30. "My Freshman Year" by Rebekah Nathan

Nathan, Rebekah. My Freshman Year. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2005. Print.
168 pages
Reviewed by J. d’Artagnan Love

In My Freshman Year, Rebekah Nathan, a full time university professor, enrolls in a university and goes through a freshman year in order to complete an ethnography of freshman students at a typical American university.

What Nathan discovers was not shocking to me and was, in fact, quite reminiscent of my own experience as a freshman in college. Nathan noticed several patterns of behavior as well as common values among freshman at a university. Freshman, she concludes, generally value deviance, rebellion, freedom of choice, and “fun” with “fun” being defined in several different ways. Students now expect education to be entertaining and they also expect education to be something personal and individual. She writes that to the freshman she studied "community" is “personal networks of friends that some referred to as my ‘homeys.’ It was these small ego-centered groups that we the backbone of most students’ social experience in the university” (Nathan 55).

A point I found very interesting in her work was about the liminality of the university. Nathan writes, “Cross-culturally, rites of passage have universal characteristics marked by severance from one’s normal status, entrance into a ‘liminal’ state where normal rules of society are lifted, and finally reintegration into society within a new status. This jibes well with the nature of the undergraduate college experience. . .It is in the middle or ‘liminal’ state—the ambiguous place of being neither here nor there—that anthropologists see profoundly creative and transformative possibilities” (Nathan 146-47).

I thought that Nathan’s discussion of the university as a liminal space was the most important idea I took away from this text. Everything else she described, I already more or less knew and understood. Her discussion on liminality though, gives me a space, as a professor and as a former student, to navigate life in academia. Because the university is a liminal space, there is an abundance of opportunities to create change both within individuals and society at large. While I might not live long enough to see substantial or drastic changes, I know the potential is there.

3 darts out of 5

29. "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri

Lahiri, Jhumpa. The Namesake. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003.
291 Pages
Reviewed by J. d’Artagnan Love

The Ganguli family story is rich, colorful, and full of intricacies. It is also full of insecurities, heartbreak, and a sense of homelessness. The Ganguli family is always just a little out of place. Ashima and Ashoke Ganguli move to the United States from India to start a life together. Ashoke works as a professor while Ashima stays home and raises their two children, Gogol, and Sonia. The majority of the story is focused on Gogol’s life as he struggles to develop a sense of self.

The Namesake flows effortlessly. Transitions between anecdotes and storylines are smooth and nearly flawless. Lahiri’s prose is both simple and elegant. To tell the story, Lahiri relies on sensory descriptions—describing the colors, shapes, smells, tastes, and sounds of every scene. As a result, the characters are exquisitely developed and it was easy for me care about them. As a reader, it is important the characters have depth and are not just empty devices to keep the plot moving. The novel is a genealogy, a Ganguli family history.

I have an uncanny connection to this story. When I graduated with my bachelor’s degree, I too changed my name like Gogol does. I went through the same court procedure that Gogol did to become Nikhil. My new name was actually my original name—the name my mother wanted to name me when I was born—my “good” name, as the Ganguli family calls it. My mother named me something much simpler after nurses pressured her to saying that people would think the name she originally wanted was strange and difficult to pronounce. The name is strange and difficult to pronounce but it is mine, and I made it legally so just a few years ago.

Deeper questions and themes continue to emerge for me the more I reflect on this novel. I feel that in order to fully appreciate it, it will require more than one reading. This book is worth reading for its masterful portrait of an immigrant family trying to find their identity and place in the world.

4 darts out of 5

28. "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer

Krakauer, Jon. Into the Wild. New York: Villard, 1996. Print
207 pages
Reviewed by J. d’Artagnan Love

Into the Wild is a nonfiction piece about Chris McCandless, a young, ambitious man with a rigid morality. After graduating from a prestigious university, Chris burns all of his identification cards, donates his money to Oxfam, and hits the road. Starting out in a car, he later abandons his vehicle to trek across the United States on foot.

Chris lived with a rigid sense of morality and truth. He was passionate about living an honest life, and knowing people beyond just a surface-level interaction. He met many people on his way. He worked for a while on a farm in South Dakota, and lived in the desert in Arizona with fellow wanderers.

His sense of adventure ends up leading him to Alaska where he dies of starvation. The book is written in such a way that this fact isn’t surprising or shocking to the reader. Krakauer states up front in the very first chapter that Chris was found dead in Alaska: “In April 1992, a young man from a well-to-do East Coast family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. Four months later his decomposed body was found by a party of moose hunters” (ix).

I use this book for my “College Research and Writing” course at the University of Northern Iowa. I always ask my students whether they think starting the narrative this way is a good editing choice and I get mixed answers. I, myself, thought it was interesting. One of the reasons I continued to read the book was a curiosity about how Chris died and why. Was it a suicide? The theme of suicide comes up repeatedly in this text. Readers must decide for themselves as there is no real substantial answer given. Krakauer leans towards the argument that Chris’s death was an accident, but really there is no way to prove this (either way).

