Book Impression: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

Liz

A few years ago I read an entire book before realizing I had already read it. I looked back at my Goodreads read list and realized I had no memory of about half of the books on there. So I built a new habit – (almost) every time I finish a book, I word-vomit my thoughts and emotions into a note on my phone. Sometimes they’re brief, sometimes they’re long-longwinded, sometimes they just ramble…and now I’m putting them here. Please enjoy the madness.

SPOILERS AHEAD…

“What is freedom?” I made a note of that in this book when the main character is considering being “free” in slavery vs. confined in freedom. This was the darkest of the three books I read in a row. All had their violence but The Water Dancer was much more poetic and obviously had a happier ending and Kindred didn’t center around an actual slave. Both of those also got more tied up with a bow than this. I do wonder a bit what my impression would be if I hadn’t read those first. This one felt like it took a more traditional stance on slave owners being horrendous and irredeemable while the others (to some degree) looked at them as a product of their time, even victims of it in their own way. This book really drove home the hopelessness of slavery.

No matter where you went, there was the threat of being dragged back (except possibly the west? Were there slaves there?) It highlighted an interesting concept of black people who were also part of the slavery machine, actively helping to keep others in chains. And the prejudice of slaves who earned their freedom toward those who ran. It reminds me of the current immigration debate where I have seen immigrants talk about how wrong it is for people to come in illegally. I would have thought that someone who had been through it would be more sympathetic but it may foster more of an “if I did it right so can they” stance.

It’s hard to tell if she had a happy ending or if it just ended. I guess that’s kind of the point though? I also found the underlying hatred toward her mother an interesting choice. Was she justified in it? Was it a defense mechanism? It also didn’t diminish once she herself ran and saw the demands of it and the danger and how having a child with you would make it impossible…again, going through it didn’t seem to make her more sympathetic to someone else who had. The mother’s true fate was heartbreaking. And shows the importance of the story we tell ourselves and perspective.

Book Impression: Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

Liz

A few years ago I read an entire book before realizing I had already read it. I looked back at my Goodreads read list and realized I had no memory of about half of the books on there. So I built a new habit – (almost) every time I finish a book, I word-vomit my thoughts and emotions into a note on my phone. Sometimes they’re brief, sometimes they’re long-longwinded, sometimes they just ramble…and now I’m putting them here. Please enjoy the madness.

I devoured this book. And I’m so glad I chose to read it in conjunction with The Water Dancer because the juxtaposition was very interesting to see. What stood out in both is the theme of privileged white slave owners as petulant children. Maynard didn’t grow up in TWD and Rufus didn’t grow up in Kindred. One idea explored in the book is the concept of adaptability and how we can so easily melt into the situation we find ourselves in. And the ways we can’t. Dana was not from slavery times so she was always either not blending enough or blending too much. The other slaves were either warning her to watch her defiance or ridiculing her for the way she submitted.

I can’t tell if we are meant to find redeeming qualities in Rufus. Was he better or worse than his father? He seemed to think he was better and sometimes acted “better” but did that make him better? And do all people have to end up a product of their times? There were other people who did things like free their slaves in their wills so what would it have taken for Rufus to be like that if not the relationship he has with Dana? I also thought a lot about the ways we search for redemption in others and how Dana was continually surprised when Rufus was cruel. No matter how much he betrayed her she still believed he wouldn’t cross the next line. There is a commentary on inevitability in all of that.

Book Impression: The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Liz

A few years ago I read an entire book before realizing I had already read it. I looked back at my Goodreads read list and realized I had no memory of about half of the books on there. So I built a new habit – (almost) every time I finish a book, I word-vomit my thoughts and emotions into a note on my phone. Sometimes they’re brief, sometimes they’re long-longwinded, sometimes they just ramble…and now I’m putting them here. Please enjoy the madness.

SPOILERS AHEAD…

I loved the story and the almost lack of drama in it. It felt like an easy ride and there was predictability but clearly suspense was not the goal. I think it paints an interesting picture of slavery, especially the fact that slave owners would have children with their slaves and the “impurity” of that. I liked the way he spoke about the difference between the Task and the Quality as if the Task really have the better end of it because they see the world as it is and don’t have to constantly grapple with the push and pull of acting as if they and the world are pure the way the Quality do.

Imbuing Harriet Tubman with supernatural abilities…I don’t know how I feel about that. But I guess in a book about the underground railroad, it was inevitable for her to play a role. I just feel like it undercuts the real-life, ordinary but extraordinary person who risked like she did to do what she did. Yes, he did his best to portray the difficulty of Conduction and the toll it took but…still.

I also like the way it didn’t end by tying absolutely everything into a neat bow. It was told from Hiram’s perspective so it ends with Hiram’s knowledge and the rest of the characters are off living their lives and we don’t get to know it all, which is the way life is. 

