Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Half the Sky, Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn


Through these stories, Kristof and WuDunn help us see that the key to economic progress lies in unleashing women’s potential. They make clear how so many people have helped to do just that, and how we can each do our part. Throughout much of the world, the greatest unexploited economic resource is the female half of the population. Countries such as China have prospered precisely because they emancipated women and brought them into the formal economy. Unleashing that process globally is not only the right thing to do; it’s also the best strategy for fighting poverty.

Discussion Guide (w/questions & quotes by chapter)  
Short Guide (with start-up questions)
Website:  http://halftheskymovement.org/stories
Get Involved: http://halftheskymovement.org/get-involved
Had you ever heard of The Girl Effect before reading the Introduction? Watch the video at www.thegirleffect.org or watch it again if you have seen it before.

Around the world, a total of 1.4 billion people live on less than $1.25 a day. An additional 1.5 billion people live on less than $2 a day. Combined, this is almost half of the world’s population. The burden of poverty falls disproportionately on women and girls – 60 percent of the poorest people on the planet are female. But when women and girls have the opportunity, they can become powerful catalysts for change in their societies. “Half the Sky” helps us recognize that poverty is not inevitable. It is the product of decisions, practices and beliefs that prevent people, especially women and girls, from reaching their full potential. By working together to empower women and girls, we can change the world and help end poverty.

A “snapshot” of our comments:
• Women are disposable and seen as cost (dowry, etc.)
• There is no tool more effective than the empowerment of women.
• Status and role of women is related to a country’s ability to increase their economy.
• When you educate a boy, you are educating an individual. When you educate a girl, you educate a village.
• “Present-ism” – slavery wasn’t viewed all bad (except that I know Queen Isabella said, “No” to slavery in the Caribbean)
• Rwanda – 30% parliament MUST be women
• Social Entrepreneur – use change to be change
• Slave labor in Bombay/Calcutta is said to be the “noble profession of a sex worker”
• How does information like this change or support the way that we as Christians in the United States spend our money?
• What would redemption look like for those freed from slavery?
• People took risks – educating their daughters in “secret schools”

Quotes from book are below:

STATISTICS
“Less than 1% of U.S. foreign aid is specifically targeted to women and girls.” pg.xiv

“...as many infant girls die every week in China as protesters died in the one incident at Tiananmen.” pg.xiv

“About 107 million females are missing from the globe today.......Every year, at least another 2 million girls worldwide disappear because of gender discrimination.” pg.xv

“The best estimate is that a little Indian girl dies from discrimination every four minutes.” pg.xvi

“It appears that more girls have been killed in the last fifty years, precisely because they were girls, than men were killed in all the wars of the twentieth century.” pg.xvii

“More girls are killed in this routine “gendercide” in any one decade than people were slaughtered in all of the genocides of the twentieth century.” pg.xvii

“Women aren’t the problem but the solution. The plight of girls is no more a tragedy than an opportunity.” Pg.xviii

“Empowering girls, some in the military argued, would disempower terrorists.” pg.xxi

“Honor killings, sexual slavery, and genital cutting may seem to Western readers to be tragic but inevitable in a world far, far away.” pg.xxii

“We hope to recruit you to join an incipient movement to emancipate women and fight global poverty by unlocking women’s power as economic catalysts.” pg.xxii

SEXUAL SLAVERY
The authors list the reasons for the rise of sex slavery as the fall of communism, globalization, and AIDS. pg.11

“In a town where police officers, government officials, Hindu priests, and respectable middle class citizens all averted their eyes from forced prostitution, the only audible voice of conscience belonged to an eleven year old boy who was battered each time he spoke up.” pg.13

“Rescuing girls from brothels is important, Krishner believes, but the best way to save them is to prevent them from being trafficked in the first place---which means keeping them in school.” pg.17

“They may not speak to me, but I know what is right and I will stick to it. I will never accept prostitution of myself or my children as long as I breathe.” pg.16

“Rescuing girls from brothels is important, Krishner believes, but the best way to save them is to prevent them from being trafficked in the first place---which means keeping them in school.” pg.17

“When India feels that the West cares as much about slavery as it does about pirated DVDs, it will dispatch people to the border to stop traffickers.” pg.24

“Rescuing girls from brothels is the easy part, however. The challenge is keeping them from returning.” pg.35

A current news story alerts the world to a hostage situation in Pakistan. 140 captives (including a 4 month old) are being held against their will after their freedom from indentured servitude (slavery) was won in court. The “owners” refuse to let them go and threaten to kill them if they do not get back to work. Many of these folks are trapped into lifelong indentured servitude for debts as low as the equivalent of $8.75, (less than the cost of one movie ticket for us). pg.45

