Worthy Read #3: "The Buddha in the Attic" by Julie Otsuka

Otsuka, Julie. The Buddha in the Attic. New York: Random House Inc., 2011.

While in San Francisco earlier this month I had the opportunity to visit a magnificent bookstore, 'City Lights Bookstore & Publishers', located on Columbus Avenue at Broadway in North Beach. Founded in 1953 and still known as "one of the few truly great independent bookstores in the United States," the very walls are steeped in poetry, and I deeply inhaled the happy scent of papyrus as we entered. Arched doorways, multiple floors boasting yet more sections of books, and a history that saw the shop as a meeting place for discussions about "anti-authoritarian politics and insurgent thinking" makes this bookstore a true gem for any lover of books and freedom. (www.citylights.com)

My own little slice of heaven.

 

The hand-written sign above the door reads, 
"Abandon all despair, Ye who enter here."

While at this marvelous store I selected a couple of books, including Julie Otsuka's Pen/Faulkner Award winning The Buddha in the Attic. This slip of a novel (it's a mere 129 pages long) reads like poetry, simple yet profoundly compelling, and pulls the reader into the hearts and minds of the countless Japanese women whose voices tell their story as a collective chant through Otsuka's masterful writing. The first-person plural narration sweeps us up into this choral song, and we trace the lives of these girls and women as they journey from their childhood homes in Japan to San Francisco as "picture brides", through their experiences as wives, workers, and mothers, right up until the Japanese internment during the second world war. We feel their disappointments and pain, their hardships and fears.

The following excerpt will give you a small but lovely taste of Otsuka's flavour:
"On the boat we could not have known that when we first saw our husbands we would have no idea who they were. That the crowd of men in knit caps and shabby black coats waiting for us down below on the dock would bear no resemblance to the handsome young men in the photographs. That the photographs we had been sent were twenty years old. That the letters we had been written had been written to us by people other than our husbands, professional people with beautiful handwriting whose job it was to tell lies and win hearts. That when we first heard our names being called out across the water one of us would cover her eyes and turn away - I want to go home - but the rest of us would lower our heads and smooth down the skirts of our kimonos and walk down the gangplank and step out into the still warm day. This is America, we would say to ourselves, there is no need to worry. And we would be wrong." (Otsuka, p.18)

Reading about this time in American history leading up to and including the internment of the Japanese following the bombing of Pearl Harbour, I felt myself reeling now and again, the hairs on my arms rising in goosebumps as this injustice born of fear played out on the pages before me. And while I so badly wanted to shake my own fears away with placating thoughts such as, "But that was a long time ago and we've come so far from those days," I could not deceive myself thus. The Buddha in the Attic is not only a beautifully written book, it is an important book. It stands as yet one more reminder that we need to learn from our mistakes, so as never to repeat them. I believe that we are standing on something of a precipice these days, and that the pendulum of society is balancing precariously upon it. And for the good of all, we need to remember that this Earth supports one race: the human race. 

Straying from my book review slightly, I'd like to share with you a framed poem that I discovered on the top floor of City Lights. Written by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the co-founder of the bookstore, I couldn't get over the relevance of this poem today, and I felt that, though he wrote the words years before, it could have been written on that very day as I stood there a few weeks ago. This gave me an eerie sense of destiny predetermined, which then gave way to a more realistic thought: we, as humans, all too often cycle through our mistakes repeatedly, sometimes with slight variations on the theme, but nevertheless, we ride the ferris wheel over and over again. I've copied the poem below, and have also included the photo I snapped of the framed words that I read.

Pity the Nation

(After Khalil Gibran)

Pity the nation whose people are sheep

And whose shepherds mislead them

Pity the nation whose leaders are liars

Whose sages are silenced

And whose bigots haunt the airwaves

Pity the nation that raises not its voice

Except to praise conquerors

And acclaim the bully as hero

And aims to rule the world 

By force and by torture

Pity the nation that knows

No other language but its own

And no other culture but its own

Pity the nation whose breath is money

And sleeps the sleep of the too well fed

Pity the nation oh pity the people

who allow their rights to erode

and their freedoms to be washed away

My country, tears of thee

Sweet land of liberty

~Lawrence Ferlinghetti

My wonders: Have you read this book, or Otsuka's other novel, When the Emperor was Divine? If so, what were your thoughts? Do you enjoy reading historical fiction? If so, please share any favourite titles in this genre with me. And what are your thoughts on Ferlinghetti's poem? Oh, how I'd enjoy talking to the poet today - believe he's 97 years old - about how his words from years ago apply so aptly today.

Worthy Read #2: "10% Happier" by Dan Harris

Last spring my friend J, with whom I went on retreat, first lent me the book "10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in my Head, Reduced Stress without Losing my Edge, and Found Self-Help that Actually Works - a True Story" by Dan Harris. I was, admittedly, somewhat skeptical initially. While I'd been exploring mindfulness for a number of years, was experimenting with meditation and was reading some books on compassion and acceptance, I wasn't really looking for a "self-help" book, per se. But, as I'm betting many of us has felt before, there's a certain sense of obligation to read a book that's been lent to us. After all, when our friend asks, "So, what did you think?" or "How'd you like it?" when we return it, it's difficult to fake it or say, "Um, well, I didn't read it." So, I opened the cover and delved in, good friend that I am.

