Number One
Sarah Ruhl is a unique contemporary playwright. I have read a number of her plays including Dear Elizabeth, Dead Man's Cell Phone, The Clean House, and maybe a few more. They are all very different in style and tone which makes her an interesting writer to read -- all of the pieces don't sound or feel the same.
I received this book, 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write, as a gift, I think a Christmas gift, maybe from my husband, maybe not, and maybe he or someone else saw it on my wish list. I am not being coy -- I truly cannot remember the origin of this book in my apartment but only know it has been sitting on an endtable in my living room for months when I didn't have time to read it. Sometimes it was buried under other books, and I would forget about it, but when I would see it or remember it, I always wanted to read it because of the title. I feel like this is a title I would write. It speaks to me and about me, I thought.
Over Memorial Day weekend, I flew to North Carolina for my husband's cousin's wedding. I wanted to bring something to read on the plane, and the book happened to catch my eye as I was leaving, so I brought it. Now, I do not like flying very much, but this book was an absolute joy to read. It is a collection of very short essays about this and that, but all of the thises and thats appealed to me.
Many were about theater or children, so I could relate. I first looked at the table of contents and saw something about CATS, so I read that one first. She talked about the strange phenomenon which is CATS, and how she is very familiar with it since her daughter made her watch the video recording of it countless times (I completely related to that since my daughter, too, went through a long a grueling obsession with CATS which I am not sure is completely dormant especially now that a revival is coming to Broadway.) The essay had me laughing on the plane, as Ruhl suggested that the musical is some kind of just retribution for T.S. Eliot's pretentious ways, but how he must be baffled by the leg warmers.
This was a very fast read; I finished it well before we landed in under two hours and reread some of my favorite essays. Having nothing to read on the way back, I reread the whole thing again. It was worth it.
Number Two
Maggie received this book as a prize, and I have heard good things about this author's more recent novel, The Garden of Evening Mists, so I thought I would read it. Classes are done, and I have nothing left to grade until finals come in, and I thought I deserved a reading break.
The novel was okay. It was compelling, and I wanted to find out what happened, so I spent a day and a half starting and finishing it. And it was full of lush description and some interesting characters. BUT...it was also clunky, somewhat overdone, somewhat undone or left undone but in unsatisfying ways. The frame of telling the story of the story and within that, other people telling their backstory, felt too narrative at times. And although I got a good sense of the main character's struggle with mixed identity in his childhood, I am not sure I ever felt resolved that we truly know who he is -- even though the novel suggests that he knows this by the end -- not sure I agree. Maybe this is because it is a first novel.
I still want to read the author's second novel, and reviews of it make it sound similar to this one yet perhaps with more fleshed-out characters. Both are set in Malaysia and deal with the Japanese Occupation (and accompanying violence) of World War II, and some of the writing is based on historical research and some on the author's own life experience. Interesting stuff.
Despite my tepid review, I feel that reading this was a good way to spend a free and rainy Sunday before finals.
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