reading – Page 3 – Dimples Migraines and Aahs

January 31, 2022January 31, 2022

Fallen Grace and books in 2021

I knew He would never leave me. Yes, a struggle it has been but just before the end of the month the delivery of a post! I willed myself to write and I sought for a piece, had 3 drafts but they did not sit well with me.. one fateful evening of going through my friend’s stories and it landed on my lap, well served.

I started this book on 26th January and right from the start I knew I finally got the one. The blurbs promised a sad story; one of two girls, deep in poverty in Britain. I subscribed to the funeral ceremony that would make one of the girls cross paths with her to be destiny. Yeah, you think you’ve got a rag to riches story… Well rags, they were in and their journey and the narration of the story is one you want to read.

I must be reading books based in London each year.. it is the English for me. I can certainly twang and I am all airs. The lives, the descriptions, is it that I relate because the Britons were our colonizers and we have some sort of kinship tie. It certainly is the notable mentions, the nobility and the world of the dead as a whole especially at this time of the year. Historical fiction is the label given to the book’s genre.

The funeral industry is one that always leaves me in awe. Talking to dealers in death whenever the opportunity presents itself, watching how different cultures treat their dead, reading about hanging coffins and how that began due to scarcity of burial ground and the lengths the wealthy go about honoring their dead like Emelda Marcos having piped music playing in her husband’s coffin to keep him until burial in his home country became possible.

I like the ideas impressed upon me by this book. The author’s pedantic prose.. would it be a book by an English author if I do not have newfound words rolling off my tongue. I want to give it all away but I’m holding myself on a leash. I cried tears of joy because who would have seen that coming!!!

The book cover is befitting. The length is very manageable as it is only 232 pages that will turn fast. Another plus is that you will be more knowledgeable about England’s history when you finish the book.

I might as well sum up my 2021 in books in this post. 2021 recorded the lowest in the three years since I began tracking my reading experience. It is not that I read less or that I was distracted but many of the materials I read in 2021 were more academic than recreational. I marvel at the people whose count is 96 books in a year and in 2020 I was chasing that although with a starting goal of 40. This year January is almost coming to an end and I have only two finished books; quite a slow start.

My last book of the year which spilled over the first days of this year was Regretting you by Colleen Hoover. I am so glad I managed to read a book by her during the year. If you recall in 2019 when I started recording my progress I had read 4 of her books and I had so much to say here https://wordpress.com/post/dimplesmigrainsandaahs.home.blog/207. It is my pleasure to confirm that Regretting you has maintained the bar set by colleen Hoover. I dreaded picking the book up in 2020 in fear that it may erase the streak maintained.

I always like it when an author ropes the book title in the story and this book does it. The first few pages kept me interested, the next few pages lost my interest. I urged myself to keep reading since I only judge a book after the first hundred pages. Somewhere along my reading I stopped keeping track of the pages turned and as the end drew near, I was content with the pace, the writing, the description, the characters, the plot, the language and the length of the book.

Finding my passion is my passion

The story is beautiful, we go through the emotions with the characters, and the dialogue is so well written. One feels as if they were part of the audience. Other Honorary mention goes to The Mothers by Brit Bennet, and City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert. 2021 in books may fall short of the in depth review because of the books I read, the six that moved me during the year got their stand alone posts and two though written went unpublished. I am looking forward to the books I will read this year and the impact they will have on me and my writing.

November 20, 2021November 20, 2021

The Nightingale has sung

War stories… knowing what people went through at a certain time in history through no fault of their own and imagining how I would have survived being in that situation. It is the names the natives coin for their oppressors. It is the love that comes their way in spite of the bodies dropping each day and knowing that each kiss is a goodbye. It is the hope for a better future, the longing for the past, and the uncertainty of the present. It is mostly the narration of the story, the description, the tempo, and the tone.

I almost gave up on this book; 200 pages in and I was as clueless as the characters. I wanted to know something they did not. Perhaps it should have been one of those stories that start with the end then explain how we got there. Maybe there should have been a letter that was written that we get to read before it is delivered. I grew tired of Isabelle talking about the war, Vianne expecting the return of the men who went to war and Gaëtan.

At first, I felt like nothing was happening in those 200 pages then in the next 100 pages I made sense of why things had to be narrated as they were. I was glad to be as clueless as the characters. Happy to go through the experiences with them. I felt frightened, fatigued from the walk to the border, the lack of essentials because everything is being rationed and the resignation to fate while doing my part.

