Chapter 26: A Book From Your Childhood

A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle

First, sorry for the crappy image, but this is the cover of my copy and nothing else will do.

I seriously cannot believe this novel only gets 4.04 stars on Goodreads. It is one of my all-time favoritest books of forever. I'm not even exaggerating. Let me tell you why.

Meg is, like, the best girl hero every imagined. (Yes, I went Valley Girl on that.) She is the quintessential awkward tween girl without the pack of friends to make those years bearable. And let's face it, those years suck, even when they don't. She doesn't go through some physical transformation that turns her ugly duckling into a beautiful swan. What she does is realize, on her own, that her character alone is what is going to get her family back together after an intergalactic error. And when I say that, I don't mean that Meg alone is what is going to do it, I mean a vital and unchangeable portion of the very essence of Meg is what does. (This would be a lot easier to talk about if I was ok giving spoilers, but I really want you to read this book. And if you already have, I want you to read it again.)

That's pretty much it. Meg rules. There are other good things about the story, including the moment when Meg declares, "Like and equal are not the same thing at all." But her grrrl power just overshadows everything else I could say. Every time I read this one, I pick up on something new or something I have forgotten. And I'm sad to say that I have not read the whole series. I promise myself I will rectify that error as soon as this challenge is over. I'm really looking forward to A Swiftly Tilting Planet because it is beloved by a friend whose judgement in these things I really value.

One interesting thing that I did not pick up on in the past, perhaps because I didn't think about the subject often, is that it's possible that L'Engle was writing about a family with Autism in the early 1960's. Let that sink in a minute. Now consider- both parents are brilliant, as is Charles Wallace. But they aren't just smart. They think in such unusual ways that they are able to understand the inexplicable. I could be way off on this one. Maybe she was elevating them to more enlightened creatures and I misinterpreted. It could happen. But maybe these two things are not mutually exclusive and she tapped into something that didn't enter common conversation for four more decades. I can't wait to see what else she has in store for me.

Wrinkle joins Mockingbird on my forever bookshelf to which I will return again and again. Meg alone earns 4.75 of its 5 Marias. Seriously, I love this girl.

Chapter 25: A Pulitzer Prize Winner

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

Are you shocked? Floored? Flummoxed? Bamboozled? I didn't think so. There's no way I could read Watchman and not re-re-re-re-read Mockingbird. And, as I also re-watch Pretty Little Liars now that the show has revealed who A is, I realize the Liars are reading Mockingbird for English class. So Liars gets a little more credit from me (the mental hospital is named Radley, too, but I had not forgotten that fact).

So, Mockingbird is required reading in high schools across the country, with good reason. It opens the door for Humanities teachers to discuss racial history in the U.S., introduces students to an influential female writer, and gives an accessible account of southern life during the Depression. All of that is great, but it's not why I love this story. When it comes down to it, I love Scout. She's precocious, obnoxious, naive, and wise. She's brash, unruly, unladylike, and charming. She is, in short, a little girl.

Now that Mockingbird is fresh in my memory, the conflict of Watchman is actually pretty predictable and is totally fitting with the characters. We love the Atticus of Mockingbird for many of the same reasons we (the readers and Jean Louise) feel betrayed by him three decades later. It's funny how much the era of the story affects how we feel about the exact same behaviors. In the 30's, he was a leader, a champion, worthy of our adoration. In the 60's the same kind of ideas land him firmly in inexcusable territory. This, of course, is indicative of how fast things changed in this country during those decades, but also how we are willing to overlook things we don't like (paternalism, pity) if our hero does something great (defending a black man against accusations made by whites). This idea still holds true today. How much bad are we willing to ignore if the overall result is good? What is the tipping point at which we change our opinion of a person or organization?

While I think this is all important stuff to think about and discuss and question, it's not the root of why I love this book so much. In fact, it's peripheral to the heart of the novel, in part because a nine-year-old doesn't really grasp the implications of the case her father is working. Scout just takes the world at face value. She believes what her important adults (Atticus, Calpurnia, and Miss Maudie) tell her and suspects everyone else of falsehood. She is quick to defend those whom she loves and has a strong sense of fair, even if it is flawed. Her father has taught her important truths she won't learn anywhere else, namely that all people, even those we deem beneath us, have dignity and deserve if not our respect, then their privacy. It seems to me that this is a dangerous lesson, minding your own business to the detriment of your fellow humans. He starts out with a grand idea but let's it fizzle out in the details.

