story of real life corruption, poor working conditions, the plight of the immigrant families and the lack of safety nets. The author, Upton Sinclair, was in real life a Socialist, who went undercover for a Socialist newspaper in Chicago and actually worked in a meat packing factory for seven weeks to write this novel. It was a serialized piece, and didn't appear in novel form until later. Sinclair uses this story of the poor immigrant family to expose what was happening in these industries that the American public had no idea what was happening or how their meat was brought to the table. 

The opening of the novel begins with Jurgis and Ona's wedding feast. The wedding feast, back in the old country, is supposed to be a time for celebration. However, in this new American life, it is a constant source of worry and stress for our protagonist family. The wedding feast is an expensive one, but it is a tradition that Jurgis and Ona's step mother, Elzbieta, refuses to abandon. If they abandoned it "to do that would, not merely to be defeated, but to acknowledge defeat and the difference between these two things is what keeps the world going"(pg. 7). Everyone attending the feast is poor, and everyone is expected to pay for themselves. This is called the veselija. A hat is passed around and the guests throw in what they can. Jurgis and Ona are depending on this money to pay the vendors and on a surplus to get them through. However, when they have passed the collections, they find there is not even enough money to cover the wedding costs. It is observed that people come in from the street where the eat and drink and leave before leaving any money. Elzbieta says it will ruin them, but typical Jurgis says "I will work harder".
Jurgis always says that he will "work harder" every time that a financial hardship arises. Unfortunately, Jurgis hasn't figured out that the system is working against him,  his family, and all of the workers. There is no social safety net, health benefits, or vacation time given. If you missed a day of work, not only were you unpaid, but you were at risk of losing your job. There were so many unemployed, that even if you were a good, hard worker, the company would not hesitate to find someone to replace you. They need bodies and if someone could perform the work marginally well, you were out of job. Now, if the boss liked you enough and disliked your replacement enough, you may be lucky enough to get your job back, at the expense of the person who replaced you. This was a vicious cycle, but everyone in the packing industry abided by it. You did not want to be the unlucky soul who got sick, hurt themselves on the production lines, or even worse, get black listed.
As you might have imagined, all of these happen to our immigrant family. As I have previously stated, Sinclair uses this family to rail against the work conditions, lack of the social safety net and lack of morals among the industry. Sinclair throws everything against this family. Could they really be that unlucky? This is where I think the story fails. If Sinclair wanted to write this investigative piece, he could have done that either using real names and people or actually make us care about these characters. Throughout the evolution of this "novel" (a term that I use loosely), my disdain for Jurgis grows. As much as I want to feel for him and his family, Sinclair makes me turn against them because to get more of the investigational journalism into the story, he makes these improbable events happen to Jurgis all the time. Then, to top it all off, he decides that Jurgis sees the light and socialism is the answer. He leaves a bunch of story lines open. I had a hard time concentrating at the end because it became less about the family and more about the savior that is the Socialist movement.
Overall, I think the novel is worth a read because it is an eye opener about what was really going on with our food and these immigrant workers. It shows the rise of the union and why they were such an important part of the labor movement. I just think that Sinclair's passion for Socialism and the need to expose every part of the industry and political corruption in one book to one family really muddles the novel. I give it three out of five stars.

Another book has been checked off the 1001 list. I am currently over 100 books from about 1290ish, so I have plenty of reading to do. My next book is The Nanny Diaries for my book club, which I am already half way done with so I am going to need to find my next 1001 book. I have the Forsyte Saga, but I am not sure if I want to tackle a long read this late in the year when I still have another 13 books to read towards my goal of 35 books read in 2014. I have so much going on and so little time. Any suggestions for my next read would be awesome! Just refer to the 1001 list and tell me what you think I should pick up next. If you say Charles Dickens, go home.

I am so glad to be writing in my blog again. I will definitely keep it up this time around (I did say this before). I promise!

Until next time,
Happy Reading

A Midsummer Night's Dream but more like a cry for help!

This will be a English or Literature Professor's nightmare on my take of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Definitely not my favorite Shakespeare play and I think a lot of it has to do with because I never totally understood what the hell was going on. All the Shakespeare I've ever read has always been in an English class where my teacher for the most part had the competence to understand and teach us the meaning and the point of the play (well again, I don't remember too much from Hamlet, but Big Red was my teacher and anyone who has taken "Honors" English with her knows what I speak of). The version of the play that I had was published by the Royal Shakespeare Company and they did give pretty good notes but I found myself re-reading passages and trying to make sense of what was going on.

So what have I learned from this novel? That the fairies interfered with the humans? I really can't make a judgement on this novel except I need to talk to an English teacher who can walk me through it. Damn you Shakespeare!

Fortunately, I also read An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin that I think you all will enjoy. I also read One, Two, Buckle My Shoe by Agatha Christie and I am still reading Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens (I am 73% done, so almost there!) and I just started The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. I have been on a British Literature kick so I will be going back to some American Literature for the time being! I will write my review of An Object of Beauty next week. In the meantime, if anyone has any insight on A Midsummer Night's Dream and would love to discuss, I would love it!

Until next time, happy reading!