Book Review - The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny

Number five in the Chief Inspector Gamache mystery series, The Brutal Telling keeps me captivated!

This one's a story of fear and greed, best explained by a couple of quotes:

     "The Hungry Ghost," said Gilbert.
That roused Gamache, who twisted in his garden chair to look at the dignified man next to him.
     "Pardon?"
     "It's a Buddhist belief.  One of the states of man from the Wheel of Life.  The more you eat the hungrier you get.  It's considered the very worst of lives.  Trying to fill a hole that only gets deeper.  Fill it with food or money or power.  With the admiration of others.  Whatever."
     "The Hungry Ghost," said Gamache.  "How horrible."
     "You have no idea." said Gilbert.

 Gilbert glared at him.  His rage back in full force.  But Armand Gamache knew what was behind that rage.  What was behind all rage.

    Fear.

Fear is also behind the lies we tell and this story is full of them.  The interesting part is that it is not just the murderer who cannot tell the truth.  So many others for greed and fear cannot come up with the truth.  And since Chief Inspector Gamache is all about finding the truth and exploring the deep dark places where it too often hides, we get an exciting, interesting, stunning peek to some pretty frightening places that may not be all that unfamiliar.

And what a tale those eyes told Gamache.  In them he saw the infant, the boy, the young man, afraid.  Never certain what he would find in his father.  Would he be loving and kind and warm today?  Or would he sizzle the skin off his son?  With a look, a word.  Leaving the boy naked and ashamed.  Knowing himself to be weak and needy, stupid and selfish.  So that the boy grew an outer hull to withstand assault.  But while those skins saved tender young souls, Gamache knew, they soon stopped protecting and became the problem.  Because while the hard outer shell kept the hurt at bay, it also kept out the light.  And inside the frightened little soul became something else entirely, nurtured only in darkness.

I have been exploring honesty and authenticity a lot lately and The Brutal Telling has been a classic case study that has helped me greatly in my own quest to understand and break out of my own protective, stifling shell of fear.

*****

Book Review - Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen

I have been involved in helping youth at the local juvenile detention center for over eight years now.  I have spent a lot of time wondering about the best ways to approach the problems these wonderful youth face.  How can we help them?  How can we assist them to find solutions and healing?  What are the best resources for facilitating this progress?

I also spent several months living in the wilderness with troubled youth.  I despised the model that program used.  While "the mountain" had its healing powers, because it was far away from drugs and influences, completely distant from privileges and possessions; it could have been so much more.  This wilderness program made the mountain merely a tool for isolation.  They could have done that in a warehouse.  In Touching Spirit Bear, the wilderness, in this case the island, was so very much more.  That "more" was what was entirely lacking in the wilderness program and is hardly even sought in our current judicial system.

Ben Mikaelsen's book provided many of the answers I've been seeking.  There is wisdom here and great risk.  I think we will never see this kind of method commonly used because of the risk.  We don't take those kinds of chances with our youth and the consequence is, we don't get this kind of results.  I think life in general was designed by God to be just this risky, but lawyers and hand wringers have taken much of the potential out of life and consequently out of the lives of our youth.

Reality therapy is pretty simple, as one character, Garvey, tell his young friend Cole:

"Go ahead and try it.  Try manipulating a storm or lying to your hunger.  Try cheating the cold."

There is more to the process this book reveals.  It is not only about being exposed to reality.  It is also about being, exposed to love.  This is another ingredient that seems quite lacking in the institutional setting.  The powers that be, in an honest effort to protect, have even sheltered these kids from love.  Human contact is prohibited.  Perhaps that's risky too. This is not to say that the staff at these institutions lacks love for their charges.  Quite to the contrary, most are under paid and under appreciated and stay precisely because they love these kids.  But at the end of the day, if because of societal fears and institutional rules, these kids don't experience individually focused love, don't connect with others who deeply care about them, don't feel healthy, safe human contact, they won't be getting better and we'll continue to see many of them behind bars again and again.

