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185. Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Science, Psychology, Self-Improvement

336 pages, published April 4, 2016

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

Anders Ericsson, the author of Peak, has devoted his career to expertise.  He shares the results of years of research in which he concludes that the best in almost every field (from Tennis to Violin to Chess to Surgery, etc.) are made, not born.  What matters much more than the genetic material you are born with is how and how much you develop your skills.  The key is the concept of “deliberate practice” in which you use feedback on your performance to hone your skills.

 

Quotes 

“The reason that most people don’t possess these extraordinary physical capabilities isn’t because they don’t have the capacity for them, but rather because they’re satisfied to live in the comfortable rut of homeostasis and never do the work that is required to get out of it. They live in the world of “good enough.” The same thing is true for all the mental activities we engage in.”

 

“you have to keep upping the ante: run farther, run faster, run uphill. If you don’t keep pushing and pushing and pushing some more, the body will settle into homeostasis, albeit at a different level than before, and you will stop improving.”

 

“This is a fundamental truth about any sort of practice: If you never push yourself beyond your comfort zone, you will never improve.”

 

“So here we have purposeful practice in a nutshell: Get outside your comfort zone but do it in a focused way, with clear goals, a plan for reaching those goals, and a way to monitor your progress. Oh, and figure out a way to maintain your motivation.”

 

“Consider this: Most people live lives that are not particularly physically challenging. They sit at a desk, or if they move around, it’s not a lot. They aren’t running and jumping, they aren’t lifting heavy objects or throwing things long distances, and they aren’t performing maneuvers that require tremendous balance and coordination. Thus they settle into a low level of physical capabilities—enough for day-to-day activities and maybe even hiking or biking or playing golf or tennis on the weekends, but far from the level of physical capabilities that a highly trained athlete possesses.”

 

“Learning isn’t a way of reaching one’s potential but rather a way of developing it.”

 

“The best way to get past any barrier is to come at it from a different direction, which is one reason it is useful to work with a teacher or coach.”

 

“If you talk to these extraordinary people, you find that they all understand this at one level or another. They may be unfamiliar with the concept of cognitive adaptability, but they seldom buy into the idea that they have reached the peak of their fields because they were the lucky winners of some genetic lottery. They know what is required to develop the extraordinary skills that they possess because they have experienced it firsthand. One of my favorite testimonies on this topic came from Ray Allen, a ten-time All-Star in the National Basketball Association and the greatest three-point shooter in the history of that league. Some years back, ESPN columnist Jackie MacMullan wrote an article about Allen as he was approaching his record for most three-point shots made. In talking with Allen for that story, MacMullan mentioned that another basketball commentator had said that Allen was born with a shooting touch—in other words, an innate gift for three-pointers. Allen did not agree. “I’ve argued this with a lot of people in my life,” he told MacMullan. “When people say God blessed me with a beautiful jump shot, it really pisses me off. I tell those people, ‘Don’t undermine the work I’ve put in every day.’ Not some days. Every day. Ask anyone who has been on a team with me who shoots the most. Go back to Seattle and Milwaukee, and ask them. The answer is me.” And, indeed, as MacMullan noted, if you talk to Allen’s high school basketball coach you will find that Allen’s jump shot was not noticeably better than his teammates’ jump shots back then; in fact, it was poor. But Allen took control, and over time, with hard work and dedication, he transformed his jump shot into one so graceful and natural that people assumed he was born with it. He took advantage of his gift—his real gift.”

 

“Even the most motivated and intelligent student will advance more quickly under the tutelage of someone who knows the best order in which to learn things, who understands and can demonstrate the proper way to perform various skills, who can provide useful feedback, and who can devise practice activities designed to overcome particular weaknesses.”

 

“In a field you’re already familiar with—like your own job—think carefully about what characterizes good performance and try to come up with ways to measure that, even if there must be a certain amount of subjectivity in your measurement. Then look for those people who score highest in the areas you believe are key to superior performance. Remember that the ideal is to find objective, reproducible measures that consistently distinguish the best from the rest, and if that ideal is not possible, approximate it as well as you can.”

 

My Take

Peak is a fascinating book that I couldn’t put down.  As most people do, I had always assumed that people, who were the best in their fields, for example chess grand masters, were born with a natural talent or ability.  In Peak, long-time expertise researcher Anders Ericsson puts the lie to that belief.  Ericsson convincingly demonstrates that our human potential is more a function of how and how much we do to develop it rather than resulting from a genetic lottery.  The subtext in Peak is also interesting, i.e. you can be an expert in any chosen field, but are you willing to put in the enormous sacrifice to do so?  For my part, the answer is absolutely not.   I would much rather be a generalist and good at a variety of different things than be the best in one limited area.  However, there are a lot of Olympic athletes who would disagree with me.

 

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184. The Remains of the Day

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Kazuo Ishiguro

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, World War II

258 pages, published September 12, 1990

Reading Format:  Audio Book on Hoopla

 

Summary

The Remains of the Day is a compelling portrait of Stevens, the perfect English butler and of the changing landscape in England after World War II.   After devoting more than 30 years of his life to service at Darlington Hall, Stevens embarks on a drive through the English countryside to reconnect with Miss Kenton, who served for a period as the Housekeeper at Darlington and who was the closest thing to a romantic relationship for Stevens during his life.  As Stevens’ story slowly unfolds, a life of blind dedication, missed opportunities and chances not taken is revealed and we are left with the portrait of a tragic man who missed out on a bigger life.

Quotes 

“What can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished? The hard reality is, surely, that for the likes of you and I, there is little choice other than to leave our fate, ultimately, in the hands of those great gentlemen at the hub of this world who employ our services. What is the point in worrying oneself too much about what one could or could not have done to control the course one’s life took? Surely it is enough that the likes of you and I at least try to make our small contribution count for something true and worthy. And if some of us are prepared to sacrifice much in life in order to pursue such aspirations, surely that is in itself, whatever the outcome, cause for pride and contentment.”

 

“If you are under the impression you have already perfected yourself, you will never rise to the heights you are no doubt capable of.”

 

“The evening’s the best part of the day. You’ve done your day’s work. Now you can put your feet up and enjoy it.”

 

“But what is the sense in forever speculating what might have happened had such and such a moment turned out differently? One could presumably drive oneself to distraction in this way. In any case, while it is all very well to talk of ‘turning points’, one can surely only recognize such moments in retrospect. Naturally, when one looks back to such instances today, they may indeed take the appearance of being crucial, precious moments in one’s life; but of course, at the time, this was not the impression one had. Rather, it was as though one had available a never-ending number of days, months, years in which to sort out the vagaries of one’s relationship with Miss Kenton; an infinite number of further opportunities in which to remedy the effect of this or that misunderstanding. There was surely nothing to indicate at the time that such evidently small incidents would render whole dreams forever irredeemable.”

