Buy the book and say it's "for the students"
Hello, everyone!
I realized lately that although I want to discuss books, I do not enjoy the written book review format. I’ve decided to move this operation to Youtube!
Two videos are already up, the first of which I’ll link below. I hope you’ll follow me there, but if not, then thank you so much for the time you’ve put into reading my posts! I’m glad I tried a book blog, but it simply wasn’t for me.
Will you let me know if ever the lambs stop screaming?
Clarice Starling has only a few weeks left in her training to become an FBI agent. When girls start showing up in rivers with their skin removed, though, she discovers one person might be able to help, someone who only speaks to her: Hannibal Lecter.
However, he has his own ambitions, including entertaining himself and escaping his life sentence. Clarice starts to spend all her time detangling the mystery and Lecter’s clues, and when a senator’s daughter goes missing, she determines to find the girl before her body floats, too.
Published in 1988, The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris sounds like a classic crime novel. Although meant to incite seriousness in its time, an internal laughter bubbled up when I pictured the opening words as narration over a film adaptation, in which a detective would probably wake up hungover and glare into the sunlight as he contemplated the wife who left him. Of course, Harris’ novel exists above the cliches, but the voice brought them to mind.
Even the names sound like an old crime novels’ would: Starling, the arguable star of the show, Mapp, who guides her at times, and, of course, Hannibal. You know, the cannibal.
The book’s signs of age end there. As I suggest in the title, it might as well be an extended episode of Criminal Minds: profilers trying to understand the killer in order to catch him, the reader simultaneously watching the killer live his terrible, creepy life, and successes occurring at the last possible minute. Of course, Criminal Minds came after The Silence of the Lambs; I have to wonder how much inspiration they drew from their ancestor.
Harris succeeded in pacing the book, revealing new information or creating new action at just the right points. Lecter chills, Buffalo Bill disturbs. At one point, I caught myself out-loud tell the latter, “Stop.” Only multiple typos could draw my brain out of focus for a moment, which I hope only extends to my printing rather than all. More than once, though, the bath water would go cold before I realized how long I had been captured.
I most appreciate the title of the novel, which focuses not on the thrilling content but on Starling’s internal conflict. When younger, she briefly lived with her aunt and uncle, who raised animals meant to go to slaughter. Screaming lambs haunt her dreams, and the only way to silence the chaotic evil is to find peace through eradicating another. The implication in the end, though, is that the silence only comes temporarily this way. It also depends on the existence of an evil. While the book does not offer an alternative solution, it does suggest we must find a different one.
Books with underlying lessons while providing thrilling escape from reality. Students like thrillers, but according to my Teaching Reading class during a previous semester, their favorite genre is horror. The problem? The Sixth Sense had me quaking. Dracula, written in 1897, gave me nightmares.
Do teachers absolutely have to read books before placing them on their shelves? In my experience with seemingly innocent books that weren’t, I would say yes. To cater or not to cater, then? How can students be so much more desensitized to violence? How do I accept I would love to tackle It while knowing I’ll check under my bed every night if I do? Why, Stephen King, why?!
A final note: I highly recommend thrift shopping for books. Over spring break a friend and I did just that, and my copy of The Silence of the Lambs cost $2.50. I found a hardcover copy of The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling for around $7. Bless your shelves and thrift, my friends.
The short story collection Lot by Bryan Washington portrays multiple lives throughout Houston in the modern day. While separate stories, each is technically viewed through the eyes of one narrator, a teenager growing up in a broken family and, as the words on the jacket suggest, “discovering he likes boys.”
This post will be my second in which I have not finished the book being discussed, having stopped 65% of the way through, and I’ll explain why in a moment. Of the stories, I read mostly about the narrator’s experiences with his own family, multiple interspersed throughout, a story in which an affair brings an apartment complex together, two stories about drug dealers, more of a sketch story about a baseball team, and a story, the only one I sort of liked, about an injured Chupacabra.