CHANGE – BIRTH CONTROL & REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
“Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.” George Bernard Shaw pg.47

“Education and empowerment training can show girls that femininity does not entail docility, and can nurture assertiveness so that girls and women stand up for themselves.” pg.47

“There will be less trafficking and less rape if more women stop turning the other cheek and begin slapping back.” pg.53

“Social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or to teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry.” pg.54

“In many poor countries, the problem is not so much individual thugs but an entire culture of sexual predation.” pg.61

“We in the West can best help by playing supporting roles to local people.” pg.62

“In talking about misogyny and gender-based violence, it would be easy to slip into the conceit that men are the villains.” pg.66

“Publicity about Pakistan’s harassment of Mukhtar was embarrassing to the Bush administration...” pg.73

“In Darfur, it gradually became clear that the Sudanese-sponsored Janjaweed militias were seeking out and gang-raping women of three African tribes, then cutting off their ears or otherwise mutilating them to mark them forever as rape victims.” pg.83

“The hospital even accepts gifts of airline miles, to fly staff back and forth...” pg.92

“Preparation for death is that most Reasonable and Seasonable thing, to which you must now apply yourself.” pg.93

“The equivalent of five jumbo jets’ worth of women die in labor each day.” pg.98

“Would the world stand by if it were men who were dying just for completing their reproductive functions?” Asha-Rose Migiro, UN Deputy Secretary General, 2007 pg.109

“During World War I, more American women died in childbirth than American men died in war.” pg.116

“In most societies, mythological or theological explanations were devised to explain why women should suffer in childbirth, and they forestalled efforts to make the process safer. When anesthesia was developed, it was for many decades routinely withheld from women giving birth, since women were supposed to suffer.” pg.116

“The Catholic Church’s prohibition on artificial means of contraception has very little effect on the behavior of
American Catholics. But its stance endangers millions of lives worldwide.” Christian Century editor John M. Buchanan on Roman Catholic opposition to the distribution of condoms in Africa where AIDS is epidemic as noted in the August 2009 issue of Baptists Today. The indifference that allowed AIDS to spread around the globe?” pg.136

The spread of AIDS is often blamed on promiscuity in Asian and Afric, but “for women the lethal risk factor is often not promiscuity but marriage?” pg.138

“With the best of intentions, pro-life conservatives have taken some positions in reproductive health that actually hurt those whom they are trying to help---and that result in more abortions.” pg.134

The spread of AIDS is often blamed on promiscuity in Asian and Africa. Was it surprising to find that “for women the lethal risk factor is often not promiscuity but marriage?” pg.138

“Conservative Christians contribute very generously to humanitarian causes, but a significant share of the money goes to build magnificent churches.” pg.145

“It would also be useful if there were better mechanisms for people to donate time.” pg.145

“Jail is sometimes the best place for a bold Afghan woman.” pg.156

CHANGE – EDUCATION
A doctor once reportedly told President Woodrow Wilson regarding the suffragettes that “courage in women is often mistaken for insanity”. “The best role for Americans who want to help Muslim women isn’t holding the microphone at the front of the rally but writing checks and carrying the bags in the back.” pg.163

“American organizations would have accomplished much more if they had financed and supported Sakena, rather than dispatching their own representatives.” pg.162

Sakena’s program included eighty secret schools which educated 3800 girls. pg.163

“If we took the foreign aid that goes to guns and weapons and just took one quarter of that and put it into education, that would completely transform this country.” pg.165

SUPPORT/AID – NEEDS TO CONSIDER CULTURAL FACTORS/TRADITIONS
Dai Munji’s story is the model of a successful foreign aid story. pg.169

Cost-effective ways to increase school attendance which include deworming the students, assistance with managing menstruation, iodizing salt, and bribery. Pgs. 171 – 173.

Andrew Mwenda, of Uganda, “complained about the calamitous consequences of ‘the international cocktail of good intentions’” James Shikwati of Kenya “pleaded with Western donors: ‘For God’s sake, please stop’”? pg.176

“Foreign assistance is difficult to get right, and it sometimes is squandered. Yet it is equally clear that some kinds of aid do work; those that have been most effective have involved health and education.” pg.178

“Ann has a finely tuned social conscience....” pg.179

Sixty-five dollars ...Consider the number and extent of lives changed by this one initial microloan to Saima? pg.186

“Microfinance has done more to bolster the status of women, and to protect them from abuse, than any laws could accomplish. Capitalism, it turns out, can achieve what charity and good intentions sometimes cannot.”
pg.187