Isabelle is brave, impetuous, reckless and I think that sometimes she took a risk when she ought to have played safe. Things were bad and she hoped her actions would help quicken the process to a free France but there was a long way to go. I understand how one can love another and at the same time only spew hatred towards them. I understand how one can be quick to think the worst after examining things on the surface. I understand that you can mean well but still be unable to do anything for another.

Some experiences are brutal and maybe as the book suggests, we need not work towards forgetting them and leaving them in the past but we should narrate them, remember them, notice what impact they have had and how they have shaped our character. The characters in this book portray different reactions individuals would have at a time of war.

There are those who would be up in arms in the frontline. There are those who sit back hoping and praying that their loved ones come back safe and sound. There are those who take subtle measures that make a huge difference even though they are not frontline in the war. There are circumstances that cannot be explained away and hard choices that people have to live with long after the war.

In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are

There is so much loss in war. One loses friends because much as the invader is the enemy, we each play a different role in the war for our survival and hence people drift. One loses themselves as the hypothetical scenarios they once formed in their heads become reality and there is no one to share with because everyone is going through something. Dignity, humanity, pride is stripped off and souls are laid bare. Children are forced to grow up overnight and see the world as is, no fairies, no Santa clauses, no Prince charming just ordinary men and women.

Grief like regret settles into our DNA and remains forever a part of us

After the war, some people talk about their experiences others want to move on with the pieces left of who they once were. There is so much to be forgiven, so much to be accepted, there is evidence of it all around but each person does what can get them to go through another day without hurting deeply. In love we find out who we want to be; in war, we find out who we are.

June 11, 2021June 11, 2021

Bird Summons

A lady who has piqued my interest for the past two years declared this her current read. The Author’s name sounded familiar, I had purposed to read, I think I read the book, Kindness of enemies by her. I took up this book to have something in common with the lady. The book cover implores you to pick it up. It looks playful, a simple and easy ready.

The blurp was promising a story about three women who embark on a journey and through it they find themselves. Iman is in her early twenties, already married a couple of times and has no means of self sustenance hence the marriages. Moni is a wife who had given birth to a differently abled child and neglected her role as a wife to be a full time mother. She prides herself in that and feels that there is no greater honor than to be at her child’s beck and call. Some women might have been in this position or still are and I applaud the author for addressing this. Last is Salma who is happily married at least to the outsider but deep down she is fighting battles. Decades into her marriage, she still wonders whether she made the right choice. She stalks her first love on social media to see the life he is living and imagines herself in it.

There might seem to be a trend here of me only reading books about women, written by women and this is not orchestrated. I might have felt strongly about them or was bothered enough to write about them but in between reading city of girls and this, I read men without women by Haruki Murakami and the silent patient by Alex Michaelides.

By now you are accustomed to the way I conduct my reviews. To the new reader, I give snippets of conversations or pick lines from the book and in doing that, I aim to help you in decision making on whether or not to read the book. The lines I pick will not spoil your reading experience in any way if that is your eventual decision.

children can be rude to their parents but never to the waiter

I don’t know which parenting handbook gave this tip that well behaved children should be polite to strangers, people who provide services, adults in general but no emphasis on the parents. As a child one could get away with shouting at your parent but if you pulled the same action to another adult, you would never hear the end of it.

Every holiday was a threat… perfect length turned into indulgence, time sitting heavy on idle hands, the mind free to find fault with time left behind, too much friction between people, familiarity turning into contempt.

The next time you plan a holiday, make it short.. resist the urge of going for a week to Mombasa; three days two nights is adequate. I never thought of holidays as a threat but ever since I read that line that is all I see holidays as. Guests who overstay their welcome eventually leave when things have turned sour. All night spent in the clubs ( back in the day) turns friends to despicable people. When you look back and admit to yourself, you will agree with the author. At least we now know how to prevent that going forward.

For the three women who took the journey too long, they realized that there is freedom from pride and convention, freedom from the need to put on a brave face or pretend that things are not as bad as they appear to be. This is the only positive outcome of such long holidays; one gets to untangle the deeper feelings and if the process does not ruin the relationship in the process, it sweeps cobwebs off it.

The actions considered small and casual not the big ones carried on the peg of self righteousness. It was the small choices the characters had made in their lives that was thrown at them in their attempt to sweep off their cobwebs; questioning their righteousness. Mantra: Resist the urge of a week’s trip ; two nights are adequate.