I do not put down Lot because I dislike it, but rather because I finished one of the stories and felt as though it would be more tedious to start on the next one than otherwise. Two main reasons exist:
First, Washington has written for a number of large magazines, and the art in his work remains apparent throughout. However, I find it too apparent. Although maybe more a matter of preference, I enjoy books when I feel swept up in the story rather than caught up in recognizing yes, that is intelligent, bold writing. The act of removing quotation marks, for example, can be difficult to make invisible. He writes with skill, but I cannot say I ever actually felt moved.
Secondly, while some students may struggle with their sexuality, if they need a book to help them through that situation, multiple exist which could do a better job than this one. Washington’s writing is blunt. The shock value of running into a sudden vulgar description of new, unanticipated physical action feels more like a decision on the part of the author to be blatant for the sake of the shock. I don’t get the sense he wrote the way he did to provide a comforting hand of understanding amidst confusion. The main character, if anything, hardly seems to be “discovering” he likes boys.
This argument is not to say I disagree with having main characters who fall under the LGBTQ+ category. I value a diverse, not shock-for-the-sake-of-shock, palette.
I might just be old-fashioned. The author has mastered his craft, but I prefer impressionist portraits over modernized nude photography.
Washington’s strength comes from his ability to portray realistic lives that have not historically been considered worthy of literary exploration. The sketch story about the baseball team in particular displays an array of lives that come together for one cause then dissipate over time. The portraits in the book do not claim to represent all of one race, socio-economic status, or type of neighborhood, but they do represent one side of these parts of life that indicate further variety beyond.
In those lives, a number of relationships exist in which those involved do not understand one another. Washington also does an excellent job of portraying that confusion, where even the reader can see there must be a reason for actions but can only speculate alongside. Rather than feeling as though characters have no reasons for the actions I couldn’t understand, I recognized the reality of their deep, hard-to-comprehend inner layers.
Despite the positives, though, I confess I will sell my copy. While I believe in a student’s right to read, if a student somehow would be best served by Lot, they can do so through the use of the local library. If nothing else, I don’t want to be part of that parent-teacher meeting, during which I would keep agreeing “I know it’s inappropriate!” without any sort of counter for why I allowed their child to take it home anyway.
I usually hold the opinion all books should be available in the class. How do others feel about removing them from the shelf? I would like to hear your thoughts on where we should draw the line with what books should be made available to students.
I related to this future version of America that wasn’t tidy but layered, improvised, and complicated.
Clara Shin cares little about school- or anything, for that matter. If someone claimed she did care about something, it would be that her pranks brought laughter and terrorized Rose Carver, or maybe it would be her upcoming summer trip to Mexico to see her social media-influencer mom.
Then, when a prank goes too far at junior prom, Clara finds herself with a summer job in her dad’s food truck, the KoBra, a Korean-Brazilian fusion experience. To make matters worse, Rose is her new coworker. The situation might not be all bad, though; Rose might not to be the worst person on the planet, and the guy who has a crush on her, named Hamlet of all names, might be a step in the right direction. However, caring about Rose, Hamlet, and the KoBra might require a major shift in her perspective on life.
In Maurene Goo’s young adult novel The Way You Make Me Feel, Clara has reasons for her snarky, I-don’t-care attitude. Raised by her father in LA, Clara has responded to her mother’s absence by shielding herself from pain; If all relationships and activities stay in the shallow end, nothing will dig deep enough to hurt her again. As a result, by her junior year she spends all her free time in a 7-11 with a group of friends who only do anything ironically, treating life flippantly together and pulling pranks for the sake of a bit of amusement.
Goo doesn’t create multi-faceted characters with incredibly dynamic internal dialogues, but she does create a real, diverse cast who have real problems teenagers sometimes face. Clara can’t stand that Rose tries so hard, but it’s possible she feels an intense pressure to do so as a ballerina, straight-A student, class president, and especially as the daughter of a successful black prosecutor. Hamlet may be all smiles and sincerity, but he does live with family friends while his parents run their companies in China.
