Animal Dreams

Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver speaks to the universal feeling of being lost within oneself without even comprehending the tragedy of that small negligence. In it, protagonist Codi Noline returns to the town that raised her in an effort to regain some familiarity in her life after her sister Hallie leaves for South America. She is reacquainted with her father, her childhood friends, and Loyd, all of whom push her to acknowledge who she is and stop avoiding herself and what she is capable of. I hesitate to use the word "destiny" because it is an absurd concept, but in a way, Codi is faced with committing to life as her destiny.


At one point it irritated me that Codi was turning into another character wrapped up in a gauze of aimlessness and I worried Kingsolver would send her on a quest to find her spirit animal or have a dream of her destiny in the desert, dehydrated and sunburned. Rather, without neglecting the importance of solitude, Kingsolver allowed Codi to renew her value and self-worth in the company of folks who could point her along the way without doing the work for her. Her friend Emelina, Emelina's mother Viola, Loyd and his mother, the ladies of the Stitch and Bitch Club, her own addled father, and from a distance, Hallie's letters, all had profoundly quiet influence on pulling Codi out of her habit of avoidance of who she was capable of being and who she was worthy of loving. Loyd, for all his physical loveliness and his habit of being a bit of a recluse, was able to tell her that "It's one thing to carry your life wherever you go. Another thing to always go looking for it somewhere else."

Woven into Codi's story is a brief foray into the sustainability movement as the town of Grace grapples with a devastating (and human-made) environmental catastrophe. As she idolizes her sister for her heroics in the field of sustainable and indigenous farming in Nicaragua, she is faced with her own monumental task: being the instrument for people who have become foliage in the memories of her childhood. She is caught unawares by the gravity of her involvement and simply moves forward because it is what is required of her. It seems that if a task isn't outrageously difficult or effective on a global scale, Codi doesn't see the heroic value in it. It takes the entire community, each person contributing a small action or comment to get Codi to realize that living her life with people who truly value her and her skills is heroic, even if she doesn't think so. To honor the value others see in you is often the most difficult task.

Kingsolver, master at the ache we place upon our own hearts, is also master of using the setting of her stories to reflect the characters and the story itself. I love the setting of the American Southwest (in this case, the fictional town of Grace, Arizona; how fitting and lovely!). Kingsolver uses the background as an allegory of the beauty of human emotional suffering, as well as the physical suffering of a marginalized indigenous community. The haunting wind and parched land that annually give way to the beauty of desert flora makes for a delightfully spiritual place for such a quiet and meaningful story.

Animal Dreams reinforced for me the joy of Barbara Kingsolver's stories of heartbreak and emotional redemption. Her tales of the American Southwest always carry a detail of desperate loneliness with them that makes them stand apart as complete and separate things; yet they never actually do break your heart. She manages to uplift the reader without being trite or saccharine and make you feel as if you'd earned the entire book's secrets and trust. It is with reverence that I delve into each new Kingsolver book, for the quiet themes, the lovely characters, and the fragile matter of deep human love.

The Twentieth Wife

It is a rare and terribly uncomfortable day when I realize I simply can't finish this book I've started. I was excited to read The Twentieth Wife by Indu Sundaresan when it was chosen last month as our club read. India is a country I know very little about but, as with most people, it fascinates. Paired with a ladies night out to see "Eat Pray Love," I thought it would be a tropical September indeed.

Disclaimer: I am only half-way through the book. As the date for our club's monthly meeting approaches this week, I realize a couple things: 1. it should not be taking me so long to read this book, and 2. I must not be enjoying it because I keep finding other things to do when I've scheduled time to read, and 3. I shouldn't have to schedule time to read, I should be in a rhythm of just doing it. Therefore, my conclusion is: I am not finding enough in this book to make me care about the characters enough to finish it. I quit.

It took over a week for me to figure out why I was having such a tough time with The Twentieth Wife, a story of a pair of star-crossed lovers in imperial Mughal India in the 16th century. The protagonist Mehrunnisa is everything a feminist would want: intelligent, head-strong, gorgeous, and independent. However, I'm half-way through the book and it seems to me that the author has marginalized her just as much as the culture she lives in does. Her only act of bravery has been to smile through her emotional pain, and let's not fault her that. This is based on a true story and sometimes the bravest thing to do is deal with the situation you're in. I was just hoping for a little more action, some cultural rebellion, something worthy of the Disney-esque princess Sundaresan seems to be writing. (That is exactly what this feels like: a book written to be animated and put to a soundtrack written by MIA and Phil Collins with uplifting lyrics and a bodacious babe in gold lamé.)