For coming this far, here is an unpopular opinion from one of the characters: Isn’t marriage a form of religious sanctioned prostitution? She argues, prostitution involves someone giving their body in exchange of material gain. In marriage, much as the holy book says it is ordained for procreation, there is significant material gain and what of the married couples who cannot/ do not procreate, what is marriage for them?

April 24, 2021

City of girls

I had no idea what to expect when I picked up this book but it delivered. I have read books by the author before but none were like this. Committed which is a memoir and that I would recommend left me with bouts of wisdom. My next read was big magic which to me is a self help book particularly to channel your creative side and she mastered the writing there. I could not pick up eat pray love, I have watched the movie and I cannot tell which part elated readers across the world because that effect truly passed by me. I know people who swear by that book are about to kill my prose here but hear me out please. After all this writing is about city of girls.

Now that I think about it, I did have some thoughts on the book before reading. A book by a woman about women, a city of them; I was in for friendships, romance, and just being carried away by the lives of other women for the 467 pages. I knew the book was the right choice out of my rut from the very first page, it was addressed to me and all along it felt like I was seated in a plush sofa, getting a whiff of the burning sea salt and orchid candle and Elizabeth was narrating the story ( rather Vivian Morris).

How do I not mention the prologue! It read

You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm
Colette

I like atypical stories, stories about people who do not conform to societal expectations. Stories about people who are free, wild, doing foolish things with enthusiasm. People who let that inner child out and go about their lives as everyone should, like it is theirs and only theirs to make something of, anything. stories about glamour, partying, meeting who is who and finally drifting back to your close knit circle, doing what you passionately love which most of the time is a hobby that you made a career out of and that allows you to enjoy the frivolities of life while touching people’s lives with your unique talents.

The conversations in this book are so real. There is a way Elizabeth clothes you in the characters and in that line, you are one. I loved the show business; in the middle of the war the conversation in this book is about how other people’s lives were going on. those engaging in debauchery were still at it, we felt the loss of loved ones who had gone in the army, families being separated, careers changing, patriotism, critique of the government, it is all in there around the light heartedness of plays at the lily house.

In this book I lost myself and I found myself. I finally unearthed what it was that I really wanted and what that meant. From it I wrote one of the truest entries in my journal and I now see life with a certain clarity I lacked before the 467 pages. I am not promising that you will have the same outcome, but you will lose yourself in it and you will be entertained by it.

I never start a book without reading the dedication and I’m only done with it after reading the acknowledgements. I want to know how the journey was writing the book and appreciate the people who made it come to life by reading their names. I am glad to know that the unabashed sensuality and independence was someone’s true life story. I am grateful for the depths Elizabeth took to capture their intricacies; there was literally a corresponding human version that birthed each character in the book. My personal favourite was the mention of Doris Day whose music I have just come to enjoy.

Much as the setup is in the 1940s, the book will be enjoyed by both the young and old. The old will be filled with nostalgia and the young with a deeper appreciation of the ninety’s. There is literally nothing new under the sun and what you think was just recently invented is a practice that has been long in existence and you are just late to the party.

‘ girls who are about to get married are always afraid. They’re afraid that they don’t love their fiancés enough or that they love them too much. They’re afraid of the sex that is coming to them or the sex that they are leaving behind. They’re afraid of the wedding day going awry. They’re afraid of being looked at by hundreds of eyes- and they’re afraid of not being looked at, in case their dress is all wrong or their maid of honour is more beautiful ‘

The book is this raw I tell you. ‘ You must learn in life to take things more lightly my dear. The world is always changing. Learn how to allow for it. Someone makes a promise and then they break it. A play gets good notices, and then it folds. A marriage looks strong, and then they divorce. For a while there’s no war, and then there’s another war. If you get too upset about it all, you become a stupid, unhappy person -and where’s the good in that?

Last conversation I leave as I hope you will get a hold of the book and be equally awed.

“Good for him, give him a trophy for it , but don’t marry a man just because he’s nice. And try not to make a habit of getting engaged in the first place, it can lead to marriage if you’re not careful.“

You will be in for such subtle humour, and good rinsing of your eyeballs if you allow.

December 21, 2020December 21, 2020

66 books in 366 days

Yes, I am also in awe!! I did it and you too can. The journey was one of progress over perfection. There were days I was too lazy or in the wrong mindspace but each week, I had to compensate the readings for the days I had skipped. My intention was to begin each week on a clean slate. I would not carry missed readings of a previous week onto the next. Also, I only read the Bible when I could internalize it and be present in my reading. You must have been thinking I literally read 66 books gotya!