The Way You Make Me Feel also depicts the LA beyond the Hollywood sign and popular stretch of Sunset Boulevard. I found myself eating up, or at least wanting to, the array of cultural tastes embedded in the city’s identity, exploring neighborhoods of every socioeconomic status and their inhabitants, encountering where immigration has lead to an imperfect, messy, and beautiful mix of any corner of the world in one place. Clara knows the city from the eyes of one who grew up there, and it feels like a gift to see from her point of view for a few hours.
Last semester a professor of mine went to the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) conference, where visitors can go from booth to booth and pick up as many free books as they can carry. She brought back enough for each member of our class to get two, and The Way You Make Me Feel ended up in my hands.
My biggest regret of 2018 is not attending that conference. I may have been in school, and it may have taken place around eight hours away from my location at the time, but I’ll be hard-pressed to not attend in the future, regardless of such factors. I obviously feel motivated by books, but from reports back about the conference itself, the whole experience seems incredible. If any teacher of English has somehow not heard of the NCTE conference: You’re welcome. And NCTE: I’ll see you next year.
Certain points in The Way You Make Me Feel did not feel entirely believable to me, but I won’t specify which ones, because it doesn’t matter. I found myself unable to put it down, packing it for classes with a full understanding I wouldn’t have time to read anyway. It’s precious, from the pink cover to the teenage romance to the complicated love between daughter and parent, and I would be wrong to say it isn’t original and bright. I don’t know if I learned anything or changed in any way, but I do know I was delighted the whole time.
I don’t think all books have to be more than that, though. I realized this weekend that now, every time I pick up a book on a shelf at the store, rather than read its inside cover, I check the internet for its overall reviews. If a book has below four stars, I generally put it back.
By following this rule I didn’t know was developing, I would never have picked up The Way You Make Me Feel, and I wouldn’t have received those few hours of delight. As a child I would walk into a bookstore and in ten minutes have a stack piled high my mom would make me weedle down. Without mass reviews, and without any sort of critical eye, I would read vastly based off the merit of the jacket.
Not every book has to be a best-seller, a heart-tugging revelation of human suffering or potential, fresh-off-the inner recesses of the soul. Some books inform, some books reveal, and some books merely entertain without being a great, and that kind of book can be the one we need most. I’ll make an effort to read more books without scanning their reviews first, and I encourage others to do the same.
Excepting this blog.
Your local hypocrite,
A thing can be true and not the truth
Leni’s father returned from the Vietnam war a changed man. Part of that change has included a constant cycle of moving to new places, seeking new starts, and in 1974, Alaska becomes the next location Ernt chooses to move his wife and daughter. The summer they arrive, although filled with preparing for a winter like they’ve never experienced, becomes a beacon of hope for the family. Ernt finds a friend, even if that friend is called Mad Earl, Leni’s mom hasn’t needed to cover bruises in weeks, and Leni herself finds an immediate and close friend, Matthew, for the first time in her life. The landscape provides a rich, bountiful beauty, and a community without electricity or indoor plumbing becomes an extended family.
However, as winter creeps closer and the days draw dark and cold, the hidden danger within Leni’s father lingers on the horizon. Despite help from their neighbors, the family’s preparations are minimal at best, and nothing can stop the impending 18 hours of darkness over the next few months. Their lives threaten to fracture as Leni and her mother realize the only people who can save them from the biggest threat, the one within, are themselves.
I began reading The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah on a ski trip near Kansas City. As I sat in the resort, overlooking slopes on what is admittedly more of a hill than a mountain, I experienced for the first time the powerful ability of the author of The Nightingale to trap the senses from page one. Before my eyes, water rushed and uprooted whole chunks of land, and I heard the fragile balance of words between a family on edge and felt my heart lurch for the skinny girl reading Watership Down, hoping against hope that her mom will be safe if Leni goes to school on a cloudy day. On to page two.
