"Thus We Never See The True State Of Our Condition, Till It Is Illustrated To Us By Its Contraries; Nor Know How To Value What We Enjoy, But By The Want Of It"

Robinson Crusoe took me a minute to get into, but once rolling, I was sucked in. There was so much of it that was told in a very technical manner about how the character, after being shipwrecked on a deserted island, used what he could salvage from the ship to survive. But more accurately, thrive. I mean he farmed crops, tamed and raised livestock, built and created every manner of functional object (living dwellings, canoes, tables, baskets, pottery, etc). So the vast majority of the book was the nuts and bolts of how he came to live quite comfortably and happily. The last 80-100 pages however, switched focus to his interactions with those who were coming to the island (which was occurring for years without his knowledge). This part was much more action-packed (Cannibals! Shipwrecks! Capturing savages!) but was still written with a bit of impartiality to it, but given that the book was written as a memoir of remembrance long after the fact, it seemed appropriate. 

One of the main struggles of the characters throughout the book and the main thing that I disliked about the book was his coming into God and his faith during his time on the island. I surely get that he would question God for why he should have befallen such a terrible fate, and I surely get his sudden devotion to God to deem his survival as Providence and being divined for some particular reason. But what bothered me about it, was that the character, with nothing in the world but time and his thoughts, still only landed at the Christian god being the correct god (and not even other sects of Christianity but the one he was raised as, as at the end of the book, he opts not to go live in Brazil because everyone there is Catholic). All he had was a bible, but somehow he was able to determine the right teachings of God. 

There were maybe one or two moments when reflecting on the cannibals who came to the island where he almost opened his mind to the idea that there are cultures/tribes/peoples elsewhere in the world who had their own way of life and their own religions (or no religion). And instead of just accepting this, he determines that these people are without his Christian God because they have done something wrong and are doomed to suffer without God. And so feels it is his duty to save everyone and make them see what they're missing out on. This aspect of God-complex of white men in the 1600s/1700s (hell, even today) to colonize and insist on conversion of every people they encountered (often with penalty of death if not compliant) infuriates me. It's all done with the guise of "everyone should know God's love" which is a load of horse shit. It's all done as manipulation. Christ-driven, white man, colonization/patriarchy at its finest. 

This is also reflected in the casual inclusion of slavery in the novel as well. It's just a given in the book that English settlers buy slaves as a means to getting them what they want and making them rich. I get that this was written in the early 1700s when there was little question about whether any of this was ok. But it just infuriates me at the hypocrisy of this character (and the author really) who is so all about Jesus being everyone's savior, questioning the meaning of his life, and the reasons for his deliverance, but not even having a flicker of recognition of the injustice of inflicting pain on others. There is no self-awareness about whether any of that was ok under his own God when he, as a white man, was the one imposing that suffering on others. So yeah, the white man superiority which is presented as a natural given in this book made me angry enough to tarnish most of my other opinions about it. 

So moving on. Next up is Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen. I have some lovely time off coming up with family so I should be able to relax and spend some time reading. Or it's likely that, since we haven't seen each other in close to two years, that all we're going to do for a week is talk nonstop. It's a likely possibility. 

205 to go.       

"This Will Be One Defeat; More Will Follow. Victories Will Follow Too. You Are Not In This Life To Count Up Victories And Defeats. You Are In It To Love And Be Loved. You Are Loved With Your Head Down. You Will Be Loved Whether You Finish Or Not."

So a couple weeks ago, I had gone up north to my cottage for a few days to get a few things done before beginning my new job. And sadly, I drove three hours home and accidentally left one bag behind which contained my book (fortunately, it didn't contain any perishables). So knowing that I wouldn't be reunited with Robinson Crusoe for ~two to three weeks, I decided to pick one of the non-list books on my shelf and motor through it before I would get back up north to retrieve the left-behind book. Normally, I hate doing this, reading more than one book at a time. For some reason I need to focus on one book, one story, one style of writing. And because I'm so fond of checking things off lists, I need to feel as though I accomplished one task before moving on to the next. But I had the free time and didn't want to squander it watching some dumb shit on tv when I could be happily reading away. 

So the book I grabbed was We Are Not Ourselves by Matthew Thomas. This book was a random selection at the bookstore a couple years ago and it has been languishing on my shelf. Why I thought it was wise to choose a 620 page novel, I'll never know, but it just felt like the right choice to move on to one that had been staring me in the face for years. And apparently, I can read 620 pages in 2 weeks. Go figure. 

We Are Not Ourselves is the six-decade spanning story of Eileen Leary (nee Tumulty) who grew up in Queens in the 1950s and 60s with Irish parents and an alcoholic mother. The book almost felt like there were two different halves to it - the story of her childhood and then shifting to the perspective of not just her, but her, her husband Ed, and their son Connell in the second half (some chapters would be told from their perspective instead of hers starting partway through the book). Her husband is a college science professor who certainly could have been slated for much greater things in his life but who feels a duty to stick to the small college he's at and positively impact the students he feels need it the most. And while Eileen rises through the ranks as a nurse and hospital administrator, all she wants in life is to move out of Jackson Heights into a sprawling mansion in the suburbs that will convey her status in life to others (in fact, she feels this way about many things in her life, not just the house...she wants fancier cars, she goes out and buys a mink coat because she hears another woman at the salon talking about it, etc). And while she manages to carve out the life she wants (against the strong protests of her husband), nothing is ever that simple, as Ed develops early-onset dementia. 

The way that Ed's dementia was presented was well done. There were gradual behavioral changes that may not have been obviously related to dementia, but as someone who has had a loved one with Alzheimer's, I knew the symptoms immediately and waited patiently for many more pages for the truth to be revealed to the characters themselves. The second half/last third of the book details Eileen and Connell's struggles with managing Ed's declining health and increasingly aberrant and difficult behavior. And while I've read at least one other novel about Alzheimer's since my grandfather passed away, it never gets easier to read situations that feel strikingly familiar. And reading this made me think really long and hard about the personal battles that my grandmother faced while caring for him. She shouldered that burden without asking for help and without complaint, but we as a family will never truly know the difficulties she faced every moment for years. And while I could have assumed what she was dealing with, I felt like reading this book pulled back the curtain on what the experience was most likely was for her. 

I enjoyed the book very much and was glad it was the one I chose. It's kind of astonishing that this was Matthew Thomas' debut novel. 

Last weekend, I was in fact reunited with Robinson Crusoe, so back to deserted island living for me. I'm going to have a full week (and then some) back up at the cottage in two weeks, so maybe I can use the same strategy and plan to finish this one by then so I can pick up something new. But damn, have I been enjoying reading this year. I don't know what fire got lit underneath me, but I read four and half books in the nine weeks that I was off from work and it really has me all sucked in. I keep staring longingly at the stack of books to read on my bookshelf just wanting to read them all! Devour all the books!!