currently reading...

Open Heart by A.B. Yehoshua

The benefits of having friends in your job of a different religion is amazing. My boss knows that I'm an avid reader and let me borrow this book. Written in Hebrew and later translated into english, it brings a sense of familiarity to the narrator; I've been told that since Hebrew is such an old language that many words got lost in time or new words in English do not have  a similar one in Hebrew so it makes a translation even more difficult. The main story is based in Israel and India, as of now (I am barely on chapter 4) I believe it is a novel about love in all its forms, juxtaposing western realism with eastern mysticism. I itch every second that I am not stuck to that book. I will post my review soon.

Last week I read ( finished reading ) The Gravedigger's Daughter by Joyce Carol Oates.

My grandmother passed this book on as a christmas present about two years ago. It literally took me two years to read it. I would open it up and read the first chapter and say ughhhhhh. It wasn't until I finished reading all the books in my mini Cabo library that I decided to give it on last shot, and I am so glad I did.

Oates explores the impact of childhood abuse on the development of a woman's identity. Her intricately designed and compelling novel details the brutal early life of Rebbeca Schwart and follows her into adulthood, one in which the grown woman casts off previous sufferings but never escapes their cruel shadow. The youngest child of an impoverished German Jewish immigrant family, Rebecca endures a barren early life that includes being subjected to an ill-tempered, violent father, the slow and tortured descent of her mother into mental illness and the callous disregard of her two insensitive older brothers.  

Written with excruciating detail, "The Gravedigger's Daughter" is much more than an exploration of one woman's consciousness. Oates has crafted a work that explicitly describes violence, directly confronts social injustice and sensitively describes how a thwarted human spirit heals itself. This is a novel that will unsettle and upset, but it is also a cautionary tale of how identity, however shattered, will undergo reformation and reinvention. Oates may lose a reader or two with her opening ruminations on poverty and family structure for inland immigrants, but those who read on will be rewarded with a challenging drama of fortune and identity in America. In the end, you may love or hate this book, but it is hard not to admire it.

2 thumbs up on my part. 


( Wearing: silence + noise tank top, target leggings, forever 21 boots, t.bytoya black feather necklace, vintage dream catcher necklace )