And how glad I was that I did - I not only finished it in a few days' time, but have since reread it in its entirety and have referred to certain segments repeatedly! Harris is an American journalist and television news anchor. His writing is immediately engaging, his voice wry and witty, honest and loudly skeptical. Truly, if I thought I was skeptical before beginning to read his book, I needn't have feared: Harris is skeptical enough for the lot of us! Through a first-hand account of the incredibly interesting professional life he's lead, which takes us into a myriad of colourful places, including the war zones of Afghanistan, the West Bank and Iraq, to in-depth coverage of America's diverse religious cultures and subcultures, Harris opens up with shocking candour about how his internal voice, that infernal narrator of our lives which just won't shut off or up, guided him through many of these experiences. His own trials with drug addiction, self-criticism, anxiety and stress play out in a well laid out plot, interspersed with a cast of memorable real-life characters including but not limited to renowned news anchors, fallen-from-grace pastors, self-help gurus, and a host of neuroscientists. Harris' unabashedly honest portrayal of his own inner voice which fuels his competitive edge in his career but also creates a quagmire of stress in his life is both laugh-out-loud hilarious and embarrassingly too close to home, as many will be able to relate to some of his feelings and tendencies. 

To give you a brief taste of both his style and the book's content, here's an excerpt from the first two pages of the preface: 

"If you'd told me when I first arrived in New York City, to start working in network news, that I'd be using meditation to defang the voice in my head - or that I'd ever write a book about it - I would have laughed at you. Until recently, I thought of meditation as the exclusive province of bearded swamis, unwashed hippies, and fans of John Tesh music. Moreover, since I have the attention span of a six-month-old yellow Lab, I figured it was something I could never do anyway. I assumed, given the constant looping, buzzing, and fizzing of my thoughts, that "clearing my mind" wasn't an option.
But then came a strange and unplanned series of events, involving war zones, megachurches, self-help gurus, Paris Hilton, the Dalai Lama, and ten days of silence that, in a flash, went from the most annoying to the most profound experience of my life. As a result of all of this, I came to realize that my preconceptions about meditation were, in fact, misconceptions." 

This book is a perfect introduction to the concepts of mindfulness and meditation, which Harris makes accessible to all with the sharing of his own journey through skepticism, research and experimentation. Whether or not these topics are of any interest to you, the fantastic writing and terrifically engaging autobiographical elements of Harris' account are immensely entertaining, deeming this a definite worthy read in my books!

Harris, Dan. 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in my Head, Reduced Stress without Losing my Edge, and Found Self-Help that Actually Works - a True Story. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2014.

My wonders (sometimes I have many!): Had you heard of Dan Harris before reading this post, and/or have you seen him on television? If so, what were your impressions? Have you read any other books about mindfulness and/or meditation? If you have any favourites, please do share the titles with me. Do you enjoy reading autobiographies and/or biographies? If so, do you have a list of any that you would recommend?

Worthy Read #1: "Independent People" by Halldór Laxness

While in Reykjavik, Iceland this summer, I did what I do in pretty much every city or town I ever visit: I found a bookstore. And then I spent a lot of time in it. My daughters follow honestly in my footsteps and are passionate little readers as well. We've spent many contented hours in countless bookshops; they're most definitely one of our 'happy places'.

As the oldest and largest seller of books in Iceland, Eymundsson bookstores offer an extensive selection of reading materials, most, of course, in Icelandic. We visited the location in the city centre on Austurstræti 18, a marvel of seven levels in which to lose oneself. This store boasts an entire floor devoted to fulfilling all of your stationary needs, a cozy children's department in the basement, novels, magazines, gifts, music and DVDs, and a coffee chain called Te&Kaffi including an outdoor patio on one of the upper floors. Eymundsson and Te&Kaffi seem to have a marriage much like Chapters/Indigo enjoys with Starbucks in Canada.

Upon entering the shop, I was met with a large display of books by Halldór Laxness, Iceland's only Nobel laureate. Laxness won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1955. I was excited to find copies of his works translated into a number of different languages, including English, and I decided upon 'Independent People', perhaps simply because of the picture on the cover featuring the ubiquitous sheep I was still determined to pet during out trip.

I love reading an author's work on his native soil. The experience lends the tale a dose of added authenticity and deeper meaning. This was most definitely the case as I read 'Independent People'. The harsh landscape painted by Laxness with compelling description acts upon the story as a secondary character might, and this character came to life for me as I read of sheep, mountains, sheep, valleys and hillsides, sheep, rivers and streams, and yet more sheep; yes, the tale is in large part about sheep. And the worms that plague them. But truly, Laxness writes about much more. So very much more. As the title suggests, the quest for independence lies at the core of Bjartur of Summerhouses, the story's main character, a proud, infuriatingly stubborn, hard-hearted, cantankerous crofter who works at all costs to avoid being in debt to anyone. This obsession drives him from his very foundation, fueling all that he does. Even the well-being of his family is willingly sacrificed. And yet there is respite from all that is grim and dour. Though the struggle of the peasantry for survival is essentially the vehicle driving the tale forward - and class and social standing are certainly themes as well - at the heart of the story are human relationships, the life-altering impacts we have on one another, and the unique condition of each human soul. These themes create moments of both heartbreak and redemption throughout the work as we watch Bjartur, his children, and all of the other perfectly crafted characters move through their lives stoically.

According to BBC Magazine, one in ten Icelanders will publish a book in their lifetime. This impressive statistic speaks to the country's passion for literacy and literature, surely.  Laxness may well be the pinnacle in terms of literary talent in Iceland, and his writing in "Independent People" is a wonderful mingling of Icelandic folklore, poetry, humour and tragedy. And love. If 'Independent People' is any indication of the writing this nation spawns, I do believe it's time I start spending more of my reading time enjoying the works of this Icelandic author, and perhaps begin to investigate that of some of the others.

My wonder: Have you read "Independent People" or any other works by Halldór Laxness? If so, what did you think? Have you ever read an author's work in the place where they either wrote it or hailed from, and did this impact your experience?