Reading out loud is like Driving - Which side of the book are you?

When it comes to driving a car, I refuse to have my husband as a passenger. Even when I've gone to pick him up from somewhere, I prefer to slip across to the passenger's seat and let him get behind the wheel. This is not because of sexist opinions that the male should always drive. He's just better at it than I am. He has a perfect sense of direction and finely-tuned reflexes. But most of all, when I drive he clutches the sides of his seat and looks agitated, making digs about how bad I am. He's simply the best person for the job. In the same way, when it comes to reading stories out loud, I believe I'm the best person for the job.

When we first got married, we headed off on a holiday with a trilogy of novels to read together. We'd intended to take turns reading, but it quickly became clear that Andrew wasn't the right person to do it. He was too erratic, often pausing to figure out words he felt tough to get his tongue around. Sometimes, he was so busy just trying to read sentences out loud that he had to pause to glance over them again for their sense of meaning which interrupted the flow. It didn't take long for him to decide that as I enjoy reading out loud, I could do it permanently. I was happy with the deal, as I'd been reading out loud to my mum since I was very small.

Since then, I've had years of opportunities, as I've been homeschooling our three kids. To be honest, I'm not keen on being on the other side of the book and listening. I like to have control. I can choose the right inflections to use in different characters' voices and use accents if possible. I get to utilise dramatic pauses at moments I choose, and emphasise whatever I want to, whether or not it's written in italics. I have some degree of control over how I want my listeners to feel about the characters, as it all comes out in the delivery. I love to be the person who knows what's coming, to anticipate the surprise on my listeners' faces, the gasps of shock or bursts of laughter. Not least, I appreciate it when one of the kids comes to me holding the book, saying, 'It's time to hear another chapter.'

This hobby isn't everyone's cup of tea. I had to smile as I thought of three famous novels in which an unwilling young character is coerced (or forced) into reading out loud to an antagonistic elderly person.

1) Little Women. Jo is a hired companion to rich, crabby old Aunt March (who is actually her great aunt). It's a hassle for poor Jo to be pinned down to a seat, reading the dry old books Aunt March wants to hear. The main thing which helps her bear it is that she can duck into the library to find a book of her own choice for silent reading when the old dame nods off.

2) The Book Thief. Young Liesel Meminger manages to soothe the angst and panic of the neighbours on her street, as they huddle in the bomb shelter, dreading what might happen suddenly. She considers herself to be handing out words, but doesn't expect mean old Frau Holtzapfel, who spits on their door, to come knocking, asking for Liesel to come and keep reading to her in the privacy of her own home. To Liesel's dismay, her mama, Rosa Hubermann, agrees, as Frau Holtzapfel promises to stop the spitting, and to hand over her coffee ration in return.

3) To Kill a Mockingbird. Jem Finch is ordered by his father, Atticus, to read to bedridden, nasty old Mrs Dubose. There is no way he can wriggle out of it, as it's ostensibly his punishment for losing his cool and going berserk in her garden. Even though she behaves very strangely during the reading sessions, not until later does Jem discover the real reason for her request. I'm sure his reading probably did help distract her.

Even though these three situations appear less than ideal on the surface, they show the power inherent in reading out loud, evident in the creation of truces and ties which weren't there in the first place. The power of a good story breaks down walls and barriers between people who, on the surface, are very different. The act of a reader and listener sharing an author's intentions and inspiration is an excellent way to promote good feeling between them, even when it wasn't there to start with. And I'm sure Jo, Liesel and Jem would all look back on those reluctant sessions with nostalgia. Jem's little sister, Scout, who went along for moral support, certainly did.

So I like to be the reader, and my husband and children prefer to be listeners. When it comes to reading aloud, which end of the book do you like to find yourselves?

'The Happiness Project' by Gretchen Rubin

 

2015 Reading Challenge, Week 13 - A Book with Bad Reviews

Although this book has had many positive reviews, it's also had critical ones into the triple figures, some of which have been liked by over 1000 others. The themes of most of them are similar. 1) Rubin, living her charmed life in a multi-million-dollar-earning family, has a nerve to think she can tell normal strugglers how to be happy. 2) Some of her advice is trite, such as clear up your clutter and don't nag your spouse. 3) Why does she claim to be unhappy in the first place, given her rosy circumstances?

I'd already written my review before coming across these negative reviews and articles. Although I had the impression from her book that she was well-to-do, I had no idea of the full extent of Rubin's wealth. In her chapter on money, she admits, 'Jamie and I are in the position not to have to worry about our spending habits' or something like that, which turns out to be the understatement of the century. Some critics suggest the book was written in such a way that readers wouldn't find out, which seemed sneaky on the part of both author and publisher. Why bother hiding the fact of an author's prosperity unless they thought it would cause backlash in the book's reception? It got some flak anyway, but would it have happened to the same extent if they'd been straightforward about her luxurious circumstances? 