“...extreme rainfall patterns—either droughts or flooding—are accompanied by a doubling in the numbers of unproductive old women killed for witchcraft, compared to normal years...” pg. 192

“Because men now typically control the purse strings, it appears that the poorest families in the world typically spend approximately ten times as much (20 percent of their income on average) on a combination of alcohol, prostitutes, candy, sugary drinks, and lavish feasts as they do on educating their children.” pg.192

The gender differences surrounding the utilization of resources appear to be quite significant. Can it really be as simple as reallocating funds to women? There are cultural factors that allow men to spend income on, what we consider to be, frivolous, and immoral purchases? How do religious beliefs possibly support this lifestyle? “...the Indian constitution was amended to stipulate that one third of the positions of village chief were to be reserved for women.” pg.197

“...the evidence from our own history is that women’s political participation has proved to be of vast, life-saving
benefit to America’s children.” pg.198

“...cultural barriers can be overcome relatively swiftly where there is political will to do so.” pg.206

“So was it cultural imperialism for Westerners to criticize foot-binding and female infanticide? Perhaps. But, it was also the right thing to do.” pg.207

“Implicit in what we’re saying about China is something that sounds shocking to many Americans: Sweatshops have given women a boost.” pg.210 The fair trade movement seeks to ensure safe work environments, free of child and slave labor for farmers and artisans in developing countries while providing a wider market for their goods. In light of the above statement regarding sweatshops, is purchasing fair trade items effective in alleviating the suffering of those involved? Or, is it detrimental for U.S. shoppers to demand safe work environments in developing countries? How does this compare to Westerners speaking against other human rights violations (i.e. foot-binding)?

What advances in the rights of women have you witnessed in your lifetime? In North America? Abroad? Are men and women in our culture equal in every way? Are there still areas where the genders are treated differently in the West?

Friday, November 18, 2011

Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay



We had an interesting discussion, starting with comments, such as, “You need to do what you have to do in order to survive.” The characters in the “past” during the round up, as well as the narrator in the present, all demonstrate this motto.
Overall impressions include:
* The book, The Elegance of a Hedgehog also had a concierge (the main character) who knew everything that was going on, just like the concierges in Sarah’s Key knew which Jews had left and therefore which apartments were available.
* It was through the dialogue that the characters came alive. The conversations taking place in the past with Sarah and then the other set of characters with Julia conversing in the present, let us know who they were and what they were thinking.
* Julia is not French, but has lived in France. She never feels like she quite “fits in.” The Jews probably thought they “fit in” until they were “rounded up” and ripped from their homes, work, and community.

Why do you think the author chose to have two stories going on?
* All of the characters in the past knew about the brother being locked in the secret room, but no one talked about it. Like the actual war – Jews were being taken, but no one was talking (doing?) anything about it, probably due to fear.
* Is that why the police did it? Were they afraid of Hitler’s army or happy to follow?
* Julia is moving into an apartment that used to belong to her mother-in-law. Her father-in-law is the young boy in the past living in Sarah’s old apartment who witnesses her return and the gruesome discovery of Sarah’s brother, which Sarah never gets over.
* As a society, everyone is responsible. Julia takes on the responsibility of opening a closed door into the past and bringing a story to light for her current family.

Clips from the movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1668200/
Based on Tatiana de Rosnay's best-selling novel, Sarah's Key tells the story of an American journalist on the brink of making big life decisions regarding her marriage and her unborn child. What starts off as a research article about the Vel'd'Hiv Roundup in 1942 in France more »ends up as a journey towards self-discovery as she stumbles upon a terrible secret and discovers the heartbreaking story of a Jewish family forced out of their home, a home that is now their own.

Form imdb:
10-year-old Sarah Starzynski denies to the authorities carrying out the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup that her little brother Michel is at home, and locks him in a hidden closet. She tells him to stay there and wait until she returns. She takes the key with her when she and her parents are transported to the VĂ©lodrome d'Hiver by the Paris Police and French Secret Service. Some French neighbors cheer the roundup while others jeer and say "They will come for you next."

The deportees are transferred to the Beaune-la-Rolande, the transit deportation detention camp, in squalid conditions and burning heat, in cramped quarters without adequate water or toilet facilities. First the men then the women are deported to the extermination camp in Auschwitz, and the children have to stay after being forcefully and cruelly separated from their mothers by the Paris police. Sarah tries to escape with a friend, Rachel, after noticing a small hole in the ground underneath a fence. A sympathetic Paris police guard, Jacques, whom Sarah wins over by calling by name, and convincingly begs to let them go so she can save her brother, hesitates but finally agrees, and lifts the barbed wire over the hole to let them out as he smiles sympathetically.

