I'm really not trying to get ahead of everyone else, but Ken was napping yesterday and I was trying to be quiet and the only book I had available was Nectar in a Sieve. So I read the first chapter. So far, I really like it. I love her writing style.
However, the introduction reaffirmed that this is not a happy-happy joy-joy book (something about crying on every second or third page) so I'm reading it with the expectation of becoming depressed. Also, it is one of Angie's books, which usually means heartbreak and agony for the characters (unlike my books which mean agony for the READERS). :-)
Started Nectar yesterday, finished it today. Between it and Push, I have cried more over books in the past week than I have in the past two years. As M noted, be prepared for heartbreak and agony.
Joy, I completely agree with you that what is happening to Troy is exactly like what happened to their village.
More later when I can think about it without being sad =(
From what Mom has told me about the gas wells going into Troy, I also agree.
I think you are both ahead of me, but I plan on finishing this week. There were a few passages that have struck me so far.
From Chapter 2: "I turned away and, despite myself, the tears came, tears of weakness and disappointment; for what woman wants a girl for her first-born?" How sad, that women are valued so little that rather than being happy for her first child, instead she is disappointed that it is a girl. Do you think this happens in America today?
From Chapter 3: Her fear of telling her husband that she went to a foreigner to help her become fertile. "What harm, I thought, if he does not know; I have not lied to him, there has just been this silence." Part of me laughs, because Sookie Stackhouse (Trueblood books) uses this same sort of logic when explaining tricky situations. Another part of me wondered about the shame and fear she seems to feel. Because she went to a foreigner? Or because she went about "female" problems. From what we know of her husband, I imagine he would have been happy that she went and got "fixed"- no matter who she went to.
I finished last night and I did enjoy the book although didn't cry about it. Part 2 was very sad and depressing, they just couldn't catch a break. I liked Puli, a smart little street kid. And was impressed by the regard and dependence upon each other displayed by Nathan and Rukmani. I must say I didn't care for Kenny, he just floated in and out and I think he could have mostly been left out of the book.
Overall, I just couldn't get "TROY gas wells" out of my head as I read this.
Because so MUCH importance is placed on boys in India and China, I can see why she was disappointed in the first child being a girl. BUt then more than made up for it with the rest being boys. I don't think this is any big deal at all in America. Our culture is different and we have social security for our old age, where they just have their children to support them (and they are the boys).
I agree with Joy on the gender of children not mattering so much in our culture. These days a woman can support her family financially just as well as a man and daughters aren't given away with dowries, so little girls aren't automatticaly seen as fiscal negatives. I DO think that many men want sons to be able to carry on their family name. Then again, with such high numbers of teen pregnancy and single mothers, many sons carry the maternal surname anyway. Maybe we are moving away from that stigma as well.
Parts of the book that spoke to me most: Chapter 15, when Raja died, Rukmani to Ira: " 'What are you crying for,' I said. 'You have little enough strength, without dissolving it in tears.' " I can't even imagine being so hungry and weak that I couldn't afford the physical effort it took to grieve.
Chapter 20, when Sacrabani is born: "I held him, this child begotten in the street of an unknown man in a moment of easy desire, while the brightness of the future broke and fell about me like so many pieces of colored glass." I thought the imagery in that line was just breathtaking. So very well written.
Chapter 22, regarding the lie Ira told to her son about his father: " 'Do not interfere,' Nathan said. 'It is for Ira to decide.' " I love that Nathan acknowledged Ira's parenting choices as her own, and supported them. Must have been hard to do, with them all living so close together like that.
Chapter 23, entire paragraph beginning "Somehow, I had always felt the tannery would eventually be our undoing." This paragraph is EXACTLY how I feel about the gas boom in Troy right now.
One thing that was skipped over and I wish had been mentioned in more detail was from Chapter 22: " 'Yes, of course, darling," Ira cried, and all the guilt of her efforts to have an abortion was in her voice." Seems like attempted abortions would have had an impact on Rukmani, but then again, since they came to naught I suppose it wasn't worth mentioning, just as she never mentioned her two oldest sons once they were gone from her life.