This text is wonderful to use in my writing class because it provokes discussion about ethical research. Is Krakauer presenting his research of Chris accurately and objectively or is he manipulating it in some way? Chris’s family is still living, so what did Krakauer have to do to be sensitive and respectful to them? How does their presence affect the information that Krakauer chooses to disclose?

When I read this book for the first time, I read it cover to cover in a day. I loved it and was intrigued by the questions it provoked for me. In all, it is a good read!

Bookshelf Project Status: KEEP

3.5 darts out of 5

27. August 2010 List

Kind of a slow reading month due to school resuming.f there is a book on this list that I did not review but that interests you, I will do a review upon request. To send in requests for reviews email me the title of the text you want reviewed to: j.dartagnan.love@gmail.com

1. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

2. Potiki by Patricia Grace

3. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secret. by J. K. Rowling

26. "Potiki" by Patricia Grace

Grace, Patricia. Potiki. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1986. Print.
185 pages
Reviewed by J. d’Artagnan Love

Patricia Grace is a Maori writer. She has written novels, children’s books and short stories. She is one of the first and most notable of Maori women writers. Potiki is her second published work.

Potiki is about a Maori family and their struggle to preserve their culture, land, and way of life. They are threatened by impeding businessmen who want to take their land and build a resort on it. These business men will stop at nothing to get what they want.

The novel describes time as being a spiral rather than a straight line. Each chapter is written in a spiral pattern. For example, in a chapter titled “Roimata” the narrator begins by speaking about children and their war games: “And games are stories too, not just swallowers of time, or buds without fruit. Games, as played-out stories, also define our lives—but I did not understand the children’s war games. I could not tell what their war games were a reflection of” (Grace 44). The narrator then goes on to describe war games from when she was a child and then spirals back out to the children’s war games. At first this seemed repetitive until I understood what Grace was doing. I think it is a genius form to use to illustrate the way the Maori families understand time.

Each chapter is told from a specific character’s point of view but the point of view shifts. Chapters titled “Toko” and “Roimata” are told from first person point of view while chapters titled “Hemi” and “Mary” are told from third person limited point of view. For me, this kept the novel fresh and interesting. I was allowed to understand the characters and the family from many angles and points of view. Doing this deepened my connection to the whole group instead of just one individual. This is another running theme in the novel—a focus on community, not individuality.

When the family’s land floods because of the construction work the colonizers do, I felt a connection to the text. As an Iowan, I’m no stranger to floods and the floods that have been happening in Iowa the past few years are, as certain scientists argue, the result of poor land management. Iowa’s natural prairie grasses have been replaced by farm crops and the land can no longer absorb the rainfall it was once able to. Similarly, when the construction workers blast holes through the hills in Potiki, the land no longer has a natural barrier to the waters and the village is flooded.

I love this text. It is rich, and deep, and it was the first book in several years that actually moved me to tears.

5 darts out of 5
Bookshelf Project Status: KEEP

25. "The House on Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros

Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1984. Print.
110 pages
Reviewed by J. d’Artagnan Love

A professor of mine once taught me that I can’t psychoanalyze characters in a novel the way I might a friend, or family member, or even myself. I can’t try to guess at what is going on in their heads or predict what they might do in a different situation.

“All you have are words on a page,” she told me.

“You have to enter into a relationship with each book you read, but all you really have are words on a page,” she emphasized over and over again in class.

Nothing held truer for me as I read Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street. The House on Mango Street is written in snapshots. Each chapter gives readers a glimpse into a different part of the narrator’s (Esperanza's) life. Each very short chapter is somehow connected to the others, though there are no clear transitions between them. Readers must be quite conscious sometimes to make the connections.

The House on Mango Street is about Esperanza’s process of figuring out where she belongs in the world. Esperanza is a young teenage girl and she doesn’t feel at home on Mango Street. She doesn’t like her house which could be symbolic for the way she feels lost in other parts of her world. Cisneros provides delicate character sketches and once the sketches are combined, one can understand Esperanza’s community a little more clearly.

I finished the book but my desire to know Esperanza wasn't fulfilled. She was always just beyond my reach. The snapshots weren’t enough for me. I wanted to really get to know this character beyond glimpses here and there. I wanted to understand her in ways other than through how other characters reflected her. I wanted more but all I had to work with were words on a page. Esperanza remains a mystery to me, for whatever reason.

This doesn’t necessarily detract from the quality of writing in this novel. Cisneros uses beautiful descriptions and imagery. I enjoyed it very much despite Esperanza’s ability to sneak away from me. It was certainly worth the read.

4 darts out of 5
Bookshelf Project Status: DONATED TO A LIBRARY

24, July 2010 List

The following is a list of all the books I read in July 2010. I did book reviews for some of them (which will be noted in the list) and the rest I did not. If there is a book on this list that I did not review but that interests you, I will do a review upon request.

To send in requests for reviews email me the title of the text you want reviewed to: j.dartagnan.love@gmail.com

1. Johnson, Allan G. The Gender Knot: Unraveling our Patriarchal Legacy. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 2005. Print. (Reviewed 7-22-10)

2. Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1984. Print.

3. Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, 1997. Print.