After searching for a safe place, exhausted, Sarah and Rachel, fall asleep in a dog house at a village home where they had originally been rebuffed. In the morning, they are discovered by its owner. Realizing who they are, he and his wife decide to help them. Rachel is dying, and when they call attention to the sick girl by calling in a doctor, a skeptical but implicitly sympathetic German officer asks them if they know anything about a second child and warn them of the dire consequences of hiding Jews. Rachel's body is taken away, while Jules and Genevieve, the elderly couple, hide Sarah. Days later they take her back to her family's apartment building in Paris. Sneaking past the concierge, Sarah runs up to her apartment, knocking on the door furiously. A boy, twelve years old, answers. She rushes in to her old room, past the boy, and unlocks the cupboard. Horrified by what she finds, she starts screaming hysterically. The boy's father rushes in, and sees the decomposing body of Sarah's little brother. (The body is never shown onscreen.)

After the war, Sarah continues to live with the old couple on the farm, together with their two grandsons, who treat her like their own granddaughter/sister, until she is 18. In letters, the couple describes Sarah's sadness and melancholy. When she turns 18, though, she moves to the United States, hoping to put everything that happened behind her, using the name Dufaure, the surname of the elderly couple. She gets married and has a son, William, although she stops corresponding with Jules and Genevieve soon after being married. When her son is 9, no longer able to handle what happened to Michel—for whose death she blames herself—Sarah commits suicide by driving into the path of a truck, although her son had always been under the impression that her death was an accident.

In the present, the French husband of journalist Julia (Kristin Scott-Thomas) inherits the apartment of his grandparents (his elderly father was the boy who opened the door to Sarah in 1942). Having previously done an article on the Vel' d'Hiv' Roundup, Julia finds her interest piqued when she learns that the apartment came into her husband's family at about the time of the Roundup, and she begins to investigate what happened 65 years earlier. Her father-in-law, knowing the back story and wanting to protect his elderly mother (who had been the wife of the couple who took possession of the seized apartment) from knowing the truth, resents Julia's unwelcome prying, but realizes he'll have to bring her in on the story to keep control of it, and tells her what he knows. Having got much of the story, she goes on an obsessive quest to find any any trace of Sarah, eventually learning (in Brooklyn) of her death and finally locating William (in Italy). She meets with him and asks him for information about his mother, but learns to her surprise that William does not know his mother's history or even that she was a Jew, believing only that she had been a French farm girl. Listening in amazement to what Julia has uncovered, he refuses to believe it, flatly rejecting the story and brusquely dismissing Julia. Later, everything is confirmed by his dying father, who finally tells him the whole secret story of Sarah's background, including what led to his mother's suicide.

Julia has unexpectedly and joyously discovered that she's pregnant, having given up hope of a second child after years of fertility treatments and unsuccessful attempts to conceive, but her husband flatly disagrees that they should have another child at this point in life. He makes it clear that he wants her to have an abortion, saying he is too old even though he cherishes their teenaged daughter, Zoe. She hesitates about getting an abortion, and ultimately keeps the child. Later, having divorced her self-absorbed husband and moved to New York City, she gives birth to a daughter.

The film begins in 1942, then abruptly switches to 2009, and after that, alternates between the past and the present. It ends with a scene in the present day in which William, having accepted the truth and contacted Julia, meets her for lunch and gives her additional information about his mother. At one point in the end scene, Julia has brought her toddler daughter along to the meeting. William asks the little girl what her name is, and she answers "Lucy". Later on, William tells Julia how sweet little "Lucy" is, and Julia laughs and tells him that "No, no, Lucy is her toy giraffe." (implying that the child misinterpreted William's earlier question, and thought he wanted to know the name of the toy giraffe, instead of hers) "So what did you name your daughter?" Julia looks at him tenderly: "Her name is Sarah." At the news, William breaks down in tears as Julia comforts him.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok


SCHOOL
* Being accused of cheating is shocking both culturally (that would shame my family) and academically (I’m too smart to have to cheat)
* For First generation, education is the way out
- Good test scores
- Regurgitate back information
- Go to a good college
* New languages can sometimes be read better than spoken
* Her language was Cantonese (not Mandarin) – the early 1900s (1909 Qing Dynasty decree), China has promoted Mandarin for use in education, the media and official communication the use of Cantonese in many overseas Chinese communities. It has more native speakers (nearly a billion) than does any other language. Cantonese is the predominantly spoken language in everyday life.
* Math may be taught/learned in different ways (ie: regrouping)
* It’s interesting to note that Japanese students clean their classroom and change their shoes. Schools can be very different in other countries.