Hannah explores with ease a number of tenuous difficulties in human relationships. Leni and her mother share a close bond and work together with looks and body language to control the moments when Ernt begins to crack, but Leni cannot understand why her mother continues to stay with him, believe the promise that it’ll never happen again. How can someone be so weak, so dependent, allow the daughter she loves more than anything else to continue to live with such a volatile man?
At the same time, Leni loves her father. She has vague memories of Before, when Ernt had never set eyes on Vietnam, and even on his bad days, she can see the love and apology in his eyes. Her father feels tired and defeated, and to turn against him feels like an unspeakable betrayal.
The Great Alone becomes an exploration of the internal conflicts and confusions so many experience when facing abuse. Leni loves her family yet understands something is deeply wrong within it. She loves Alaska in much the same way: As an entity so beautiful, providing, and good, yet one able to crush without remorse in a thousand different ways. Leni must understand how two opposing natures can exist in one, then learn how to survive and even overcome both her family’s and Alaska’s seemingly insurmountable dangers.
This book reminds of the importance of reading in students’ lives. Some may need to be informed by a text, some may just need an escape, and some may need a way to recognize their own emotions. The Great Alone is a beautiful read for all, but I can’t help but wonder if some silent student may be facing the same sort of dangers and confusions, if a book like this one could help them recognize a bad place and realize there is always a way out. Leni herself draws strength and an understanding of goodness from books, and although reading does not solve any of her problems, characters provide strength for her to draw upon during more uncertain moments.
I also admire how Leni’s story does not end in anger and an unfaced past. Despite the logic of how to handle pain in this world, she learns to forgive her father’s violence and her mother’s weakness. She finds hope for a good future when a future at all feels unattainable at times. While The Great Alone does not end exactly as one would hope, the ending is still a good one, not void of pain yet full of the sense of a new beginning. It tells those who need a similar hope in their lives that such a thing is possible.
Hannah portrays the wild beauty of Alaska, from gentle shores to skin fish on to blizzards capable of hiding a broken body in minutes. She provides a passage into the life of the pioneering town Kaneq, from its kinship and trading within to the division between those who desire change and those who don’t. The Great Alone is also, in the end, a love story, celebrating the pain and joy that can exist when two people continue to fight to be together despite all odds.
“But when we really delve into the reasons for why we can’t let something go, there are only two: an attachment to the past or a fear for the future.”
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondō
The television show based off this book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondō, introduced me to the KonMari Method. Each episode provides the basics of tidying: get rid of stuff by handling each item you own and asking if it sparks joy, then organize what you decided to keep in such a way that your house shouldn’t clutter again. Viewers experience a catharsis as Kondō’s clients move through each of the five categories (clothing, books, papers, komono, and sentimental items), eat up the before and after images at the end of the episode, and, if they’re like me, probably go into their closets after and pick out a few shirts they no longer want to have around, feeling tidied.
Not long after I began watching the show, a friend lent me the actual book. I realized while reading that when Kondō tells you to take out every article of clothing, you take out every article of clothing. When she tells you to actually handle each item and look for that spark of joy, you handle each item and look for that spark of joy. The book also introduces her lifelong exploration of tidying and the rationales for why her method, if done correctly, works.
Most importantly for me, though, was the exploration of why we hold onto items. I’ve always wanted to live a minimal lifestyle, believed I was the queen of not owning things. However, my closet remained full of items I wore because they were technically fine, even though I never felt great in them, and items I would refuse to get rid of because I felt guilty about doing so, even though the items were never used and looking at them made me feel bad.
All told, the process took hours of my week. By the end, I found myself with a much smaller keep than discard pile, and my third, un-Kondō-approved maybe pile also essentially disappeared. Following her organization methods topped off the process, and I now walk into my space feeling calm and put together.
Now to repeat the process when I visit home for spring break.
Given I’ll soon be in the classroom, none of my books ended up disappearing. I’ve collected for my future classroom library, but even so I may go through them and keep at home the ones I love most and buy a separate copy for the students. Kondō claims our to-read books won’t ever actually get read, but this blog has to exist off something. Although I recommend following her rules as closely as possible, I think it’s okay to let some go by the wayside if they clearly don’t line up with your life.
