Sherpa's Wonderin's

The Last Three

Reviews and thoughts of the last three books I've read

A Feather on the Breath of God by Sigrid Nunez

The debut novel of Sigrid Nunez, The book is told in first person, the narrator, a 30 something telling the story of her parents and her childhood. Later in the book she contrasts her earlier life with the life and relationship of a married Russian taxi driver with a shady, violent past. The Nameless Narrator's parents-a Chinese-Panamian soldier who met her German mother in Germany shortly after VE day. He brought her to New York where they raised their family in the NYC projects. As an adolescent, the narrator escaped into a perfectionistic, masochistic world of ballet classes and becomes anorexic.

The narration is seamless. The writing isn't perfect, but the book is an impressive debut novel.

Persuasion by Jane Austen

About a month ago I started reading Rise and Fall of the Nazi Empire, but nearly 500 pages into I grew tired of the endless treachery and the fact that I knew the outcome. I turned to an old classic (which I think I started way back when but never finished) Austen's Persuasion. Austen is an old companion, a reliable friend where the stories although similar, are always delightful. P

Persuasion tells the story of an Anne Elliot who was persuaded 8 years before to put off her engagement to a poor sailor. Through coincidence, the two are reacquainted.

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

A few years ago I noticed a book sitting on a display in Barnes and Noble. The back of the book proclaimed it as one of the greatest works to appear in English in the last 50 years. Intrigued, I read the first page and then bought the book, Island by Alistair MacLeod. During the week or so it took me to read the collection of short stories I was in awe with his mastery of the English language. Powerful language, beautiful descriptions, flawless voice. 100 pages into the book I was dreading the end.

3 years later I finally had those same feelings regarding a book. A few weeks ago I found myself in a bookstore and picked up Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. I checked it out at the library a few days later and was hooked from the first paragraph:

I told you last night that I might be gone sometime, and you said, Where and I said, To be with the Good Lord, and you said, Why and I said, Because I'm old and you said, I don't think you're old. And you put your hand in my hand and you said, You aren't very old, as if that settled it. I told you you might have a very different life from mine, and from the life you've had with me, and that would be a wonderful thing, there are many ways to live a good life. And you said, Mama already told me that. And then you said, Don't laugh! because you thought I was laughing at you. You reached up and you put your fingers on my lips and gave me that look I never in my life saw on any other face besides your mother's. Its a kind of furious pride, very passionate and stern. I'm always a little surprised to find my eyebrows unsinged after I've suffered one of those looks. I will miss them.

Gilead is a letter from a 76 year old preacher named John Ames to his 6 year old son. John Ames is the grand son of a New England preacher who moved to Kansas when he was 16 after he had a vision of Christ in chains. He was influential and infamous in Kansas in the spirit of John Brown. John Ame's father was a pacificist preacher and John Ames grew up with these two disparate personages in his family. The book is about family relations, the story of a man in the sunset of his life recounting his life and revealing his wisdom. John Ames is a rarity in modern fiction, a truly good man. The book explores faith in God, in a way that is refreshing, beautiful and complex.