So I hammer on about the details, while Mikaelsen just tells a story.  And what a wonderful, heart rending, uplifting and inspiring story it is.  Some kids will get the message vicariously through the story.  I did.  You see, I'm not appreciably healthier than they are.  It is clear though, that Cole's experience living it will be infinitely deeper than my experience reading about it.  And Cole's recovery will be correspondingly sturdier than mine has been.  As I note this, though, I realize that reality and love can be had right here where I am.  I don't have to isolate myself to an island or a mountain.  Reality and love are everywhere. The difference is that here I have access to the tools I use to avoid them.

*****

Book Review - Odd Apocalypse by Dean Koontz

Two Odd books in a row!  I am indeed working on my ODD.  My appreciation for Odd Thomas grows and grows.  I love his simple, unassuming ways.  I thrill at his optimism and at his thought provoking philosophical approach to life.  While my imagination falls far short of Dean Koontz's there is a familiarity and  and brotherhood that warms me every time I read his work.

Here are a few philosophical gems:

"Without faith to act as a governor, the human mind is a runaway worry generator, a dynamo of negative expectations.  And because your life is yours to shape as you wish with free will, if you entertain too much anxiety about too many things, if you place no trust in providence, what you fear will more often come to pass.  We make so many of our own troubles, from mere mishaps to disasters, by dwelling on the possibility of them until the possible become inevitable."

"Narcissists are everywhere in this ripe age of self-love, which amazes me because so much in life would seem to foster humility." 

"Knowing the names of things is a way of paying respect to the beauty of the world that sustains me and keeps my sorrow in check."

"I have witnessed others demonstrating by their addictions that chemically induced euphoria is subject to something quite like the law of gravity:  What goes up must eventually come crashing down." 

"You can't stand an idea up against a wall and execute it.  Neither can you wrap in up in a tissue of your better judgement and tuck it in a box of forgetfulness.  An idea can be the most dangerous of all things, especially if it is an idea that promises you the most paticular and exquisite happiness for which you've long yearned." 

"Maybe it's just that before anything came the word, and words are the roots of everything that our senses perceive.  Nothing can be imagined, nothing can be visualized in our minds, until we have a word for it.  Therefore, when I give myself to the free flow of any words that trip off my tongue without predetermination, I am tapping in to the primal creative power at the heart of the cosmos." 

"But if there can be a change for the worse, there can be a change for the better." 

"The best part of a Mr. Goodbar is not the wrapper, is it?  No, and the best part of a Coke is not the can.  On those nights when you lie awake, either man or boy, wondering about yourself, peeling away one layer of oddness after another, you should remember and always be grateful that the woefully imperfect person that you are, with all your contradictions and unworthy desires, is not the best of you any more than the wrapper is the best part of a Mr. Goodbar." 

And the story is interesting and a lot of fun too!

The second biggest thrill from reading this book is the promise, which comes at the end, of yet another book in the Odd Thomas series, Deeply Odd.  Can't wait!

*****

Book Review - Odditude by John R. Powers

The sub-title of this little volume says it all:  Finding the Passion for Who You Are and What You Do.

This is a great bathroom book.  Each chapter is short succinct and wonderfully clear about what one might to to enhance one's uniqueness.  In a world that increasingly seeks to homogenize the population.  Dr. Powers makes a strong argument for maintaining and developing our own individuality, our ODD.  ODD is where happiness, growth, excitement and opportunity are found. 

I loved the book and intend to spend time reviewing it often.  I hope to establish my ODD and to foster the ODD in those around me.  I have seen raw milk that was 75% cream.  All of the cream rose to the top.  Surely some became butter, some was poured over peaches, some was frozen into ice cream and some, whipped, topped a wonderful pie.  The point is, it rose above the ordinary, because it wasn't homogenized.and made EVEN with the milk.  There is ODD in each of us and fostered will make each of us better and consequently, the world will be a better place.

No doubt we'll get resistance from those who'd make us EVEN, but the effort and consequent persecution will be worth it.

I highly recommend this one.  Share it with your kids; unless you're a parent who'd rather make them EVEN because you're a control freak.  In that case, I'll share it with them.  :-)

*****

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