I consider my classroom space as well as my home space. Countless ways exist to decorate a classroom, from college-style nothing on the walls to bursting with visual information and everywhere in between. In previous posts I’ve talked about creating a unit on silence (which is getting a short trial run this semester!), and although there’s no one better way to decorate a classroom space, I value having mine feel like a clean, welcoming home. Silence can be visual as well, and my hopes for my future space include minimizing what the students take in so they can hopefully put more out. However, I do want the classroom to “spark joy” for the students, so if that means we have work displayed and representative artwork and more around the room, so be it.
Because I know you all want to see it, below I’ve included four pictures from my current space. I’ve elected to hide a small basket of miscellaneous items (it’s tidy, though, don’t worry), my books, accessories, and any other visual information I prefer to keep private. My folding is not perfect yet, but I’ll get there! Enjoy the vicarious satisfaction, then go achieve your own.
Note: For those curious, the clothing I elected to remove from my life will be sold to second-hand stores this weekend. The money will go towards my roommate’s upcoming trip to Kenya. Hangers will be offered to Goodwill, and old electronics will be dropped off at Best Buy. I wish I could recycle even more than this, but Stillwater programs feel confusing and difficult to me. If anyone is in this area or has general advice for minimizing waste during this process, I would love to hear your tips.
“The question of what you want to own is actually the question of how you want to live your life.”
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondō
‘and we are here to ensure the most-’
‘-favourable outcome is enjoyed by the majority,’ I said, ‘I know. I hear that a lot. What about this: ‘If you can’t have change without injustice, then there should be no change’.’
Early Riser by Jasper Fforde
In Early Riser by Jasper Fforde, Charlie Worthing joins the Winter Consuls, the group of people who take over jurisdiction during the winter to protect the hibernatory masses from HotPot meltdowns in their Dormitorium, from the English collecting stamps and kidnapping humans for their illegal self-maintained status as aristocrats, called Villains, from the nightwalkers once human but now resorting to mindless cannibalism if not fed with proper amounts of junk food, and from the possibly not-so-mythical Wintervolk rumored to feed on the shame of the unworthy.
He intended to stay inside his first trip into winter as the other novices do. Then, when he determines to get back a nightwalker he’s lost, Charlie finds himself trapped in the highly undesirable Sector Twelve. The other Consuls there, each unstable in their own way, take him in, assuring he has no cause to worry about the viral dreams seemingly driving people mad. He should also not worry when he, too, experiences the dreams, nor when the dreams start to find their way into his waking world.
A while ago I wondered to myself what it would be like to write a book with its own world, history, cultures, and systems, but not explain any of it. I wondered if people would accept their confusion and enjoy the book anyway. Early Riser has proven yes, such a concept would work. Fforde offers little explanation of the world he’s created, leaving hints throughout for the reader to pick up on as they weave through unknowable details to follow the main plot.
For those interested in reading the book with a little help, here’s what I can tell you: The world and dates are the same as those we live in today, but altered in that human beings actually hibernate through extraordinarily harsh winters. In order to do so, they must bulk up before hibernation, following get-fat-quick diets and trying to earn enough money for Morphenox, a drug that can almost guarantee the body makes it to spring. Climate change fears include the slowly growing glaciers threatening to cover the land in fewer than 200 years. Political conversation steers away from the illegal activism group RealSleep and their opinion all should have rights to Morphenox, regardless of socioeconomic status; the book provides the opportunity to evaluate many of our own societal issues through a reversed lens. I’m pretty sure people also have winter coats like dogs.
The world within Early Riser reads like a movie, which makes sense given the author’s history in the film industry, and the characters had me laughing out loud. Fforde includes a lot of references to modern culture but often with a twist in this alternate setting. I also had to constantly stop myself from jumping ahead a page or two to see what happened next, even covering the next page with my hand if I knew I couldn’t refrain by sheer will. There’s not a lot of character development throughout, but to make up for it, there seems to have been plenty before the start of the book that contributes. As a bonus, Charlie has a congenital skull deformity; Fforde created a main character with a disability, one that actually helps him during his time in the winter.
