We now return to our regularly scheduled programming...

After an extended interlude I like to call The Elm Shakespeare Company, I have returned to blogging. I have still been reading, just not writing. Updated posts continue below...

Stumbling on Happiness

By Daniel Gilbert
The self-help book industry is huge, giving the public much advice on how to be thin, be sucessful and ultimately how to be happy. This book does not tell you how to be happy. What it does tell you is how the human brain functions in the pursuit of happiness. It gives us suggestions on how to utilize this information, but it does not tell you how to be happy.
What we learn is we cannot ever reasonably predict our future feelings due to our imagination. We are the only creatures on this planet who not only think about, but imagine the future. But current and past influences skew our imaginations into a warped version of what our future may bring. We think this imagining is the way things absolutely will be and then are constantly disappointed in outcomes that are diferent.
Society is also a factor. We are told make more, spend more, breed more, ultimately to keep society functioning for the greater good, not for our individual happiness. Case in point, I do not want to have children. I don't like 'em, I don't know what to do with them. I can reasonably predict I would feel resentful towards them. I feel resentment towards my neighbor when his screaming wakes me up at 7:30 am, why wouldn't I feel resentful towards a screaming baby at that hour? Even if it's the blood of my loins and all. So I choose to not have children so I do not make some poor child unhappy with my terrible parenting, and I'm making myself happy by not feeling resentful and bitter for 18 years. But society would have me have children, so there are more people to fuel the economy. "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." be damned, you need to have children and while your at it you need to buy a $900 stroller.
So what can we do to be happy? As I said there is no instruction list in this book. What I took away from it is I need to make predictions based of what I know, not what I imagine. For example, I have Crohn's Disease. Popcorn makes it act up. Popcorn smells really good. When someone makes popcorn and it smells so good, it is tempting to eat some. Now I could eat the popcorn, I could savor that puffy, salty, buttery goodness and be really happy about it for about 5 minutes. But what I know is about 24 hours later, I will be curled up on my bathroom floor for about 5 hours praying for death. According to Mr. Gilbert the way the brain works, it would actually have me keep eating the popcorn, resulting in 5 hours of pain for the 5 minutes of pleasure. This is true as it took me several years to figure out the same action would keep producing the same result. Fortunately, I'm already on the road to happiness as I have retrained myself over the years not to eat things that cause Crohn's flare ups, no matter how good that food may taste.
So for an experiment I'm going to try a new way of thinking about loosing weight. I've always gone into the weight loss thing with the idea that if I lose weight things will be so much better! Clothes will fit! Boys will like me! I will be able to manage my finances! OK, maybe not the latter but you get the point. What I know is if I loose weight I will physically feel better. When I was 20lbs lighter I could move faster, lift more, and wasn't so wiped out all the time. I shouldn't imagine what it will be like because I can't know what the outcome will be. So my goal is to loose weight to gain physical health. To be able to do run for an emergency at work and not feel like I'm having a minor heart attack. Anything else is just icing on the cake.

The Lovely Bones

By Alice Sebold
You'd have to be living under a rock not to at least have seen this book around. I've seen it many times and as usual, I refused to hop on the bandwagon right away. I'm glad I finally got on for the ride. The narrative of this book is really different than anything I've ever read. Susie Salmon at fourteen is brutally raped and murdered by her neighbor. The rest of the book is Susie watching her family, friends, and her killer from her personalized heaven.
What's really interesting is that instead of first person narrative from each character we get first person emotions and actions through Susie. Because she is dead she can sense the thoughts and feelings of the other characters and express them to us. This is really brilliant as we get so many perspectives on the story but through only one "voice."
The actions and plot are very realistic. This is life in the suburbs. All the houses look the same but behind the similar facades are broken hearts, broken marriages, weak adults, strong children, murderers, and unhappiness. The end is not tied up neatly in a bow, and I appreciate that as life never is. This is an impressive debut novel. Alice Sebold's next novel is due out in October and I'm looking forward to reading it. Peter Jackson is directing the movie, which is very exciting as he is good at the adaptations.