RACE & IDENTITY
* We talked a little about Racial identity – If you come from another country, you have a developed sense of identity. When you grow up in the United States, you have felt the oppression growing up and that has shaped the experience of yourself.
* The main character felt that there were different rules for whites and Chinese

RELIGION & CULTURAL TRADITIONS
* Quan Yin is an important goddess
* Buddhist religion
* Chinese New Year traditions include not breaking anything
* Honor and integrity are important values – they had to pay their debt to Aunt Paula
* “Debts we can't repay” is an important theme
- Don’t want to “owe” anyone anything
- Don’t want to feel indebted, so presents need to be big
- Don’t talk about your personal business

FACTORY WORK & EMPLOYMENT
History of sweatshops
1995 (illegal) sweatshop raid

* Paying by piece in a clothing factory is illegal, so is kids helping parents
* Mom didn’t use her musical talent and connections to Chinatown to teach music or make extra money.
* One person in our group talked about living where she worked and helping out in the family business (owning a motel).

Some details from this website:
Forced labor of various sorts, such as debt bondage (similar to indentured servitude), captive migrant labor, prison labor, and child labor plagues developed and developing countries alike. International attention focused on child labor in recent years after Iqbal Masih, a Pakistani carpet slave, was murdered at age 12, allegedly ordered by company owners after Masih spoke out on child slavery. Masih had been sold into slavery by his parents for $16 at age 4. He was chained to a loom to work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week until age 10, when he escaped and began to protest child labor. Many other incidences of forced labor and child labor have been brought to light recently, including:

* In El Monte, California in 1995, 72 undocumented Thai workers producing clothing for stores such as Sears, Macy’s, and Filene’s were found locked behind barbed wire fences. They were forced to work 17 hours a day, earning 70 cents an hour and sleeping as many as 8 to a bedroom.
* Workers at a Chinese shoe factory are captives of the company’s 100 security guards, and are not paid wages.
* Children in a Tangerang, Indonesia factory were found to be working for $4 per week (well below the Indonesian minimum wage), working 7-13 hour days in 1991.
* Seventeen percent of soccer balls produced in Pakistan were found to be made by children.
* In the Phillipines, a three and a half year old was found making Rubberworld thongs.

In China, forced and unpaid prison labor is common. The International Labor Organization estimates 250 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are working worldwide, about 12.5 million of whom work in export industries. The unofficial estimate of child labor in Indonesia is 3.3 million children of a total population of under-16 year olds of 69 million. In Thailand, the unofficial estimate of 4 million in child labor represents 20% of Thailand’s under-16 population. The United States imports an estimated $100 million per year in goods produced by children in slavery or bonded labor, according to the New York Times.

Click here for non sweatshop apparel

FRIENDSHIPS (also related to “debt”)
* Kids were saying, “Why can’t you do this, why can’t you do that,” and the main character had to work.
* She couldn’t go on a playdate because she could never invite kids over for play dates to “return the favor”
- Matt was really nice.
- Annette was the girlfriend.
- Curt was the kids from the school.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The youngest of seven children and a girl at that, I was a dreamy, impractical child who ran wild through the sunlit streets of Hong Kong. No one was more astonished than my family when I turned out to be quite good at school. We moved to New York City when I was five and my only gift was taken from me. I did not understand a word of English.

We lost all our money in the move to the United States. My family started working in a sweatshop in Chinatown. My father took me there every day after school and we all emerged many hours later, soaked in sweat and covered in fabric dust. Our apartment swarmed with insects and rats. In the winter, we kept the oven door open day and night because there was no other heat in the apartment.

By then, my family had stopped working at the sweatshop and we'd moved to a run-down brownstone in Brooklyn Heights that had been divided into formerly rent-controlled apartments. It was a vast improvement, but there was still no money to spare. If I didn't get into a top school with a full financial aid package, I wouldn't be able to go to college. Although I loved English, I didn't think it was a practical choice and devoted myself to science instead. In my last year in high school, I worked in three laboratories: the Genetic Engineering and Molecular Biology labs at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Research Center and the Biophysics/Interface Lab at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Brooklyn.

I then moved to Holland for love and went through the process of adjusting to another culture and learning another language again. I taught English at Leiden University in the Netherlands and worked as a Dutch-English translator until I finished Girl in Translation. After it was accepted for publication, I quit to write fulltime. I live in the Netherlands with my husband and two sons, and the publication of this novel has been a dream come true.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Alice Hoffman



Many of us read more than one of her books, either this time, or over the years. Alice Hoffman has written 22 adult books and 6 “teen” books. Her website is here. Among us, these were the books we read for our meeting: Turtle Moon, Practical Magic, Blue Diary, The Red Garden, The Story Sisters, At Risk, Ice Queen, Here On Earth.