I admit, I toyed with an impulse to change my review to fit these new facts. I understood the reviewers who wrote that changing her career from law to writing wasn't the sacrifice she made it sound when money was no issue. In her book, she often likes to say, 'I've got to be true to myself and be Gretchen.'  Since the real Gretchen is rolling in dough and she deliberately hides that fact, I get why people may question whether the real Gretchen matches the Gretchen in the pages of the memoir.

But at the same time, I enjoyed the book. I decided not to change my review. Why should the fact that she has lots of money change the overall impression I had when I didn't know? It happened to be a very good impression. Most of the positive tips I picked up will work regardless of our income. Whether or not she and her publisher made a wise move by deciding to conceal it remains a matter of debate.

                                                             ********************

 
Gretchen Rubin had an epiphany one rainy afternoon in the unlikeliest of places: a city bus. "The days are long, but the years are short," she realized. "Time is passing, and I'm not focusing enough on the things that really matter." In that moment, she decided to dedicate a year to her happiness project.

In this lively and compelling account of that year, Rubin carves out her place alongside the authors of bestselling memoirs such as Julie and Julia, The Year of Living Biblically, and Eat, Pray, Love. With humor and insight, she chronicles her adventures during the twelve months she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific research, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier.

MY THOUGHTS:

The author herself calls this memoir genre 'stunt non-fiction.' They've been abundant in recent years. Their authors spend a year doing something noteworthy and writing about it. In Rubin's case, she decided to boost her happiness level by focusing on a different possible method each month, to determine which worked best. Like many of us, she wasn't clinically depressed but knew there was plenty of room to increase her sense of well-being. I've read quite a few of this genre, and this one turned out to be one of the more helpful and interesting ones. Here's why.

1) She works it around her normal domestic life rather than going off and doing things which would be impossible for many of us. No quitting work or buying rustic old mansions in the country. No pilgrimages to spirituals centres of the world. Her experiences are practical and easy for us to emulate, should we feel inclined.

2) She's not one of those wordy, dry experts in fields such as psychology or cognitive therapy. This means the book isn't crammed with tiny print, waffly language and tiresome graphs, tables and other statistics. The content is lots of memoir and personal anecdote, which I find far more readable and appealing. Instead of expecting us to slough through the heavy stuff, Rubin has done it for us, and made the path far easier to follow.

3) Most importantly for me, she's helped me understand where I've gone wrong in previous happiness attempts. For example, honestly being true to ourselves means we must cross off activities which always sound as if they might be lots of fun, but aren't really designed for us. Rubin mentions having a glamorous wardrobe, fly fishing, steamy jazz clubs, artist studios and collections would be off her list. Mine too. We've got to regret these things, acknowledge that they are not really us and move on. (Personally, I always thought it would be cool to start a non-profit charity or organisation. A book blog, although not half as 'good' sounding, is probably a better fit for me.)

What's more, I unconsciously thought being happy would involve some total personality makeover which I hoped to achieve some day. I'd be happy if I was more out-going and more easy-going, but that cool, chilled character isn't really me. That doesn't mean I can't be very happy my own way, taking into account the levels of introversion and neuroticism with which I seem to have been dealt. In her stories, Rubin repeatedly makes the point, 'I was still basically me.' It's not about changing ourselves but figuring out how we can maximise our personal happiness, given our raw material. That gelled with me.

The eye-openers continued. Through her experiences, Rubin challenged me to see that I shouldn't be deploring my true passions just because they don't strike me as adequate, or seem to yield impressive results. Like her, my main one is books. Reading, writing, blogging, book reviewing, and even the excessive note-taking about apparent trivia which might not seem to interest anyone else. Hey, if it makes me happy, I don't need to excuse it.

This book made me want to chase up some of the references. It made me take too many notes to squeeze into one review. I was left wanting to read over several points again, and buy my own copy. A hard-copy at that. I was actually expecting to scoff a bit at this book, thinking that anyone like Gretchen Rubin, who isn't lacking money or work prestige, isn't really in touch with those of us who struggle with these things. But it turns out the subjects she works on are things any of us can master. I think this book may be life-altering, paradoxically by showing that these changes aren't designed to be life-altering at all, but simply life-enhancing. It deserves full marks.

5 stars. 

'Divine Applause' by Jeff Anderson

 
How will God make himself known to you?