The end of the book really got to me. Everything was so hopeless. Then Nathan dies, and it just made my heart ache that he, a beloved husband and father, hard worker, good person and seemingly my FRIEND, was nothing more to the city than another dead, homeless beggar. The loss of his life caused basically no impact on the world, and that was devastating for me. I grieved for Rukmani who had lost so much and still endured. Oh, did I cry and cry.
I rather liked Kenny. I think he was torn between seeing people in need and wanting to help them, and being fed up with all the poverty that no one seemed to do anything about. He wanted Rukmani and her family to fight and yell and claw their way up out of their situation, but couldn't see the many, many things that impeded them from doing so. Clearly he was also dealing with his own struggling personal life too. I imagined his wife told him he had to choose between his own family and this village in the middle of nowhere that he was always running off to help, and he chose the village.
Since it’s National Poetry Month I thought I should also mentioned the two poems that this book brought to mind. I'll post them below.
On summer nights the world moves within earshot on the interstate with its swish and growl, an occasional siren that sends chills through us. Sometimes, on clear, still nights, voices float into our bedroom, lunar and fragmented, as if the sky had let them go long before our birth.
In winter we close the windows and read Chekov, nearly weeping for his world.
What luxury, to be so happy that we can grieve over imaginary lives.
The last bit gets me. Every time a book or movie makes me cry, I think of this poem.
The other poem is Daily Wages by Amrita Pritam, but I can't find the full text online. I'll type it up here tonight.
I just finished it, while sitting on a bench in the sun in the middle of campus. I didn't cry- not because I didn't feel it, especially when Nathan dies- but because I was surrounded by people laughing and walking and singing along to their i-pods. It was a big divide between the world around me and the world I was immersed in.
I love the "Late Hours" poem you posted Angie. How true! I've had very similar thoughts when bawling over a book or movie in the comfort of my own home.
I also liked Kenny's character and think it was there to show how many outsiders want to help people in other countries, but just don't know how. Kenny, to me, represented all the attempts by developed nations to intercede in less developed nations, but since they don't understand the culture, aren't really able to help or bungle it and create more problems.
I noticed and felt the same about many of the passages you both posted about. I just want to mention a few others.
In Chapter 9 Irawaddy is returned to her parents because she is barren and she comments that she is a failure as a woman because she cannot bear a child. At the time I read this I was heartbroken for women in a culture where women were valued for very little other than bearing children. Then I wondered, but what if she IS fertile and her husband is not? It reminded me of "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood. In that book, due to environmental disasters, most women become infertile and all the fertile women are gathered and shipped out to wealthy families to bear children for them. The lead character is forced to have sex with a wealthy man repeatedly and told she will be sent back if she does not bear his child- but he is infertile. The wife of the man finally admits that to the "handmaid" and asks her to sleep with the chauffeur, on the sly, of course (because she could be killed for "recreational" sex when "working"), and pass it off as the wealthy man's child. It is all science fiction, of course, and yet it seems very similar to this.
Did either of you get all fired up when the tannery delegation came to their house to make sure they weren't going to ask for compensation for their sons death? (Chapter 15). Ooh, I was hot. I would have liked to have been able to give them a piece of my mind.
Very good book, Angie, even if it was very sad. I could have lived with a happier ending or a more hopeful one. Also, I would like to know what happened to Irawaddy's albino child and the beggar-boy.
11 comments:
I'm really not trying to get ahead of everyone else, but Ken was napping yesterday and I was trying to be quiet and the only book I had available was Nectar in a Sieve. So I read the first chapter. So far, I really like it. I love her writing style.
However, the introduction reaffirmed that this is not a happy-happy joy-joy book (something about crying on every second or third page) so I'm reading it with the expectation of becoming depressed. Also, it is one of Angie's books, which usually means heartbreak and agony for the characters (unlike my books which mean agony for the READERS). :-)
I started this book last night and I am really enjoying it. It reminds me a LOT of the gas wells moving into Troy and what it is doing to the town.