We compared Hoffman to other authors who we’ve read and who have written many, many books. One comparison that stands out is to Jodi Picoult who has written 18 novels (I have read 15 of Jodi and 5 of Alice). Both write about New England, especially Massachusetts, and small towns. Picoult has a “formula” in her stories that includes a trial, Hoffman doesn’t. Each of Hoffman’s stories is unique and interesting, though there are similarities among her books which I describe below. Picoult does a lot of research and picks controversial topics which she sets up right away, and then proceeds to present both sides of the issue in a sensitive and compassionate way. Hoffman has controversial issues, which sneak up on you as the story progresses. There is a “magical” quality in laying out the setting and unearthing the story.

We talked about themes and commonalities among the books written by Alice Hoffman:

Siblings: Relationships play a key role whether the story is about sisters, siblings, daughters, brothers, fathers or foster children.

Writing: Letters and notes which are found, lost, or written play a part in the plot, magic, and resolution.

Men: The antagonist is often an evil man, though minor men appear in the background and help define the female characters. There are usually one or two minor male characters who are nice.

Occupations: Did anyone notice that being a jewelry maker came up in more than one novel?

Supernatural feeling or Fairytale quality: This is hard to explain. It is partly the writing and partly how she sets the scene. In the writing, things happen that can’t always be explained and in the scenery there are images that she frequently uses:
• Color (light and dark)
• Water
• Trees
• Roses

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown

More information at this website: http://www.eleanor-brown.com/the-weird-sisters.  I've combined some of the book reviews/summary with our own version of the sister descriptions below:

We talked about our relationships with our family of origin and how we got along with our siblings. We all happen to be first born sisters! At one time, the father (did he have a name?) talks to each of the daughters, encouraging them to do things differently than they have been doing. The mother (we couldn’t find her name either) says that she doesn’t know where the girls got the idea that they had to overachieve. We recognized that our parents passed on values to us and that we passed on values to our children (biological or students, since some of us are also teachers). How much did we know we were doing, and how much was happening unconsciously? For sure, each child is born in to a different family. The first born/only child becomes a sister when the second child is born into a family that now has two children, and so forth. Not to mention that parents change in parenting style as the learn, mature, or react to the different personalities of their offspring.

The Andreas sisters were raised on books – their family motto might as well be, “There’s no problem a library card can’t solve.” Their mother is going through treatment for cancer and that brings the sisters back together in their hometown of Barnwell. Their father, a renowned, eccentric professor of Shakespearean studies, named them after three of the Bard’s most famous characters. Once there were three sisters…

Rose (Rosalind – As You Like It) is educated, a professor with a PhD, and has traveled to France. She is the “smart one.” She also has a passion for order and is the “crisis interceptor” of the family. She knows what to do and does it. She has lived in Barnwell all her life, would love to work at Barnwell College, and is the only sister who is in a committed relationship. In fact, she is about to be married. Unfortunately, her soon-to-be-husband, Jonathan just got a chance to stay longer as a visiting professor in England. It is just her luck to have finally found her Orlando, her perfect love, only to have him leave her. What will happen to the family and town she is devoted to, if she isn’t around to organize everyone!

What did we think of Rose?
* kinda uptight
* could identify with the younger Rose, but not the older Rose
* felt like the role of caretaker was thrust upon her and “me” (the responsibility to be the oldest)
* would rather travel
* would never want to stay living at home
* is the “only child” for a while

Bean (Bianca – The Taming of the Shrew) is always in style, with a passion for the right make up, shoes, clothing, and accessories. She plays the part of the beautiful socialite well, even though her performance is coming to an end. She’s gotten herself out of their hometown, lives in New York City, and then gets herself into a huge debt, embezzling from her company. Now she’s running away/back from the glitz. She also keeps in shape by running. Will she keeping running away, or is their someone or something that can keep her grounded in the mundane?

What did we think of Bean?
* spoiled brat
* bad decisions
* poorly behaved
* liked her rebellious nature
* was smart and got the heck out of the family
* was the character that some of us most identified with

Cordy (Cordelia – King Lear) is the baby at 33 years old and her father’s “favorite.” She has been indulged her entire life and was Cordelia to her father’s, Lear. She’s always late to arrive anywhere, starting with the day she was born. She used to own a coffee shop, but it has been years since she has lived anywhere long enough to have an address. She has a passion for adventure and has traveled all over the world. She refuses to grow up. She’s been lucky, until now. Now, she is pregnant and single. Her next adventure will be parenthood. Can she settle down?

