Katie Stew

I knew there was something I meant to write about this week, but I’ve been so slammed I forgot what it was. I just remembered! I finished reading “The Art of Racing in the Rain” this week. And it was just wonderful.

I am on a roll! This is the third book in a row that I’ve read and loved. (not counting some JD Robb book that I read a week ago that was absolutely abysmal. But, not worth counting or reviewing.)

Last Easter, I visited my aunt in Portland. I finished the book that I took there and needed something for the ride home. She lent me this book with promises that I had to return it because it was one of her favorites. I took it, but for some reason didn’t read it on the way home. Instead, it found its way to the bottom of my “to read” pile. I’m not sure why it has taken me so long to get to. But every time I went to pick it up, I was distracted by something shinier. Something that didn’t have anything to do with race car driving.

I didn’t expect to love this book. A book about race car driving as told by a dog? I don’t care a wit about race cars. But, surprisingly, I loved this book. It was wonderful.

The story is told by Enzo, the dog. Enzo is a dog who believes a legend he once saw on television. It was a Mongolian legend that says that after a dog dies, if he is ready, he will be reincarnated as a human. Enzo believes he is close to human and is often frustrated by his long tongue which doesn’t allow him to speak and his lack of opposable thumbs. He wants to learn all that he can about being human, so that he is prepared when his time comes.

Much of what he learns about being human, he learns from Denny, his master who is a professional race car driver. Denny and his family endure many hardships and struggles, and Enzo learns about patience, perseverance in the face of adversity, and love.

There are many life lessons in the book to be learned from race car driving. One of the most used ones is “that which you manifest is before you”. When racing, a driver needs to not focus on the present as much as focus on what is coming next. What the future may hold. It is a see it and believe it mentality. It is this mentality that helps the protagonists get through their tragic losses and struggles.

This story was heartwrenching, funny, and made me cry at the end. I love that mixed emotion when reading the end of a book. The one where you want to cry with love for all the characters, but at the same time you are on the bus and try and hold it in because people are looking at you funny, which quickly becomes hilarious at the same time. Yes. The laughing while trying not to cry on the bus emotion is really entertaining. Love it.

Enzo was such a wonderful character. He makes you wonder when you look at your dog, how much the dog is really understanding in there. What would that dog say if he had a mouth that could form words? Where would he go if he could turn that doorknob?

I now know more about racing than I ever expected to know, but I’m ok with it. I also have a newfound curiosity about what animals around me may be thinking. And I now have a new book that I am happy to recommend to people.

You’ll love Enzo.

And in case you are interested, I found this video that the writer made. It is like a preview for the book. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ0CTcU0Fd0

What fun! What a thrill! What a joy this book was.

Needless to say, I really enjoyed “Water for Elephants” by Sara Gruen.

Other than “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, which I’ve already gushed about, this is one of the best things I’ve read in a while. It was terribly intriguing and entertaining.

The story is told from two different time periods. It begins with Jacob Jankowski when his is 90, or 93. He can’t really remember. Jacob is in a nursing home and across the street, the circus has come to town. This reminds him of his youth when a series of tragic incidents led him to literally, run off and join the circus.

The book then cuts to his youth and moves back and forth through out the story.

The story of his time with the circus is full of lust, hatred, anger, revenge, beauty, and violence. Jacob falls for a married woman who is a performer in the circus and who is married to a crazy man. He also falls for Rosie, the star of the show, who happens to be an elephant. Jacob is forced to make hard decisions and take drastic measures to protect both of the women he loves. And this is not just any circus he joined, but the circus with one of the worst circus disasters in history. And Jacob was there for it.

The framework for the story is really wonderful. It is interesting to see through the eyes of someone so old, who feels like he has nothing left to give the world, and then to see that man compared to his younger self who is so full of passion and energy. It is a fascinating look both at the lives of the elderly and what it might be like to live in a nursing home as well as what a depression era traveling circus would be like.

This book had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. From the very beginning. The prologue of the book contains a snippet of the climax of the story. It was exciting and hooked me right away, but it was wonderful to come to it again in the actual climax of the story and learn that not everything was what it seemed.

After finishing the book, I learned that they are making a film version. When I saw the preview, I must say I was very excited.

Read this book. It was wonderful.

“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some, they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.

Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.”

So begins “Their Eyes Were Watching God”. I love that intro.

To be completely honest, one of the main reasons that I’m eager to restart my book club is because I just finished rereading “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston and I believe everyone should read this book. I don’t know if it is my all time favorite book, but I do believe it is the most beautiful book that I’ve ever read. I love this book. I want to share it with everyone. If you haven’t read it, put it in your Amazon cart now. Go ahead. I can wait here.

Hurston wrote this book in the midst of the Harlem Renaissance of the 30s. It was met with both admiration and criticism at the time and then her work was largely forgotten for a couple of decades. Alice Walker brought her work back into the light in the 70s. This book has had a renewal of sorts and is now a standard in high school English classes. It is now regarded as an important work in African-American literature as well as women’s literature and was listed as one of the top 100 books of the century by Time.

I first read this book in high school, and loved it even then. It was my favorite of anything I ever read for school, but it had been years since I picked it up. I’m so glad. I’ve fallen in love with it all over again.

The story takes place in the early part of the 1900s in central and southern Florida. The novel begins with Janie returning home from an epic journey and relating to her friend Phoeby the story of her life. Janie’s life is one of sorrow and beauty. “Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches.”

I don’t want to tell you about the story, because I don’t want to ruin anything. But, I will say that Janie lives three very different lifestyles with three very different men over her years. She learns what love is and what it is not. What it is to live and let the soul breathe and what it is to be pushed down and squeezed by society until it felt like there was no life at all. It is a story of redemption and love.

The writing is beautiful. Hurston uses imagery in a way that makes the imagination fly, without it being heavy handed and hard. For example, this is an excerpt from the first chapter.
“The people all saw her come because it was sundown. The sun was gone, but he had left his footprints in the sky. It was the time for sitting on porches beside the road. It was the time to hear things and talk. These sitters had been tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long. Mules and other brutes had occupied their skins. But now, the sun and the bossman were gone, so the skins felt powerful and human. They became lords of sounds and lesser things. They passed nations through their mouths. They sat in judgement.”

I just don’t know how you could describe a bunch of gossipers sitting on a porch more poetically than that.

All of the dialogue of the novel is written in dialect. It may take a little getting used to, but you will settle into it fairly quickly. To show an example, this is a quote from Janie about love. “”Love ain’t somethin’ lak uh grindstone dat’s de same thing everywhere and do de same thing tuh everything it touch. Love is lak de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.”

There is not much else to say about this book right here other than that you should go and read it as soon as possible. It will be a breath of fresh air and will make your heart soar. Just the thing you need in the middle of the winter. Or in the summer. Or whenever you can find yourself reading this lovely book.