Book Reviews

I enjoyed reading this book. I find Alice Walker to be an intelligent, thoughtful woman. While we are not particularly alike in any way, I found that I related to a lot of what she says. She's Southern Black and I'm Northern White, but we are both women. She grew up rural and I grew up inner city. In an odd way that's a connection. Her essays open doors and windows for me, help me to see, to better understand a life other than one like my own. I would recommend it to anyone, particularly White women wanting to better understand our Black sisters, anyone wanting in insiders view of feminism from a Black woman's perspective, and anyone wanting to understand why the Civil Rights movement was so important. She covers all these topics and more.

This is a book I purchased with the idea of gaining an understanding of character types for writing stories. It provides those insights and much more.

Pearson descripes the six archetype and also shows how all the archetypes are part each person. We don't go through them in any set order, though a couple of paths are most common, based on our society. Even more, though, she makes it clear that we may seem to be in one particular archetype mode, and as we grow and learn, move into another and another until we've covered all six, (or get stuck in one) we actually are processing all six all the time. She clarifies what each archetype is and contrasts it to stagnant societal understanding or stereotype.

Although my copy of the book was written in 1989, it does not seem at all dated. In fact, I see more of the changes she believes our society is going through. You can see what archetype was and is dominant in our society. I think it can help make change less scary to those who identify more with the outgoing archetype and more hopeful for those who don't identify. She addresses this particularly with the stereotypes for male and female roles.

This isn't a book you can use to make people change (probably not even yourself), but it offers understanding of where others, and you, are. It helps answer the question "Why do people do what they do?" This understanding can be what you need to help you make a change, if you are ready, but no one will change until it is time for them to change.

The book is a lot of psychology, but Pearson treats religion with respect. I appreciate this. I didn't find it at odds with my own beliefs as I have sometimes found with some psychology books.

As someone who occasionally writes stories, I find it gives background and understanding that will help me flesh out my characters when I need to figure out things like motivation. Mostly, though it's been a book that helps me see who I am and maybe where I'm going.

I don't know why I chose this book. When it arrived and I read the page of praise before the title page, I groaned a little inside -"I chose this?" I usually chose fiction for review. But I did choose it and though I had no clue how I could review it, as I read, it became clear to me.

Eyes Wide Open is a call to Christians to stop trying/pretending to be perfect because of their salvation. Salvation makes believers perfect in God's eyes because He sees Christ in them, but back here on Earth there is no one perfect. Christians who fit in to either category (trying or pretending) are not letting their light shine to light the way for others. Those who are trying, either give up or start pretending. If Christians truly see themselves as they are, they realize that even when they mess up they are not necessarily ineffective in their roles as Christians. God still loves them. If they pretend to have it all together and are near perfect (no one comes right out and says they are perfect. It's a way of behaving.) because they are Christian, they are not walking in truth and are not as effective as they could be -- sometimes not effective in a positive way at all. Wilhite states on page 166 "...the cultural war is over. And we lost."

In the past I have read some books for Christians that I would not recommend to non-Christians. I could see where such a book would push all the wrong buttons for them, that the book required a believer's understanding. I don't think this is such a book. I can see this as a way for people who have been turned off by an overzealous evangelism to better understand Christianity.

Wilhite first shows believers the need to see themselves clearly as who they are, saints, priests, and servants, and still not perfect in this life. Following that, he shows them the need to change (to stop faking it or to stop giving up) and the need to be open to influence. In summary, he's pointing out that we need to be the Christians Jesus called us to be.

His style is conversational and he sounds truly down-to-Earth. If you feel stagnant or like a failure in your Christian walk, or if you've been turned off by the "holier-than-you" Christians, this book will be a breath of fresh air. Wilhite doesn't offer new or deeper insights. His lesson is basic, but he is on solid Biblical ground and he makes his message clear. Christians have reason to hope. We can change the world for the better, wherever we are, both physically and in our spiritual walk.

I see a world where all people accept each other as friends and neighbors and celebrate each person's uniqueness as a vital part of everyone's life, like threads in a tapestry.

This is my statement of my life vision. It's still more dream than reality, but every now and then something comes along that encourages me about the possibilities. Outcasts United: A Refugee Team, an American Town is one of those encouragements.

Outcasts United is not a feel good story about a refugee soccer team that makes good. It's about the refugees and about the town into which they've been relocated. It's about a woman who saw a way she could help some of the refugee boys do well in their new environment. It's about the clash of cultures, but it's also about a weaving of those cultural differences that creates the tapestry when it works. It's about prejudices overcome and still blatant.