How do we have a relationship with a God we can’t see? There must be more to the Christian life than silence, and more to God than a vacant stare.
 
Divine Applause weaves together biblical insights and personal stories that illustrate the surprising ways God connects with us. Let Jeff Anderson show you how to use your spiritual senses to experience God.
·         Sense God’s personal attention in unmistakable ways.
·         Cultivate a constant awareness of God’s presence.
·         Enjoy the reward of secrets between you and God.
·         Take risks to break out of a status-quo life and connect more directly with God.
·         Discover the intensity of God’s interest in you.

You don’t have to settle for a distant walk with God. He wants you to know that He notices—and that He delights in you.
 
MY THOUGHTS:

This book draws us in with a question we've surely all pondered. How do you form a father/child relationship with somebody who we can't detect with our five senses? The title appealed to me because we all hunger for feedback. I know many people hope to hear, 'Well done, good and faithful servant' in their next life, but what if there are ways we can detect divine applause in the lives we're living? I'm always interested to read about such things. As feedback has proven to be a powerful motivation tool for humans, it's probably not unreasonable to think God has given us means to be attuned to his.

I like the way Jeff Anderson explains that we must learn to see things differently. He has a hearing difficultly, and had to learn different approaches in receiving information at school, which didn't involve his ears. In the same way, we need to stop relying on our physical senses when it comes to God, and learn other techniques when it comes to hearing from him. These involve attuning our spiritual senses, and is what this book is all about. Thinking of it as learning a foreign language makes the whole concept a bit easier.

As a father of young children, Anderson uses frequent anecdotes of life with his family to lead into general principles about our lives with God. At times, the book seemed to drift into other subjects, such as giving and fasting, because these were subjects around which he felt he experienced some of his greatest revelations. For others, they will be different.

One of my favourite aspects of the book is the emphasis that our original purpose was not to evangelise the world but to simply share God's delight. When you think about it, people who successfully do the second may be best at doing the first anyway. Overall, we're encouraged to sharpen our spiritual senses by expecting good things from God.

Thanks to WaterBrook Multnomah and Blogging for Books for my review copy.

3.5 stars

'A Field Guide to Happiness' by Linda Leaming

 
In the West, we have everything we could possibly need or want—except for peace of mind.

So writes Linda Leaming, a harried American who traveled from Nashville, Tennessee, to the rugged Himalayan nation of Bhutan—sometimes called the happiest place on Earth—to teach English and unlearn her politicized and polarized, energetic and impatient way of life.

After losing her luggage immediately upon arrival, Leaming realized that she also had emotional baggage—a tendency toward inaction, a touch of self-absorption, and a hundred other trite, stupid, embarrassing, and inconsequential things—that needed to get lost as well.

MY THOUGHTS:
I enjoy reading happiness literature, and this one has some special features coming from the author's direct experience. She lives in Bhutan most of the year, but returns to America often enough to notice sharp contrasts in general styles of living and attitudes. Maybe these cognitive cultural differences help explain why one group has a high happiness ranking and the other is much lower. It was a very convincing read.

Leaming explains how living in an ancient culture has shaped her to think differently from the way she was programmed growing up. In Bhutan, just getting food and water and keeping warm and dry is more challenging than in the western world, and a bigger source of satisfaction when she pulls it off. As her husband is a native of Bhutan, she has a lot of fun trying to view America through his fresh viewpoint. There are 22 chapters, each focusing on a different approach to happiness. I'll mention some which impacted me most.

1) Western thinkers have rigid expectations. Some of mine look a bit like this. 'It takes this long to get from A to B,' or 'My special brand of tea is always available from this shop,' or 'I'll just take ten minutes to phone Centrelink.' The Bhutanese know better than to think each day will run like clockwork. They consider hitches to be part of a normal day, which is probably closer to the way the world runs. (I realised how deep my expectation tendency runs soon after reading that chapter, when I caught myself praying, 'Please let today go smoothly' and realised it's actually one of my most frequent prayers.)

2) Smiling in the face of annoyance really is powerful. I've sometimes thought this advice comes across as trite and simplistic. This book has been most successful at convincing me that the opposite is true. We're taught to stick firm to our points of view and not allow ourselves to be walked over, but on many occasions, smiling and shrugging is simply the easiest way to get along. 'If you can embrace the absurdity that is all around us, you'll be so much happier and prettier,' she says.

3) Things generally always work out fine one way or another. Some cultures call it karma while others prefer to consider it God's orchestration. I've often made the mistake of behaving as if this isn't true, and that everything depends on me, getting myself anxious and worked up into a state.