What did we think of Cordy?
* is the only child for a while
* we (oldest children) see the youngest as the favorite

Act II ends with the sisters thinking, “To forge such an unnatural friendship would just require so much effort. Our estrangement is not drama-laden—we have not betrayed one another’s trust, we have not stolen lovers or fought over money or property or any of the things that irreparably break families apart. The answer, for us, is much simpler. See, we love one another. We just don’t happen to like one another very much.” In Shakespeare’s time, “wyrd” meant “fate.” Is “destiny” what you are born into or can you control your choices, and therefore your fate?

It was fun writing up the summary of each sister (above). We talked about how this is a lovely story of a family and, even though predictable, you want to know how the sisters will turn their lives around. It reminded us of the strength of family and community, how passion drives our decisions, and how we can, indeed, control our own fates.

We talked about how High School keeps you in a time and place. FaceBook actually makes us all more multi-dimensional because now we see other things that people we went to school with are doing.

We asked ourselves, “Do other people keep us in those roles or do we keep ourselves in those roles?”

We also wondered how much we are like our name or the person we are named for, having a side conversation about what our parents might have named us! In some ways we live up to our name. How much do parents get it right when they name you?

Finally, we thought about what our parents passed on to us. Sometimes, it was what they didn’t get for themselves. They wanted us to have:
* a 4 year college experience (not just 2 years)
* a career that we liked
* a career that would make us independent (especially as women)
* a love of reading

As always, there was much more, but this is what I could capture in the midst of all the conversation.

Lady Macbeth’s Daughter by Lisa Klein

We agreed to do a theme of “Sisters in Shakespeare.” It’s not what you think! The two books we will be reading over the next two months use the characters developed by Shakespeare, focus on sisters in some way, and extend the Shakespeare story or drop the characters into contemporary life. A little lighter reading for a change!

More information at this website:  http://www.authorlisaklein.com/2.3.html

Albia has grown up with no knowledge of her father, the powerful thane Macbeth, and her mother, the grief-wracked Grelach. Instead she knows the dark lure of the Wychelm Wood and the moors, where she’s been raised by three strange sisters. The ambitious Macbeth seeks to know his fate,and Albia’s life becomes tangled with that of the man who leaves in his wake nothing but bloodshed. When Albia learns that she has the second sight, she must decide whether to ignore the terrible future she foresees—or to change it. With only the shepherd Colum to aid her, Albia sets out on a journey fraught with peril. Will she be able to save the man she loves from her murderous father? Can she forgive her parents their wrongs, or must she destroy them?

We had all read Shakespeare’s MacBeth, but it was so long ago that we couldn’t remember all the details! We found it interesting to learn that MacBeth was a REAL person. We recognized that this was a time when people were relatively superstitious. We were reminded that the women of that time married young and had children very young, which led to a brief discussion of how Disney sexualizes everything and makes women (human and animal) sexy and alluring to men.

In MacBeth’s Daughter, we wanted more about the three sisters and their history. The witches, inevitably, changed the course of events for MacBeth. We wondered why Albia had to have “second sight” – couldn’t she have just thought it was a good idea and gotten people to do things? We thought Banquo was an interesting contrast to all the other ambitious men and that Colum was also a gentle soul.

We touched upon several themes:
  • Ambition
  • To be hunted or to be the hunter
  • People go from family to enemy and from friend to enemy at an alarming rate.
  • Lightness vs. darkness
  • Justice vs. Revenge

We had a few loose ends:
  • Who gave Albia the sword?
  • Did Colum want to marry Albia?
  • What happens to Eduob?

Friday, April 29, 2011

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

Some of us had finished the book, others were just beginning, so here is a quick summary from: http://www.abebooks.com/products/isbn/0312600844

Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul—the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the avant-garde of the Whole Foods generation. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbor, who could tell you where to recycle your batteries and how to get the local cops to actually do their job. She was an enviably perfect mother and the wife of Walter’s dreams. Together with Walter—environmental lawyer, commuter cyclist, total family man—she was doing her small part to build a better world.But now, in the new millennium, the Berglunds have become a mystery. Why has their teenage son moved in with the aggressively Republican family next door? Why has Walter taken a job working with Big Coal? What exactly is Richard Katz—outrĂ© rocker and Walter’s college best friend and rival—still doing in the picture? Most of all, what has happened to Patty? Why has the bright star of Barrier Street become “a very different kind of neighbor,” an implacable Fury coming unhinged before the street’s attentive eyes?In his first novel since The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen has given us an epic of contemporary love and marriage. Freedom comically and tragically captures the temptations and burdens of liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the heavy weight of empire. In charting the mistakes and joys of Freedom’s characters as they struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world, Franzen has produced an indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time.

