Three reviews

See, I am making good on my pledge to review my grad school books as I read them.

Modern American Drama

Angels in America by Tony Kushner

The most beautiful play I have read. I wept when I read the last half of Perestroika and I find myself stumbling over ways to describe why it affected me so much. I think partly because of a an I used to smuggle marijuana brownies while he was in hospice dying of AIDS. Partly it is because I agree with so many of the theological points, the waxing and waning of faith, the questioning of God's justice. And partly because of the collision of cultures that I see as a uniquely American experience. Jewish, Gay, Mormon, Republican, Democratic, believer and non, all struggle to find their way in our society. I feel the struggle in me, and so it is very affirming for me, even as far as I am from the American cultures depicted in the play.

I am not sure any of this makes sense, but I did say I was having trouble describing it.

Autobiography in America:

Two books read.

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Making it in America by Barbara Ehrenreich

I was surprised that I did not like this book. Politically, I am right there with her. The lifestyle of America's lower class is abysmal and a blot on this country's image as the great equalizer. Rent too high, no public transportation, no net to fall back on when things go wrong, no public health care and employers who care more about their bottom line than your quality of life. Ms. Ehrenreich's description seemed all too familiar too me. And this was my problem with the book, nothing she wrote was new or informative to me. Of course, I am not her audience. She is trying to educate people who do not understand how this world works, and I appreciate that. But I have worked my share of crap jobs for no money that nothing she tells me is shocking to me. In fact, the only thing that really shocks me is the number of people who apparently had to be educated about the low-pay lifestyle by an investigative reporter. It seems remarkable to me the number of people who pay someone to clean their house without knowing their financial situation. I mean, they pay the bills, they must be able to extrapolate how the person lives. And of course, I would have liked more attempts at solutions, not just a highlighting of the problem. I know that solutions are not necessarily the point of investigative journalism, but, having known all of the bad stuff, I am at a place where I want answers, not ruminations. Answers like universal healthcare, a raise in the minimum wage, more unions and less corporate muscle in Washington.

I am also wondering what this book is doing on an Autobiography in America syllabus. While the writings and observations ore true, the situation is fake. This is not a woman living on minimum wage, this is a woman who artificially places herself in low-pay situations for a month to see what happens. This is not her low-pay life, she is just visiting. Ms. Ehrenreich is very careful about making this clear, but it still feels a bit hollow to call it an autobiography.


The Liar's Club: A Memoir by Mary Karr

Memoirs are about complaining. And this woman has reason to complain, but so do thousands of others in the country and, except for the fact that Ms. Karr had the gumption to sit down and write a book about it, I see nothing remarkable or insightful about her life. I realize it is a weird complaint that I learned nothing about myself from her life, but isn't that why we read? To find some piece of ourself and draw it into the light for a bit. Ms. Karr is an excellent writer, although her stories are often a bit circular for my liking. A story starts and goes and goes and gets sidetracked and waylaid until I have to go back to put the pieces together. I realize this was done intentionally for effect, but that does not seem to like it.

The fun part about this book is that it is about growing up in Texas, both in the East Texan Oil fields (where my mother's parents come from) and the Panhandle (home to Merideth's kin). Seeing as how I will be studying this book in Vermont with a bunch of Yankees, I feel I have a leg up on this work. Of course, it spawned the same problem as Nickel and Dimed. Familiarity. Little in the book is new to me. The horrible things she goes through (and she went through some terrible times in her youth) are matched by the stories of friends or family who I care about. So again, I don't learn anything new or different.

I am actually going to use this blog, damnit.

Greetings, I have discovered that I can not blog during the school year. A combination of too many papers to grade, too many meetings to attend, too much to plan and a desire to vent about whichever student annoyed me that day.

But it is summer, teacher Nirvana. And I am going to Grad school, which is scaring the hell out of me, for reasons both financial and academic. But whatever happens, I want to blog this summer. Later, I will regale you with tales of Grad school in Vermont. Until then, I got the idea to review all of the books I am reading here, as a way to save my initial reactions and to have a reason to post other than whims. Now, I have not read anything for school yet, but I need to get on that, so hopeful first review coming soon.