Wensleydale, perhaps?

[the_deep_magic]

I started watching this TV show on Netflix.  You probably haven't heard of it; it's called "Doctor Who."  Or something like that.

So I'm finally getting around to that.  Upon reflection, I probably should not have watched Torchwood first, since the tone is so similar, but with extra helpings of cheese.  But I think I will come to enjoy the cheese.  I've started with the Ninth Doctor, and I'm five episodes in.  I shall update you as I progress.

Also, I am not going to ask whether I should sign up for rpf_big_bang this year or not, because I know what the answer will be.  I'm just experiencing some commitmentphobia at the moment.  I'm sure I'll get over it in the next... day or so.

Final day of the book meme!  Sorry the ending is so predictable.

Day 30: Your favorite book of all time – The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver

In case you couldn’t tell from the times it’s already cropped up, this is my favorite book.  Though on the surface it’s a serious (and necessary) critique of evangelical Christianity and American/European/White cultural imperialism, it has more to say about faith and grace than most nonfiction books aimed at a mainstream Christian audience – believe me, I’ve read quite a few.  That’s not to say you have to be a person of any specific faith, or any faith, to find the book meaningful and beautiful (it sure as hell isn’t going to show up in many Bible studies); that just happens to be where I’m coming from.

The story’s told from the rotating points of view of a Baptist preacher’s wife and his four daughters.  Barbara Kingsolver doesn’t just tell the story of what happens to the women as missionaries (or rather, accessories to a missionary) in Africa – she follows them individually through the rest of their lives, all of which are indelibly changed by what happened there. 

Their voices are all unique – pluck any paragraph from the book and you can immediately tell whose POV it is – and they grow and mature as the characters do.  Occasionally in the narration, especially earlier on in the book, you’ll come across something that seems either a tad too modern for residents of 1960’s Georgia or too mature to come from a 14-year-old girl, but for the most part it’ll feel so true that it isn’t jarring.

And the writing, my god.  I took a blue highlighter to all my favorite passages, and there are so many.  I typed up some of my very favorites, and they took up four single-spaced pages, but I’ll only inflict a few on you:

“I was afflicted with Africa like a bout of a rare disease, from which I have not managed a full recovery.  Maybe I’ll even confess the truth, that I rode in with the horsemen and beheld the apocalypse, but still I’ll insist I was only a captive witness.  What is the conqueror’s wife, if not a conquest herself?” ~Orleanna

“I was struck through with my own wayward brand of reverence: praise be the lord of all plagues and secret afflictions!  If God had amused himself inventing the lilies of the field, he surely knocked His own socks off with the African parasites.” ~Adah

“I accepted the Lord as my personal Saviour, for He finally brought me a Maytag washer.” ~Orleanna

“Oh, that Bible, where every ass with a jawbone gets his day.” ~Adah

“For Father, the Kingdom of the Lord is an uncomplicated place, where tall, handsome boys fight on the side that always wins. … In that kind of a place, it is even all right for people to knock into each other hard every once in a while, in a sportsmanlike way, leaving a few bruises in the service of the final score.  But where is the place for girls in that Kingdom?  The rules don’t quite apply to us, nor protect us either.” ~Leah

“I reached out and clung for life with my good left hand like a claw, grasping at moving legs to raise myself from the dirt.  Desperate to save myself in a river of people saving themselves.  And if they chanced to look down and see me struggling underneath them, they saw that even the crooked girl believed her own life was precious.  That is what it means to be a beast in the kingdom.” ~Adah

“Everybody ended up getting what they didn’t want, and now had to go along with it. … That is what we call Democracy.” ~Rachel

“Hunger of the body is altogether different from the shallow, daily hunger of the belly.  Those who have known this kind of hunger cannot entirely love, ever again, those who have not.” ~Adah

“On the day of the hunt I came to know in the slick center of my bones this one thing: all animals kill to survive, and we are animals.” ~Adah

“As long as I kept moving, my grief streamed out behind me like a swimmer’s long hair in water.  I knew the weight was there, but it didn’t touch me.  Only when I stopped did the slick, dark stuff of it come floating around my face, catching my arms and throat till I began to drown.” ~Orleanna

*“If chained is where you have been, your arms will always bear marks of the shackles.  What you have to lose is your story, your own slant.” ~Adah* (my favorite line in the whole book)

“I am practically lined with my mistakes on the inside like a bad-wallpapered bathroom.” ~Rachel

“There is not justice in this world.  Father, forgive me wherever you are, but this world has brought one vile abomination after another down on the heads of the gentle, and I’ll not live to see the meek inherit anything.  What there is in this world, I think, is a tendency for human errors to level themselves like water throughout their sphere of influence.  That’s pretty much the whole of what I can say, looking back.  There’s the possibility of balance.  Unbearable burdens that the world somehow does bear with a certain grace.” ~Leah

Ok, maybe that was more than "a few." Sorry.  At minimum, every woman in the Western world should read this book.  It touches on racism, sexism, cultural and political imperialism, religion, faith, disability, family, and environmental issues, all without being the slightest bit preachy.  I don’t give a shit if you’re a hipster and it was on Oprah’s Book List – read it anyway.  Kingsolver’s other work is good, but nothing else reached into my chest and grabbed my heart like this book did.

Comments

[therumjournals.livejournal.com]

gah, i'm debating rpf_big_bang too...what to do, what to do?!

[tikra.livejournal.com]

i shall add it to my wishlist :) it does sound interesting and i'm usually quite interested in those kind of themes...

also. ye. big bang. never done it. quite tempted this year for sum reason.

so i'd say you should totally do it!

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

I figure I might as well sign up. If I have to drop out, I have to drop out. Nobody's gonna stick electrodes to my butt if I flake.

Well, I assume.

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

I've done it successfully for the past two years, and it DOES give you some structure and incentive to write longer things, which I need. I'm probably going to do it, or at least give it a shot.

[therumjournals.livejournal.com]

well, that's what i ended up doing! maybe a deadline will get me moving. maybe it will make me write other things instead. maybe i will continue on my current trajectory of not writing anything at all :( I guess we shall see!

[fatty-fat.livejournal.com]

so this is when it started! i was all confused a bit, back there. yeah. 'all' and 'a bit' at once, amazing.

and you started with nine. <3

don't mind me, just spamming you as i try to catch up. or mind me? er, ignore me?

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

Hee hee, spam away. At least I know SOMEONE is reading my posts!