Curious, Healing

Books about healing, business, and fun

Sonia Connolly

“The Way to Rainy Mountain” by N. Scott Momaday

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Recommended to me by: veleda_k in 50books_poc

A series of impressions of the legends, history, and personal experiences of the Kiowas, a Native American tribe living in Oklahoma. Scott Momaday’s grandmother Aho attended the last full Sun Dance of the Kiowas as a child, and shared stories and traditions with him as he grew.

Each image is bright, clear, specific to its own time and place.

The aged visitors who came to my grandmother’s house when I was a child were made of lean and leather, and they bore themselves upright. They wore great black hats and bright ample shirts that shook in the wind. They rubbed fat upon their hair and wound their braids with strips of colored cloth.”

Highly recommended both for the beautiful writing, and for the information about the Kiowas in particular, in contrast to the generalized impression of Native Americans that many books contain.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Nasty People” by Jay Carter

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Subtitle: How to stop being hurt by them without becoming one of them

Re-read while writing my double bind article.

The first half of this book talks about invalidators and how subtle and awful they can be. The tone is affirming and validating for those who have been invalidated in the past.

The second half abruptly changes tone and says there are no invalidators, only people using invalidating mechanisms which can be catching from one person to another. It is true that we have all invalidated others at times, but the shift felt awkward and unsettling.

The gap is bridged by saying that 1% of people are incorrigibly invalidating, but 20% can change their ways with suitable feedback.

I had a mixed reaction to this book. It contains some helpful information, delivered as absolute statements, some of which contradict each other, and many of which talk down to the reader.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Bright-sided” by Barbara Ehrenreich

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Subtitle: How the relentless promotion of positive thinking has undermined America

Barbara Ehrenreich starts with the personal – her surprise at the mandatory positivity around her breast cancer diagnosis – and veers to the political – how delusional positivity contributed to the sub-prime mortgage meltdown. In between, she gives a brief history of New Thought, Christian Science, business and life coaching, and positive psychology, with unsubtle negative digs at the people involved. She also draws connections between megachurch pastors and corporate CEOs.

I read this book with an odd mix of relief and defensiveness.

I completely agree that delusional positivity is frightening and unhelpful, and it’s a relief to see that clearly pointed out. She describes feeling alone in a big coaching seminar because no one else was acknowledging the misuse of quantum physics. I’ve been in that situation, wondering if I’m the only one in the room politely not laughing at the pseudo-science rather than eagerly swallowing it whole.

At the same time, a more grounded positivity has been helpful in my life. Asking “What am I doing right?” rather than “What am I doing wrong?” shifts my focus and allows me to see that, in fact, I am doing a lot of things right. I have benefited from a life coach’s services. My own work borders on coaching and sometimes involves helping clients shift their focus to positive aspects of their situations.

Overall, I enjoyed the beginning and ending of the book, but wished the middle held fewer judgments about various people’s appearance and “invalidism”. I hope people will heed her call to awareness, realism, and action, while maintaining hope that change is possible.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Voices from the Inside” by David A. Karp and Gretchen E. Sisson

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Subtitle: Readings on the experiences of mental illness

I found this book because I was curious about Caroline Knapp’s writing after reading Gail Caldwell’s memoir about their friendship, and I read it because I wanted to learn about mental illness without its stereotype of causing violence. In fact, [v]iolence is not a symptom of psychotic illnesses such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

Unfortunately, this book propagates rather than counters the stereotype. Many of the schizophrenic people’s stories include violent fantasies and actions. The essays also include violent treatment of people with mental illness in mental hospitals and prisons.

The book is intended for classroom use. Each essay is preceded by an introduction telling the reader how to interpret the essay, and followed by discussion questions which are clearly slanted toward preferred answers.

Caroline Knapp’s essay, “Denial and Addiction,” talks about the effortless contortions that make alcoholics’ drinking look acceptable to themselves. “Denial can make your drinking feel as elusive and changeable as Proteus, capable of altering form in the blink of an eye.” Calmly honest, she describes her own and others’ self-destructive behavior while addicted to alcohol.

Other essays describe the experiences of schizophrenic psychosis, depression, mania, taking Prozac for OCD, recovering from anorexia, and the aftermath of a spouse’s suicide.

While I applaud the authors’ venture into personal stories rather than aggregate statistics, I think academia has a long way to go in its attitudes toward people who have mental illnesses.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Alcestis” by Katharine Beutner

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Recommended to me by: David Schwartz

In Greek myth, Alcestis was the perfect wife because she stepped forward to die in place of her husband. After three days, Heracles rescued her from Hades. This book explores the raw, harsh side of the myth, starting with childbirth and death, continuing with sisterhood and death, and ending in rape and submission.

Amidst the harshness, engaging details are woven together to show a woman’s life in ancient Greece. Royal women, maids, and slaves all eat and do their hair and even visit the chamber pot.

The book is casually homophobic. A male homosexual relationship is shown in the context of adultery and cowardice. A woman is raped by another woman, and then is shown desiring her rapist.

Gods and goddesses are capriciously cruel and kind as the whim takes them, and the humans live in fear of their next display of power-over. It’s not a cosmology I would want to live with.

Available at bookshop.org.

“The Wild Wood” by Charles de Lint

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The Wild Wood is part of the same series of books based on Brian Froud’s illustrations as Something Rich and Strange.

Charles de Lint is a well-known fantasy author, but the writing in this book is distractingly amateurish, with overly detailed descriptions of people’s clothes and exact measurements of snowfall, along with cardboard characterizations.

For example, the main character Eithnie is described as “spacy” several times without context, possibly to make it more plausible that she twice forgets plans with her friend Joe as she’s swept along by the plot. Joe himself is defined by his Japanese heritage as being both inscrutable and magically able to be in the present moment.

I found the ending anti-climactic as well, and wished Eithnie’s skills as an artist could have played a bigger role.

The book is out of print in the original illustrated hardcover edition, but is Available at bookshop.org as a trade paperback.