4) We westerners try to cram far too much into our days, causing excessive pressure. Leaming says that in Bhutan, she considers it a busy week if she has three things to do, whereas in America, she usually has three things to do between breakfast and lunch. Our culture may have us believe that the person who crams most productivity into a day is the person who has lived the most. Yet what if the opposite is true? These are the sort of people who whiz through life so fast, they miss all sorts of great, unobtrusive wonders. Others who live at a slower pace, doing one thing at a time, are the ones who notice the wonderful details, and end up living the fuller life.

Thanks to NetGalley and Hay House for my review copy   

5 stars

'The Eyes of the Heart' by Embassie Susberry

2015 Reading Challenge, Week 12 - A Book Written by someone under 30.
I discovered this book because I follow the author's review blog. I had no idea what to expect, but I was pretty confident there would be romance, as she gives the books she reads a romance rating. I enjoyed this story, and admire the way in which a writer in her twenties is able to bring a historical period from long before her birth to life. 

Second-Place Winner of the 2011 Women of Faith Writing Contest!
Set in a small Mississippi town during the heart of the Civil Rights era, The Eyes of the Heart is a story about forgiveness, love, fear and hate. It is also a story about Edith Holden, a young woman living in the deep south who finds herself unwillingly confronted with racism, social injustice and her love for a man she is unsure she will ever have.

MY THOUGHTS:

This is a story about two African-American sisters set in the Civil Rights period of the twentieth century. It follows the fortunes of Eddy (Edith) and her sister, Sylvia, from their childhoods to adulthood. It's set in the deep south, Mississippi.

The narrator, Eddy, is in love with Robert, a handsome man with a heart for social justice. She faces the heartache of feeling that she's not his first choice, and the ever-looming threat of danger his path involves. Her sister, Sylvia's story was even more compelling for me, like a modern 'Romeo and Juliet.' She's in love with Nathan, who returns her feelings, but a future together seems utterly out of the question, for he is the son of the wealthy, white land-owner whose mansion their mother cleans.

This novel brings several things to light for me.
1) Even years after the American Civil War, these poor folk had to put up with appalling treatment, keeping them on edge at the best of times, and fearing for their lives at the worst.
2) It's amazing that young people like the Holden sisters were able to grow up with a sense of dignity and self-respect, when being treated with contempt was all they'd ever known. I found it sad that the reflex of ducking for cover was natural from the time they were tiny.

Their story reminded me of reminiscences told by my mother, about what she and her sister used to get up to. They were similar ages in the same decade, and also struggled to make ends meet, but my mother and aunt had it way easier in comparison to Eddy and Sylvia, as they were white girls living in Australia. These similarities just reinforced that no young women should have had to live under the shadow of this novel's heroines.

In spite of the weighty theme, this is an easy story to read, with plenty of lighter moments. At one stage, I thought their mother, Dottie, showed remarkable patience. The girls were supposed to be helping her clean the mansion, but seemed to have a lot of time for reading, chess, play-acting and discussion with Nathan. However, I suppose that can be explained by Dottie's own high regard for the young master of the property, who was unlike any of his relatives.

Having a story told in first person from one character always has its limitations, but Eddy is an astute and wise storyteller who notices lots. I think her voice does restrict all that we can find out about Sylvia and Nathan's romance (as Eddy, of course, wouldn't have been present at every moment of their courtship) but not so much that we don't get the picture and find ourselves emotionally invested.

On the whole, this book brings a significant phase of history to life, showing what previous generations went through so current ones are able to benefit, which is what I like in a story.

4.5 stars

'Slowing Time' by Barbara Mahany

Invites readers to discern the divine in the ordinary moments of everyday and live an examined life where everything is a form of prayer.

MY THOUGHTS:

This book is written like an almanac, giving us plenty to ponder month by month. There are lists of blessings, notifications of ancient religious festivals with suggestions of how to observe them, quotes, recipes, and personal reflections. They are designed with the intention to draw our attention to great, but unobtrusive blessings which we may otherwise overlook.

It reminds me a bit of '1000 Gifts' by Ann Voskamp. It's not always the easiest style of writing to get my head around, being something like a cross between poetry and prose, but is well worth making the effort. I think I find the style a bit difficult to get into at times, because as a fiction writer, I've been taught that our aim is to make any literary techniques totally unobtrusive, so the story flows. This style, however, seems to be written to draw attention to literary devices so we can't help but look at them. It's beautiful, and definitely suits this genre, but is just not what I'm used to.  