I sat and read Push from cover to cover last night. Now there is a depressing book.
Will start Nectar this weekend.
Started Nectar yesterday, finished it today. Between it and Push, I have cried more over books in the past week than I have in the past two years. As M noted, be prepared for heartbreak and agony.
Joy, I completely agree with you that what is happening to Troy is exactly like what happened to their village.
More later when I can think about it without being sad =(
From what Mom has told me about the gas wells going into Troy, I also agree.
I think you are both ahead of me, but I plan on finishing this week. There were a few passages that have struck me so far.
From Chapter 2: "I turned away and, despite myself, the tears came, tears of weakness and disappointment; for what woman wants a girl for her first-born?" How sad, that women are valued so little that rather than being happy for her first child, instead she is disappointed that it is a girl. Do you think this happens in America today?
From Chapter 3: Her fear of telling her husband that she went to a foreigner to help her become fertile. "What harm, I thought, if he does not know; I have not lied to him, there has just been this silence." Part of me laughs, because Sookie Stackhouse (Trueblood books) uses this same sort of logic when explaining tricky situations. Another part of me wondered about the shame and fear she seems to feel. Because she went to a foreigner? Or because she went about "female" problems. From what we know of her husband, I imagine he would have been happy that she went and got "fixed"- no matter who she went to.
I finished last night and I did enjoy the book although didn't cry about it. Part 2 was very sad and depressing, they just couldn't catch a break. I liked Puli, a smart little street kid. And was impressed by the regard and dependence upon each other displayed by Nathan and Rukmani. I must say I didn't care for Kenny, he just floated in and out and I think he could have mostly been left out of the book.
Overall, I just couldn't get "TROY gas wells" out of my head as I read this.
Because so MUCH importance is placed on boys in India and China, I can see why she was disappointed in the first child being a girl. BUt then more than made up for it with the rest being boys. I don't think this is any big deal at all in America. Our culture is different and we have social security for our old age, where they just have their children to support them (and they are the boys).
I just loved this book. Love love love.
I agree with Joy on the gender of children not mattering so much in our culture. These days a woman can support her family financially just as well as a man and daughters aren't given away with dowries, so little girls aren't automatticaly seen as fiscal negatives. I DO think that many men want sons to be able to carry on their family name. Then again, with such high numbers of teen pregnancy and single mothers, many sons carry the maternal surname anyway. Maybe we are moving away from that stigma as well.
Parts of the book that spoke to me most:
Chapter 15, when Raja died, Rukmani to Ira:
" 'What are you crying for,' I said. 'You have little enough strength, without dissolving it in tears.' "
I can't even imagine being so hungry and weak that I couldn't afford the physical effort it took to grieve.
Chapter 20, when Sacrabani is born:
"I held him, this child begotten in the street of an unknown man in a moment of easy desire, while the brightness of the future broke and fell about me like so many pieces of colored glass."
I thought the imagery in that line was just breathtaking. So very well written.
Chapter 22, regarding the lie Ira told to her son about his father:
" 'Do not interfere,' Nathan said. 'It is for Ira to decide.' "
I love that Nathan acknowledged Ira's parenting choices as her own, and supported them. Must have been hard to do, with them all living so close together like that.
Chapter 23, entire paragraph beginning "Somehow, I had always felt the tannery would eventually be our undoing." This paragraph is EXACTLY how I feel about the gas boom in Troy right now.
One thing that was skipped over and I wish had been mentioned in more detail was from Chapter 22:
" 'Yes, of course, darling," Ira cried, and all the guilt of her efforts to have an abortion was in her voice."
Seems like attempted abortions would have had an impact on Rukmani, but then again, since they came to naught I suppose it wasn't worth mentioning, just as she never mentioned her two oldest sons once they were gone from her life.