Book Impression: Educated by Tara Westover

Liz

A few years ago I read an entire book before realizing I had already read it. I looked back at my Goodreads read list and realized I had no memory of about half of the books on there. So I built a new habit – (almost) every time I finish a book, I word-vomit my thoughts and emotions into a note on my phone. Sometimes they’re brief, sometimes they’re long-longwinded, sometimes they just ramble…and now I’m putting them here. Please enjoy the madness.

Another great memoir from an author with a very unique life experience. It was interesting to hear about such a life transition directly from someone who has lived in two different worlds. She points out the fact that what she is writing about now she did not possess the words to write about before and I think that’s a key insight. Few people work their way through such transitions and come out of the other side with a desire to share it in such a way.

One thing I have found is very difficult for people to understand is the motivations that others feel due to religion and connection to family. When someone else is coming from a wildly different background than we are, it can be exceptionally difficult to understand how they think and how their background influences their actions differently then ours.

This seems especially true in cases of more extreme religious upbringing. But as a friend and I were discussing, think about how you would react if you literally believed that the soul of a loved one would be doomed to hell for doing something or behaving a certain way. Just because we may not see the world that way, doesn’t make it wrong or insane.

I was weeping at the line about her father’s reaction to her moving overseas – that he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to get to her when the world began to end. Because even if you think he is insane (even if he is potentially diagnosable), his actions come from love. He did what he did out of fear for his family’s safety and he reacted how he reacted out of love and fear for and toward his daughter – the same kind of love my father has for me and most father’s have for their daughters. Seeing how she balanced (or struggled) with the push and pull of loving her family but feeling the need to get out and disagreeing with their ideals was a rare, authentic look at the grey areas in life.

Photos & Words: Years ago // A beach somewhere

Liz

When I was a child, somebody put a big, blue plastic camera in my grubby hands. I got older and the cameras got fancier and I “studied” photography in high school then college and I took a LOT of photos. So now I’m going to post my photos in no particular order with stories that may or may not have something to do with what’s in them – my new experiment in creative confidence.

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There’s a story my grandpa told about my grandma. Actually, there were a lot of stories and I wish I was better at remembering them all but this one stuck.
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Back in the days when men would ask women to accompany them to dances, my future grandparents were going to a dance together. I think they had just begun dating and it was either traditional for a man to give his date a corsage to wear or that was a special thing…I’m not sure. My grandpa, being my grandpa, decided to level up. Instead of a corsage, he sent my grandma an entire string of flowers to wear around her neck.
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When the night arrived, he went to pick up his future wife.
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He was excited.
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Then she came to the door without the flowers around her neck. She only had a single flower on her wrist. For a moment he thought something had gone wrong.
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But standing in the door, he noticed the other girls wandering around getting ready for the night. He saw that a few of them had flowers similar to the ones he’d sent.
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My grandmother had taken apart the beautiful, special string of flowers and given one to each girl that hadn’t received a corsage.
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Because everyone should get to feel beautiful and special.
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One of my favorite stories about two of my favorite people. (Come back later and I’ll tell you the one about the weaving loom.)
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📷  This photo is not by me. It’s by my cousin Erin. I don’t know the details but I assume it’s from a trip we took to visit my grandparent during one of their winters in Ft. Lauderdale. I like that grandma and I have matching hairstyles.

Welcome to 2020

Liz

My word for 2020 is Experience

  • Experience more outside of my comfort zone
  • Experience what’s right outside my front door
  • Experience the world at large
  • Experience through the eyes of others
  • Experience old things I had forgotten I love
  • Experience each moment without worrying about the next
  • Build experience in things that bring me closer to my goals
  • Experience, don’t just observe

Update April 17th 2020: Welp…might need a new word…

Book Impression: A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Liz

A few years ago I read an entire book before realizing I had already read it. I looked back at my Goodreads read list and realized I had no memory of about half of the books on there. So I built a new habit – (almost) every time I finish a book, I word-vomit my thoughts and emotions into a note on my phone. Sometimes they’re brief, sometimes they’re long-longwinded, sometimes they just ramble…and now I’m putting them here. Please enjoy the madness.

SPOILERS AHEAD…

This was a very interesting book. I like the way it explores the dichotomy of being a loyal, proud citizen that has been turned out (but kept in) by ones country. The Count was clearly very clever and it seems like he could have orchestrated an escape much sooner but was committed to Russia and serving his sentence with as much positivity as possible. It was interesting the way the story explores how you can make so many connections and keep your world big while being confined to a single building (provided that building is a fancy hotel with interesting guests who seem to return regularly or stay for long stretches).

There is a part that talks about the particular pain of being exiled but remaining in your country, the way that Russians are when sent to Siberia and the way the Count is. He was no longer free to enjoy the country he loved but he also was not free to live a new life elsewhere. Seems a much worse fate that actually being kicked out. I think the author did a good job of toeing the line of arrogance with the Count while keeping him likable and realistic. And the story was not overly dramatic or cliched. It ended well without dipping too far beyond what could conceivably be accomplished in real life by people with similar connections. It was very clever.