 

“He chose a certain path in life, it proved to be a misguided one, but there, he chose it, he can say that at least. As for myself, I cannot even claim that. You see, I trusted. I trusted in his lorship’s wisdom. All those years I served him, I trusted I was doing something worthwhile. I can’t even say I made my own mistakes. Really – one has to ask oneself – what dignity is there in that?”

 

“What do you think dignity’s all about?’  The directness of the inquiry did, I admit, take me rather by surprise. ‘It’s rather a hard thing to explain in a few words, sir,’ I said. ‘But I suspect it comes down to not removing one’s clothing in public.”

 

“After all, what can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished?”

 

“But that doesn’t mean to say, of course, there aren’t occasions now and then – extremely desolate occasions – when you think to yourself: ‘What a terrible mistake I’ve made with my life.’ And you get to thinking about a different life, a better life you might have had. For instance, I get to thinking about a life I may have had with you, Mr. Stevens. And I suppose that’s when I get angry about some trivial little thing and leave. But each time I do, I realize before long – my rightful place is with my husband. After all, there’s no turning back the clock now. One can’t be forever dwelling on what might have been. One should realize one has as good as most, perhaps better, and be grateful.”

 

“It is sometimes said that butlers only truly exist in England. Other countries, whatever title is actually used, have only manservants. I tend to believe this is true. Continentals are unable to be butlers because they are as a breed incapable of the emotional restraint which only the English race are capable of. Continentals – and by and large the Celts, as you will no doubt agree – are as a rule unable to control themselves in moments of a strong emotion, and are thus unable to maintain a professional demeanour other than in the least challenging of situations. If I may return to my earlier metaphor – you will excuse my putting it so coarsely – they are like a man who will, at the slightest provocation, tear off his suit and his shirt and run about screaming. In a word, “dignity” is beyond such persons. We English have an important advantage over foreigners in this respect and it is for this reason that when you think of a great butler, he is bound, almost by definition, to be an Englishman.”

 

“The rest of my life stretches out as an emptiness before me.”

 

My Take

I saw the excellent film version of The Remains of the Day in 1993 when it was first released and was struck by how sad it was that the protagonist Stevens never dared to take even a small risk in the service of emotional connection with another human being.  The book version, which won the Man Booker Prize in 1989, is just as good and provides even greater insight into this emotionally stunted man.  It also provides a compelling portrait of post World War II England and how the class system is still alive and well, but changing fast.  The Remains of the Day is a powerful reminder that you need to live now and connect with your fellow human beings on a deep and personal level so that you don’t get to the end of your life and regret all the chances not taken.

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182. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Yuval Noah Harari

Genre:  Non-Fiction, History, Science, Philosophy, Anthropology

450 pages, published February 1, 2017

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

The follow up to Yuval Noah Harari’s very successful book Sapiens, Homo Deus takes a wide ranging look at humanity’s future and our the movement to bring immortality to humans.  Harari explains that after taming famine, plague and war, we are entering the next stage of evolution where we are continuously biologically upgrading ourselves, we overcome death and create artificial life and all the opportunities and problems that may come with this brave new world.

Quotes 

“In 2012 about 56 million people died throughout the world; 620,000 of them died due to human violence (war killed 120,000 people, and crime killed another 500,000). In contrast, 800,000 committed suicide, and 1.5 million died of diabetes.23 Sugar is now more dangerous than gunpowder.”

 

“This is the best reason to learn history: not in order to predict the future, but to free yourself of the past and imagine alternative destinies. Of course this is not total freedom – we cannot avoid being shaped by the past. But some freedom is better than none.”

 

“Centuries ago human knowledge increased slowly, so politics and economics changed at a leisurely pace too. Today our knowledge is increasing at breakneck speed, and theoretically we should understand the world better and better. But the very opposite is happening. Our new-found knowledge leads to faster economic, social and political changes; in an attempt to understand what is happening, we accelerate the accumulation of knowledge, which leads only to faster and greater upheavals. Consequently we are less and less able to make sense of the present or forecast the future. In 1016 it was relatively easy to predict how Europe would look in 1050. Sure, dynasties might fall, unknown raiders might invade, and natural disasters might strike; yet it was clear that in 1050 Europe would still be ruled by kings and priests, that it would be an agricultural society, that most of its inhabitants would be peasants, and that it would continue to suffer greatly from famines, plagues and wars. In contrast, in 2016 we have no idea how Europe will look in 2050. We cannot say what kind of political system it will have, how its job market will be structured, or even what kind of bodies its inhabitants will possess.”

 

“People are usually afraid of change because they fear the unknown. But the single greatest constant of history is that everything changes.”

 

“No clear line separates healing from upgrading. Medicine almost always begins by saving people from falling below the norm, but the same tools and know-how can then be used to surpass the norm.”

 

“Sapiens rule the world because only they can weave an intersubjective web of meaning: a web of laws, forces, entities and places that exist purely in their common imagination. This web allows humans alone to organise crusades, socialist revolutions and human rights movements.”

 

“Yet in truth the lives of most people have meaning only within the network of stories they tell one another.”

 

“History isn’t a single narrative, but thousands of alternative narratives. Whenever we choose to tell one, we are also choosing to silence others.”

 

“The glass ceiling of happiness is held in place by two stout pillars, one psychological, the other biological. On the psychological level, happiness depends on expectations rather than objective conditions. We don’t become satisfied by leading a peaceful and prosperous existence. Rather, we become satisfied when reality matches our expectations. The bad news is that as conditions improve, expectations balloon. Dramatic improvements in conditions, as humankind has experienced in recent decades, translate into greater expectations rather than greater contentment. If we don’t do something about this, our future achievements too might leave us as dissatisfied as ever.”

 

“The most common reaction of the human mind to achievement is not satisfaction, but craving for more.”

 

“Each and every one of us has been born into a given historical reality, ruled by particular norms and values, and managed by a unique economic and political system. We take this reality for granted, thinking it is natural, inevitable and immutable. We forget that our world was created by an accidental chain of events, and that history shaped not only our technology, politics and society, but also our thoughts, fears and dreams. The cold hand of the past emerges from the grave of our ancestors, grips us by the neck and directs our gaze towards a single future. We have felt that grip from the moment we were born, so we assume that it is a natural and inescapable part of who we are. Therefore we seldom try to shake ourselves free, and envision alternative futures.”

 

“In essence, terrorism is a show. Terrorists stage a terrifying spectacle of violence that captures our imagination and makes us feel as if we are sliding back into medieval chaos. Consequently states often feel obliged to react to the theatre of terrorism with a show of security, orchestrating immense displays of force, such as the persecution of entire populations or the invasion of foreign countries. In most cases, this overreaction to terrorism poses a far greater threat to our security than the terrorists themselves.”

