Guess who's back...

Back again. Okay, enough quoting bad Eminem songs.

I didn't realize it had been almost two weeks since I've posted. In that span of time, I've tried, then tried again to muster some interest for The Wings of the Dove (sorry Henry James fans, just couldn't do it), and then I took a nice little break from the norms of the list and read Things Fall Apart. So far, this is the only African novel on the list, and I found it a refreshing change of pace.

I'm considering cheating and watching the movie version of The Wings of the Dove. Also wondering if I should have called this the Helena Bonham Carter Project (how is she in so many of these film adaptations????).

I enjoy reading novels that provide enough factual details that they inspire me to do a little outside research on my own. Reading The Other Boleyn Girl many years ago led me to devour book after book on Henry VIII and his various wives (and to hate Eric Bana forever for his TERRIBLE movie interpretation). While I didn't do quite as much digging into the Nigerian Ibo culture, I found the religious beliefs and cultural ideals revealed in the novel to be interesting (and mostly correct, as best as I can tell). Who knew there were cultures that considered twins an abomination and left them exposed to die in the forest? Not me! My husband, who is a twin, was not a fan!

There's also quite a bit of talk about yams. They eat A LOT of them in the book.

Things Fall Apart tells the story of a man named Okonkwo and how his life and village are changed by the arrival of white missionaries in Africa. And yes, true to Greatest 100 form, it ends sadly. You have been warned.

Stories about the clash of cultures tend to sadden me, as they almost inevitably involve misunderstanding or miscommunication between the two groups. In this particular case, I found it easy to empathize with both sides. I'd be horrified to see helpless babies left to fend for themselves in the forest, as the Christian missionaries were, but I would also not want to raise children that I thought were an abomination in the eyes of God, as the Ibo people thought about twins. Tough situation. As a Christian myself, I also find it embarassing to read about other Christians who found it acceptable to use violence or fear to coerce the natives into converting. Even though they were fictional in this case, I know that real examples of these types of individuals existed. Disappointing.
  
What was the last book you read about another culture? What did you learn from it?


 Movie image here. Yam image here.

Pondering Light in August

I am pretty excited to tell you...I just finished another Faulkner book that I actually understood. I'm feeling quite accomplished! Perhaps Radcliffe kindly listed these novels in order of difficulty and it will be smooth sailing from here on out?

Truth.

Now that I understand what's happening, I more readily see the beauty in Faulkner's page-long-sentences and unique style. I somewhat wish that I'd started with Light in August and worked my way up to The Sound and the Fury. I might have appreciated it more.


Light in August follows Lena Grove's quest to locate her unborn baby's father in Jefferson, Mississippi, and along the way we learn of the tragic life of Joe Christmas, a mixed race man who commits a murder in the town. Each of the main characters is in some way an outcast, whether that because of racial heritage, marital status (or lack thereof), social beliefs, or a checkered past.

Not because they sang chart topping hits.

In reading the story, I wondered if Faulkner chose to portray each of these individuals on the fringe of society because they were more interesting, or because society then was so judgemental that there were just more outcasts as a result. I would not expect an unwed single mother or an interracial couple today to be ostracized in the way that these people were, but perhaps I'm being naive.


What do you think? Have we become more accepting as a society? Is this good or bad or maybe a bit of both?


Images found here and here.