East Meets West, a New Reading Perspective

I have never read a story told in a collective voice and while I realize that Buddha in the Attic is an exceptionally well crafted example of the writing style I have to say I like it a lot more than the common switching characters perspectives at chapter intervals. It allows you to get a cohesive story with out feeling interrupted in in your reading or fragmented. It was kind of a mind blowing experience that someone could even write a perspective like this, capture all the elements of a story and keep track of it. I have a feeling that if I even tried to write a short story like this I would be constantly forgetting all the details and it would unravel and get away from me. It really allowed me to read in a context that brought things alive for me in the way having a conversation with actual people brings things alive. I remember vivid aspects of the book as I would remember having a conversation with someone from a day gone past.

When it comes to the characters I actually felt more connected to them but in a different way than my typical reading. When a book focuses on one character or a small group of characters you get to know in-depth about them as if they were a personal friend, however you are only getting to know them in the context of the story. When you read Buddha in the attic you get to know characters like you get to know members of your community. You know details about them but not necessarily their innermost thoughts and over all personality. I think personality is the thing people feel the disconnect on, while I do feel that the characters very much do have individual and strong personalities you're not getting to know them in the way you would get to know the personality of a friend. However the story spans a much larger and encompasing experience of their existence you so do in another context know them even better than you know a real person you know now because many people I know in the now have not experienced a lot of what they will face in the future. You get to see a good chunk of how these characters react to events in their life and that's a different way of knowing someone then by knowing them for a defining part of their life like a high school friend you don't talk to anymore, or Bilbo in the Hobbit who the whole book is facing something very out of context with his regular life experience. In Buddha in the Attic you get the bigger picture of the characters but not necessarily they drawn out detail.You get to know them in the perspective of a community sense. Like the way everyone in my home town knew Mrs. Cuttie in Selkirk was a strong woman because her husband died of cancer and she raised a sickly daughter on her own, the Mrs. Goodman raises strong sons, has a sense of faith and knows more about the local church than anyone else in town, how Mrs. Nordal always knows all the town news before the paper does and the name of the best Doctor you should visit based on what's bothering your health. I know all of these people they are residual parts of my life but we're not close friends. I know aspects of their personality, some of what they have been through in life. Seeing characters portrayed in the same collective manner that people refer to members of their own community in, somehow made they whole story come alive and every character seem intensely real in the sense of reality as we actually perceive it, and remember it not how the entertainment industry tells us we perceive reality in more readily used story telling styles and perspective books and movies are made available in. tTe collective manner in the book really strongly impressed the characters upon me.

As for envisioning the characters I actually did envision them quit readily, I think I would have had a harder time doing so if I didn't have some background learning in the culture. The name of a Japanese garment or religious object that they kept tucked away didn't throw me off in picturing them. I had an easy time with the country side characters more so than the city characters because my family and community have told me stories of generations of farmers past. I can't say I had the individual detail where I can recall by name an individual character but I had an easy time envisioning their experience in a “wide lens” sort of way. A group of women in Kimonos standing around on the boat flustered and flitting about talking to an American, farm workers in the field, a mother working on the farm while her kids play in the country side, a servant in a white household going about her work. Yes might not have been the kind of detail that requires one page of writing to describe that characters dress kind of visualization, or a full face movie moment close up, but considering my immediate response to the question was “Of course it effected my ability to visualize the characters their wasn't that much individual detail...” however when I think back to reading the book I can recall seeing the characters very very vividly and I'm really at a bit of a loss on why that was but I was fully captured by the book and the visual nature was absolutely part of that.

And then they ate biscuits...

My first thought of reading The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt evoked memories of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, which is about the only ongoing relationship I’ve had with the western genre, and it was a forced one being that it was the only thing on the four channels of TV I grew up with, that had a plot and showed Sunday evening. While I knew just from the title that the context of the book was likely to be very different than my childhood memories of westerns, I cannot say I was very excited or captivated by thought of reading a western book.