 

“Whereas in 2010 obesity and related illnesses killed about 3 million people, terrorists killed a total of 7,697 people across the globe.”

 

“For the first time in history, more people die today from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals combined. In the early twenty-first century, the average human is far more likely to die from bingeing at McDonald’s than from drought, Ebola or an al-Qaeda attack.”

 

“Religion is a deal, whereas spirituality is a journey.”

 

“You want to know how super-intelligent cyborgs might treat ordinary flesh-and-blood humans? Better start by investigating how humans treat their less intelligent animal cousins. It’s not a perfect analogy, of course, but it is the best archetype we can actually observe rather than just imagine.”

 

“Fiction isn’t bad. It is vital. Without commonly accepted stories about things like money, states or corporations, no complex human society can function. We can’t play football unless everyone believes in the same made-up rules, and we can’t enjoy the benefits of markets and courts without similar make-believe stories. But stories are just tools. They shouldn’t become our goals or our yardsticks. When we forget that they are mere fiction, we lose touch with reality. Then we begin entire wars `to make a lot of money for the cooperation’ or ‘to protect the national interest’. Corporations, money and nations exist only in our imagination. We invented them to serve us; why do we find ourselves sacrificing our life in their service.”

“In fact, as time goes by, it becomes easier and easier to replace humans with computer algorithms, not merely because the algorithms are getting smarter, but also because humans are professionalising. Ancient hunter-gatherers mastered a very wide variety of skills in order to survive, which is why it would be immensely difficult to design a robotic hunter-gatherer. Such a robot would have to know how to prepare spear points from flint stones, how to find edible mushrooms in a forest, how to use medicinal herbs to bandage a wound, how to track down a mammoth and how to coordinate a charge with a dozen other hunters. However, over the last few thousand years we humans have been specialising. A taxi driver or a cardiologist specialises in a much narrower niche than a hunter-gatherer, which makes it easier to replace them with AI.”

 

“Algorithm’ is arguably the single most important concept in our world. If we want to understand our life and our future, we should make every effort to understand what an algorithm is, and how algorithms are connected with emotions. An algorithm is a methodical set of steps that can be used to make calculations, resolve problems and reach decisions. An algorithm isn’t a particular calculation, but the method followed when making the calculation. For example, if you want to calculate the average between two numbers, you can use a simple algorithm. The algorithm says: ‘First step: add the two numbers together. Second step: divide the sum by two.’ When you enter the numbers 4 and 8, you get 6. When you enter 117 and 231, you get 174.”

 

“In the twenty-first century our personal data is probably the most valuable resource most humans still have to offer, and we are giving it to the tech giants in exchange for email services and funny cat videos.”

 

“If Kindle is upgraded with face recognition and biometric sensors, it can know what made you laugh, what made you sad and what made you angry. Soon, books will read you while you are reading them.”

 

“The Theory of Relativity makes nobody angry because it doesn’t contradict any of our cherished beliefs. Most people don’t care an iota whether space and time are absolute or relative. If you think it is possible to bend space and time, well be my guest. …In contrast, Darwin has deprived us of our souls. If you really understand the Theory of Evolution, you understand that there is no soul. This is a terrifying thought, not only to devote Christians and Muslims, but also to many secular people who don’t hold any clear religious dogma, but nevertheless, want to believe that each human possess an eternal, individual essence that remains unchanged throughout life and can survive even death intact.”

 

My Take

The best word to describe Homo Deus is fascinating.  Just read through the quotes that I pulled out from this book and you will see what I mean.  Author Yuval Harari explores many and varied topics (evolution, our relationship with animals, religion, whether we have a soul, privacy, biomedical upgrades, what will provide meaning, etc.) that concern the future of humankind and he has some very intriguing concepts to share.  I found particularly interesting his discussion of how almost everything in our lives is a story and that our ability to agree with others on the stories we tell is what has allowed us to make such amazing progress as a species.  For example, money is an agreed upon story.  If we stopped believing that pieces of papers (or other representations) had value, then our society would quickly collapse.  At some point, I will have to reread this book. There are simply too many ideas in it for my brain to fully absorb them during one reading.  Highly recommended.

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178. Magpie Murders

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Michael Koss

Author:   Anthony Horowitz

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Crime, Thriller, Suspense

496 pages, published June 6, 2017

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

When editor Susan Ryeland is given the manuscript of Alan Conway’s latest mystery novel, she has no reason to think it will be much different from any of his others.  After working with the bestselling crime writer for years, she’s intimately familiar with his detective, Atticus Pünd, who solves mysteries that occur in quaint English villages.  In the vein of Agatha Christie, Alan’s traditional formula has proved hugely successful.  When the new book (which is included for us to read) abruptly ends before the dénouement, things start to get very interesting as we are thrust into a completely different, yet inherently related, murder mystery.

 

Quotes 

“But I’m not sure it actually matters what we read. Our lives continue along the straight lines that have been set out for us. Fiction merely allows us a glimpse of the alternative. Maybe that’s one of the reasons we enjoy it.”

 

“You must know that feeling when it’s raining outside and the heating’s on and you lose yourself, utterly, in a book. You read and you read and you feel the pages slipping through your fingers until suddenly there are fewer in your right hand than there are in your left and you want to slow down but you still hurtle on towards a conclusion you can hardly bear to discover.”

 

“Rumours and malicious gossip are like bindweed. They cannot be cut back, even with the sword of truth. I can, however, offer you this comfort. Given time, they will wither and die of their own volition.”

 

“It’s strange when you think about it. There are hundreds and hundreds of murders in books and television. It would be hard for narrative fiction to survive without them. And yet there are almost none in real life, unless you happen to live in the wrong area. Why is it that we have such a need for murder mystery? And what is it that attracts us? The crime, or the solution? Do we have some primal need of bloodshed because our own lives are so safe, so comfortable?”

 

“As far as I’m concerned, you can’t beat a good whodunnit: the twists and turns, the clues and the red herrings and then, finally, the satisfaction of having everything explained to you in a way that makes you kick yourself because you hadn’t seen it from the start.”

 

“he had expressed the belief that everything in life had a pattern and that a coincidence was simply the moment when that pattern became briefly visible.”

 

“I had chosen to play the detective—and if there is one thing that unites all the detectives I’ve ever read about, it’s their inherent loneliness. The suspects know each other. They may well be family or friends. But the detective is always the outsider. He asks the necessary questions but he doesn’t actually form a relationship with anyone. He doesn’t trust them, and they in turn are afraid of him. It’s a relationship based entirely on deception and it’s one that, ultimately, goes nowhere. Once the killer has been identified, the detective leaves and is never seen again. In fact, everyone is glad to see the back of him.”

 

“One can think of the truth as eine vertiefung – a sort of deep valley which may not be visible from a distance but which will come upon you quite suddenly. There are many ways to arrive there.”

