Simcha-Sophie

I read this about twenty years ago, before I became politically aware/alert and as interested in history as I am now. I will have to read this again soon to get a better review and rating of the book, but if it's been good enough to keep for two decades, it must be pretty worth re-reading!

This was required reading for a class so I expected to hate it, but it was actually quite good.

The racism was really difficult to take. The book takes place in 1930s Louisiana, so that racism is there isn't surprising. But the main character, Jack, who narrates the story, throws the n-word around with some frequency; it makes him a lot less sympathetic than he might be. The depiction of the (very minor) black characters is also hard to take, and I don't know, of course,whether that's intentional in terms of Warren's characterization of Jack or whether Warren himself just spoke like that.

The book dragged a bit in the last third.

The way Warren weaves about three different stories into one is impressive, and he moves fairly seamlessly between past and present, taking us at one point back into the Civil War era. It's the kind of thing you read and think, "If I took this into a writing group or class, I would probably be questioned as to the relevance of these many pages of seemingly irrelevant information." Well, you might not think it exactly that way, but still. In fact there is little relevance to the Civil War era story but it is actually very interesting.

Some of Warren's writing too is so poetic. I've read and been told to never use adverbs or adjectives in my writing, but I think if you don't overdo it there is a good use for them. The rights words, no matter what they are, can add to the depth and experience of a story.
"But sitting there in the study, with the damp, sweet-heavy night air coming in through the windows..."

"It was a very calm, clear night with scarcely a sibilance from the water on the shingle of the beach, and the bay was bright under the stars."

There are more, of course, some better ones, but I can't find them at the moment.

The characters run the spectrum from sympathetic to people you'd just like to run over with a steamroller, and Jack is not the most sympathetic in the bunch, but he's sympathetic enough to not be totally disgusted by him.

It's hard to read books written a while back that are freely racist and sexist, and I find it problematic to actually like some of them, but I find I do. I could look at it from an historical perspective, I suppose, but it doesn't make it easy.

In any case, this book has things to recommend it and things to not recommend it. I think I would recommend it with some reservation.

This is a take-no-prisoners look at human treatment of nonhumans and how such behavior is enabled through the mentality of speciesism (affording unequal treatment and consideration to another based on species alone). It is, overall, an excellent book and one that makes a lot of sound points on human (mis)treatment of nonhumans. She uses the writing of other animal rights/abolitionists like Gary Francione as a starting point, and from there shows us where speciesist attitude, even among animal activists, lead to inconsistency. She points out why these views and writings are inconsistent with an abolitionist and liberation philosophy and expands on how one can make oneself consistent. She defends insects as well as dogs and other nonhumans, taking the time to show that insects have agency, they think and solve problems (although I haven't read much Francione, it is my understanding that he thinks animal activists should ignore insects). She has no problem with single-issue campaigns but pushes the idea that such campaigns must be presented in a non-speciesist way (for example, the Great Ape Project presents its case by attempting to prove that great apes are very similar to humans, and for that reason, and that alone, they should be granted rights. Dunayer claims this is speciesist because it makes similarities to humans the raison d'etre for granting nonhumans rights. The fact that nonhumans feel, Dunayer asserts, is reason enough to grant them rights).

There are a couple things I take issue with in this book; she makes disparaging comments about Christianity, and while I'm not Christian, I think this will put out a bunch of people who could potentially become allies for nonhumans. She assumes that Christianity equals ignorance and that atheism automatically means an openness to non-speciesism. This has not been my experience among both (some, and, admittedly small in number) Christians and atheists (again, it is a very small number of athiests I've met who are not already activists who would accept the arguments against speciesism she puts forth).


Aside from those comments, which occur at the beginning and then by way of a rather immature barb at the end of the book (which actually also comes across as speciesist), there are a couple other problems I had with this book. Dunayer begins her book by exploring speciesism through Peter Singer and Tom Regan, and for someone who's never read or studied those people's philosophies, it is confusing. She also I found the beginning to be problematic in that she launches into critiques of both Peter Singer and Tom Regan, and does so in a way that's confusing to people who've never read either author. Another sticky issue is when she uses the phrase "exceptionally masculine women" in a way that implies such women are given a somewhat elevated status because of their similarity to men. I find this ludicrous, since "exceptionally masculine women" tend to be, in my experience, seen as something less than a "real" woman (and perhaps threatening to where a woman's place is supposed to be). I also think her argument comparing racism and speciesism could have been much stronger if she showed some knowledge of systemic racism. She suggests that African-Americans can be racist, and though some may disagree with me, what I've learned is that anyone can be prejudiced but that racism is oppression by the powerholders over people of other races (and here it might be interesting to note that some cultures consider nonhumans as other races).