When I actually got into the reading I have to say the author does an excellent job of creating the “head space” of the main character. I like the internal dialogue and narration of the character. The story made me crave food cooked over an open fire, and it was a gem of a reading experience to see a cowboy struggle with weight loss with all the conviction, resolve and mentality of the average woman and experience pretty much the same issues and utter defeat in the challenge. Also had fun inserting gay cowboy subtext between Warm and Percy as I was reading but I’m not sure that was an enjoyment the author intended the reader to take away from the novel.

On the downside the plot did not grab me at all. The characters seems so real it was hard for even a fantasy lover like me to grasp the pseudoscience/alchemy chemical part of the plot, I was actually quite surprised when the substance turned out to be “real” in the book as I thought it was going to turn out to be a con. In the end we are left with a pretty typical bounty hunter plot line. Make money then lose money, end up broke. Joss Weedon’s Firefly show, Outlaw Star the Anime, Cowboy Beebop the Anime all have the exact same concept, while being unoriginal isn’t the worst crime in writing (after all I love a basic clear cut good vs evil good for the win plot over and over again personally), but I guess given the clear skill of the writing in this book I was expecting more originality in the plot. It wasn’t bad it just didn’t grip me. It was typical.

Did the characters really change in the end? I don’t think so, so much as the world they occupy changed. Eli speaks toward the end of the novel about a change in how he and his brother conversed after their last adventure, how they were never quite as open with each other after their bounty hunting days (did I mention the foreshadowing in this book totally wrecks the suspense.) it shows more a change in social expectations I think rather than actual change in character.

When I was in the closet and to an extent still when I am around my parents, family and anywhere else that seems to be required a level of blending in with the norm, while it may be perfectly all right during a football game for my mother and sister to make causal comments about the football players butts, it would come off as pretty awkward if I made comments about the cheerleaders. However when I am with a group of lesbians then it’s pretty abnormal not to comment. Likewise I think the characters in the novel would find themselves out of context of their new life back with mommy dearest if they were running around trying to drown and shoot people in the head.  I think at least for Eli he pretty much got tired of being something that wasn’t his natural state, like I got tired of “being straight” and he just up and went home. I just up and came out the closet, it’s not a change so much as a survival of what you are not.

Charlie on the other hand may have changed more as a character if we decide to infer that he goes on living a non-violent life and dials back the substance abuse. That being said with the loss of his hand in real life I wouldn’t bet on someone with I fondness for morphine and alcohol to turn their life around after the loss of his hand, even Elie as much as admits in the novel Charlie was at his most magnificent as a killer. He has yet to survive being something he is not, sadly (although seriously if you're a killer I have a hard time feeling sad about it) he doesn't have much of an option being that he lost his hand.

To sum it up the Sisters Brothers,  is a character driven literary western that hosts a standard bounty hunter plot line.

Best of teen reading list,and the winner is...

My favourite read this semester was the first one I read off the reading list and the one I immediately grabbed off the pile when the class book order arrived at my home, and that was Stitches.  Sure it had the appeal of being a graphic novel but I was not expecting such a deep and fluid story. I had never read a graphic novel that was to be taken as a true story, but I found stitches a compelling read though I felt slightly removed from the story because of the medium. Graphic novels are usually tales of complete fabrication in the reading I do so it was a little bit of a challenge to me to grasp the story in the concept of being real without exaggeration to a large extent. That did not however take away form a captivating read, with strong art which conveyed immense emotions in the characters portrayed in the book.

I would like to also add that Karma was a runner up, and I didn’t think I would like that book at all.  So that one wins the award for runner up a biggest surprise in the reading list. I really enjoyed the exposure to a verse novel that I wouldn’t have otherwise picked up. Stitches if I had come across on the shelf I would have naturally gravitated to, Karma I wouldn’t have given a second look and it was nice to get the exposure to something completely different from my normal reading and that I wouldn't have picked up on my own.