 

“I held out the packet and suddenly we were friends. That’s one of the only good things about being a smoker these days. You’re part of a persecuted minority. You bond easily.”

 

My Take

I thoroughly enjoyed the fiendishly clever and enigmatic Magpie Murders.  In fact, for four straight hours I couldn’t put it down until I finished it.  Having previously created the Alex Rider books, the television series Foyle’s War and having written for Midsomer Murders and Poirot, Author Anthony Horowitz, OBE, is as prolific as he is talented.  If you like murder mysteries, then you must check out Magpie Murders.  Highly recommended.

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168. Everything I Never Told You

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Celeste Ng

Genre:  Fiction

304 pages, published August 14, 2014

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

Leo Tolstoy’s famous opening line from Anna Karenina “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” is certainly applicable to Everything I Never Told You which tells the story of an American family in the 1970’s.  Parents James and Marilyn and James Lee are an interracial couple.  James is Chinese and has always felt a desire to fit in.  Marilyn is a frustrated stay at home mother who abandoned her Medical School dreams when she got pregnant in college.  Together, James and Marilyn pour all of their expectations and unattained dreams into Lydia, their oldest daughter, with tragic consequences.

 

Quotes 

“The things that go unsaid are often the things that eat at you–whether because you didn’t get to have your say, or because the other person never got to hear you and really wanted to.”

 

“It would disappear forever from her memory of Lydia, the way memories of a lost loved one always smooth and simplify themselves, shedding complexities like scales.”

 

“What made something precious? Losing it and finding it.”

 

“How had it begun? Like everything: with mothers and fathers. Because of Lydia’s mother and father, because of her mother’s and father’s mothers and fathers.”

 

“You loved so hard and hoped so much and then you ended up with nothing. Children who no longer needed you. A husband who no longer wanted you. Nothing left but you, alone, and empty space.”

 

“Before that she hadn’t realized how fragile happiness was, how if you were careless, you could knock it over and shatter it.”

 

“Lydia, five years old, standing on tiptoe to watch vinegar and baking soda foam in the sink. Lydia tugging a heavy book from the shelf, saying, “Show me again, show me another.” Lydia, touching the stethoscope, ever so gently, to her mother’s heart. Tears blur Marilyn’s sight. It had not been science that Lydia had loved.”

 

“You never got what you wanted; you just learned to get by without it.”

 

“You don’t feel like smiling? Then what? Force yourself to smile. Act as if you were already happy, and that will tend to make you happy.”

 

“Sometimes you almost forgot: that you didn’t look like everyone else. In homeroom or at the drugstore or at the supermarket, you listened to morning announcements or dropped off a roll of film or picked up a carton of eggs and felt like just another someone in the crowd. Sometimes you didn’t think about it at all. And then sometimes you noticed the girl across the aisle watching, the pharmacist watching, the checkout boy watching, and you saw yourself reflected in their stares: incongruous. Catching the eye like a hook. Every time you saw yourself from the outside, the way other people saw you, you remembered all over again.”

 

“He can guess, but he won’t ever know, not really. What it was like, what she was thinking, everything she’d never told him.”

 

My Take

In Everything I Never Told You, Celeste Ng tells a compelling story about a dysfunctional family and the dangers of parents who try to work out their own issues through their children.  Ng makes you feel the incredible weight that parental expectations can place on a child.  In my own life, as both a child and a parent, I have had to navigate this difficult terrain.  While we all want to please our parents and see our children succeed (at least most of us do).  We need be true to ourselves and give our children the freedom to do the same.

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152. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:  Sue Breen

Author:   Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Genre:  Historical Fiction, Fiction, Romance, World War II

277 pages, published July 29, 2008

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Written as a series of letters, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society tells two stories.  The first takes place in 1946 Britain during the immediate aftermath of World War II.  London is emerging from the shadow of war and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. She finds it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb.  As Juliet delves into her new subject, the second story of life on the Island of Guernsey, the only part of the UK occupied by the Germans during the war, takes shape and fascinates a curious Juliet.  Juliet is drawn into the eccentric world of this man and his friends and learns about the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which originated as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island.  Juliet begins a correspondence with the society’s members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she travels to Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.

 

Quotes

“That’s what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you to another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It’s geometrically progressive – all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.”

 

“Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad books.”

 

“Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers. How delightful if that were true.”

 

“I don’t want to be married just to be married. I can’t think of anything lonelier than spending the rest of my life with someone I can’t talk to, or worse, someone I can’t be silent with.”

 

“Life goes on.” What nonsense, I thought, of course it doesn’t. It’s death that goes on.”

 

“She is one of those ladies who is more beautiful at sixty than she could possibly have been at twenty. (how I hope someone says that about me someday)!”

 

“I kept trying to explain and he kept shouting until I began to cry from frustration. Then he felt remorseful, which was so unlike him and endearing that I almost changed my mind and said yes. But then I imagined a lifetime of having to cry to get him to be kind, and I went back to no again.”

“Have you ever noticed that when your mind is awakened or drawn to someone new, that person’s name suddenly pops up everywhere you go? My friend Sophie calls it coincidence, and Mr. Simpless, my parson friend, calls it Grace. He thinks that if one cares deeply about someone or something new one throws a kind of energy out into the world, and “fruitfulness” is drawn in.”

 

“All my life I thought that the story was over when the hero and heroine were safely engaged — after all, what’s good enough for Jane Austen ought to be good enough for anyone. But it’s a lie. The story is about to begin, and every day will be a new piece of the plot. ”

 

“Friends, show me a man who hates himself, and I’ll show you a man who hates his neighbors more! He’d have to–you’d not grant anyone else something you can’t have for yourself–no love, no kindness, no respect!”

 

“If there is Predestination, then God is the devil.”

 

My Take

I really loved listening to the audio version of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a delightful book rich with colorful characters, especially protagonist Juliet Ashton.  The authors draw you into Juliet’s world and through her letters we can vicariously experience life on the island of Guernsey during and after World War II and life in post war London.  Juliet is intelligent, dedicated, witty, funny, but most importantly, she is kind hearted.  All of her traits permeate this book, making you wish that she was a real person you could know and befriend.  I recently learned that they are making a movie of this book starring Lily James (who was wonderful as both Cousin Rose on Downton Abbey and as Cinderella in the Disney live action movie version).  I think it was an excellent casting choice and I look forward to seeing the film version of one of my favorite books of the year.

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138. Ready Player One

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Ernest Cline

Genre:  Fiction, Science Fiction, Dystopia, Young Adult, Thriller

374 pages, published August 16, 2011

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Ready Player One takes place in the year 2044.  The earth is mostly a wasteland with most residents choosing to live in the virtual reality of the OASIS.  Main character Wade Watts has devoted his life to understanding the intricacies hidden inside this alternate world’s digital borders.  When it is announced that James Halliday, the recently deceased creator of the OASIS, has left his vast fortune to the first person to solve a series of puzzles hidden in the OASIS, Wade and a group of compatriots take up the challenge and start on their quest.