I also feel I need to give a caution to readers like myself, from the Southern Hemisphere, before picking up this book. The almanac quality doesn't work for us, as the seasons are back to front. Our summer falls between December and February, and winter between June and August. Although we can always dip into different places to suit our current seasons, this is still a bit of an issue as Barbara Mahany has written it carefully so that readers ought to be shivering at the start of the year and sweltering in the middle.

Thanks to Abingdon Press and NetGalley for my review copy.

3 stars

Let's Bloom where we're Planted

I live in Australia, which as many know, tends to be an obscure country when it comes to the media. Lots of celebrities in the arts have moved overseas to try to 'make it' in places where they believe more is happening. When you look at Australia's situation at the bottom of the globe, it's easy to understand why this may be so. It takes a glance at the whole picture to show how far removed from the rest of the world we are. (Apart from our Oceanic neighbours, such as New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, who share our plight.) It's all very well to say we're surrounded by ocean on either side, but words alone don't paint an adequate picture of just how much Pacific Ocean there is to our east, and Indian Ocean to our west.

Okay, having established that, I remember an interesting message my pastor once gave, about how our position in the world is basically an arbitrary choice made by the world's map makers throughout history. Our planet is out in space, so it could have just as easily been flipped upside down in our Atlas, which would put Australia high in the north. It wasn't done that way though. We are far south in everyone's minds, which has connotations of being 'down there'. We have deserts, kangaroos and blokes slouching around in tank tops and thongs. That's us, in the world's eyes.

So having established that, my state, South Australia, is probably one of the most obscure states in an obscure country. This hit me hard once when I was part of a group of Aussie Christian authors who were talking live online to several American readers. We asked where they would like to go if they were able to visit Australia. The answers, although not surprising, were overwhelming.

'I'd like to see the beautiful eastern coast... Sydney and the Harbour Bridge... the Gold Coast with all the theme parks... it would have to be the Queensland tropics with the Great Barrier Reef... Ayers Rock. How beautiful... I've heard that Tasmania is lovely, with all its produce.' South Australia was mentioned just once, and that was by a lady who had relatives living in Adelaide, who had told her how beautiful it is.

Once I acknowledged that I'm living in the most overlooked state of the most overlooked country, other things began to slot into place. I remember asking my dad, 'Why didn't your father ever become more famous?' He had such a successful boxing career that he'd been asked to retire, to let younger men have a fair go. Yet if you search for my grandfather on the internet, hardly anything comes up. 'Why isn't Red Mitchell's name as widely recognised as Les Darcy's,' I asked.

I took Dad's answer on board without a thought at the time.

'He was only South Australian.' That said it all.

I finally got it when people started suggesting that I might want to change the settings in my books. 'They won't get anywhere if you keep using South Australia. You should make it Sydney. At least the rest of the world has heard of it.'

I don't know about that though. It might not be wise because I'm a South Aussie girl all through. The blood of several generations of others flows through my veins. Some were Germans who wanted to flee religious persecution in their own country, and others were Brits who wanted a brand new start away from the mid-nineteenth century poverty they'd struggled with. They all became South Australians. Although I'm not one of those people who couldn't possibly live anywhere else (such as Emily Bronte and her Yorkshire moors or Heidi with her Swiss Alps), I'm so familiar with my home that the South Aussie authenticity can't help slipping accidentally into my stories. It probably wouldn't work if I tried to adopt another setting.

I use words such as 'Fritz' and 'Fruchocs' assuming that everybody will know what I'm eating. I use long R sounds, pronouncing 'castle' as 'carsel' instead of 'cassel', and 'graph' as 'grarf' instead of 'graf.' I know all about Beehive Corner, the Silver Balls of the Rundle Mall, and the State Bank Christmas pageant without having to research these things. I've always thought of using my own environment for my novels as putting my stamping ground on people's radars. My South Aussie settings have been my trademark, not because I'm doggedly stubborn, but because I'm not sure I could easily change if I tried.

I'm not really sure I'd even want to sacrifice my setting, as it really is a beautiful corner of the world. South Australia has four very distinct seasons. If you were to see a photo of my Adelaide Hills, you'd be able to tell whether it was summer, winter, autumn or spring. When we speak about going to the beach, we're often talking about safe, warm gulf waters which have lost the Southern Ocean chill. It's been a pretty good home for me. At the moment, even though it is the most obscure place in the most obscure place, I tend to think I'll probably keep using it for the time being at least. I'll finish up with this photo, taken in Adelaide last week, of me with the statue of Catherine Helen Spence, a very illustrious South Australian lady who became an author, journalist, politician and well-known suffragist, all from the obscure spot of South Australia. She bloomed where she was planted, and so can we.