book review: Juliet

 

I just finished reading Juliet by Anne Fortier. It took me about a third of the way through to actually get into the book, but ended up being pretty exciting and entertaining in a Dan Brown-meets-Shakespeare in Love kind of way. 

The story goes back and forth between the present day and 1340 Italy, and traces the story of the "original" Romeo and Juliet.  Julie Jacobs aka Giulietta Tolomei is a modern 25 year old who follows her past to Siena, Italy to finish her late mother's quest of finding out her true ancestry. It turns out she is indeed descended from the original Giulietta Tolomei who inspired Shakespeare's story, and frequent flashbacks to the past reveal the original tale of the star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet.

The plots in both time periods involve feuding families, murder, love, legendary treasure, and lots of shocking twists and turns. Honestly, the modern story was pretty cheesy and hard to buy, but the historical bits were very colorful and entertaining. As we all know, the story of the original Juliet ends in tragedy, but Julie Jacobs' story ends with an Indiana Jones-style trek  through the bowels of Middle Age cathedrals and catecombs in search of Romeo and Juliet's hidden grave. 

Worth a read, mainly for the entertaining historical fiction.

 

books I'm reading

So, being unemployed has drastically improved my reading for fun AND workout habits. Silver lining! Here's a few books I've been inhaling recently.

His Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass) by Philip Pullman

Ok I first read these in junior high and The Golden Compass is one of my favorite books of all time. The main character is a twelve year old so it's easy to lump them into "young adult fantasy," but the themes are really intense-- we're talking religion, politics, science, plus the literary quality puts them more on the Narnia end of the spectrum than the Twilight end. And there is no cheesy romance factor, in a good way! I have no idea how I even comprehended these when I was 12. Definitely worth a re-visit. And the movie is pretty good too.

Tara Road by Maeve Binchy

This was my "pretty cover" grab from the library, and it is a typical heartwarming Oprah choice. Two women faced with tough life challenges decide to swap houses. One goes to New England and one goes to Dublin, and they encounter many entertaining and deeply developed characters and ultimately discover great things about themselves and work through their challenges to get to a happy ending. I liked how it was written, kind of in a vignette style like the movie Love Actually that lets you become involved with all the many many many characters without feeling really overwhelmed with sheer number of them. One quirk that I COULDN'T get over though was the inability of the author to create believable American dialogue. So, the Americans talk like the Irish. Good thing that the majority of the book took place in Ireland.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

I love love love Steinbeck. And I'm making a big effort to mix some classic quality literature into my fun entertainment reading. The Grapes of Wrath is probably the best novel about the Great Depression that has ever been written. Steinbeck alternates chapters of plot with chapters that describe the land and create the atmosphere of the dust bowl. Our issues these days don't even come close. Confession: I didn't finish this book before it was due back to the library and I gave it up, mainly because it was so vivid that I could practically taste the dust and despair in my mouth and I haven't been in the mood for soul crushers lately. BUT I will finish it someday!

Have you read any good books lately?



book review: prodigal summer

(pic and book here)

I think that one of the best things about being done with school is the ability to read for fun, guilt free.  I don't have a TV and spent a few weeks without internet as well, so I have really been pounding out the books this summer! This book has been my favorite so far, by a long shot. Barbara Kingsolver is one of the rare authors who can write a compelling and juicy piece of fiction that completely sucks you in and entertains you without losing the quality or depth of the literature itself. Prodigal Summer, true to its name, is a perfect summer read. It is essentially three mini-novels-in-one, following the lives of three completely different characters throughout the course of one summer in southern Appalachia. 

There is the crotchety old man (ala Up) who is lost after the death of his wife, trying to navigate a modern and changing world while laboring on his life work of hybridizing a blight-resistant strain of American chestnut...and worrying about what will happen to the trees after he is gone.

There is the reclusive Forest Service woodswoman who lives alone up the mountain, looking after the wildlife and making an amazing discovery that is threatened by the (attractive and younger) wandering hunter who walks into her life and disrupts her solitude.

Finally, there is the young entomologist from "the city", who finds herself stranded on a farm and healing after a tragedy, struggling to fit in with the tight-knit family who has owned the farm for generations, and also trying to assert her own independence and realize her dreams. 

The stories of the three characters overlap, and you can see how their lives are beginning to merge towards the end. This book will probably change the way you look at the natural world, and is definitely worth a visit!

Movie Review: Man on Wire

[photo]

Since I am too poor for cable 

(confession: I missed out on the digital revolution thing and haven't even had basic tv for 2 years)

I have been SUPER excited about the Netflix subscription that Ben and I finally bit the bullet and ordered.