 

Quotes

“The OASIS lets you be whoever you want to be. That’s why everyone is addicted to it.”

 

“What about The Simpsons, you ask? I knew more about Springfield than I knew about my own city.”

 

“Sitting alone in the dark, watching the show on my laptop, I always found myself imagining that I lived in that warm, well-lit house, and that those smiling, understanding people were my family. That there was nothing so wrong in the world that we couldn’t sort it out by the end of a single half-hour episode (or maybe a two-parter, if it was something really serious).”

 

“A recluse. A pale-skinned pop culture–obsessed geek. An agoraphobic shut-in, with no real friends, family, or genuine human contact. I was just another sad, lost, lonely soul, wasting his life on a glorified videogame. But not in the OASIS. In there, I was the great Parzival. World-famous gunter and international celebrity. People asked for my autograph. I had a fan club. Several, actually. I was recognized everywhere I went (but only when I wanted to be). I was paid to endorse products. People admired and looked up to me. I got invited to the most exclusive parties. I went to all the hippest clubs and never had to wait in line. I was a pop-culture icon, a VR rock star. And, in gunter circles, I was a legend. Nay, a god.”

 

“Students weren’t allowed to use their avatar names while they were at school. This was to prevent teachers from having to say ridiculous things like “Pimp Grease, please pay attention!” or “BigWang69, would you stand up and give us your book report?”

 

“In Marie’s opinion, the OASIS was the best thing that had ever happened to both women and people of color. From the very start, Marie had used a white male avatar to conduct all of her online business, because of the marked difference it made in how she was treated and the opportunities she was given.”

 

“From then on, my computer monitored my vital signs and kept track of exactly how many calories I burned during the course of each day. If I didn’t meet my daily exercise requirements, the system prevented me from logging into my OASIS account. This meant that I couldn’t go to work, continue my quest, or, in effect, live my life. Once the lockout was engaged, you couldn’t disable it for two months. And the software was bound to my OASIS account, so I couldn’t just buy a new computer or go rent a booth in some public OASIS café. If I wanted to log in, I had no choice but to exercise first. This proved to be the only motivation I needed. The lockout software also monitored my dietary intake. Each day I was allowed to select meals from a preset menu of healthy, low-calorie foods. The software would order the food for me online and it would be delivered to my door. Since I never left my apartment, it was easy for the program to keep track of everything I ate. If I ordered additional food on my own, it would increase the amount of exercise I had to do each day, to offset my additional calorie intake. This was some sadistic software. But it worked. The pounds began to melt off, and after a few months, I was in near-perfect health. For the first time in my life I had a flat stomach, and muscles. I also had twice the energy, and I got sick a lot less frequently. When the two months ended and I was finally given the option to disable the fitness lockout, I decided to keep it in place. Now, exercising was a part of my daily ritual.”

 

“as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness.” 

 

“Listen,” he said, adopting a confidential tone. “I need to tell you one last thing before I go. Something I didn’t figure out for myself until it was already too late.” He led me over to the window and motioned out at the landscape stretching out beyond it. “I created the OASIS because I never felt at home in the real world. I didn’t know how to connect with the people there. I was afraid, for all of my life. Right up until I knew it was ending. That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real. Do you understand?” “Yes,” I said. “I think I do.” “Good,” he said, giving me a wink. “Don’t make the same mistake I did. Don’t hide in here forever.”

 

“Other virtual worlds soon followed suit, from the Metaverse to the Matrix. The Firefly universe was anchored in a sector adjacent to the Star Wars galaxy, with a detailed re-creation of the Star Trek universe in the sector adjacent to that. Users could now teleport back and forth between their favorite fictional worlds. Middle Earth. Vulcan. Pern. Arrakis. Magrathea. Discworld, Mid-World, Riverworld, Ringworld. Worlds upon worlds.”

 

“As soon as my log-in sequence completed, a window popped up on my display, informing me that today was an election day. Now that I was eighteen, I could vote, in both the OASIS elections and the elections for U.S. government officials. I didn’t bother with the latter, because I didn’t see the point. The once-great country into which I’d been born now resembled its former self in name only. It didn’t matter who was in charge. Those people were rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic and everyone knew it. Besides, now that everyone could vote from home, via the OASIS, the only people who could get elected were movie stars, reality TV personalities, or radical televangelists.”

 

My Take

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the audio book verison of Ready Player One.  As someone who enjoys reading science fiction and dystopian novels, I appreciate the fascinating world inside the alternative virtual reality of the OASIS created by the very creative Ernest Cline, a writer who know how to keep a story humming along.  It also didn’t hurt that Ready Player One struck a nostalgia nerve with its many references to the video games and movies of my youth.   Time will tell if our future looks like the VR world of the OASIS, but it is interesting to ponder the possibility in the meantime.

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135: The Interestings

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Meg Wolitzer

Genre:  Fiction

468 pages, published April 9, 2013

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

During the summer of Nixon’s resignation, six teenagers at a summer camp for the arts meet, become bonded as friends and dub themselves “the Interestings,” based on their self assessment that they are all the most interesting people.  The bond remains strong for several of this group as we follow their lives from angsty teenage years to middle age.  The kind of creativity that is rewarded at age fifteen is not always enough to make a life during your twenties, thirties and especially beyond that.  Jules Jacobson, an aspiring comic actress, eventually resigns herself to a more practical occupation and lifestyle as a therapist.  Her friend Jonah, a gifted musician and son of a famous folk singer, stops playing the guitar after a childhood betrayal and becomes a design engineer.  Ethan and Ash, Jules’s now-married best friends, become incredibly successful—true to their initial artistic dreams, with the wealth and access that allow those dreams to keep expanding.  How their success plays out among their friends makes this book interesting.

 

Quotes

“But, she knew, you didn’t have to marry your soulmate, and you didn’t even have to marry an Interesting. You didn’t always need to be the dazzler, the firecracker, the one who cracked everyone up, or made everyone want to sleep with you, or be the one who wrote and starred in the play that got the standing ovation. You could cease to be obsessed with the idea of being interesting.”

 

“People could not get enough of what they had lost, even if they no longer wanted it.”

 

“Part of the beauty of love was that you didn’t need to explain it to anyone else. You could refuse to explain. With love, apparently you didn’t necessarily feel the need to explain anything at all.”

 

“She recognized that that is how friendships begin: one person reveals a moment of strangeness, and the other person decides just to listen and not exploit it.”

 

“But clearly life took people and shook them around until finally they were unrecognizable even to those who had once known them well. Still, there was power in once having known someone.”

