Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Review: Educated: A Memoir

Educated: A Memoir Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The words that kept running through my mind as I read this memoir were How sinister, how very sinister . That is the mood of her story.

The author, youngest of seven children, is the victim of a parental lunacy which borders on real evil. She recounts many acts of profound stupidity, stubbornness, and abuse, many which threatened her very life. If only half of them were true, it is astounding to me that she survived, much less went on to earn a PhD at Cambridge. I think it is all true, though.

I'd expect someone who suffered as much as she did at the hands of a sadistic older brother, a heartless and megalomaniacal father, and a double-crossing, self-absorbed mother, to be twitching in a corner with PTSD for decades. Tara fights tooth and nail for her sanity - for her escape.

Trapped for years - a hostage to ignorance and recklessness - she basically educated herself. Very impressive. She describes her parent's homeschool, but there doesn't seem to have been one. They weren't schooled at all. They just stayed home and worked.

I broke one of my cardinal rules when reading this book - I read the reviews of others. I do not do this until I've finished a book, but I found it hard to follow the ages of her siblings and their activities, so I looked for this info. When I did, I found her brother Tyler's review of this book and read it. I also found Drew's review (he was a close friend to Tara when she was in college). There was enough corroboration in these reviews to make me feel a little sick.

I found her starts and stops through college a great source of frustration, although a smooth and straight path could not be expected, I guess. I really wanted her to succeed and was rooting for her to snap out of it. Trauma isn't something you shrug off, though.

Three of the Westover kids went on to earn PhDs and this is an inexplicable, remarkable statistic given their circumstances.

While I read this book, I also read (at the same time) the book Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance. Their stories intersect on the highways of poverty, hopelessness, abuse and ruin. Vance seemed to come through his ordeals with less resentment than Westover. I believe he had more love in his storm-tossed days than did Westover. His memoir did not have the sinister mood. They each managed to achieve the most respectable educations available in the world but I think that Westover has not outrun her ghosts as well as Vance has outrun his. One can hardly blame her. Her mother's essential oils business took off - an undeserving slice of kismet - and her parents at the time of the writing were financially well off. This would be hard for any scrapyard-imprisoned, abused, and degraded young lady to accept.

It is hard to accept parents who throw their own kids to wolves and who believe their own lies so thoroughly. I am delighted that Tara survived to earn the education and respect she deserves and to share her story with the world.



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Review: Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Vance has managed to capture the heart and soul of the hillbilly and of the forgotten, hopeless, poor, white working class, without detracting one iota from their humanity. Phenomenal.

I laughed out loud, I shook my head, and I wondered over how vile life can be for many – for those who are left behind. Decades of disregard and disrespect created a kind of cultural corpse in Appalachia but Vance breathes new life into it, demanding that it be better understood. Yes, he succeeds.

If you are someone who has never taken a spin within the rings of Appalachian poverty or who has no idea what Mountain Dew Mouth looks like, I strongly recommend this book. I simply adored the cussing, rifle-slinging Mamaw. I have known women like this – have learned from them - and have even been told that I can sound like one when the situation warrants it.

The most beautiful part of this book is what is missing. Bitterness, resentment, anger, revenge and general discontentment with what had been his lot in life – these are absent. He went to the school of hard knocks. He was given zero opportunity. He was of the people and the culture which gets written off. Yet, miraculously, things worked out well for him. I think he knows how lucky he is.

I actually read this book while reading (at the same time) the book Educated by Tara Westover. Both are memoirs. Both Vance and Westover grew up in abject poverty. Both had whack-a-doodle parenting, early (and repeated) childhood trauma, and highly improbable chances of acquiring a sound education or a future filled with opportunity. But, they both prevailed over their damaging circumstances, with an almost unbelievable rebirth into the world of “The Accomplished”. Yet the mood of these books could not be different. Vance is hope. Westover is not.

Vance alone emerges without malice toward the people in his life - people who certainly harmed him and held him back. I am not fool enough to think that the trauma of Vance’s childhood has left no scars. But I really appreciate that his memoir focuses on the good and that he seeks to explain not convict or condemn. And he does interpret the hillbilly experience - he spends just the right number of pages explaining how these salt-of-the-earth people became the scourge of it (in the eyes of many) and he does this without getting preachy.

If you read this book, you will learn. You will have a better understanding of our country and you might tap into your own inner hillbilly, embracing the profane but precise platitudes of the marvelous Mamaw.




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Monday, October 8, 2018

Review: The Road to Character

The Road to Character The Road to Character by David Brooks
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is like no other book I have read. It will make you stop. Stop and reflect. This is not a self-help book. It is a book of Truth – not the modern, moldable or expendable kind of truth, but hard Truth.

In this book, The Road to Character, Truth makes an appearance in every story, in every soul, in every chapter – and within the first few pages, this Truth will make an appearance in your mind and in your life, whether you welcome it or not.

Mr. Brooks had a revelation, transparent and uncomplicated, about the way Americans used to be, several decades ago. We were once modest, focused on the same worthy goals, eager to sacrifice. Unable to shake this sense that (not so very long ago) humanity was once a profoundly quieter, humbler, and infinitely more polite breed, he began to study. He researched, he thought, and, then, he wrote this book.

In describing this fundamental shift, he does not shove the blame onto technology and the age of the selfie, although it has unquestionably contributed to the vapid and the vacuous. Brooks goes far beyond this obvious problem.

To illustrate the morality shift he identifies early in the book, he uses short biographies of people who accomplished things, really big things, while at the same time confronting their own flaws, weaknesses, and blunders. These biographies are as captivating as they are uncommon. He focuses on people who (in their time) were not super-famous, but who did good things – very good things - in the course of confronting their own pride, defects, and vices. They were humble; they were effective.

His central point is that happiness and character arise when we are struggling against our own natures, when we keep digging into ourselves to be better, to do better. He points out again and again that people who radiate moral joy are people who are inclined to be useful but who don’t need to prove anything to the world. They don’t Tweet, Instagram, email or Facebook their acts of ordinary sacrificial service because they possess a modest spirit; it does not occur to them to try to impress anyone. They do not boast, and they do not make statements of dogged certainty, because they have shed that kind of arrogance. The terribly hard work of defeating one’s own weaknesses has a quieting effect on the self, Brooks says. I paused on this truth for a long time.

We recognize these people of depth and character. They are so distinctive because they have successfully muted the sound of their own egos. They have solved some of life’s essential problems and this has deepened their very souls. They know it is hard. They have learned what is most important and they will never shout at you about what is right or what is wrong.

This is the best book I’ve ever read on how not to be a loser – how not to reach a certain age only to discover that your days were filled with all the wrong stuff.

It made a big impression on me. I think it will for a very long time.


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Saturday, October 6, 2018

Review: The Kitchen House

The Kitchen House The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am getting too old for books like this. I lost two nights of sleep and full neck mobility, because, although exhausted and injured, I simply could not stop reading.

What a story. It is early 19th Century and a 7 year old orphaned Irish girl is sent to a tobacco plantation in the antebellum South where she lives and works with the slaves in the "kitchen house". Then, life begins to happen; my word, each chapter was a fresh bucket of cold water thrown in my face.

Through her magic, Grissom makes every blow and every piece of human wretchedness real. She also reminds us what bravery and love can endure, and why love is the only thing that can save us from ourselves.





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