Now we are among the millions of Americans who are contributing to the demise of the neighborhood movie store, sucked into the race to see how fast we can turn movies around to maximize the nine dollars that are being sucked out of my account each month. (hmm when you put it like that....)

One of the perks of Netflix is the (usually weird, old, or obscure) movies that you can stream for free online anytime. Or while waiting for the next movie on your queue to be shipped. BTW, I love how I am apparently so fluent in the language of Netflix. 

Last night we watched the documentary "Man on Wire," and it was kind of strange but very interesting. So I am going to review it!

This documentary is about the 1970's saga of Phillipe Petit, a crazy French self-taught wirewalker, and his life-consuming OBSESSION to walk between the Twin Towers. 

Yes that's right: string a tightrope between (what was then) the tallest buildings in the WORLD.  And he did it!  And survived to make a documentary! I honestly don't know why I had never heard of this before.

All of the major players in this "coup" tell the complete story through their interviews. It was insane. They spent years trying to figure out how to make this happen, since it was obviously illegal so the whole thing had the feel of a legit high-profile heist. Plus they were in France, and the WTC was being built in New York, so Phillipe had to somehow travel back and forth to scope out the location and take copious notes for his models.  They didn't even know if it was going to work until they tried.  

A fascinating part of the movie (what probably made the whole thing) is actual footage of the construction of the towers in the 70's and Phillipe and his friends hanging out and scheming the whole thing back in France.  There is very little of the cheesy Lifetime-movie-esque reenactments with fake actors.

(Unfortunately, the little bits of reenactments ARE cheesy. The reenactments that Phillipe does during his actual interviews are hilarious though.)

Man on Wire is a story about one man's dream, as crazy and psychotic as it was, and an artistic performance that captivated the world at the time.  It will give you chills, especially if you are afraid of heights!  It's definitely worth a watch.

Book Review: Her Fearful Symmetry

(no spoiler ahead, don't worry).

Back in the glorious, long-gone days of Christmas Break when I had nothing to do all day except sit on the couch and read books, I finished Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry in oh, about two days.  DEFINITELY the best book I have read in a lonnnng time.  I read The Time Traveler's Wife so long ago that I can't remember enough details to compare the two books, but I would say if you liked that book you WILL LOVE this one.  It doesn't really fit into a specific genre; part ghost story, part love story, part life-contemplation.  Niffenegger has an amazing gift in making a non-realistic fantasy situation seem completely believable and never cheesy, and she is an all-around amazingly talented writer.  I rarely get sucked into a book deep enough to laugh out loud or actually cry but this book made me do both at certain points.  At the same time, it was serious enough to be entertaining and exciting on a much deeper level than typical popular fiction, but never too depressing that I had a negative reaction to the story (unlike certain movies I have seen recently....ha).  Plus, I am connected to the author by only two or three degrees of separation (or one? I don't know how it works), which I think is COMPLETELY AWESOME and I would probably be starstruck and intimidated if I ever met her.

Overall, a MUST READ for anyone, regardless of whether or not you have read or liked or seen TTTW. Amazing.

(photo source)

Have you read it? What did you think?

Book Review: The Women

T.C. Boyle's The Women is a historical fiction/biography on the life of the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, as narrated by a fictional Japanese apprentice and presented through the interactions of Wright and his four wives and lovers (thus the title).  I started reading this book because Wright was a midwestern architectural icon, and I've been to the Chicago suburb of Oak Park where he built several houses.  I'm not the biggest fan of the Prairie-style (sry Ben) but I thought it would be interesting to learn about his life, which was evidently quite juicy.  Since the book focuses on the perspectives of Wright's "women" instead of his own, it is a revealing and entertaining way to learn about him--evidently an eccentric egotistic jerk. The book is primarily fiction, but is loosely based on reality (the timeline of his life, his main relationships, etc.).  I don't know how accurately the personalities of some characters were portrayed because they are CRAAAAZY!!! but maybe they actually were....It was a bit difficult to read at times because it is told in reverse chronological order, starting with his last wife and proceeding backwards from there; as a result, it is easy to predict what previously happened, there is no real climax, and the plot loses a lot of emotional...hooks? Plus the "narrator" inserts distracting little anecdotes in the footnotes of random pages.  Overall, the book was entertaining but not gripping.  I liked it and learned a lot about architecture in the early 1900's, the media and press, and Japanese culture.  I would recommend it if you are interested in Frank Lloyd Wright or early/mid 1900's society.