 

“Ordinary father-daughter love had a charge to it that generally was both permitted and indulged. There was just something so beautiful about the big father complementing the tiny girl. Bigness and tininess together at last – yet the bigness would never hurt the tininess! It respected it. In a world in which big always crushes tiny, you wanted to cry at the beauty of big being kind of and worshipful of and being humbled by tiny. You couldn’t help but think of your own father as you saw your little girl with hers.”

 

“And specialness – everyone wants it. But Jesus, is it the most essential thing there is? Most people aren’t talented. So what are they supposed to do – kill themselves?”

 

“We are all here, on this earth for only one go around. And everyone thinks their purpose is to just find their passion. But perhaps our purpose is to find what other people need.”

 

“Because the truth is, the world will probably whittle your daughter down. But a mother never should.”

 

“The child who was happy with herself meant the parents had won the jackpot.”

 

“Dennis was present, still present, and this, she thought as she stayed landed against him, was no small talent.”

 

“But this post-college world felt different from everything that had come before it; art was still central, but now everyone had to think about making a living too, and they did so with a kind of scorn for money except as it allowed them to live the way they wanted to live.”

 

“After a certain age, you felt a need not to be alone. It grew stronger, like a radio frequency, until finally it was so powerful that you were forced to do something about it.”

 

“If someone said ‘diametrically,’ could ‘opposed’ be far behind?”

 

“Everyone simply had to wait patiently in order to lose the people they loved one by one, all the while acting as if they weren’t waiting for that at all.”

 

“Jealousy was essentially “I want what you have,” while envy was “I want what you have, but I also want to take it away so you can’t have it.”

 

“When do I stop? When I’m twenty-five? Thirty? Thirty-five? Forty? Or right this minute? Nobody tell s you how long you should keep doing something before you give up forever.”

 

“The only option for a creative person was constant motion—a lifetime of busy whirligigging in a generally forward direction, until you couldn’t do it any longer.”

 

“You sometimes heard about the marginally talented wives of powerful men publishing children’s books or designing handbags or, most commonly, becoming photographers. There might even be a show of the wife’s work in a well-known but slightly off gallery. Everyone would come see it, and they would treat the wife with unctuous respect. Her photographs of celebrities without makeup, and seascapes, and street people, would be enormous, as though size and great equipment could make up for whatever else was missing.”

 

“The love between a brother and sister just over a year apart in age held fast. It wasn’t twinship, and it wasn’t romance, but it was more like a passionate loyalty to a dying brand.”

 

My Take

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to The Interestings and at the end felt like I had spent quality time inside the lives of the four main characters whose lives intersect and develop in a changing New York City.  The Interestings explores the meaning of talent, the nature of envy, the roles of class, art, money, and power; and how all of it can impact a friendship and a life.

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117. I Live, No Longer I: Paul’s Spirituality of Suffering, Transformation, and Joy

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:  Laura Hogan

Author:   Laura Reece Hogan

Genre:  Christian, Self-Improvement, Memoir

172 pages, published January, 2017

Reading Format:  E-Book

 

Summary

I Live, No Longer I explores the question of human suffering and how it can connect us to God. Laura Hogan discusses how it is through the concepts of kenosis, enosis and theosis (i.e. moments of loss, moments of experience of creation and community, and moments of transformative unity with God) that we discover our deep connectedness to God and to one another.  Hogan effectively uses the biblical language of Paul the Apostle, as well as his experiences with suffering and transformation, to encourage us to express the pattern of Jesus Christ in our words, actions, and very lives, especially when we are challenged by suffering.  By doing so, we can transform our agony into true joy in God as we become aware of our relationship with the divine in every aspect of our lives, including experiences of great pain.   As Hogan both states and gracefully illustrates, “God is effective to accomplish fruitfulness and his divine purpose even in and through dark or dire circumstances.”

 

Quotes

“the way Paul sees it, the joy is the greater in any situation for a Christian if it involves all three moments which merge together into an emptying of self (kenosis) in favor of another (enosis) which reveals transformative union with Jesus (theosis).”

 

“Paul discovered and wanted to teach us that not only was the cross of Jesus Christ a paradox, but this very same paradox threads through the experience of all Christian life. Ironically what may seem to be death is paradoxically life, what may seem to be defeat is paradoxically victory, what may seem to be loss is paradoxically gain, and all Christian experience flows through this strange but powerful paradigm. Once we begin to perceive reality through this paradoxical lens of the cross, our ways of interpreting events and people in our lives change and expand—we begin to leave room for the perhaps hidden yet effective purposes of God in all things.”

 

“As many have noted, God does not promise to prevent the flood or fire, but he does promise to be with us in the flood or fire.”

 

“Paul interprets the fact of his imprisonment, and his suffering, as directly instrumental to furthering the spread of the gospel in a way both unexpected and effective. Moreover, he notes that the intention of these new preachers, whether springing from rivalry or love, is irrelevant, because either way Christ is proclaimed: “And in that I rejoice”

 

“Paul’s experience of God’s effectiveness even in situations which seemed radically lost and hopeless had its roots in the cross of Jesus Christ. Paul discovered that the cross of Jesus Christ had something to do with not just Jesus Christ, but Paul himself and all humanity. If “even death on a cross” (Phil 2: 8) had the supreme ability to restore and transform humanity, then that changed everything. Everything must be reinterpreted through this powerful and paradoxical lens of the cross. Even the experience of prison takes on new meaning. Even prison, in all its misery and suffering, contains the power to accomplish the transformative will of God—prison represents not defeat but victory on a divine scale. Yet prison is not just for those languishing behind bars. Prison is a universal human experience. Ultimately, don’t we all encounter a personal experience of prison, portable or otherwise?”

 

“Simultaneously, as we also examined in each of these chapters, we experience a rich continuum of transformative spiritual experience through all the moments of kenosis (moments of darkness, emptying or loss), enosis (moments in which we experience the divine in and through creation), and theosis (moments in which we experience a oneness or union with God) which play out in our lives, in all the minutes and days and intervals of life—in the infinitesimally small and the vast, in the hidden and the laughably obvious, the simple smile and the complicated drama, in the whisper and the thunderclap.”

 

“The moment of enosis, then, is the experience of Christ-with-us, in and through creation, which includes human beings and nature, and as found in the bonds of community. Here in this moment, in the very heartbeat of human existence, divine meets human in intimate sharing and loving presence in both individual and communal contexts. Paul’s writings witness abundantly to his experience of Christ-with-us, a concept most vividly illustrated in the recurring Pauline metaphor of Christian community as the body of Christ.”

 

“God is effective to accomplish fruitfulness and his divine purpose even in and through dark or dire circumstances.”

