Curious, Healing

Books about healing, business, and fun

fun

“Wishing for Tomorrow” by Hilary McKay

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Subtitle: A sequel to A Little Princess

Recommended to me by: Badgerbag

My copy of A Little Princess (yes, I still have it) is dated 1982, but I think I read it before then from the library. As a young girl grieving, surviving and in need of rescue, I connected deeply with the story of young Sara Crewe and the maid Becky grieving, surviving and being rescued.

This sequel, written not by Frances Hodgson Burnett but by Hilary McKay 100 years later, follows the secondary characters at Miss Minchins Select Seminary for Girls after Sara’s departure. It is a much lighter wish-fulfillment book, plot driven, with one note characters. We are told about their emotions, but they don’t resonate.

The new maid, Alice, takes no nonsense from her employers and refuses to live in the attic, not-so-subtly implying that Becky just needed to stand up for herself. Of course, Alice is in London to “see the sights” and has a loving family to return to if her employment doesn’t work out, unlike Becky who had nowhere to turn.

A Little Princess was about finding resources within and choosing our behavior in hard times. Wishing for Tomorrow, aptly named, seems to be about marking time until everything works out.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Balkan Dance” edited by Anthony Shay

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Subtitle: Essays on Characteristics, Performance, and Teaching

I jumped at the chance to learn more about my favorite hobby, and learned more than I bargained for. This book of essays directly addresses the myth that modern Balkan folk dances are innocent indigenous creations, exposing the complex conscious manipulations underlying them.

Communist regimes created folk dance spectacles to convey a sense of unity, prosperity, and celebration. In Yugoslavia, this was particularly elaborate since it wove together several ethnic and religious groups which later fractured back into separate countries. In Bulgaria, much of the beloved “folk” music was composed in the early 20th century for performance.

Minority groups such as Turks in Bulgaria, Muslims in Yugoslavia, and Roma (Gypsies) everywhere were erased or stigmatized in folk dance performances.

The book prompted me to think about what it means for Americans to be studying and performing these dances recreationally. It certainly puts arguments about “tradition” and “authenticity” in perspective when the dance under discussion was initially performed as communist propaganda.

The essays vary from very readable to densely academic. All contain information new to me about a hobby I’ve pursued for years. Well worth investigating if you’re interested in Balkan dancing.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Street Without a Name” by Kapka Kassabova

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Subtitle: Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria

Recommended to me by: Ceil Wirth on the EEFC mailing list

Kapka Kassabova’s chilling, yet engaging, personal memoir of growing up in communist Bulgaria, and then returning to visit shortly after Bulgaria joined the European Union. The characters are finely drawn, and each chapter covers a different aspect (home, school, summers) in overlapping chronologies. The childhood section focuses primarily on Sofia, the capital, and the adult section covers all the regions of Bulgaria, shading into travelogue more than memoir. Woven around personal details, she covers history, current events, communism, capitalism, and ever-present tensions and truces between different ethnicities (Bulgarians, Turks, Macedonians, Greeks).

Her family emigrated to New Zealand when Kassabova was 18, and the book was written in English and published in the US, with the occasional New Zealand turn of phrase.

Kassabova is a few years younger than I am. While she was growing up with her sister and parents in a 2-room (not 2 bedrooms, 2 rooms total) apartment, struggling for food and boots and sometimes electricity and water, I was growing up with relative plenty, vaguely aware but mostly oblivious of others’ struggles.

Coincidentally we also visited Bulgaria at around the same time in 2007, although I only went to Sofia and Bansko. We visited many of the same attractions in those places, and I appreciated learning more details about them. For example, I drank from the mineral spring in the center of Sofia, but didn’t know that it flooded the main street when they first accidentally dug into it.

My attention wandered occasionally while reading, but overall I recommend this book highly as a memoir and a source of information about Bulgaria then and now.

Available at bookshop.org.

“We are All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy” by Maurice Sendak

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I’m a lifetime fan of Maurice Sendak. I still have my childhood copy of “Where the Wild Things Are.” I bought “We are All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy” when it came out in 1993, but I hadn’t looked at it in years. I pulled it off the shelf today and read it twice, puzzling.

Two obscure nursery rhymes are tied together to form a loose structure for the story told in pictures. Children of varied skin colors, including white Jack and Guy, live in a shantytown of cardboard boxes. Adult-size rats steal their kittens and a brown-skinned toddler. The moon intervenes as a huge cat, rescuing the kittens and baby, which Jack and Guy adopt.

The kids wrap themselves in newspapers which have clearly legible headlines about real estate prices and consumerism in one illustration, and layoffs and homelessness in another. Even though this book was published almost 20 years ago, it is painfully apt today.

From this link I learned that Maurice Sendak’s parents were Jews who emigrated from Poland, and that he is gay. From this link I learned that the Wild Things are based on the relatives who visited when he was a child.

This book evokes relief because it does not pretend everything is okay, even as it introduces hope and rescue. At the same time, the disjointed, allusive story leaves me puzzled, unsettled.

Edited to add: A recent interview with Maurice Sendak.

Available at bookshop.org.

“A Drunken Dream and other stories” by Moto Hagio

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Subtitle: 10 Stories of the Human Heart

Recommended to me by: laughingrat.dreamwidth.org

Moto Hagio is one of the most renowned Japanese artists of shojo manga, high-quality comics for teen girls. She was one of only a few women in the genre in the seventies, and she continues creating art today.

This is a chronological collection spanning 1977-2007. The elegant art conveys emotion and movement with fine pen strokes. With a light touch and few words, the stories address the emotional nuances of abandonment, nonconformity, abortion, conjoined twins, abusive mothers, dead mothers, loving mothers, love through time, gossip, friendship, and marriage.

The words are translated into English, but the pages and the panels run right-to-left, and the sounds emanating from the art are unfamiliar. Instead of “BAM!” and “lub-dub” we see “P-P-PAM” and “TMP!” Each panel invites careful attention, revealing more layers at each reading.

I highly recommend this collection.

Available at bookshop.org.

“The City and the City” by China Mieville

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Recommended to me by: jesse-the-k

Starting out, this books feels like a lovely magical little airship, lifting off into possibilities. By the end, the airship is limply deflated on the ground.

Detective novels aren’t my favorite genre so I haven’t read that many, but I don’t think it’s usual for clues to be Obviously Laid Out for the reader, but missed entirely by the super-competent detective. I could see plot holes being backfilled in the editing phase, too. Someone carefully Leaves the Keys in the Ignition so our hero can grab the car later.

The book might be an allegory about gender. Or not. I still rolled my eyes at the terrified women rescued by male actors. There is a competent female sidekick detective, and a female professor (with last name Nancy to make sure we notice), but the action centers on men from beginning to end.

I also noticed that the back cover has a large image of the author’s face with five o’clock shadow, presumably so we’ll know that China is male.

Interesting, but not my genre.

Available at bookshop.org.