Due to a whim and groupon offer, I'll be getting an ionic foot detox tomorrow.  Laugh all you want.  I'll admit, it may be completely bogus, but it will make for an interesting story, nonetheless.

I've been delving into the life and mind of Steve Martin lately.  So I tried incorporating some Steve Martin-esque comedy into my love life.  There were moments when it was surreal.  And just like Steve Martin, it killed .... the mood, that is. I guess I'm just ahead of my time.

I would love to visit Georgia, simply for their wine and food.  I think of all the ethnic food I've tried, it's my favorite.  Perhaps, I say this just because it's a luxury I've only been able to indulge in while in Russia & Ukraine.  But to be fair, I would like to visit most countries in the Soviet Bloc and Former Soviet Union.  It would put a face, so to speak, to all that I've studied these past few years.

   

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Keri Hulme's The Bone People takes place in New Zealand and presents a slice of Maori life and culture.  Kerewin, Joe, and Simon are the three main characters that tell the story.  They are sad, sometimes bitter people who are haunted by their separate tragic pasts, and as a result end up isolating themselves from family and society.  The three come together as strangers to themselves and to each other, but come to depend on one another in the end. 

The author uses the English and Maori languages to add another subtext to the novel.  At times it can be slow and difficult to read, but at the same time the incorrect usage of punctuation, grammar, and style enhances the reader's understanding of the characters' emotional and thinking processes. 

The book left me with overall mixed feelings.  There are some serious issues of abuse presented, particularly the roles people play in a domestic violence situtation: the abuser, the abused, and the witnesses who let it play out with little to no interference.  As a person who has worked at a family crisis center and who has heard talks from survivors of domestic violence, my conscience wrestled with the moral dilemma of enjoying this book.  Let me explain:

The protagonist of a book is usually the person given the most voice, the most attention.  We, as readers, like to find ways to identify ourselves in relation to the protagonists.  We find similarities in our actions and thoughts, and we either hate or love ourselves after seeing ourself in another perspective.  So what happens when the protagonist is an abusive asshole, or an attention-seeking little shit, or a emotionally cold woman?  We know their faults and are disgusted.  Yet we know the depths of their emotions and we know their true capicity to love.  So we strangely find ourselves forgiving the unforgivable and cheering them on in the futile hope that they'll change.  It's the same way I felt when I read Lolita and secretly hoped that the young girl would come back home and forgive Humbert Humbert, when I knew that Humbert was an undeniably dirty, old bastard.  Yes, even the worst of people have at least one redeeming quality, but is it enough to trust them in the long run?  Is anyone capable of that kind of radical change? 

The abusers in a domestic violence situation also seek forgiveness, always shower their victims with love after an episode and promise that it will never happen again.  It inevitably does despite it all.  The abused always forgive, always take the blame, always sees the good that lies beneath the cruelty, and for whatever reason either can't leave or do not want to leave the relationship.  It's a cruel, viscious mental cycle that from an outsider's point of view seems sick and ludicrious on both sides.  Here's where the biggest dilemma comes in: how do you help the abused when they don't want to leave the abusive person?  How can you make them see they are so much better off without them, when they are sick with grief for getting the other person in trouble?  Do you give them what they want even you know it's bad for them? Or do you fight with them and deprive them of their wishes?  And if the abused is a child, what then? It's easier to say that children don't get to decide their livlihoods anyway, so you can force them into a safer environment more easily and they may adjust quicklier.  But what do you do when the most obstinate of children risks his life to return to the one who abused him? 

The Bone People is a well-written book that makes you think.  I didn't care for the ending too much.  It was the most abstract part of the book.  While it gave an optimistic image of a big change, it also planted a little seed of doubt that this was simply an illusion, and truthfully, people can't change who they are.  And to be honest, I guess I wanted to be proven wrong, that people are capable of a radical change for the better.  And if that was indeed true for this story, I wouldn't feel like such a gullible heel for wanting a reunion to take place. 

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

I picked up this book on an impulse. Ever since moving to Seattle, I occassionally experience pangs of longing for Southern culture. On some rainy days I fantasize about being back in Oxford, MS and browsing shops along the square or roaming around the grounds of Roanoak on a warm spring day. And when I think of Oxford, I naturally think of Faulkner and his characters. I haven't read a tremendous amount of Faulkner, but I also haven't read a book of his I didn't like ... until now.

I'm sure The Sound and the Fury is brilliant on some level of literary criticism, but I just couldn't hack this one. I always finish books to the bitter end, but I just couldn't bring myself to care enough for this one. I bet Faulkner got a kick out of fact that this was ever even published, because clearly, he's messing with our heads.

I have two suggestions for those who might consider reading this novel:
1) Don't. Read As I Lay Dying or Absolom! Absolom! instead.
2) If you won't head #1, at least look up a summary of the novel and the Compson family tree beforehand. If you are not intimately familiar with the chronology of Faulkner's novels and how the characters in them are related across time and space, you will not figure it out on your own in this book. Trust me.