Awakening to the Details

I wrote 1,760 pages in 8 paper journals in 2005. This is a record for me. The journals varied in size; most of them were 5x7-size blank bound books. However, the 8th journal, which took me four months to finish, was 384 pages of 8-1/2 x 11-size pages.

Today, while surfing randomly, I found this LJ community, Embodiment. Although I don't have trouble keeping a paper journal (I've been journaling consistently for eleven years, with 57 journals to my credit), my goal is to CHANGE my journal from being a constant list of depressive episodes into something more narrative and interesting.

Wish me luck.

Feeling: hopeful

Book 44

Knitting by Anne Bartlett (272 pages)

This book is about two women of different backgrounds, both suffering from their own grief, who meet by chance one day and become friends from their common interest in knitting. The one woman is a professor of textiles. She is walking down the sidewalk one day when she comes upon an older woman trying to help a man who has passed out on the sidewalk. Later, the professor decides to mount a retrospective of homespun items, and she enlists the help of the older woman. However, the older woman becomes overwhelmed with the amount of work the professor expects her to do. Both of the women learn a lesson, and forgive one another and themselves in the process.

This book was a quick read. It takes place in Australia and I would have liked to have more description of the places in the story.

Book 45

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier (254 pages)

This book was written in 1974, and it received critical acclaim. It is a book that has been on the banned book list for years. I had read it years ago, when I was still in high school, just for fun, and recently, I picked it up from the library, because I had totally forgotten about the plot.

The story is about a boys' Catholic school, and the corruption that occurs within. Jerry is one of the main characters. He is a freshman who just wants to be the quarterback of the football team. He is chosen by the members of the secret order, the Vigils, to participate in an "assignment." The assignments are humiliations or pranks. Archie is the member who comes up with the assignments. To maintain control over him, there is a black box. If Archie draws a white stone, then the assignee has to do the assignment. If he draws a black stone, then Archie has to do the assignment. Anyway, Jerry's assignment is to refuse to sell chocolates for ten days, then accept them on the eleventh day. The boys are to sell chocolates to help earn money for the school. Brother Leon, the acting school headmaster, overextended himself by accepting 20,000 boxes instead of the 10,000 boxes they sold the year before. But he is corrupt. (It is inferred that he is doing things on the sly.) So, all is going according to plan until the eleventh day. Jerry refuses to take the chocolates.

This causes consternation among the students, some of whom give up selling, as well as annoyance with Brother Leon because he needs to get all the boxes sold or owe a lot of money.

Archie thinks he has it all figured out: how to get Jerry to "sell" his chocolates and to screw over the administration. The book ends on a down note, which was disappointing, but realistic.

This book was excellent! It was a quick read, taking me only a couple of hours.

Book 46

The Borning Room by Paul Fleischman (101 pages)

This book is a young adult lit book about a girl who is born, watches births, and gives birth herself in a particular room of a house. It takes place during the 1850s and thereafter. But being a short book, it does not go into major detail about the Civil War or anything like that. Basically, the book emphasizes family and familial traditions. Another quick read, I saw this book on the shelf at the library and read it in probably an hour or so.

Book 47

Veronica by Mary Gaitskill (228 pages)

Ugh. This book was a monster, in spite of it being a slim volume. Alison, the main character, is a model, now in her middle age, struggling with hepatitis and old injuries from an accident. The story is told in flashbacks, from the first person point of view. the majority of the action takes place in the 1970s and early 1980s. Alison tells the reader how she ran away from home at a young age, met  a photographer who told her she could be a model, and how she decided to do it. She ends up in Paris, becoming a model and the mistress of her agent. Later on, she ends up back home, practically broke. She goes to community college, then to New York, where she goes to work for a temp agency. She gets a job as a proofreader, and that is where she meets Veronica. Veronica is a middle-aged woman, who has a bisexual boyfriend. The boyfriend contracts HIV, which develops into AIDS, and he dies (in the background). Veronica also comes down with the disease. Alison goes to California and tries modeling in music videos. All the while, Veronica struggles with AIDS. Although they are hardly more than acquaintances, Alison tries to help Veronica. But I think that Alison thought, "there but for the grace of God go I." Alison could have ended up like Veronica. She did in a way, with her own demons and illnesses. But she also helped Veronica, by being a friend until the end, and therefore was able to find forgiveness.

I say this book was a monster because in spite of its shortness, it took me several nights to read. I guess I didn't really care for its meandering memoir-ish style.

Book 48

The Year of Pleasures by Elizabeth Berg (206 pages)

Betta is a recent widow. She decides on a whim to move to the midwest from Boston. Once there, she meets a variety of people, and struggles with her grief. She finds little slips of paper that her husband made notes on--things they always wanted to do but didn't do, or things she loved. She makes new friends, and reconnects with old ones from college. She decides to open a store that will cater to women who like frivolous, yet necessary and beautiful, things. The book ends with her finding something that she thought was lost to her, and with her realizing that there is no one way to mourn.

I like Berg's books. She always seems to pack a huge story into a slim volume.

I was looking through the books on a particular shelf at the library this past weekend and stumbled upon this book, a 1948 original edition. Alex Osborn is the O in the famed BBDO advertising agency. Throughout the book, he talks of "geniuses" such as Henry Ford, Eli Whitney, among others. Of course, this book being written in a particular era, it is rather disparaging to women. For instance, he mentions that women were quite creative during the war, but seems to imply that once they are back in the home, they have no more need to be creative. However, he does say that most women are creative at managing households. *shrugs*

I enjoyed reading the examples in this book, and I think that it could be useful for anyone who is trying to harness his or her own creative energies. Just take it with a grain of salt, because a lot has changed since 1948!

375 pages