 

“If we are in the midst of a blade experience, we can trust that it will not be without divine effectiveness. The direction we are forced into may ultimately yield unexpected blessings. Perhaps the pain we experienced equips us for empathic help of others. Or, the blade could cut away something toxic. Not unlike a surgical procedure, the blade’s cut may be in the service of ultimately healing the patient. The blade may slice away parts of ourselves that we did not even know were cancerous, diseased, holding us back or keeping us from God. Or perhaps the divine effectiveness of the blade’s wounding remains shrouded in mystery and we simply try to trust that God will take the slicing crown of thorns and in some miraculous way turn it into a crown of victory.”

 

“Are you beginning to envision that magnetic chain of divinized followers of Christ? As we know from playing with magnets and paperclips as children, a magnetized metal filing is capable of drawing up another filing after it as well. Then in turn, that magnetized filing may draw another yet another filing, and so on. The Christ magnet is the singular source of attraction and power, and yet the attraction and power of Christ can be transmitted through other magnetized metal filings. That is precisely why we are attracted to Christ, yet we also are attracted to the same Christ in and through the lives of those creatively expressing the Christ pattern. So each person expressing the Christ pattern in her or his own way also contains the potential to transmit the pattern of Christ to others.”

 

“Thérèse had the insight that God may make saints of the smallest of us, even in our own ordinary circumstances and lives. In fact, it is precisely in our smallness and ordinariness that he calls us to be his own little birds. So, little birds, take heart. God tells you—you—that you are his little bird, and that you are capable of reflecting this lovely pattern of Christ in exactly the delightful and particular way which you have been called to express.”

 

“Our contemporary Stephen Colbert also expresses a paradoxical experience of the effectiveness of God even in terrible circumstances. He explained to an interviewer that, “Boy, did I have a bomb when I was 10. That was quite an explosion. And I learned to love it. So that’s why. Maybe, I don’t know. That might be why you don’t see me as someone angry and working out my demons onstage. It’s that I love the thing that I most wish had not happened.” Asked by his flabbergasted interviewer to help him understand this better, Colbert immediately cited a letter written by J.R.R. Tolkien in response to a priest who had written questioning him regarding the treatment of death in his novels not as punishment for original sin but as a gift. “Tolkien says, in a letter back, ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’” Colbert knocked his knuckles on the table. “‘ What punishments of God are not gifts?’” he said again. His eyes were filled with tears. “So it would be ungrateful not to take everything with gratitude. It doesn’t mean you want it. I can hold both of these ideas in my head.”  Colbert was thirty-five years old before he could “really feel the truth” of this paradox. Somehow he came to feel grateful for the gift even as he still felt the awfulness of the loss. Perhaps it is this very paradox of gain even in loss which gave rise to the attitude of gratitude and joy in his daily life. His interviewer, obviously deeply impacted by Colbert’s words, wrote: “The next thing he said I wrote on a slip of paper in his office and have carried it with me since. It’s our choice, whether to hate something in our lives, or to love every moment of them, even the parts that bring us pain.”

 

“When I was nine years old, I asked my mother, “Why am I me?” I probably would not even remember that I asked this, except for the fact that I got a lump in my throat when I said it, and that my mother and my father could not answer the question. The question I was really asking at that time was: why out of all the people in the world do I happen to be me? I have come to realize that this is part of the question we ought to be asking ourselves as we grow in our relationship with God. Each of us is a completely original creation, with our utterly unique gifts and hidden potentialities. Part of life is unwrapping this gift, and discovering not only who we are, and why we are, but ultimately who we are in Christ, and why we are—our purpose—in Christ. I live this rich and beautiful life given to me, yet no longer I—the greatest “I” I can be is the “we” of no longer me but Christ in me. And that I live, no longer I but Christ in me also tells me a lot about why I am, and why I am me, in my particular time, place, and person, just as you are also in your particular time, place, and person. We are all part of this living, moving, breathing Body of Christ, each with our own particular expression and confession of Christ, each with our own place and purpose, yet also in intimate connection and unity with the whole.”

 

“So my fellow little birds, imagine yourself once again on your beautiful and radiant spiral staircase—brilliant with shades of the bullet blue of your kenosis, the rosebud embrace of enosis, and the golden crown of theosis, all threading through you yourself and your staircase in imitation or mimesis of the One we love, Jesus Christ. The entirety of the staircase is held and supported lovingly by the central axis, which is a stunning bolt of pure light, beginning somewhere infinitely above, or perhaps having no beginning at all, being Infinity itself. This shaft of Light provides more than love and strength and light and the way, it provides life and the presence of our God with us—and therefore joy, abundant joy.”

My Take

Full disclosure, I have known Laura Hogan for almost 25 years when we met as young associates at a Century City, California law firm.  I have always been impressed with Laura’s kind and gentle spirit as well as her keen intellect.  After reading her new book, I find Laura to be more impressive than ever.  I Live, No Longer I is a beautifully written exploration of the transformative power of suffering.  It is a very thoughtful and biblically supported discussion of how we cannot not only find divine solace when we are in pain, but how the pain itself can bring us closer to the community of others and to union with God.   While Laura provides ample theological support for her ideas, including Paul’s paradoxical pattern of becoming like Christ, her book most resonates when she discusses her personal experiences and the experiences of other contemporaries (including Mother Theresa and Stephen Colbert) with kenosis, enosis and theosis. I also really enjoyed her analogy that we are like the “little bird” described by Saint Therese of Lisieux.  Even as an insignificant little bird, through our actions, we can make a difference and lead a joyful life in communion with other people and with God.  I highly recommend this beautiful book.

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111. Beautiful Ruins

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:  Julie Horowitz

Author:   Jess Walter

Genre:  Historical Fiction, Foreign

337 pages, published June 12, 2012

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

The story begins in 1962 when Pasquale, an Italian man in his early twenties who runs his family’s Inn with an Adequate View in Vergogna, meets Dee Moray on a rocky patch overlooking the Italian coastline.   Pasquale becomes enchanted with Moray, an American starlet, who has abandoned her small part in Cleopatra which is shooting in Italy, because she believes that she is dying.  The story, which goes back and forth in time, then weaves in many other interesting characters.  Michael Deane, an old time, has-been Hollywood Producer, described as a lacquered elf as the result of too much plastic surgery, who is connected to Moray and Pasquale and is desperate for a comeback hit.  Claire, Deane’s earnest assistant, who strives to make art and is consistently disillusioned with the drek that Hollywood pumps out.  Shane, who pitches and ill-fated movie idea based on the Donner party to Claire and Deane.  Pat, Moray’s illegitimate son who chases the dream of music stardom down a rabbit hole of self-loathing.  Alvis, an American veteran of World War II, whose time in Italy as a soldier fundamentally changed him and who cannot get past his writer’s block when he tries to convey what happened.  Even Richard Burton, who is in Italy to play Marc Antony, has a significant role.  All of these characters and more interact over fifty years to create a compelling, heartfelt, moving and often hilarious story about human longings and our connections to each other.

