"There Seemed To Be No End To The Things That Could Be Hiding, Waiting It Out, Right Where You Thought You Could See It All"

So I had a quick change in strategy for which book I was reading. My BF and I had planned a weekend get-away to his sister's place up north at Higgins Lake, and I just couldn't somehow see myself sitting back on the deck, with the warm July breeze rustling through the trees overhead, enjoying the mid-summer sunshine and a cocktail, reading Macbeth. And having to look up every other word in an Olde English Dictionary and seek clarifications for my confusion (which is certain to be significant) in reference material. It just didn't seem like the kind of book I would dive into while my feet were planted in the sand and much more of a hassle than I wanted on a leisurely weekend away.

So I switched it up to one of the books from my list of female writers: The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver. And I literally read it in a day (that's the magic that happens when you go somewhere where you have no cell phone service).

I had read The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver probably back in high school (back when Oprah had claimed it as one of her own), and I honestly can't remember all that much about it. I know it was about the lives of a family of missionaries in Africa. And I think one of the girls owned a high-end hotel when she got older. And I think there was something about fire ants? Or maybe I'm confusing that with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (which, if you haven't seen it, don't bother. The fire ants part was the only slightly entertaining part of the movie). And I don't really know why I can't remember this book. I recall liking it a great deal, but for some reason, there are a handful of books I can look at on my bookshelves and have very little recollection what they're about.

Anyway, similar to how much I enjoyed The Poisonwood Bible, I very much enjoyed The Bean Trees. It was really a perfect, quick summer read. The story is about a girl, Taylor, who is determined to leave her hometown in rural Kentucky to make a life for herself somewhere else. While she sets out driving west, along the way in Oklahoma, under very strange circumstances, she has a young Indian girl forced upon her. She discovers that the ~3 year old girl was abused and clearly unwanted, so she drives on to Arizona, taking the girl with her. And the story unfolds from there of the people she meets and befriends in Tucson, and how they all manage to make their lives work, in spite of the difficult circumstances that confront them.

First off, I very much liked the character of Taylor. She was sassy, but in an endearing, very charming way. Sometimes I feel like sass and sarcasm in a character can come across as very snarky and dislikeable. Which, isn't that true in real life too? It's hard to pull it off without coming across as a mean person that just wants to shit all over everything. But this character dished it out when she needed to and in a self-protective, limited way.

Secondly, it was worth reading the book just for the clever descriptions that Kingsolver uses in her observations. She really has a mastery of analogies and observations that we've probably all seen, but she manages to make them so humorous - I found myself smiling to myself dozens of times. Just a few examples:

• "The clouds were pink and fat and hilarious-looking, like the hippo ballerinas in a Disney movie."
• "...I left the interstate at an off ramp and pulled over next to what looked like the Flying Nun's hat made out of bumpy concrete..."
• There was a prostitute with a miniskirt that looked like Reynolds Wrap.
• There was a man who sold vegetables with skin that looked like a baked potato.
• There was a cat who walks in circles in the living room, kicking its feet behind it again and again throwing invisible sand over invisible cat poop.

Overall, I really liked the book. I would certainly consider reading more of her work in the future (and I can see that there are MANY other works to choose from).

So while we were up north, I had also brought another book along with me, under the assumption that I would have finished The Bean Trees and still delaying my start of Macbeth. So I've moved on to The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer. I haven't read a book about war in a while, but it seemed that for a time, every single book I read was in someway related to WWII (Catch-22, Everything is Illuminated, etc). I definitely won't be reading this beast in a day, although I'm about a third of the way through so far. So progressing slowly. I swear after this I'll read Macbeth. Maybe I'll start it in the fall when it feels like I should be going back to school too and it'll feel more like a school assignment.

242 to go. Happy Sunday!