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Archive for October 2nd, 2008
Thursday, October 2nd, 200824 Hour Read-A-Thon October 2008
October 18, 2008
It’s that time again…the 24 Hour Read-A-Thon hosted by Dewey is just around the corner. I won’t promise to stay up for the full 24 hours, but I intend to participate.
Beginning at Noon GMT (which converts to 5:00AM my time), the 24 Hour Read-A-Thon is a challenge includes reading, blogging, mini-challenges and prizes (check out this link for the June 2008 prize list). Participants can choose to be Readers, Cheerleaders and Prize Donors…Dewey has definitions of each on the FAQ page for this event.
In June, some participants helped raise money for Reading Is Fundamental (RIF). This time around, Dewey is leaving it wide open if you want to raise money for ANY charity. I’ve decided to raise money for a charity near and dear to my heart: Triple Creek Ranch Inc. is a non-profit therapeutic horseback riding center for adults and children with disability. It is fueled entirely by volunteers and is a non-profit organization. I’ll be posting how you can support this wonderful program as we get closer to the Read-A-Thon. In the meantime, do check out their website.
I’ve already started gathering books to read for this amazing event. So far, this is what I’ve targeted:
- Testimony, by Anita Shreve
- Tomato Girl, by Jayne Pupek
- An Exact Replica of A Figment of My Imagination, by Elizabeth McCracken
- Say You’re One of the Them, by Uwem Akpan
- Months and Seasons: Stories, by Christopher Meeks
Will you be joining in? I hope so - it is always fun!
Thursday, October 2nd, 2008Let The Northern Lights Erase Your Name - Book Review
Beneath a dried leaf, splitting at its stem, I found my birth certificate. I had never seen it before. I read it and read it again. I turned it over. With my forearm, I swept everything else on the desk into a far corner. Papers and a desk calendar dropped to the floor. I moved the certificate to the center of the desk and I read it again. -From Let The Northern Lights Erase Your Name, page 8-
Let The Northern Lights Erase Your Name is the story of Clarissa Iverson - a twenty-nine year old who discovers, upon her father’s death, that everything she thought was true about her family is not. The novel is narrated by Clarissa who is living with her fiance Pankaj when her father unexpectedly dies. The reader learns that Clarissa’s mother had abandoned her family, leaving her daughter stranded in a mall, 15 years earlier.
The funeral was the first day I envied my brother’s ignorance. Since birth, Jeremy has never spoken, so it was unclear whether he understood Dad had died. My family would never acknowledge that Jeremy was retarded; my mother used to say he was slow. She vanished when I was fourteen, Jeremy six. In the hollow months that followed her disappearance, I convinced myself our family was being punished for our silent shame about Jeremy. -From Let The Northern Lights Erase Your Name, page 5-
Clarissa, echoing her mother’s abandonment, leaves Pankaj without telling him where she is going and flees to Lapland to locate her “real” father. Her journey introduces her to the mystical Samis, the indigenous people who inhabit the Nordic countries of Norway, Sweden, and Finland as well as the far northern parts of Russia. As the story progresses, Clarissa begins to uncover not only her mother’s darkest secrets, but her own identity.
Vendela Vida has written a novel about betrayal, family secrets, shame and its aftermath, and the search for identity. Her prose is spare and injected with a sardonic humor which allows Vida to ironically explore the most devastating of human emotions. The character of Clarissa is raw and honest - and despite her flaws and her final decision (which was not completely unexpected), I liked her. Clarissa’s voice is one to which anyone who has experienced loss can relate. She carries the reader through her story with an urgency that is haunting in its appeal.
Vida has created an evocative novel steeped in history and culture. She examines the tough subjects with an honesty which borders on ‘matter-of-fact’ but works for this story. There are not easy answers in this novel which would make it an excellent book to discuss with a reading group. I read Let The Northern Lights Erase Your Name quickly - in the span of one day- because I simply had to know where it would take me. Clarissa is a hard character to forget…I expect I will be thinking of her for quite some time.
Highly recommended.
