book meme

Book meme from New Kid, months ago

1. One book that changed your life? Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing. When I first read it, I was probably 22 or so. I had heard of feminism, patriarchy, environmentalism, and colonialism—I had probably written papers taking sides on these issues and I had probably argued with people about these topics as if I really understood them, but my understanding of these issues was so “textbooky.” Surfacing gave me a picture of a person who is grappling with all these issues and helped me understand why a person would care so much about these issues and take them personally. I also got my first real understanding of why Canadians might dislike Americans.

2. One book you have read more than once? If I like a book, I reread it, so to narrow this question down a bit, I’ll talk about the book I’ve reread the most, which is Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. I bet I have read The Awakening 15 times in 15 years. It’s a short book—under 200 pages—which makes it a little easier to reread than, say, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, which I would like to reread, but hell, it took me years to read it the first time, so chances are I won’t get to it. I also reread some of my books on Buddhism regularly, and I always have a poetry book that I am in the process of reading and rereading. Right now, I am into Lucille Clifton. I’ve read Good Woman all the way through once and am now working my way through it again.

3. One book you would want on a desert island? Anything by Isabel Allende or Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I can’t think of an experience I could have that would be closer to actually living magical realism than being on a desert island.

4. One book that made you laugh? Widow for One Year by John Irving. Yeah, the book is completely depressing in parts, but the scene where Eddie writes down the details of his summer affair for the woman at the frame shop makes me laugh so hard I cry. I also think the scene where the drawings of Ted’s lover end up on the windshield of the car he is in with two potential “models” is hilarious. Irving does these types of scenes like no one else.

5. One book that made you cry? Beloved by Toni Morrison. When I taught the book, I had to psyche myself up before class to not start bawling in the middle of class. Morrison portrays the dehumanizing effects of slavery on slaves and slave-owners alike in a devastating way. I sobbed all the way through the novel.

6. One book you wish had been written (sooner^)1? I wish A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, whose autograph I have on an index card because I was a new mother when I went to hear him read and in the frenzy of packing up a diaper bag, getting my baby dressed, and making sure my breasts weren’t leaking, I—damn, I still can’t believe I did this—somehow managed to forget to bring my copy of the book and so I had to have him autograph an index card, which he did quite graciously, had been written sooner. The very last part of the book, where Eggers is cursing his parents for dying, is the part that I really, really wish had been written sooner. After denying for twenty years that I was angry at my own mother for dying, I read the last section of this book and thought, “How did he do that? He cursed at his parents for dying? Why haven’t I been able to do that?”

7. One book you wish had never been written? The entire Chicken Soup series. I find them so insipid.

8. One book you are currently reading? Elaine Showalter’s Hystories. Showalter argues that five phenomena--alien abductions, recovered memories, chronic fatigue syndrome, and multiple personalities—are hysterical epidemics rooted in cultural fears and anxieties.

9. One book you have been meaning to read? Oh, I have a gigantic stack of books I’ve been meaning to read, but in honor of William Styron’s recent death, I’ll move Sophie’s Choice to the top.

10. Now tag five people: Amy, Carolyn, Susie, Parts-n-Pieces, and Doug.

¹I changed the question to suit my purposes. Deal.

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