Thus far, the author has spent way too much time telling me about the prince that Mehrunnisa is over the moon for and not giving me a reason to care. He's kind of a jackass to be honest: drug-addled, impressionable, selfish, and without any kind of honor to speak of. In the meantime, the child Mehrunnisa was thrilling to read about, but as soon as she grew up Sundaresan began ignoring her and only checking in each year as she doubled over in pain with another miscarriage. I've stopped caring whether she meets this Prince (not so) Charming or not. She's probably better off; her husband tends to be away a lot anyway and I think there are probably books somewhere she could liberate.

I can only hope she's building to a triumphant finish but I'm too tired to care and I want to move on. Perhaps I'm being impatient, it has happened before; but I've usually enjoyed the journey toward the climax and in this case it has become tiring. I don't want to read about Indian military history or another sentence so full of unfamiliar terms that I have to use the glossary six times to translate it to a place where I can understand it. Tell me the story, cut out the unnecessary minutes of what went on in court each day, and cut to the chase. And make it romantic if that's what it should be! Don't make me wade through red tape to get to a beautiful story and quit marginalizing your own heroine!

The Disappearing Spoon - by the group's IH

Think back to your high school chemistry class. Chances are, the artwork adorning the classroom probably contained a poster with the periodic table of the elements. For some reason, all through 7 chemistry classes, my favorite was tungsten.

Pop quiz - what is the chemical symbol for tungsten? Why, "W" of course! Why not T or Tu or Tg?? The "W"is for wolfram, the German name for tungsten. Without it, those handy incandescent lightbulbs would not operate if it weren't for those tungsten filaments.

I've always had a soft spot for science trivia, and the periodic table of the elements is full of interesting stories. If you have the same soft spot, I'd recommend "The Disappearing Spoon" by Sam Keane. The title references a property of the element gallium. Gallium turns from a solid to a liquid at 84 degrees Fahrenheit. According to the author, a favorite prank of grad students is to fashion spoons made of gallium and to hand them out with tea or coffee. The spoon looks like the metal of other silverware, but when used in tea or coffee, melts away - a disappearing spoon!

Another reason this is a great book is that it humanizes many of the famous scientists. In reading through textbooks, you never see into the personal lives or professional struggles of the discoveries and constants described in the text. Yet in The Disappearing Spoon, you see the races to get published (discovering and naming rights to elements), the discouragement at being passed up for a Nobel Prize yet again, and how wars and politics shape the or stunt technology.

The Twentieth Wife by Indu Sundaresan

I always like to read historical books written in a fictional setting, and this book takes to 16th century India. You learn what it's like to be a woman in a heavily patriarchal culture, and get a glimpse of the luxury of an emperor and his harem.

At first I had a hard time with the characters. Mehrunnisa, an intelligent head-strong young woman, has a hard time staying within her role in society. Of course that's a characteristic with which I am fond of. So why does she so easily fall for Prince Salim, simply for his looks and position? He's immature, conceited, and has no problem taking advantage of others simply because he's a prince. He even goes as far as plotting his father's death simply to be named emperor, yet he doesn't even take the time to learn from his father so that he too can be good leader.

Yet as the story moves on, Mehrunnisa and Prince Salim end up going in opposite directions. Mehrunnisa has opportunity to go after what she so desperately longs for, but stays true to honor instead. Prince Salim becomes a mature man, and although still glories in his position, takes seriously his role.

The most difficult part of the story was trying to relate to the characters. The culture is so unlike anything I know. If I was placed into it right now, I know I would be put to death within a day, if I was lucky. However, with an open mind, remembering that it is the only culture these people knew, I respected the way the women held themselves and interacted with their men.

In the end, I was happy with where the 2 main characters finally settled. I think it's a place that best represents their personalities and talents. And the best part is that it helped to open up the minds of the people of that time period to begin to understand that women are just as intelligent and capable as men...all though we all know there is still more work to be done in that regard.