 

Quotes

“Sometimes what we want to do and what we must do are not the same. Pasquo, the smaller the space between your desire and what is right, the happier you will be.”

 

“Then she smiled, and in that instant, if such a thing were possible, Pasquale fell in love, and he would remain in love for the rest of his life–not so much with the woman, whom he didn’t even know, but with the moment.”

 

“His life was two lives now: the life he would have and the life he would forever wonder about.”

 

“All we have is the story we tell. Everything we do, every decision we make, our strength, weakness, motivation, history, and character-what we believe-none of it is real; it’s all part of the story we tell. But here’s the thing: it’s our goddamned story!”

 

“He thought it might be the most intimate thing possible, to fall asleep next to someone in the afternoon.”

 

“A writer needs four things to achieve greatness, Pasquale: desire, disappointment, and the sea.” “That’s only three.”  Alvis finished his wine. “You have to do disappointment twice.”

 

“Stories are bulls. Writers come of age full of vigor, and they feel the need to drive the old stories from the herd. One bull rules the herd awhile but then he loses his vigor and the young bulls take over.  Stories are nations, empires. They can last as long as ancient Rome or as short as the Third Reich. Story-nations rise and decline. Governments change, trends rise, and they go on conquering their neighbors.  Stories are people. I’m a story, you’re a story . . . your father is a story. Our stories go in every direction, but sometimes, if we’re lucky, our stories join into one, and for a while, we’re less alone.”

 

“This reminded him of Alvis Bender’s contention that stories were like nations – Italy, a great epic poem, Britain, a thick novel, America, a brash motion picture in technicolor…”

 

“Words and emotions are simple currencies. If we inflate them, they lose their value, just like money. They begin to mean nothing. Use ‘beautiful’ to describe a sandwich and the word means nothing. Since the war, there is no more room for inflated language. Words and feelings are small now – clear and precise. Humble like dreams.”

 

“Weren’t movies his generation’s faith anyway- its true religion? Wasn’t the theatre our temple, the one place we enter separately but emerge from two hours later together, with the same experience, same guided emotions, same moral? A million schools taught ten million curricula, a million churches featured ten thousand sects with a billion sermons- but the same movie showed in every mall in the country. And we all saw it. That summer, the one you’ll never forget, every movie house beamed the same set of thematic and narrative images…flickering pictures stitched in our minds that replaced our own memories, archetypal stories that become our shared history, that taught us what to expect from life, that defined our values. What was that but a religion?”

 

“To pitch here is to live. People pitch their kids into good schools, pitch offers on houses they can’t afford, and when they’re caught in the arms of the wrong person, pitch unlikely explanations. Hospitals pitch birthing centers, daycares pitch love, high schools pitch success . . . car dealerships pitch luxury, counselors self-esteem, masseuses happy endings, cemeteries eternal rest . . . It’s endless, the pitching—endless, exhilarating, soul-sucking, and as unrelenting as death. As ordinary as morning sprinklers.”

 

“This is what happens when you live in dreams, he thought: you dream this and you dream that and you sleep right through your life.”

 

“He was part of a ruined generation of young men coddled by their parents -by their mothers especially- raised on unearned self-esteem, in a bubble of overaffection, in a sad incubator of phony achievement.”

 

“He wished he could reassure his mother: a man wants many things in life, but when one of them is also the right thing, he would be a fool not to choose it.”

 

“At peace? Who but the insane would ever be at peace? What person who has enjoyed life could possibly think one is enough? Who could live even a day and not feel the sweet ache of regret?”

 

“He found himself inhabiting the vast, empty plateau where most people live, between boredom and contentment.”

 

“And because he felt like he might burst open and because he lacked the dexterity in English to say all that he was thinking–how in his estimation, the more you lived the more regret and longing you suffered, that life was a glorious catastrophe–Pasquale Tursi said, only, “Yes.”

 

“But I think some people wait forever, and only at the end of their lives do they realize that their life has happened while they were waiting for it to start.”

 

“But aren’t all great quests folly? El Dorado and the Fountain of Youth and the search for intelligent life in the cosmos– we know what’s out there. It’s what isn’t that truly compels us. Technology may have shrunk the epic journey to a couple of short car rides and regional jet lags– four states and twelve hundred miles traversed in an afternoon– but true quests aren’t measured in time or distance anyway, so much as in hope. There are only two good outcomes for a quest like this, the hope of the serendipitous savant– sail for Asia and stumble on America– and the hope of scarecrows and tin men: that you find out you had the thing you sought all along.”

 

“Be confident and the world responds to your confidence, rewards your faith.”

 

“What person who has enjoyed life could possibly think one is enough?”

 

“This is a love story,” Michael Dean says, ”but really what isn’t? Doesn’t the detective love the mystery or the chase, or the nosey female reporter who is even now being held against her wishes at an empty warehouse on the waterfront? Surely, the serial murder loves his victims, and the spy loves his gadgets, or his country or the exotic counterspy. The ice-trucker is torn between his love for ice and truck and the competing chefs go crazy for scallops, and the pawnshop guys adore their junk. Just as the housewives live for catching glimpses of their own botoxed brows in gilded hall mirrors and the rocked out dude on ‘roids totally wants to shred the ass of the tramp-tatted girl on hookbook. Because this is reality, they are all in love, madly, truly, with the body-mic clipped to their back-buckle and the producer casually suggesting, “Just one more angle.”, “One more jello shot.” And the robot loves his master. Alien loves his saucer. Superman loves Lois. Lex and Lana. Luke loves Leia, til he finds out she’s his sister. And the exorcist loves the demon, even as he leaps out the window with it, in full soulful embrace. As Leo loves Kate, and they both love the sinking ship. And the shark, god the shark, loves to eat. Which is what the Mafioso loves too, eating and money and Pauly and Omertà. The way the cowboy loves his horse, loves the corseted girl behind the piano bar and sometimes loves the other cowboy. As the vampire loves night and neck. And the zombie, don’t even start with the zombie, sentimental fool, has anyone ever been more love-sick than a zombie, that pale dull metaphor for love, all animal craving and lurching, outstretched arms. His very existence a sonnet about how much he wants those brains. This, too is a love story.”

“And even if they don’t find what they’re looking for, isn’t it enough to be out walking together in the sunlight?”

My Take

I had not heard much about Beautiful Ruins or author Jess Walter prior to reading this book.  However, after seeing it on several recommended books lists, I decided to give it a try.  I’m glad I did.  Walter creates a fascinating world that oscillates between a small coastal town in Italy during the early 1960’s and modern day Hollywood.  His characters are well articulated and keep inviting you to go deeper with them as they struggle with their dreams, realities, ambitions, disappointments, and longings.  While there is meaning here, there is also great humor, especially when Walter skewers Hollywood, both modern day and yesteryear.  I was sad to finish this book, but happy that I got to spend some time in the world of Beautiful Ruins.

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