Book Impression: Barbarian Days by William Finnegan

Liz

A few years ago I read an entire book before realizing I had already read it. I looked back at my Goodreads read list and realized I had no memory of about half of the books on there. So I built a new habit – (almost) every time I finish a book, I word-vomit my thoughts and emotions into a note on my phone. Sometimes they’re brief, sometimes they’re long-longwinded, sometimes they just ramble…and now I’m putting them here. Please enjoy the madness.

This wasn’t really a book I think I would have gravitated toward on my own but a friend of mine who’s into surfing loaned it to me and I really loved it. It was adventurous but real. He took off and explored life around the world but not in a whimsical eat pray love way. I feel like it showed the realities of living on the road in other countries while obsessing over something. It was also nice to learn about different cultures through this particular lens. I never knew the science and observation that goes into surfing and found the historical background of discrimination interesting. I probably won’t be picking up a surf board anytime soon or hitchhiking around Asia but it definitely awoke some wanderlust.

Photos & Words: May 2013 // Madrid, Spain

Liz

When I was a child, somebody put a big, blue plastic camera in my grubby hands. I got older and the cameras got fancier and I “studied” photography in high school then college and I took a LOT of photos. So now I’m going to post my photos in no particular order with captions that may or may not have something to do with what’s in them – my new experiment in creative confidence.


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A few years ago Mary and I decided to take a two week trip to Europe, hitting three countries and eight cities – Madrid to Barcelona to Sitges to Paris to Milan to Venice to Rome to Florence.
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On our first night in Madrid, we went to dinner in Plaza Mayor. The square was bustling but the restaurant was almost empty.
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Up until this point, we hadn’t encountered a language barrier but our waiter at the empty restaurant in Plaza Mayor didn’t speak a single word of English (or French, which Mary could handle if need be). We pantomimed questions, pointed to dishes, and got by.
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After we ate as much of the “paella for two” as we could (about a third of it), our waiter came out with a small bottle of clear liqueur, poured two shots for us, set the bottle down and walked away. We tried to ask what the liquid was but he didn’t turn around.
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So we drank the shots.
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Then we waited for 45 minutes but nobody emerged from the restaurant.
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So we poured two more shots and drank those.
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An hour later, it was dark and we were still sitting alone on the empty restaurant terrace. The bottle had exactly two shots left in it. So once again, we poured and drank.
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When our waiter finally reappeared, he did an exaggerated, wide-eyed double take at the empty bottle and burst out laughing. We tried to offer a flustered explanation (“Hey man…if you leave a bottle unattended for over two hours, people are going to assume they should finish it!”), but he just assured us it was free and went inside to get the “check”.
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When he came back out, he gave us a grin and said “check!” as he presented a second bottle. Another hour passed before we were finally released.
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I still don’t really know what it is that we drank but it went down smooth and kicked off an excellent trip.
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📷  This is a picture of the cafe next door to the restaurant we ate at in Plaza Mayor, taken while I was still sober enough to work my camera.

Book Impression: The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

Liz

A few years ago I read an entire book before realizing I had already read it. I looked back at my Goodreads read list and realized I had no memory of about half of the books on there. So I built a new habit – (almost) every time I finish a book, I word-vomit my thoughts and emotions into a note on my phone. Sometimes they’re brief, sometimes they’re long-longwinded, sometimes they just ramble…and now I’m putting them here. Please enjoy the madness.

SPOILERS AHEAD…

I liked this book but I don’t love it like the Handmaids Tale. It’s interesting reading it now that there is already a TV show that had reached beyond the end of the first book. And I like that this one takes place almost a decade after the first so that it has room to create its own story without creating conflict with the TV show. We don’t know what happens to June aside from the fact that she makes it out of Gilead but is not united with her daughters until they are in both their twenties. Once again I think it’s interesting that the story was told from the perspective of historians studying Gilead and discovering pieces of the past. I know that a theme of the first novel was supposed to be the untrustworthiness of the tapes coming from a Handmaids without much ability to fact check. They made this conclusion even easier to reach by spending the last section outright stating that most of what was in the book could be forgery.

I think this book lacked some of the subtlety of the first and played a little further into cliche than I would have liked with the happy ending and the humanizing redemption of Aunt Lydia. The two younger girls also came across as much less mature than their ages would suggest but maybe that’s an intentional product of the world they’ve grown up in? That being said, Aunt Lydia’s storyline was the one that made me question myself and circumstances the most. As I think is outright stated at some point, it’s easy to think we would do the “right” thing and not become the monster she was in those circumstances but…would we? With the world turned around so much, who would be so ready to die rather than try to find some form of power to live by? I don’t know if I fully buy her storyline though. She seemed to be a “believer” for a long time or at least pretending to be then changing her mind but then not really because she was just biding her time all along? Overall the plot was incredibly predictable (though would it have been without the TV show giving some stuff away? I don’t know) and I’m not a huge fan when a book tries to make a big deal out of a “twist” that was obvious from the start.