Last semester I took a course called Teaching Reading in the Secondary Schools. When I learned that while reading we don’t focus on every word, for a week I struggled to read while my brain concentrated on where my eye actually looked on each page. Then, when I learned we don’t remember or even pay attention to each detail we read, texts with unknowns became nearly impossible for me to push through. I think a stubborn determination set in to understand all, and even now I have to consciously ask myself what information I should retain and what can go by the wayside.
I didn’t post last week, because I came up against the biggest problem most people have when reading something difficult: myself. I reread the first three chapters thrice before I realized I didn’t have to understand the details as long as I followed the plot. The rest of the information I needed would make sense in time, and I was allowed to enjoy the atmosphere without understanding it. I also had to become aware of how when I would come to something I couldn’t comprehend, I would immediately zone out of the book entirely.
A lifelong reader, I’m surprised this issue is just occurring. I also think about the students I understand for the first time who struggle through texts and give up when they don’t understand what they’re reading. After missing last Thursday’s post, my motivation to finish the book and write a post kicked in and allowed me to push through the unknown. How, though, do we motivate students to do the same, especially when they have not selected a text or assignment of their own accord?
We all know consequences often need to exist to motivate students to complete their work. A teacher’s personal enthusiasm for a reading or assignment may also motivate some. A personal proponent of free reading, I believe students need to be able to read what they want in order to make the act itself seem more doable and worthwhile. The option also remains of providing texts and work the students are genuinely interested in, although we will not always have a choice in that matter.
If motivation is key in pushing through difficulties, how do other people achieve it? What worked or works when you come up against a wall?
“It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime.”
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
I had heard of The Kite Runner by author Khaled Hosseini, but beyond the knowledge a kite would be involved, I was in the dark. As with many long-time popular books, it did not have a description on its back, either- just praise written years ago by numerous magazines.
The problem with this lack of foresight: My lack of mental and emotional preparation. Hosseini knows how to write, and well. His clear voice brings Afghanistan, the common, and some uncommon struggles of childhood to life. That same clear, excellent writing then depicts an inciting incident, one in which Hassan, a young boy of maybe 11 or 12, is brutally raped in an ally by a group of boys only a little older than him. The main character, Amir, witnesses the beginning of the rape against his best friend but servant, and runs.
I don’t know if I’m more sensitive than most or if everyone felt sick to their stomach after reading that scene.
For the rest of Amir’s life, he runs from the guilt of having witnessed and done nothing. He pushes away Hassan, then, when war breaks out, takes the move to America with his father as an opportunity to finally escape. He marries, earns a degree, becomes an author, and in general, starts a life. Then, years later, when called back to Afghanistan by his father’s friend, “the past claws its way out.”
I know The Kite Runner contains a number of important themes to consider, which I’ll discuss in a moment, but my main thought when reading was of the cultural encounter. Besides Exit West by Mohsin Hamid and Favorite Tales from the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, my only knowledge of anywhere in the Middle East comes from history classes and the world news, and living in the United States largely during a time of war with that area of the world, I have not often heard the positive news.
However, a unique culture presides with Afghanistan’s people. Reading this book, I encountered some of that culture for the first time: its songs, sayings, jokes, attitudes, prejudices, customs, and more. To have a sort of inside look, a momentary living the life of another, does not often strike me while reading. With The Kite Runner, for the first time in a long time, it did.
If the culture made me smile and wonder, it paired with the themes to make me cry. Amir attempts to bury his past, not realizing the remedy for his guilt and shame lies in speaking, in putting to light his burden. He then experiences the power of forgiving others, but most importantly himself. The book provides a reminder: Even those with the best intentions make terrible mistakes. Amir has to face and accept when a person, even family, turns out both incredibly good and incredibly flawed.
