#theprodigalsummer

During this summer, I did more than just watch shows with my Netflix account that I could have watched for free on syndicated television. I also read a few books. 

Below, in the same order I read these books, are my personal synopses of the books -- which means that they are so embedded in my ego's experience at the time of reading that there should be very little plot details whatsoever. In fact, if I did my job correctly, you will have no idea what any of the books are actually about.

Anna Karenina.

My circumstances for actually reading this book were ideal: I had nothing to do for days, except hike from village to village in Ireland, drink tea, and then read until I fell asleep. This book is about flopping about in social sets (Anna), and trying your hardest to be an honest person (Levin). In the end, Anna is the loser and Levin is the winner. I think I actually became happier after reading this, because it made caring about social sets seem so silly and, well, obnoxious. 

East of Eden. 

I tried reading this before, but it didn't stick until this summer. Now it's one of my favorites. This picture was the desktop of my work computer, to remind me of good writing and worthy priorities. I took it off because it was distracting whenever I had my desktop projected on a screen for meetings. That's not a very Steinbeck thing to say, maybe i'll reinstate the image.

Cannery Row.

 One thing led to another, and before I knew it, I had read this gem of a book. While reading it, a friend told the story of a girl she knew who got married in the parking lot of a 7-11, because that's where her friends hung out, and she was afraid that they wouldn't be bothered to go anywhere else for the ceremony. That story made the relationships in this book all the more wonderful: full of community and whimsical living. When there was disappointment it was genuine yet recoverable, and when there was a party, it was real. 

Loving what is. 

Summer isn't summer without a self-help book. I haven't read the whole thing, but I think the thesis of it is to become mindful of not attaching truth to every thought you think. Also, you are only creating dissonance within your life by saying something should or shouldn't be a certain way, because that statement is in opposition to reality (like, "this photo shouldn't be blurry," because clearly it is.) 

Into Thin Air. 

This book validated what I had always thought: there is no need to exceed a hike of 14,000 feet. And, even then, it should be done in the most perfect of conditions. This elevation threshold is much less in the event that you have ropes attached to your body. Actually, there is no need for ropes ever. Don't ever dangle from anything.  The elevation threshold is much higher in the event you are in a metal bird, even if it doesn't feel like it should be.  

My favorite line in the book was this:

Hell, before I went to Everest, I'd never been to a funeral. Mortality had remained a conveniently hypothetical concept, an idea to ponder in the abstract. 

I laughed out loud at this point, because this seems like an apologetic statement from Jon Krakauer -- like, almost in shame he was admitting that his experience with Everest jolted him into the reality of death that he had been ignorant of before. I find it funny, because it has taken months of therapy for me to build up a relationship with death where it is nothing more than an idea to ponder in the abstract -- rather than, say, a preoccupation of terror that you can't talk yourself out of, because all your fears of the uncertainties of when and how and what death will be like are completely valid .

Where Did You Go Bernadette? 

I'm part of a bookclub full of people I really like. We read this book, and to be honest, I haven't thought abut it once since I finished it. In fact, those zuchinni muffins with caramel frosting that I made were much more memorable (they contained flaxseed and were gluten free, so they were healthy). It was paired perfectly with the earl grey tea, because somewhere along the line of turning twenty-eight, I stopped drinking coffee after 8:30 am. I'll say one thing about the book. I did like this statement made a father character about an apparent psychological tendency to discount things:

Let’s say you get a crack in your windshield and you’re really upset. Oh no, my windshield, it’s ruined, I can hardly see out of it, this is a tragedy! But you don’t have enough money to fix it, so you drive with it. In a month, someone asks you what happened to your windshield, and you say, What do you mean? Because your brain has discounted it.

I liked this quote, because i'm experiencing the exact same thing with my windshield (though, replace "don't have enough money to fix it," with "can't be bothered to fix it.")

The Prodigal Summer.

 I rounded out the summer with this one. It's about all sorts of things, like not killing predators and solitude. I read this on a weekend where almost everyone I typically spend time with was either out of town or moving, so i could really identify with the woman who lived alone a cabin near the Appalachian trail, except I was surround by concrete and she was surround by wonderful things. Another character described how she felt when she would connect with a hard-to-reach child: 

Crys yelped out her sharp bark of a laugh. Lusa lived for this, to crack her up. It has become her pet secret challenge, to try for these moments when you could see all the lights ome on, ever so briefly, in this child's dark house. 

I liked this so much that I then asked myself why I spend so much time interacting with the data of children, rather than spending time with the actual little humans. 

xxx,