So while this book definitely has its problems with comparisons to other oppressions, it is very effective when remaining in the realm of animal activism alone. It is actually one of the best books for animal rights and liberation activists that I've read. There is a sense of urgency here, and no apologies for people who focus activism on nonhumans. It is definitely worth reading.

Ewwwwwwww. I'm too tired to go into much detail. Not the author's fault but the description on the back is misleading. It is the author's fault, however, that she names the protagonist's husband after her own. And things just go downhill from there. This is one annoying character, driving around in a Mercedes in NYC - who the hell needs a car in NYC? If you like Lifetime movies, you'll probably like this book. If you like Lifetime movies to laugh at, skip this book. It will just irritate you. It's boring and ludicrous.

The title of the book is accurate: Glimpses is not an account of daily life of the author during the Holocaust, but spurts of memory. Some of it, particularly the third-person narrated recreations of the deaths of several of Bender's family, is extremely moving. But the dialogue is very stilted, and often the characters/people in the novel use direct address in sentence after sentence. The writing could use a serious dose of editing.
I was also pretty bored by the author's exploits in Palestine/Israel.
I guess in the end most of the book lacks a certain depth, something that I've been able to find in other Holocaust memoirs like Rena's Promise.

I gave this four stars not because the writing was spectacular or the plot particularly believable, nor because the first scene was a pretty silly depiction of a naked woman modeling for an art class, but because if you can suspend your belief in reality for a little while, and if you like adventure, you will have fun reading this book.

Overall a really helpful book, especially the bit about how it takes courage to not be miserable -- it's one of the easiest things in the world. Happiness, now, takes courage.

I felt, however, that Osho wrote for a predominantly male audience (mainly in the use of pronouns, the stories he told to illustrate his points). Still it's a book well worth reading and hanging on to!

SSti

Just a quick review here: I like Bekoff, but this book is a general primer, an introduction to animal rights, and there are several places where he contradicts himself. We talked about this in our animal rights book group yesterday and the general consensus was that indeed this is not for hardened AR activists, and likely not for those into direct action. However, for Buddhists and other positive people who don't know much about animal rights I can recommend this book. It's written in a kind, considerate manner and Bekoff appears open to being open to others. He does not do a hard sell for the most part. I was disappointed in his lack of response to the dairy industry -- in the chapter on vegetarianism he does not link dairy and meat at all; and he is too wishy washy about animals being used in experiments. Although he does quote Twain (to paraphrase: it doesn't matter what good comes from vivisection, the horrors of the experiment are all you need to know about to know that it is a cruel and terrible thing), he also talks about enriching animals' lives in laboratories, as opposed to the reasoning behind the need for using non-animal models exclusively. But in other places he does come across that way, so it's kind of a schizophrenic read.

I don't have the energy to write a decent review, but this book was annoying. Could the author could so not have tried harder to make Allie sound cool? Probably not. In random order, please explain to me, someone, how lavender smells peppery, why the author would set us up for a sequel when the ending of the first novel is painfully anticlimactic, how come Nola -- the same age as Allie -- is a mother figure, and why certain words have to be capitalized? I understand they're supposed to be types of spells, but we don't capitalize words based on whether they're adjectives or verbs regardless of whether they're homonyms. It's arbitrary and irritating. Allie is about as pleasant as a case of poison ivy up the ass. But wait, she's not meant to be pleasant. She's a rebel: "I could handle dangerous. Dangerous and me went back a long way. We did lunch when dangerous was in town." (p 79). There are other similarly -written, redundant gems throughout the book. Monk has Allie saying these things when it's already quite clear what she meant a few sentences earlier, embellishing in this pseudo-tough, pseudo-noir style that just does not work. It's not urban fantasy but if you want excellent noir written by a woman, try Sara Gran's Dope. Truly one of the best books I've ever read.

Damn, I have read a lot of bad books this year!

I'm not going to write much, just that I really enjoyed this book. Its biggest flaw is that on occasion it loses me, most often in the dialogue, but it quickly gets back on track.

The ending is a complete surprise; the characters are likable, I think where they're supposed to be - the setting is great, old Hollywood very well done (from my limited perspective; I watch old movies fairly regularly but not tons of them). I guess perhaps the mystery around Daniel's death gets a little lost -- but overall a very, very good book.

It took me a while to get through this book - this seems more designed as a help for studying particular Buddhist sutra texts, not something I'm interested in doing. The tone is always gentle with Thich Nhat Hanh, but I could barely remember what he spoke of from one reading to the next. This would be helpful if you wanted in-depth study, but not so much for someone looking for reminders and maybe a few mantras to focus on during meditation.

I gave this two stars because it was as bad as it promised to be, and, in its way easy to read. It's really more like a 1.5 stars deal to me. It was like reading a lifetime movie, which is the kind of crap I've need at the moment to make it through some personal highly-stressful situations.

