Gibblet is Mine!

This might be a good next choice. A woman in my kickboxing class is reading it for her MFA program in creative writing at the University of Maryland. She started it this morning and was three quarters of the way through it before our class at 6:30, so it should be a pretty quick read.

Picked from the Book Thing yesterday:

Frommers Germany 91
Dollarwise Guide to Germany (88-89)
APA Publication Manual, 5th ed
90210 Paperback series: Which Way to the Beach?
Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896 (Mary Baker Eddy)
Potomac Review (Winter 2000-01)

Dropped off:
Nobody's Fool (Richard Russo)
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

I've got about 100 pages left to read. Maybe I am used to the modern American prison system, but I am struck by how relatively unbrutal Mandela's experience was. He mentions a prisoner here and there in another block getting viciously beaten, but nothing happens to the political prisoners except for isolation. Of course, I suppose nothing much happens to Mandela because he is a lawyer (if there's one thing I've learned reading this book, it's to know your rights). Maybe it's his prose style, his diction, but I don't really get a feel for how awful life on Robben island was. In fact, sometimes it wasn't, sometimes it was according to whoever was the appointed warden at the time. He also doesn't translate to the reader (at least to me) how lonely and devastating it is not to see your family for years on end, with only one letter every six months, although his mother's death did move me. It's also hard for me to put thirty years in prison into perspective. It's so hard to realize, to have lived three lives (pre-prison, prison, after prison), when I was only lived one life thus far (pre-life-defining event).

All right, I'm thinking next time we should chose a shorter book, so I'm going to withdraw my nomination for The Castle at this point and instead suggest Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I've seen the movie several times (did Gene Wilder EVER have any sex appeal?) but never read the book. What say, girls?

All right, I've had to renew the book (due the 21st of Feb now). I'm still half through it. I promise I'll set down the ghost book this weekend and start reading Mandela again.

I didn't find any used books to my liking at the library this weekend, although my girlfriend did purchase Silent Spring. I was surprised, because she is the scientist, that she hadn't read it. Now it's four or five deep in her "to read" list. She just started her semester again (MBA classes at Hopkins; I know, smarty pants), so I don't have any expectations that she'll get to it before 2005.

They did have a copy of the The Corrections, which I almost picked up except I thought it would depress me that I am not published yet. They also had a picture book on kickboxing. We don't actually fight in our kickboxing class. I'm considering asking our instructor if he will create an off-shoot class that does spar, but maybe I don't want to get all bruised up and have to think fast. Maybe I like the beauty and zen of rote, for instance, twenty snap kicks or roundhouses in a row.

Oh yeah: Book Thing

Yeah, I noticed some missing details as well. Like his assumption that the reader would understand the ethnic makeup of the different groups, eg, how are "couloureds" different from "Africans"? Are they mulattos? Are they the product of mixed tribes?

I was surprised at his intense resistance toward uniting with the communists and the Indians. He seems so pleasant and generous in his descriptions of people and things in retrospect it's hard for me to imagine him having strong, out-of-character opinions. It's like meeting a great person and discovering they voted for Bush.

I am actually interested in reading about the history of the South African gold mines as a result of this. And yeah, I didn't realize that apartheid was the work of the Nationalist party. I guess it's good that we're reading this book then!

It's amazing to see how your life gets twisted and turned on seemingly small turns. I mean, here's a man who was destined for an easy, comfortable blind life, like so many people have, and there was no indication in his makeup that he would lead nothing other than this life. And yet he doesn't. Amazing.

Regarding political struggles, have you ever read Maryse Conde's Heremakanon?
It's one of my favorite books.

The Book Thing - runs it out of his basement? Wow.

I can't bear to part with my books, but you might also like to try Bookcrossing. I found a Bookcrossing book at my local sports centre but I left it alone, since it wasn't anything I would be reading.

Kafka, eh?

Well, as long as it is, this Mandela autobiography probably beats it in terms of bulk.

Gosh, I am getting bogged down on the African names - and, like most living people, he knows so many other people. But I do like it too. Quite surprising when Apartheid officially started. I thought Mandela was born during Apartheid, not before it started. Isn't it funny how it happened immediately after WWII? With the Holocaust so fresh in memory, one would think people wouldn't have voted in the Nationalist Party.

I think he writes very well and very clearly. There are a few more details I would have liked. I suppose this is an autobiography and not a high literary work.

I'm about 100 pages into the Mandela autobiography. I must admit, I really like it! I didn't think I would at all. There's something about his prose, very clear and simple, along with his modest accounting of his life, that's very appealing. I thought I would get bogged down on the African names and places, but he makes everything, from the small village of his birth to the "metropolis" that was Joannesburg in the 1950s, seem so vibrant and alive. You know that author has done his or her job as storyteller when you have a desire to wrinkle time and visit, to be alive and experience the same things the author has experienced. If I can be half of that as a writer, then I'll be happy.

I can't tell you my best find at the library's sale rack---I'll have to think about it. There's a free book place in Baltimore called the Book Thing--some guy runs it out of his basement on 27th street. Usually I drop books off and pick up a few, so it's almost like a library. I'll have to think about my best find there also. It might have been a 1960s etiquette book for the "modern" woman that I eventually wound up giving to a friend. The most nostaglic find was a course catalog from St. Mary's College of MD (where I got my BA) from one of the years I had attended (92-93). My most recent pick was a paperback of Goodbye Columbus. I was ashamed I'd never read anything by Philip Roth and feared it would come back to haunt me during some irrelevant dinner or party conversation.

I would actually like to read The Castle by Kafka. There's a newer version out done by a different translator that's supposed to make more sense than the original translation (having read neither, I couldn't tell you). Anyway, it might be a bit long. Let me know what you think!

Checked out the book Saturday--yay! (And I must say I was impressed with the library's CD collection; they've made significant improvements in their purchases since my last visit---Sleater Kinney's One Beat, Wilco's I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (on DVD), Pavement, Kraftwerk, among others). Unfortunately, I've only read a few pages--boo.

544 pages. I am on the fourth page.

Welcome!