Once in the United States, he also soon understands certain prejudices are unknown of in other countries, revealing them to be unfounded cultural hatreds for the sake of power. He had refused to call Hassan his friend because of a racial distinction, one that, away from Afghanistan, didn’t matter. I value a perspective like this on racism outside of my own culture’s, and I especially see how it could benefit students.
Only recently did I hear about this book already being taught in the classroom. When I first read the inciting scene, I mentioned I felt anxious for an hour or so. I see, though, The Kite Runner’s value for students. The themes are universal and work in close communion with a culture and new perspective in history, allowing for that good ole’ cross-curriculum opportunity. Students could study literary devices constructed by a fantastic author, and the potential textual pairings and class discussions could make for a rich unit.
My heart now fills yet aches when I hear the words “For you, a thousand times over.” I love the belief that “There is a way to be good again.” Hosseini’s words weave a vivid tapestry combining Afghan culture, the difficulty of being human, the power of speaking up and taking action, and a plot that had me gasping, crying, and laughing out loud. I struggled through the more brutal aspects, but the payoff in the end, one of not triumph but a glimmer of hope, made the experience worth every second.
Edit: Maybe not worth every second. I think I just don’t know how to end a post fluidly.
“I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.”
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
“My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs.”
“To admit uncertainty is to admit to weakness, to powerlessness, and to believe in yourself despite both. It is a frailty, but in this frailty there is a strength: the conviction to live in your own mind, and not in someone else’s.”
Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
During her time raised in the mountains of Idaho by a Mormon survivalist family, Tara Westover never attended school. The government, her father taught her, used schools to brainwash children, like the Medical Establishment undermined one’s trust in God for healing, leading the family to treat brain damage and third degree burns at home. Besides, when the End of Days arrived, they would need to be self-sufficient. As a result of this reality, Tara spent her time storing canned peaches and gas, sleeping next to a duffel prepared for a quick escape into the mountains, assisting her mother, a midwife who relies on herbs and oils for healing, and scrapping in her father’s junkyard.
One of seven children, she watched as her older brother Tyler studied independently and left for college. At home, another older brother became regularly violent towards her. Tyler returned during one such event and convinced Tara to study independently, leading her to pass the ACT and escape the mountain to Brigham Young University. Years later, she entered Harvard and Cambridge, where she earned her PhD in intellectual history and political thought.
Tara’s story focuses on how education opens up new perspectives. She learned to understand her father, although functioning, may be driven by a mental illness, to recognize the dehumanizing nature of that slur her brother refers to her by, to realize her desire to learn does not conflict with womanhood. New words like “Holocaust” and “Civil Rights Movement” drew her towards the study of historians, as she then tried to understand how those who construct history handle a sudden realization of how little they knew before. Alongside, Tara had to come to the understanding that she, too, has a place in the halls of a school.
Even while writing her dissertation, Tara faced the fact that receiving an education and speaking out about her brother’s violence estranged her from the family she loves, who to this day claim she spreads lies, possessed by the Devil. To be accepted into her home once again, Tara would have to give up everything she’s worked so hard to learn, every new perspective not in line with theirs.
I wondered at Tara’s dedication to uncovering new knowledge. Her ACT study remained largely independent, often marked by hours spent in front a text she was determined to decode. Her professors noted the fresh caliber of her essays as she read and wrote about authors like Wollstonecraft for the first time. I wonder about how to encourage my future students to study so vehemently, to encounter each page with new curiosity and personal reflection, and to write on what they discover with sincerity rather than a determination to get the grade and move on unaffected. I wonder how to more often bring that mindset out in myself.
Those without an education often seem to be the ones most willing to risk their lives for it. Those with education provided in abundance seem to either feel the pressure of performing successfully for the sake of a number or not care at all. Some simply have other concerns: family, finances, expected futures. How to make those with access care, really care, about the content and see how it can enrich their lives? My only answer currently, one I feel Tara would share, is to pass down an enthusiasm for knowledge, to become a facilitator and allow students to discover the world for their own sake.