That said, this is the third Joy Fielding I've read and I don't know how she creates these people, but they are the most shallow, obnoxious, irritating creatures to inhabit the planet. Worse than that, though, is the writing style. The main character, whose twenty-one-year old daughter disappears after an audition with a famous movie director, has flashbacks and memories throughout the novel, and they are presented in a way that interrupts the narrative. (Example: they are all told in present tense, which is kind of ironic for flashing back, put in parentheses and begin with A Title where the First Letter of Each Word is Capitalized.) I found myself dreading these and looking ahead to see just how long I'd have to sit through them. They are irritatingly frequent.



The main character in the novel, Cindy, has an inner life that isn't too well presented, either; mainly it's her thinking "what kind of mother am I that I didn't know my daughter's friends?" and similar questions. Her sister, we are told, is overbearing and always has to have a worse situation than Cindy's - and then the bulk of her characterization revolves around this. Most of the characters seem to fall into this pattern - they have one or two traits that Fielding uses; they are simplistic, depthless people. There's a lot of concern about what people look like, what kinds of clothes they're wearing, and people who are not some Hollywood standard of fit are created as irritants and mean people, while all the main characters are "pretty" and "handsome" and "gorgeous."

The ending isn't terribly surprising, either, but there is some guessing involved. Oh and there is one rant that Cindy makes to her blind date about the label "women in jeopardy"- she goes on and on about how every novel and every story is a woman in jeopardy story; that's LIFE, after all; without jeopardy nothing is interesting. Her date sees the light: I never thought about it that way!. It seems so out of place that one can't help but wonder if Fielding has been accused of writing women-in-jeopardy novels. Let's face it, that label is derogatory and refers to a certain kind of shallow, cheap entertainment without literary merit. Not that it doesn't have its value - I mean, I sped through this book because I needed to be preoccupied during some rough days, but it's not like reading Sara Gran's Dope, where a woman is definitely in jeopardy, and yet the writing and the characters are so well done I actually felt for them and cared about what happened to them.

Bleccch. The point of this book seems to be to take an Issue and to -- what? I don't know. There is absolutely no depth to this thing. The characters were all the same -- they even spoke the same (I can't count how many times each character began a sentence with "and so...") -- cardboard cutouts, but made from a big corrugated box that you can't break down when trying to recycle it, because somehow besides being bland, they're all really irritating. There's a part of the book where Dana, after her operation (she's now a woman) confesses to the male sin of not being there for Allison, not noticing when and how many times she's cried. Well, Allison, who is an incredibly annoying person, self-obsessed (because her internal struggles are not displayed well at all and instead of feeling emptahy for her I felt disgust), cried mostly when she was not around Dana. If she cried at other times, I don't remember them. That was one of many irritants in the book -- it just didn't make sense.

The whole novel feels like you come in during the middle of the story. Perhaps if we had more history on these characters they wouldn't feel so one-dimensional, personified lists of qualities, mostly, to my mind, negative. I could go on and on and mainly say the same thing. Transgenderism is an issue that definitely needs more exploration in mainstream society, but not done in this way, not with shallow people who, if they get run over by a train you'd shrug and say "oh well, bye."

I finished this a while ago and don't remember much about it other than it moved very slowly, and despite the lesbians it was not that interesting. This book actually made me quit the series

After a good start, this book became a bit of a disappointment. Partially this could be the result of its being dated (copyright 2004); the appendix essay by Rod Coronado I found to be a bit self-indulgent and I could not help reading the hypocrisy in it (he has gone from vegan to vegetarian, and perhaps at this point is not even that!). I also was made very aware by how male-dominated direct action activism is. Equally irritating is the suggestion that if you are not involved in direct action you are not doing enough. Of course, I would claim that direct action can be as simple and above-ground as TNR, but that was not what the majority of the authors of the book claimed. The anonymous appendix essay by a female direct-action advocate gives some pause for thought as well. Does she strategize? I see her action of paint-bombing a fast food restaurant as not particularly worth the risk.
Some of these essays are inspiring, but many of them go over the same thing again and again, which makes the book difficult as a whole to get through - tedious and boring in places.

This medieval mystery has a modern slant. Not in an obnoxious way, but in its writing: thankfully it's not written in some pretend version of Olde English (which I've encountered in other novels). It is a little anachronistic but much less irritating than the occasional
'twas and thee and so forth to give it that medieval flavor.
It wasn't the best as a mystery, though the twist was a bit of a surprise (not a huge one, but something of one), but the characters are nicely drawn and those who are supposed to be likable are. For the most part. The setting is extremely well-drawn (or at least seems to be for someone who doesn't know much about medieval France). It's an enjoyable bit of mystery fluff for those times when you want light reading.