Reading Summer OR Poverty and Its Real World Effects

I've been doing a lot of reading this summer, as you may have surmised from the title of my post. It's been mostly fiction with a smattering of self-realization books thrown in for good measure. I'm not sure, all things considered, that those two categories can really be separated, but for the purposes of my experiment on NOT self-editing too much, there you have it.

The way I see it, I started out with Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. This book has a great deal of significance in my life for many reasons. First, it is a book that spanned a long period of time, both in story and in my life specifically. I started to read Anna Karenina several years ago when one of my sisters was reading it and happened to leave her copy in the bathroom at my parents' house in Aurora. At the time it was still my parents' house and not, as it has become since then, my father's house, so in a way, I started to read this novel a lifetime ago.

Also, it was just after a friend of mine, in true character, had written me an email including a line from Anna about something political and then had followed it up with a few well-worded and somewhat cryptic comments about the absolutely dreadful and desperate state of affairs in the world. (This person has since made a complete turnaround and is the most astonishing optimist). So I picked it up because that's what you do when you see a book in the bathroom at your parents' house in Aurora, especially one your friend's just quoted to you in a desperate email. I've actually finished a lot of books I should have read years before but never quite got around to because I was sitting in the bathroom. It's completely embarrassing to admit to this, but again, self-editing is out.

Anyway, at that time I never got around to finishing the book. I had every intention of doing it, but things got in the way, I got busy, and until this past spring, I didn't have another really good opportunity or really, the desire, to finish reading this long and involved work of Russian literature. I did, however, manage to blaze through Crime and Punishment. So I went to Borders one day and saw it sitting there. And I bought it. Ill-advised though this decision was, (poverty is the other theme of this post) I knew that if I took it out from the library, it would eventually cost me more than if I just bought it.

It was a great rediscovery. I really fell in love with some of the characters and found the whole history of that time period to be fascinating and really felt like I kind of understood the whole political atmosphere when Communism began to rear its scarlet head in Russia and how the aristocracy of the period could be so torn about the issue and how it really affected them personally, etc., etc. And I was lugging this book with me to work every single day, because I knew that I would have a lot of time to sit around and read between clients (take clients between reading). So I had this giant tome laying out on the countertop one day when a woman I work with (who happens to be Russian and also happens to have no sense of self-editing) took one look and said, "Whose book is this? Is it yours?"

"Yes." I replied proudly.

"This is the worst book I've ever read." And she giggled, as she is prone to do after every statement she makes. She proceeded to explain to me that reading this book in English was completely useless because the Russian language is so complex that it actually CAN'T be translated, not to mention that the ideas contained in the text are difficult to understand even in Russian. Getting that the situation was ridiculously futile and that no matter how hard I tried to really GRASP what Tolstoy was getting at, there was no way that I could even begin to THINK about the vastness of this story.

"Well, I guess I'll just have to learn Russian and read it again."

She laughed at me. "No," she said, "it is too difficult language."

I just smiled politely and sat down with my book, now even more determined to finish it.

Now one thing that I have failed to mention previously is that Anna Karenina has another giant significance in my life. Possibly my favorite book of all time (don't quote me on that) is The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. This might be the most pretentious thing I've ever said. But it's true. I have a relationship with that novel that can't be fully explained here. What I will say is that Anna Karenina plays a very important role in that story as well. In the beginning when Tereza shows up on Tomas' front door step with her heavy suitcase in hand, she is carrying a copy of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, which for anyone who has ever read the thing or felt the need to lug it around knows that it represents weight. Literally and metaphorically, because damn, those Russians can't write anything unless it makes you feel like the weight of the world is resting squarely on your shoulders. Not to mention that the book itself is somewhere around 700 pages.

Long story short, I have always thought that being Tereza would be one of the most depressing things, because she created all these ties for herself that were constantly dragging her down. I mean there's a whole chapter devoted to talking about how she was clumsy and falling all over the place. And here I was, dragging my giant book around with me, which of course required its very own tote bag, which I proceeded to fill with a bunch of other crap I didn't need to be carrying around with me, so by the time I reached the halfway point (after Anna decides she has to leave Karenin, but before Levin and Kitty get married), I'd shrunk two inches and needed a therapist.

But seriously this is not a beach read. No matter what the women's magazines try to tell you.

And I finished it. And made a vow that everything I read from then on would be able to fit in my little green plaid knapsack. So I can walk swinging both arms.

So far, so good. I followed it up with:

A Series of Unfortunate Events Book 1 The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins
Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins
Paradise by Toni Morrison
Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling (can't read the first one without reading the second)

There are personal stories that go along with each one of these as well. Some are much shorter and much less involved than the one for Anna. Some are not. But they are ALL the result of a girl with no money and WAY too much free time at work.

By the way, one thing that people don't tell you is that the story goes on after Anna goes back to the train station. (We'll call it that here for those of you who don't want me to spoil the most exciting part of the book). You don't really need to read all the stuff that comes after. In my opinion, it's just Tolstoy stroking his ego a bit and trying to really hammer you with all the pseud0-philosophical stuff that goes through Levin's mind. And Levin is just a really thin veil for Tolstoy's own mental meanderings. So if you're a glutton for punishment, read on. But if you're committed to getting through Tolstoy, you probably are.