A Little Catching Up to Do

So, I haven't done so well with the updating thing, and only slightly better consistently writing in my pretty journal, but I figured an update might get me back on track. Here's (at least a partial) list of the books that I have read in the last two months or so, along with some thoughts on each. I have no idea of the dates for most, so I am not going to even attempt, but here goes...

Under the Banner of Heaven

This book really pulled me in, had me thinking quite a bit. For those of you who haven't heard of it/ don't know what it's about: it tells the story of some Mormon Fundamentalist brothers who (very brutally) murder their sister in law and her infant daughter because they believe that "God told them to do it." It frames this story with a lot of other details about the history of Mormonism in general and Mormon Fundamentalism in particular. The book is by Jon Krakauer, who you may know for his other books, Into Thin Air and Into the Wild.

Now the book is good, and certainly very interesting, but I did feel from the beginning that Krakauer might not have been the best person to write it. Not only is he not a Mormon, but he is clearly not religious, and much of what he says about Mormonism, or religious faith in general is loaded with not at all veiled disdain for the faithful. He claims to have respect for Mormons, but also calls says that religious violence is the result of "those murky sectors of the heart and the head that prompt most of us to believe in God - and compel the impassioned few, predictably to carry out that irrational belief to its logical end." I'm not sure that murder is the logical end to faith in Christ...

The book does really make you think, where is the line between faith and delusion? That question is legally part of the trail for these brothers. Were they insane? They thought that they were listening to the voice of God, following the will of God. But if they are insane, than are all people who attempt to live their lives according the to will of the God that they worship insane. Clearly that's taking it too far, but where's the line? It was interesting reading the thoughts of these murderers on the Islamic terrorists. One of the brothers says something about the motivations of Osama Bin Ladin that basically parallels my belief, and says that the 9/11 hijackers were following a false prophet... and its all just a belief in something that we can't prove. I mean clearly, I think that my view of God (really against murder, all murder, all the time) is much nicer than there's, and not just nicer, I believe that I am right, or at least, closer to right than they are. But I can't really prove that's what God wants either, although I can say it gives me a more plesant way to live. It just kind of scared me that if you stuck me and this guy in a room we would agree that the terrorists are wrong, but he would think of me as just as wrong as I think of him... creepy.

Anyway, I do recommend it, because there is a lot of information, and because the book really challenges you to deal with your thinking about God and faith with the challenge of these men's seemly sincere, but also evil, belief. It also has a lot of information about polygamy and Mormon education that I found frightening and challenging, so it's good for that too. If someone reads it, I would really love to talk about it. Yeah.

A Walk in the Woods
I thought that this book was really going to make me want to walk the whole Appalachian Trail, but really, it did not do that. It made me want to go out to the Blue Ridge Mountains for about a week, and then come home to my nice warm bed. I think that the history of the trail was interesting, and I obviously people thinking about doing the trail should read this one, and Bryson's commentary is quite amusing, but the book didn't really stick with me, so it wasn't a life changer or anything.

Magical Thinking
In reading this book, I found myself, for at least the first set of stories, seriously getting Burroughs and David Sedaris mixed up. Same story: gay man tells amusing stories about his childhood and young adulthood. But the later stories are much more powerful, unique and moving, in particular those about his life with his lover, Dennis, who he clearly cares for very deeply. In fact, some of the passages about Dennis rank among the sweetest things that I have ever read.

"What's painful and wonderful about somebody is loving their small things, like the way he is able to smile when he sips his wine, the way his hands fall down at his sides... The truth is Dennis has no bad qualities and no faults. When he's working late and I'm alone, or sometimes when we're in bed together, the lights off, I try to make even a small list of his faults: Things I Put Up With Out of Love. But I haven't been able to think of a single thing that I am not able to first overlook and then come to cherish." (page 222)

It probably didn't help that Andrew had driven all the way up here for the weekend, and was sleeping in the next room being generally wonderful and totally lacking in Things That I Put Up With Out of Love, because I am a lucky girl, and apparently still a hopeless romantic.

Dry

More Augusten Burroughs. This is his memoir about his alcoholism and recovery. I think that it is his most powerful book overall. While it still has the element of the absurd that was almost overwhelming in Running with Scissors it also has the honesty that so moved me in the passage that I quoted above, and throughout the whole book I felt involved. I wanted him to make it. I was rooting for him... it's good. Better than A Million Little Pieces and quite possibly more true, too.

The Orchid Thief
While I don't think that this was either the best or the most interesting book that I have ever read, it certainly got me interested in orchids, and that might be worth it, since they are pretty amazing flowers. I now look for them in places where there are flowers (some pretty ones in the Opryland Hotel) and notice them when they're around. I can sort of understand how people become obsessed, although perhaps not as obsessed as the people in this book are. Still good stuff. Jannine and I went to the Natural History Museum's annual orchid show right as I was starting this book, and now I really feel like I need to go back and look again with all the background. The book will make you appreciate a particularly interesting and complicated family of flowers. It also might make you want to see Adaptation (or see it again in my case.) I might have something to say about that when I get to it.

Attention. Deficit. Disorder.

I was hoping to really like this book, and while I do have to admit that I burned through it very quickly, I was not overly impressed. About halfway though I told Andrew that it reminded me of what would have happened if a lesser man tried to write You Shall Know Our Velocity! and while the end was better than the beginning, still, it was nothing overly special. However, I was intrigued by the trip to the Burning Man Festival, which sounds insane by certainly very interesting. Anyone want to go?

The City Of Falling Angels

This is the same man who wrote Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and he has a powerful gift for making the location a character in the story. Although I'm sure that it helps that he chooses events in famously unique places. (MinGoGaE takes place in Savannah, GA and this is a story of Venice.) While it is supposed to be directly about the burning of a famous opera house, it is really a portrait of the city, its complexities and the people that choose to live there, and it is in that exploration that the book comes to life. I am ready to pack my bags and head to Venice to explore whenever someone wants to buy me a plane ticket. It's that kind of book. I recommend it most highly. Great Stuff.

OK. I know I am forgetting several things but I don't have the books in front of me, (including The Tao of Pooh which I read at Andrew's) but I am tried, so I think that I am going to leave it at that and go on from here. Cause I love books. Sweet.