Getting back to Stitches there are a number of types of people I would suggest the book to. Fans of independent comics, graphic novel readers in general, memoir readers who might be interested in the alternative format, and readers with low literacy levels looking for more sophisticated story line or content,  written or conveyed in a way that is easy to read.

While these are the people I would suggest give the book a read, I’m a little lost at how to pitch the book. Words like dark and disturbing come to mind naturally based on the story and at but the captivating nature of the book and detailed effective conveyance of body language in the story are hard to sum up in a marketing pitch for the book. The best I can come up with is "Stitches is a deeply personal story of a boy’s upbringing that expresses the fears, voids and sense of helplessness that lack of communication can bring within a family unit." While that may suffice for adult readers I doubt that teens would find that as captivating a summary, but since Stitches was written for adults I find myself having an even more challenging time defining the work in terms that would appeal to teens. One thing I do lack is recommendation skills for reading material.

T is for trouble... and teenager... coincidence?

Ok I will admit it the book "When Falcon's Fly" is not my cup of tea. The biggest enjoyment I got out of the book was seeing the names of local land marks in print and in context of the story... it's weird for me reading books with settings I have actually been too. I think it may have actually been a first outside of travel guides.

I can see how the book would appeal to a reluctant reader with its sports "action" sequences. It takes on the task of putting readers in a more active role and mindset as the reader, other styles of books are more of the "sit back and relax" or "sit back and hang on" this book attempted to engage the reader in the action and I feel that makes it a good choice for a reluctant reader. I will keep it in the back of my mind for reluctant readers.

When I think of teen RA work I'm a tad torn, I know I can handle girls, create exciting displays that will capture attention and spark interest... but then there are boys...  At the very least I can suggest gender neutral titles, and I'm pretty up to speed on graphic novels, so I'm not completely going to mentally freak myself out about the prospect of RA work for teens.... Oh and just about any guy who plays World of War Craft or Dungeons and Dragons, well I've pretty much got that covered. Being that fantasy and male nerds are more "cool" than ever, and also more likely to use the library than they average jock, I can pretty much peg a kid who looks like he hasn't seen the light of day in a few months, as a gamer and come up with a few titles to suggest. (I wouldn't make that snap judgment lol but you get the idea)

Also there is Novelist and the internet, book trailer and other resources I can use to help me out. I feel pretty darn lucky to have these tools at my disposal, but they absolutely make me more comfortable in my ability to Teen RA work. If it is a regular part of my job I can see myself taking a real interest in the material, learning and staying current with it, and over all enjoying the work to be better at teen RA. I wouldn't say I'm a natural or anything, but I do feel it is something I could pick up as I go along a do well with.

Teens usually seem to feel more comfortable talking to me than I am with them. I'm not sure why but I do often get asked for advice from the teens in my life and they even go out of their way to include me in their lives. That gives me a little confidence that I can offer them material, and content that engages them, and expands on their likes. They don't scare me nearly as much as the kids because I am way less afraid of the teen who tells me my suggestion "sucks", than the parent who tells me their kid has been having nightmares for weeks because I suggested the book "Where the Wild things are". I think I scared the kid I baby sat for life when I showed her Lion King II... she is 18 now and still remembers being sacred... Sure she loved the original Lion King but the 2nd one had alligators... well those are just scary... clearly...  I can gauge teens they don't freak me out too bad, kids I'm just clueless on.

Verse Verses Traditional

I had not read a Verse Novel before Karma and I have to say is clearly changed my opinion of verse novels… not that I really had an opinion of verse novels so my as a expectation that they would be long fragmented and difficult to take in more than small doses.


What I got in Karma was a fluid, vivid, and descriptive experience that offered me so much more to my style of reading than the average narrative. I will be sure to pick up additional verse novels in the future for the pure pleasure of the reading experience.