Atonement

By Ian McEwan
I had started Atonement last year and didn't finish. I tried again, letting the locale of Edgerton Park and oppressive heat of Connecticut in the summer put me in the world of an English country manor in August. I found myself completely drawn in by the story, characters, and McEwan's writing style. Briony is a girl of thirteen who is isolated and over-imaginative. (I can relate!) She misconstrues an encounter she witnesses between her sister, Celia and a family friend, Robbie. This leads to her accusing him of the reap of her cousin. In turn it leads to the destruction of her family. We then see the continuation of Robbie's life after his release from prison. He is now a soldier in the Army retreating from Dunkirk. He and Celia are still in contact. Briony is now a nurse, like Celia, and tries to atone for her sins though her work. It is still not enough and she tracks down her family in an attempt to redress the wrongs against Robbie and clear his name.
The end is Briony in her 70's, a successful novelist and the author of all we have read before. Were the previous accounts true? Parts are explained and parts are left to the readers imagination. I actually wish it had been a little less specific in regards to Robbie and Celia's outcomes. But I do see where the fictional author is attempting to use her novel as her atonement which is something she could not do in her actions. Much is made that until her "character's" are all dead, the novel will not be published. Briony herself is dying, so it is unclear if she will even be able to atone, or worse be aware of it if she does. This is the irony of Briony's situation, she has been diagnosed with vascular dementia. The person who over-fantasized will now be stripped of her mind and the guilt over her accusation may be relieved but she may not even be aware of it. Sad ending. It will be interesting to see how the movie pans out.

The Cider House Rules

By John Irving
I spent my re-read of Deathly Hallows with the other two authors from the charity event I attended last year. Stephen King organized a fund raiser for The Haven Foundation and Doctors Without Borders. He read from his work as did J.K. Rowling and John Irving. My three favorite authors in one setting at Radio City Music Hall. It was heaven!
Anyway to recreate the triumvirate I listened to The Cider House Rules on audio book. Cider House is one of my favorite Irving novels. It doesn't deal with the usual issues of his main characters and this has a nice historical backdrop of the US during the first half of the 20th century. It also goes into detail about a controversial subject, abortion. I must say reading the graphic detail and hearing it are two different things. Reading any of it doesn't phase me, but hearing the squelchier details was a little much. The narrator Grover Gardener has a suitable reading voice. He doesn't do "voices", but I don't think " voices " are necessary for the story. It sound's as if Homer Wells himself were telling the tale at the end of his life.

Cell

By Stephen King
How does one make the transition from Harry Potter Mania back to their regular reading. With a zombie novel of course! I had read this book last summer and enjoyed it. I wanted to read something familiar and comforting. This novel is classic King, I think of it as sort of a mini-The Stand.
Take a common item in society-cell phones. Make them destructive-everyone who uses them turns into a zombie. Break down society-zombies vs. the normal people. Have a big confrontation between the two-normal people blow up the zombies. End on a vague but hopeful note-leading man tries to heal partially zombified son, but we don't know whether it worked or not. I'd like to think it did.
This is short by King's standards-only 450 pages. It cooks along at a fast pace and has some surprising and shocking twists. As usual the character's are the best, including Tom-King's first Homosexual!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

So as promised, more on Deathly Hallows. However I feel a little Harry Pottered-out. So instead of a detailed post (which would be long) I have made a list of my Five Favorite Things about this book...
1. Severus Snape's back story. Yes he's ultimately on Harry's side but it's so much more complex than good and evil. The biggest surprise, Snape and Lilly BFF's! Never saw that coming.
2. The Deathly Hallows. New mythology at this late stage of the game? Yes!
3. Neville Longbottom, he could have been the chosen one. In this book he proves he was equal to the task.
4. Harry's use of the Hallows and Horcruxes for the greater good and not his own purposes.
5. Voldemort's stupidity. He doesn't trust, he has a huge superiority complex, and he's assumptive. I love that part of his undoing was thinking only he knew of the Room of Requirement. Where did he think all that crap came from?