Warren St. John has a clear writing style that is easy to read. He knows how to describe a soccer game so that I can see it being played in my head. We aren't left with stereotypes that simple words like 'Arab' or 'African' may leave in our minds without further definition. St. John doesn't skimp on the background information of the players and their countries. He also manages to retain enough journalistic distance to paint the real life characters as neither saints nor sinners.

This is a book I hope others will read and come away from with a better understanding of the 'strangers' around us, not only refugees, but anyone in our community who is different from us. I hope it can help us identify our own failings and successes, to see that while for the most part we aren't horrible failures at tapestry making, neither are we great successes, yet.

Orpheus in the Bronx: Essays on Identity, Politics, and the Freedom of Poetry by Reginald Shepherd is undoubtedly one of the more difficult books I have ever read. Shepherd's thinking is a few levels above mine. He's definitely more academic than I. I still enjoyed it. Having an intellectual poet's viewpoint was enlightening, since I'm always looking for a better understanding of poetry.

His first chapter, "Portrait of the Artist," provides a perspective from which to comprehend his discourse. In the following chapters, Shepherd so conscientiously quotes and credits, that by the time I figured out what his point was, I had also learned a lot about what poetry is. (Also it gave me new ideas of my own about how to write poetry.) The section on readings was interesting and provided information about poetry, but since I have not yet read the poems/writings he's writing about, I have no thoughts of my own to compare with his. Shepherd did make me more interested in reading them, however, in particular those by Samuel R. Delaney, because I have read some of his other work. I think he saved the best for the end. There was a lot in his final chapter, "Why I write" -- things to make me think about poetry and about writing in general.

This isn't a book for the average reader. The very quotes and credits I found helpful by the time I understood, were also the stumbling blocks to easy reading. If you love explorations of poetry (in addition to poetry itself) and are at least somewhat intellectually inclined, it is worth the effort to read.

In another time I would never have heard of Daoud Hari, but he likely would be known in his own village as an educated man who knows many stories from other lands. It isn't another time, though, and Hari's book, The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur, is in my hands. What I find remarkable, beautifully so, is that Hari is a friendly, kind, gentle and loving man. The tribesman, potential tribal elder (looked up to, if not officially a leader) comes shining through. It is the saddest (a woefully insufficient word) thing that none of this is what Hari wants to show. The story he must tell, what makes him so remarkable to me, is painful and devastating (more insufficient words).

Hari has seen things no one should have to see, heard stories no one should have to hear, much less endure. He is from Darfur, a part of Sudan, where the "powers that be" are trying to eradicate those who have lived there for generations. He has seen his own village, and many others, wiped out. He has lost family members and friends

Hari is representative of his people. He is the way he was taught to be. His gentleness and faith in people are part of his culture. In The Translator, Hari gives us a glimpse of this culture and his youth. Then he tells the story of how he became, and his experiences as, a translator, mainly for journalists covering Darfur. The stories themselves made me want to put down this book. What is happening there is beyond horrible, but Hari's gentleness, his ability to find humor in the darkest situation, without belittling or destroying the genuine pathos of that situation, is what kept me reading.

Two lines in particular struck me. This first was in Chapter 10 Sticks for Shade: When noting the limited and often inappropriate aid the people of Darfur are receiving he stated "Perhaps the wealthy nations had finally blown themselves away and were no longer available to send their token remedies for the problems that their thirst for resources has always brought to such people as these." (pp. 73-74) A kind, gentle man, yes, but not blind or ignorant of the world. The second was something to think about. "The proof of a democracy is surely whether or not a government represents the hearts of its people." (p 85)

Where do we stand? Can we, as humans, afford to lose a people whose sense of hospitality interferes with their ability to torture others?

I knew something bad was happening in Darfur. I didn't really know what. It is far away and doesn't affect me personally. Daoud Hari has told me what is happening and made it personal.

I was expecting Red Zone Blues, by Pepe Escobar, to be something like a dry political discussion and found instead the, often conflicting, heart of the people. This book reads to me like Escobar's notes as he traveled. It has a choppy unconnected feel to it. There are some sloppy grammatical errors. I could nitpick the writing, but find any flaws are minor and outweighed by the content.*

Many might find the author to be anti-American, but, whether or not he is, he nonetheless provides an accurate picture of how America is seen by Iraqis. This is the value of the book. It should be required reading for all Americans. If Americans refuse to look at how others see us and/or demand they see us as we see ourselves, we are doomed. While we should not compromise on who and what we are, knowing how others see us should help us to make sure our actions are in line with who we really are (and hopefully not point out that we aren't who we think we are).

*This was an advanced reading copy, which is not the final, edited copy, something I was not aware of when I first began doing these reviews.