Wheels of Fortune, The Story of Rubber in Akron, Steve Love
and David Giffels
The Odd Woman and the City, Vivian Gornick
The Old Ways, a Journey on Foot, Robert McFarlane
A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson
Negroland: A Memoir, Margo Jefferson
H is for Hawk, by Helen Macdonald
Travels in Siberia, Ian Frazier
When I moved into this unit last June, there was a lot to
keep me busy, indoors and out. I had a loom and recorded books; who could ask
for much more? I was listening to “The Salt Path”, by Raynor Winn. I was
captivated, so captured by the book that at its end I backspaced to the
beginning—four times. My wonder spilled over into the blog, so awkwardly I had
to figure out how to attempt a review.
Everything about books now is also about brain injury.
Someday I may lock myself in a room for a month and attempt an analysis of
mine.
In the local paper I came across mention of “Wheels of
Fortune”, edited in part by Dave Giffels. Anything Dave writes, is on my book
shelf. He writes about Akron, our home town. I could say only “home town”, irrespective
of its name or place, and anyone could make a place connection.
Then, NYT published a list of books to read before one died. Because my list "left me", I went through and made a list of books
to buy, after “Wheels of Fortune”. The list also represents the order of the intended
reading sequence, after all came in.
The sequence changed once, when my daughter asked for “Negroland”,
and I was working on “The Odd Woman”, the second time. Beth was accumulating books
to read with one foot in the air, following meniscus repair of her knee.
Every one of these books is about a journey. As is every
book, you say. But, there is a physical journey in each book, as well as
mental. Almost as if I picked right up from “The Salt Path”.
“The Odd Woman” is me, a solitary person, in fact, not by
choice. It also is a memoir of a woman whose mornings are spent writing,
afternoons and evenings spent walking the New York, threading transit
passengers and footpaths of her city.
Two thirds through this book, Beth told me she couldn’t find
what I saw in it. I didn’t tell her I read it twice, but to pass it
along, together with the other books I sent.
Then I read “Negroland”, Margo Jefferson’s memoir. Beth
really wanted the book, so I only read it once. I didn’t “get it” until two
thirds through, when the whole tone of the book purposely changed and the
author made her point. I don’t know that it deserved a second reading; the
first two thirds were tough to get through.
It is an autobiography of growing up in the fifties and
sixties, in the black upper class. It was another childhood, during my
childhood, and about characters I might have known in my own neighborhood. I
knew white girls like the black girls in the book, but was not accepted by
them. I knew black girls, not like the black girls in the book. The book, in
the end, is about coming of age in this country at that time.
Next I picked up “The Old Ways”. I found the author’s
pretentious presentation rather similar to Margo Jefferson’s childhood, and
that condensed into the chapter I managed before I put “The Old Ways” into the
stack of books for Beth. When she asked a reading order, I put it on the
bottom, and indicated it might interest France.
Next, “A Walk in the Woods”. Bill Bryson is gearing himself
to walk the Appalachian Trail, bottom to top. He pulled me into mental exertion
of facing one’s unfilled goals and the physical exertion of attempts to
execute. Bill decided he could use a companion, and could solicit only one,
Steve Katz. He’d travelled Europe with Katz in college days, and remembered
Katz nearly drove him nuts.
Nevertheless, they set off. Bryson remains seriously mentally
engaged, and so does Katz, in his way. Several weeks into Virginia they split
up; Katz to keep a summer job engagement and Bryson to hike on alone. Bill
finds ‘alone’ seriously unfulfilling, and his wife gives him a lift home. After
Katz’ summer job, the two meet up again. They decide they have hiked the best
and the worst of the trail, and if they tackle the brutal end of it, ‘The
Hundred Mile Wilderness’ in Maine, they could claim victory.
A life or death experience there in the Hundred Mile
Wilderness cinches it. Katz is horrified, Bryson mentally crushed. With so many
months, miles and experiences past their feet, they say the important is done.
They tried.
And so I picked up “H is for Hawk” by Helen Macdonald. The
book is exhausting, mentally and to the imagination. Macdonald purchases a
goshawk, intending to train it, as she has trained many hawks in the past. She
runs for miles across English hills, training the hawk, and coming to what
peace she can with the unexpected death of her father. It is a book I will read
again, but for now it is on the bookshelf.
And to the bottom of the pile, “Travels in Siberia” by Ian
Frazier. I believe there are five or six hundred pages in this book. I have
probably a hundred fifty down. I am finally settling into what this book is. So far I've read about Russian and
Siberian history; Frazier learning it and the language; then applying history and language in
excursions to the country to experience what he read.
The book is not a tough slog if one does not bog down in the
extensive history and languages of the countries that I do take as fact, being
no expert. Several times I’ve felt I could doze away and am slapped awake by
discussions of what he is seeing resembling Akron, Cleveland, Ohio during my
and his childhood. He is a native of Hudson, Ohio.
My bookmark is left at Frazier’s meeting of the two guides
who will accompany him across Siberia, in a rickety van. He does not like the
first, and the second even less.
If I were to write about the books, it’s now or never. Who
know when I will finish “Travels in Siberia”. The first time.