If you can break down the sigma of the writing style I really can’t see how anyone who has managed to give one of these a shot wouldn’t at least find them readable, (provided the reading level matched the reader) regardless of liking the specific story or not. I think one of the big hurdles to overcome with verse novels is the concept that they are “not readable” some strange Shakespearian writing style that one must invest time in to understand and get the effect of. I like poetry and prose but when I do read I tend to like it in small doses. I often feel when I come across it like I just don’t have the time to get into it unless it’s in short snippets. Karma disproved that.

I’ve read books with Poetry in them but the fluid ability of a verse novel to incorporate the feel of poetry and carry a story makes it a powerful and enjoyable writing style that I can’t wait to get more of. Teens are likely more open than I in general I would absolutely recommend verse novels to teen readers.

I really like the vibrant feel that the verse style creates; I like the fluid nature, and that the writing offers a bit more variety. I enjoy all these things and look forward to reading more.

Dis the dystopian

I do think that All Good Children is an award winning novel. While it personally was not my cup of tea it’s generic enough to reach a wide audience while cramming in enough controversial subject matter to open discussions and thoughts on many ethical topics. From genetic profiling, over use of antidepressants, technology addiction, government controls, and monitoring, reality TV and interracial relationships (still controversial to some although less so today thankfully) the book runs the gamut of thought provoking subjects while some are more prevalent and relevant to the subject than others I notice the skill the author used in raising issues as a natural part of the story, giving the reader an opportunity to think on an issue then moving on fluidly with the story without flying off on tangents.

I am not sure how “gripping” the plot was that is the only point I having issues with I mean over all it a gripping plot but I feel you lose the quality “gripping” when you draw things out as extensively as they were in the book.  It just lacked so general element of excitement that is often captured by similar titles of the genre.

Also I come back to the fact that I don’t quite get certain male aspects of humor so the humor in the book didn’t really hit for me even though the write is female, she manages to for the most part pull off successfully a story form a male point of view… except when she is talking about Xavier and his supernatural ability to smell yummy then she is (in my opinion) writing like the biggest girl ever which was one point of her writing I had an issues with. Her writing is skillfully crafted and when she broke the flow with her attachment to Xavier’s character it was almost disappointing.
Missing the element of humor in the story and having a long plot lacking much action outside of sports I just can’t agree that the story was gripping, the plot maybe but the actual story fell short. The story highlights creativity, individuality and non-conformity. The aspects of creative expression and rebellious nature are the back bone of the main character and I suppose the characters were memorable enough since I do recall their names.

I think the novel is also general enough it the “time setting” that it will not become easily dated. When you look at the technologies she has used in her book it’s at a level that someone could have read the book 50 years ago and followed it before we had the internet, and I can absolutely see how it will stand the test of time as a story of non-conformity.  The content in the book is very well presented but I do feel a few additional “hooks” to hold the reader’s attention, and add some spice to the duller parts where the story dragged were much needed.

I’d suggest it for teens as something they should read, but I’d also pay attention to feedback from them if I was told by readers or the age group that the book is as slow as I felt it was I would hesitate to recommend it to anyone other than fans of the genre. I love fantasy so a slow fantasy novel likely won’t bother me to much but for someone who isn’t a fan of the genre it can be painful to keep reading a book they don’t really like the concept of to begin with. That’s a shame too because I do feel the book has an extensive amount to offer young readers in content and context.

Alexie VS Peters – Win Luna

In comparing Julie Anne Peter’s book Luna to Sherman Alexie’s Absolutely true Diary of a Part Time Indian. It is really no surprise that despite Alexie’s better crafted writing style, I enjoyed Peter’s Luna way way better just on relateability. People accuse the characters of being pretty one dimensional in the book but considering how many one dimensional people there are in the world sometimes to me “one dimensional” characters seem more realistic and plausible than those that lend themselves to better crafted writing.