Scout, however, just applies her lessons to everything. She doesn't see the subtleties of the class divisions in her community because she believes that people are people. She knows they exist, that certain families just have their ways, but she is pragmatic and doesn't judge those other ways. This lovable little tomboy teaches (and learns) more about community than many give her credit for. Often readers feel like they are with her in Atticus' lap, that they learn alongside her. But in my estimation, Scout Finch is the true hero of the tale.

Even though it is set in the 1930's, Mockingbird still is relevant today. One paragraph stood out to me, speaking volumes about how quickly and easily we dehumanize each other. After confronting a group of men who set out to harm the black man accused of raping a white woman, Atticus tells his son, "A mob's always made up of people, no matter what ... a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they're still human. Hmp, maybe we need a police force of children ..." Our failure to see others as humans is easy and enormous. Instead of images of five Marias, I'll leave you with these three images of humanity during conflict. (And, I'd like to just say that it is crazy to me that Sen. Pugh was criticized for hugging a rioter. What she did was not condoning actions but saying, "I see you, I hear you, I acknowledge that you are a person.")

Chapter 24: A Mystery or Thriller

The Girl On the Train, Paula Hawkins

I was hesitant to start this one because I've been burned by Girl books (see previous post about my The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo surprise). I also really, really hated Gone Girl. Why does Gillian Flynn hate romance so much? I hated every character of every one of her books, which probably means they are good books if I am still so emotional about them. But, anyway, I gave another Girl book a try. It will be hard not to fill my review with a bunch of cliches, but I will do my best.

My guess is that published reviews include words like taut, tense, and shocking. That's a little grandiose for this novel, but it doesn't miss the mark by too much. The pace manages to move quickly enough to build tension while also detailing boring daily events. It has a nice upward curve toward the final conflict, with little crests along the way. At times it is written with the frenetic energy of an obsessed alcoholic on a bender. At others, the calm deliberation of the same alcoholic during a brief period of sobriety. And scattered throughout these journals are the perspective of the assumed victim and The Other Woman.

Rachel is the obsessed, out-of-control alcoholic who witnesses something from the train. When she reads news that a woman she has seen through that window for years has disappeared, her mission becomes to help solve the case. The problem is, her ex-husband and his new wife live a few doors down and they do not have an amicable relationship. These three women's lives get tangled up with the two husbands, past and present lovers, and secrets that everyone hides. (Trigger warning- infertility and infant death play major roles in this book.) Normally I don't like switching of narrators and time too much, but even ignoring the dates, I was able to keep a good grasp on where and when I was reading.

As I was reading, I kept trying to decide if it would be possible to make into a movie. The whole thing feels very Hitchcock. I knew there was a big twist that I wasn't supposed to see coming, so I prepared for everything. I was not floored by the revelation. Not even all that surprised. But it is still a good twist. I stayed up late to finish it and find out just what the heck happened to everyone. A little bit of Hitchcock trivia for you- the phrase "this is where I came in" referred to movies until Psycho was released. Films ran on a loop with no starting time. So you paid for your seat and walked in somewhere in the plot and left when you got back to that point. Hitchcock changed all that because it was so important to him that every detail of Psycho be seen from beginning to end. He ordered no admissions after the opening credits and changed the way we watch movies forever.

So, back to Train. It plays very heavily on the unreliable narrator thing. Rachel is very close to the bottom of a downward spiral and often admits that her memory is full of holes. The police question her involvement and do not take her seriously. Her peers vacillate  between pity and disgust for her. She makes one bad decision after another. Yet you cannot help but feel that some part of her drive is genuine. Near the end, one of the leading women says, "There's nothing so painful, so corrosive, as suspicion." That sums the whole novel up quite nicely.

I enjoyed this one and will gladly pass it on to another reader. It won't stay on my shelf for long and I probably won't read it again. But it was a fun ride, so I give it three Marias.