While Educated could serve well in a literature circle, as independent reading, or for a unit on memoir, I recommend educators take the time to experience Tara’s story for themselves. Professors had some of the deepest impacts on her personal and academic growth, and we have the opportunity to do the same for our students, to help them find their voices when others strive to silence them.
“Everything I had worked for, all my years of study, had been to purchase for myself this one privilege: to see and experience more truths than those given to me by my father, and to use those truths to construct my own mind. I had come to believe that the ability to evaluate many ideas, many histories, many points of view, was at the heart of what it means to self-create. If I yielded now, I would lose more than an argument. I would lose custody of my own mind. This was the price I was being asked to pay, I understood that now. What my father wanted to cast from me wasn’t a demon: it was me.”
Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
The part of the show where I review two science fiction novels back-to-back.
Artemis, the namesake for this Andy Weir novel, remains the only city on the moon, consisting of four large domes connected by tunnels with a fifth and smaller dome in the center. Jasmine (Jazz) Bashara lives in the smallest kind of apartment available, essentially the size of a coffin with a shared bathroom down the hall. She runs freight and packages to its citizens, smuggling a bit of contraband on the side in her slow effort to get rich.
Then, an opportunity arrives that would propel her to get rich, and fast. She takes it, utilizing her machinery know-how and general criminal mindset to get a job done. However, in classic Weir fashion, everything goes wrong. The job she thought she’d taken on links to a much larger problem, one that sets a murderer on her tail and places her in the middle of a war for control of Artemis itself.
In The Martian, Weir’s debut novel, main character Mark Watney has a humor often brought out at inappropriate moments, but a humor I would not consider unkind. He cares deeply for others and lets them know. Jazz, on the other hand, has a snarky attitude and always seems to be yelling “Don’t tell me I have potential! I’m living my own life!” That is, living her own life working a poorly paying job, knowing full well she has a photographic memory and yes, incredible potential, all while wishing she could get rich without doing any of the work she’s perfectly capable of doing to achieve that. I thought at some point I would understand this mindset, but in the end, no explanation really presented itself.
She also, unlike Watney, did not seem capable of telling others how she feels, which I did understand a bit better. Her snark hides a soft underbelly, a painful history with men, a broken relationship with her father, all building a wall around a heart that really does care and want the best for people but can’t show it due to a mix of pride and a fear of getting hurt. While her perpetual bad attitude about potential is never quite explained, I did come to understand this part of her better by the end.
Criticizing her attitude puts me in a strange position, though. I don’t understand why Jazz feels the way she does, but I’m exactly the kind of person she wouldn’t want to be around. Characters like hers may be the way they are simply because they are. When criticizing a personality, I have to wonder: Am I dealing with a somewhat unrealistic characteristic or one I simply haven’t encountered and don’t understand? Do people not really share her mindset, having good reason for their hatred of the word “potential,” or do I need to open up to a new perspective?
Watching me read The Martian could be compared to watching a lion chase down a gazelle. It ran fast, but I was really into that gazelle. Artemis did not have the same effect on me. Weir creates a survival urgency in both novels, but while in The Martian I sincerely did not know how situations would end, I never felt worried during Artemis. Everything that went wrong felt inconsequential, because I realized each problem would be resolved soon enough.
During a Q&A at the back of the book, Weir says “I just want the reader to think ‘well, that was cool’ when they’re done.” So, I’ll oblige: that was cool. The city of Artemis is well constructed and fully fleshed out. Artemis includes a diverse cast of characters and a unique story line unlike anything I’ve read before. The book will be on my shelf, and if students ask if it’s a good read, I’ll say yes. Was it more than good? I’m not so sure. I definitely don’t think it holds a candle to his first novel. Have I mentioned it yet?
Here’s my hesitation with posting a less-than-thrilled review: Authors work hard to create what they do. The time that went into Artemis could not be more apparent. I really was entertained. The author achieved his goal. Depending on how many sex jokes one can endure, the book had nothing controversial enough to turn me away, and in the end, the writing made the events and world pretty realistic and definitely entertaining.
H.G. Shelves 