The end of the book really got to me. Everything was so hopeless. Then Nathan dies, and it just made my heart ache that he, a beloved husband and father, hard worker, good person and seemingly my FRIEND, was nothing more to the city than another dead, homeless beggar. The loss of his life caused basically no impact on the world, and that was devastating for me. I grieved for Rukmani who had lost so much and still endured. Oh, did I cry and cry.
I rather liked Kenny. I think he was torn between seeing people in need and wanting to help them, and being fed up with all the poverty that no one seemed to do anything about. He wanted Rukmani and her family to fight and yell and claw their way up out of their situation, but couldn't see the many, many things that impeded them from doing so. Clearly he was also dealing with his own struggling personal life too. I imagined his wife told him he had to choose between his own family and this village in the middle of nowhere that he was always running off to help, and he chose the village.
Since it’s National Poetry Month I thought I should also mentioned the two poems that this book brought to mind. I'll post them below.
Late Hours by Lisel Mueller:
On summer nights the world
moves within earshot
on the interstate with its swish
and growl, an occasional siren
that sends chills through us.
Sometimes, on clear, still nights,
voices float into our bedroom,
lunar and fragmented,
as if the sky had let them go
long before our birth.
In winter we close the windows
and read Chekov,
nearly weeping for his world.
What luxury, to be so happy
that we can grieve
over imaginary lives.
The last bit gets me. Every time a book or movie makes me cry, I think of this poem.
The other poem is Daily Wages by Amrita Pritam, but I can't find the full text online. I'll type it up here tonight.
Daily Wages by Amrita Pitram:
In a corner of the blue sky
The mill of night whistles,
A white thick smoke
Pours from the moon-chimney.
In dream's many furnaces
Labourer love
Is stoking all the fires
I earn our meeting
Holding you for a while,
My day's wages.
I buy my souls's food
Cook and eat it
And set the empty pot in the corner.
I warm my hands at the dying fire
And lying down to rest
Give God thanks.
The mill of night whistles
And from the moon-chimney
Smoke rises, sign of hope.
I eat what I earn,
Not yesterday's left-overs,
And leave no grain for tomorrow.
(Translated by Charles Brasch with Amrita Pritam)
I just finished it, while sitting on a bench in the sun in the middle of campus. I didn't cry- not because I didn't feel it, especially when Nathan dies- but because I was surrounded by people laughing and walking and singing along to their i-pods. It was a big divide between the world around me and the world I was immersed in.
I love the "Late Hours" poem you posted Angie. How true! I've had very similar thoughts when bawling over a book or movie in the comfort of my own home.
I also liked Kenny's character and think it was there to show how many outsiders want to help people in other countries, but just don't know how. Kenny, to me, represented all the attempts by developed nations to intercede in less developed nations, but since they don't understand the culture, aren't really able to help or bungle it and create more problems.
I noticed and felt the same about many of the passages you both posted about. I just want to mention a few others.
In Chapter 9 Irawaddy is returned to her parents because she is barren and she comments that she is a failure as a woman because she cannot bear a child. At the time I read this I was heartbroken for women in a culture where women were valued for very little other than bearing children. Then I wondered, but what if she IS fertile and her husband is not? It reminded me of "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood. In that book, due to environmental disasters, most women become infertile and all the fertile women are gathered and shipped out to wealthy families to bear children for them. The lead character is forced to have sex with a wealthy man repeatedly and told she will be sent back if she does not bear his child- but he is infertile. The wife of the man finally admits that to the "handmaid" and asks her to sleep with the chauffeur, on the sly, of course (because she could be killed for "recreational" sex when "working"), and pass it off as the wealthy man's child. It is all science fiction, of course, and yet it seems very similar to this.
Did either of you get all fired up when the tannery delegation came to their house to make sure they weren't going to ask for compensation for their sons death? (Chapter 15). Ooh, I was hot. I would have liked to have been able to give them a piece of my mind.
Very good book, Angie, even if it was very sad. I could have lived with a happier ending or a more hopeful one. Also, I would like to know what happened to Irawaddy's albino child and the beggar-boy.
I ordered it through the library loan system today. I can't wait to start it.
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