Sometimes I think that being a Lesbian I will identify more with guy stuff, I know some lesbians identify and get along with guys fairly well but for me it’s all about the ladies all the time. Most books told from a male perspective just do not interest me, I date girls, all my good friends are girls and outside of my family unit my interaction with boys is pretty darn limited. One of the huge challenges for me was getting into Alexi’s humor and I just failed at that, which is odd because I always joked around with guys just fine when I worked in hospitality but maybe my tastes have changed since then. I found myself more often than not having to analyse the concept of “funny” I had to look at all his jokes from a completely different point of view than my own and while I could see where some people would find it funny it just didn’t translate with me.

To contrast Peters’ low brow one dimensional, slapstick sort of comedy with main character Ragan  in Luna was enjoyable and relateable (if somewhat over done) I’m about that much of a klutz and watching youtube videos  or reading stories of other people falling down both entertains me and makes my ungraceful existence seem not so trying.  I think many girls (and boys) of the age group go through a stage where they feel klutzy. Seeing characters portrayed in this light can make that day you smashed your head into the desk trying to pick up the pen you dropped, or when you slipped on the ice on the last step of the bus and fell on your ass (or on someone else) in front of everyone, seem not as crushing as it felt at the time.

I think young people will like Luna for the "Taboo" aspect of the story too. It’s going to be a new concept to many of the people who read it and even though there is fairly little "questionable content" outside the aspect of Luna’s gender identity, I think it will give teens that feeling that they are reading something that isn’t generally approved of. As much as I don’t like the thought of that personally, in the context of the acceptance this book is encouraging, the feeling that you are reading something that your parents might not approve of is still a selling point for many teen readers.

I could talk about my likes and dislikes in the context of what the novel offers in its content about gender identity, but I’m not sure that would be what most teens who read the book would say like found “likeable” about the book.  So I’m going to refrain on recapping what we went over in class and comment on Luna as how it was intended to be viewed. When you strip away the social context I think it’s an enjoyable read for the age group.

Alright I changed my mind I am going to comment on how the book’s context of gender identity. The thing about this book is it’s so darn girly. I mean I’m sure Luna wouldn’t have had it any other way, but I mean the only way this book would get more girly would be to slap a pink cover on it. I would be very hard pressed to recommend this to the majority of straight male teens because I don’t think there is a lot there other than the acceptance of other gender identities that they can grasp onto.

Had this been a book focusing on the brother of a boy transitioning to female it would have been a very different story, but it would have reached more of an audience.  I think it would have had enough elements that way, to attract both genders to the story. This story is aimed at G-I-R-L-S and those who identify that way. I think this is both good and bad.

I think that if you look at it statistically the male side of the population is where trans-acceptance really needs to be pushed because statistically (not exclusively) men are more likely to not accept transgendered persons. However the support structure for men transitioning to women is within the female social structure. If more girls in the future accept Trans women (and persons) as “normal” then it gives trans women a more accepting social structure for them to fit into the gender roll socially of who they really are.

When we look at the popularity of gay males in modern social society (not that gay men are not still subjects of discrimination as are Lesbians) in their relation to women we see that a good deal of the acceptance of gay men by straight men comes from women with gay male friends. Perhaps the road to acceptance of gender and sexual diversity is through the primary acceptance by women of these individuals. That’s not to speak ill of men just my experience coming from a small country town that when gay men are accepted by straight men it is usually from the standpoint of, if the guys want to hang out with the girls the “Gay Best Friend” is usually along for a ride. The attitude starts off as a begrudged “necessary evil” to look cool with the situation but humans are adaptable to situations once they normalize something they once perceived as dangerous, acceptance is almost involuntary. Before you know it the uncomfortable jock is standing up for the gay boy in the bar when harassment occurs because the gay friend is part of “the group”. 

When you look back on how scary it was to drive at 16 years old and how little you even think about getting in your car to get to work on a daily basis you see how easily just being exposed regularly to something that is perceived by those around you is normal abates your fears and how you naturally adapt. I think Luna offers something of starting point for this context, after all driving is way more dangerous than trans people…. Although don’t get me started on women drivers…. Just kidding.