Review: Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver

In her essay collection Barbara Kingsolver brings to us an extended love song to the world we still have. Whether she is contemplating the Grand Canyon, her vegetable garden, motherhood, genetic engineering, or the future of a nation founded on the best of all human impulses, these essays are grounded in the author's belief that our largest problems have grown from the earth's remotest corners as well as our own backyards, and that answers may lie in both those places.
Sometimes grave, occasionally hilarious, and ultimately persuasive, Small Wonder is an examination of the people we seem to be, and what we might yet make of ourselves.

When I first opened this book I had mixed feelings about reading it. On one hand there was a lot of anticipation: I've heard so much about Barbara Kingsolver, I've heard her excellent interview on the BBC World Book Club, I've been meaning to read something by her for the longest time and now was my perfect opportunity. On the other hand I heard that environmental and humanitarian issues are a dominant theme in this collection of essays and I don't tend to make that kind of reading part of my entertainment lineup. When I got to the book club meeting and admitted that I haven't read the book the ladies were unanimous: "Just pick the ones that sound good," they said, "you're not going to miss some deep meaning if you do". And so I did.
I read "Letter to a Daughter at Thirteen" and "Letter to my Mother" first, and the latter almost made me cry. Then I read "Lily's Chickens" and "The One-Eyed Monster" and a handful of others. I skipped over the ones where issues were prominent and stuck to the ones that dealt mostly with people on a personal, intimate, level, and I loved them. Kingsolver made me feel as if I knew her through her writing, as if I could relate to this woman whose life is nothing like mine, but who somehow could understand me, and who I could in turn understand. I suppose it's a sign of a masterful writer if a few essays can make the reader feel close to a stranger, if they can show that no matter the place and the circumstances people really are the same everywhere.
Kingsolver's reputation is deserved and I'm glad that I have the Small Wonder essays a chance. She strikes the perfect balance between fearless frankness and not revealing too much, and her writing brings the reader so close it's almost like you're having a conversation with the author and she's telling you about her life and her beliefs. If you haven't read anything by Kingsolver yet I would recommend that you pick up this collection, it's an excellent example of what this author can do.

Review: Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges

First published in 1945, his Ficciones compressed several centuries' worth of philosophy and poetry into 17 tiny, unclassifiable pieces of prose. He offered up diabolical tigers, imaginary encyclopedias, ontological detective stories, and scholarly commentaries on nonexistent books, and in the process exploded all previous notions of genre. For good or for ill, the blind Argentinian paved the way for a generation's worth of postmodern monkey business - and fiction will never be simply "fiction" again. ~ Mary Park

As I was reading Ficciones I was often stumped because I had trouble reconciling the title of the collection with what I was reading. Oh, I did understand that the pieces were fiction, but they read like philosophical treatises so often that by the time I was halfway through a piece I'd forget how it started or what it was supposed to be about. You understand why it took me longer than usual to finish this book, even by story collection standards.
Fortunately there were a handful of stories that kept me going: The Circular Ruins, The Garden of Forking Paths, The Shape of the Sword, Death and the Compass, and The Secret Miracle had just enough philosophy to elevate them to literary status and just enough genre to make them engaging and easy to follow. These six stories had mystery and intrigue to make the very serious questions or morality, fate and wonder seem more down to earth, and I enjoyed them immensely. Yes, my tastes trend toward the bourgeois when it comes to books, and I'm not ashamed to admit it! Seems G.K. Chesterton thought similarly at least part of the time (see banner quote).
Borges' work is definitely inspiring in that it prompts the reader to think about the various "what if"s of the universe, such as what if we're just a figment of a greater being's imagination, what if there is more than one future, what if our potential is so much greater than we know, what if our understanding of history is fundamentally flawed. And he did have a wonderful way with words. The vividness of his writing reminded me of Ray Bradbury, except that Borges' feels more effortless and graceful. I'm guessing the rest of his books aren't particularly light reading either, but given a choice I'll take Borges' collected works any day.

Review: While I'm Still Myself by Jeremy Mark Lane

A passionate December love affair.
The meeting of an unexpected traveler.
The consequences of protecting a young new acquaintance.
A journey into an unknown past.
In these stories Jeremy Lane eloquently describes the life changing impact of the brief encounter, showing that life and love are not shaped by an entire lifetime, but by the fleeting moments with unexpected people in unexpected places.

This was another review request that I'm very glad to have received. Mr. Lane is an excellent writer whose stories are consistently strong throughout the volume and I enjoyed every one of them. They're all different, dealing with heavy and complex subjects such as the effects of a parents' divorce on the life of a child when he grows up, trusting a stranger, child abuse, etc., but this seriousness and the characters' desire to do something while they're still themselves unites these stories set in different places at different times in history into one whole.
I liked the writing, the characters developed so fully in such a short span of time, the setting of small town America captured so perfectly that having lived in a tiny rural town in the South I couldn't help but wonder at the author's skill. I liked the intimacy of it all, there was never a sense of looking in from the outside, which is always a good thing.
The titular desire of one character in every story wanting to do something while they were still themselves was very effective in some of the stories and not so much in others. On those occasions I wondered what is it these characters anticipated would happen to them that would prevent them from remaining who they were and that was somewhat distracting. I felt that while the intention was excellent in those several stories it was forced and didn't serve the collection as well as it could have.
All in all this is a very enjoyable book and since it is a collection of short stories you can read them in one sitting or one at a time. And yes, you can read the whole book in one sitting, it is small enough to do that and engaging enough to make you not want to put it down unless you have to. Mr. Lane is definitely an author to watch.