I had an accountability partner who was interested in my reading journey. I would tell him if I came across something interesting and because he is also on his journey, and happens to own a study Bible, he would tell me the explanation given on that particular text. Thereafter, we would each add our own input. I am so excited about this that I am writing a draft in September because I am quite sure I will finish my Bible reading. Also, I just finished a text whose story I would like to share before I downplay the details when recalling 3 months from now.

I will definitely share this sometime in December to convince you to take this journey come 2021. The good thing is that there is a link that caters for your needs. You could choose whether you want to read it theme by theme, related stories together, sequentially or one book in the old testament and another in the New testament. I chose related stories together so that I can see the references made through the entire Bible as one sequence. An example would be reading about a battle David fought in the book of Kings and relating it with the song he composed after his loss or win in the book of Psalms. This reading kept me in the moment. It was as if I was watching the events unfolding. Here’s the link https://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-reading-plan/ and those who need a planned Bible for this journey, one is available at Keswick Bookshop. The Kenyan branch I know of is at Prestige Plaza.

I am picking up the writing in December and true to my word, I am days away from finishing my Bible reading journey. I am very proud of this milestone and I will be taking it up again come next year. I came across interesting stories that are not told and some facts that have been misrepresented. Also, the book needs to be studied as there are various interpretations by scholars that shed light and some juicy back stories.

The book of Acts captivated me. It is based on Paul, his travels, his teachings and tribulations. Paul was accused and brought before the King because some people opposed his way of teaching. Every time he was put on trial, the ruler did not find what exact crime he was being accused of but his accusers wanted him punished by death nonetheless. He was in Prison for more than 2 years and different Kings heard his case. Somewhere in the middle of the book, there is a story about one night when Paul was preaching till past midnight and a man was dozing off. Eventually, the man lost the battle and slept only for him to fall down from the third storey of the building. The other believers present rushed to his aid but unfortunately he was dead. Paul took him to a room and stretched his body on top of him and the man was brought back to life. This is a funny way to die. I can only imagine the words exchanged by Paul and the man once he is brought back to life. This is great fodder for a skit!

The book of Jonah has become one of my favorites. We often hear about prophecies but the book of Jonah focused on the prophet. It reminds me that prophets were human despite the supernatural things happening to them like being fed by ravens. Jonah was quite stubborn and rightly so. He explained that he knew the Lord was patient and forgiving. He therefore saw no need for him to go to Nineveh and warn the people about a destruction upon them yet he knew once they repented that would not come to pass and his journey would have been in vain. I wonder what would have happened if he had chosen another means of transport. Might he have been swallowed by a bird? I guess we will never know but that is parody potential. I found it funny that while in the fish’s stomach, Jonah prayed for the Lord to save him and keep him alive but once he was out, having delivered his message and realizing that the Lord will not punish Nineveh he says I would rather die than watch this!

My accountability partner shared great insights about the book with me. From his perspective, the writing poses questions to us on whether we are okay with the fact that the Lord loves and is willing to forgive our enemies. He said the book is like a mirror to anyone who reads it. In Jonah we see the worst parts of our own characters magnified and it shows how the Lord puts up with the Jonah in us. I agree with him because I would have had the same reaction as Jonah.

Another story I loved was that of the shrewd manager in the book of Luke. The story is concluded by these words: “ My disciples, I tell you to use wicked wealth to make friends for yourselves then when it is gone you will be welcomed into an internal home. If you cannot be trusted with wicked wealth who will trust you with true wealth” The study Bible explained that this passage was to inform us to make wise use of financial opportunities we have not to earn heaven but to help people find Christ. I still do not know the difference between earning heaven and helping people find Christ hence why I will have to reread and probably get guidance.

I like how the Bible is a collection of stories, how the gospels are written during the same time frame but from different perspectives. I like how it has a subtle back and forth nature in terms of prophecies and what comes to pass, I like how the story is just not in prose, there are songs, poems, letters… I like the fact that you just don’t get it right off the bat and how scholars have taken time to study texts and theologians go to school to learn the same. I like how one has to study the different people who wrote the different books to understand the times and the nature of the writing. Most of all, I like how amused I got when something finally clicked. I like how you are considering taking this journey come next year.