I have summarized out thoughts in the way we brought up the topics – with “story starters.”

The older you get…
• The more your tolerance increases.
• The less you care about “amazing” things and are content with what you have.
• The more some things just don’t matter anymore.
• The more you can self reflect and be glad about where you are and not just where you wanted to be.
• The more you realize that you don’t “grow up” until you get much older.
• Them more you realize that you need to separate and find your own passion (or have separated and found your passion).
• The more you realize you don’t need to be entirely wrapped up in someone else (or that you are but you can be yourself, too!).

In the story, a great big passion is…
• Patty’s love of Richard
• Richard’s love of Walter
• Richard’s love of music
• Walter’s love of the earth (bird survival and population control)
• Walter’s love of Lolitha
• Lolitha’s love of Walter
• Connie’s love of Patty and Walter’s son
• Patty’s college roommate’s love of Patty
• Parent’s love of their kids (the parent keeps trying to “get it right” but is not quite meeting the child’s expectations)

Marriage brings to mind…
• Whether being married to Walter and having basic needs met is enough.
• That someone, like Walter, might become your great, big passion.
• In Chinese culture, your “doors have to match,” meaning marriage about compatibility.
• In some culture, arranged marriages aren’t about great, big passion, but they still work out and many people grow to love their partners.

Patty, Walter, Richard had an interesting triangular relationship with each other…
• They both loved Walter
• Walter trusted unconditionally

Connie, Patty, and Patty’s son had an interesting triangular relationship with each other…
• Patty didn’t like Connie
• Connie loved Patty’s son unconditionally
• Connie was simple and honest and didn’t try to pretend, whereas Patty has been hiding herself from the time she was date raped in high school
• Patty’s son couldn’t admit to himself that he loved Connie

Freedom is…
• To age and gain experience
• To accept oneself and others (and all the faults)
• To feel relief
• To let go of the past, longing for someone, and fear
• Found in forgiveness
• To not have to be perfect
• To protect animals and habitat for future generations (know that the earth will survive)
• Accepting that you are the parent that you are and can do no better, even when you try (Patty confronted her mother about never having gone to any of her games and her mother implied that she didn’t want to impose and cause Patty to not have all the glory)

Other questions that created interesting discussion:
What did you think of Jonathan Franzen’s writing?
Do you think that Franzen captures the “mind of a woman”?
What do you think of the phone sex (and other sex scenes)?

Friday, April 1, 2011

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

We talked about how this book appeals to young adults because it has a romance, a male and a female protagonist, a science fiction world, survival, combat and a lot of nonstop action. It also appeals to adults because there is just enough political intrigue and psychological drama.

The second book, Catching Fire, fills in background about the characters and districts, plus more “behind the scenes” information on the yearly Hunger Games. It also has an abrupt ending, clearly a “middle” book. The last book, The Mockingjay, stands on its own. It’s worth the wait (the best of the 3, in my opinion) and brings the games into the real world of the 13 districts.

From: http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides_H/the_hunger_games1.asp

"I couldn’t stop reading... Collins is an efficient no-nonsense prose stylist with a pleasantly dry sense of humor... Addictive... the essential question is whether or not readers will care enough to stick around and find out what comes next for Katniss. I know I will."
— Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly

"I was so obsessed with this book I had to take it with me out to dinner and hide it under the edge of the table so I wouldn’t have to stop reading. The story kept me up for several nights in a row, because even after I was finished, I just lay in bed wide awake thinking about it... The Hunger Games is amazing."
— Stephenie Meyer

I have one question to think about in preparation for our BOOK GROUP MEETING ON WEDNESDAY:
1. How do you feel about reality TV?

Having asked that, here are two questions (from the many that exist on the reading blogs) that I think are interesting (I’ll post all the questions after we meet):

2. Compare the society in Panem (the government, its tight control on the population, and the growing rebellion) to others that you have studied or encountered in books or films. Consider historical and contemporary nations as well as fictional worlds. What does Panem have in common with these cultures, and how does it differ? What can we learn about our own world from studying and reading about historical and fictional societies?

3. Why are all citizens of Panem required to watch The Hunger Games on television? How does this affect the people? Why haven’t they rebelled earlier against the brutality of the Games? Discuss the effect of television and reality TV in your own life.

Here are two questions which Suzanne Collins poses in an interview (http://www.amazon.com/Mockingjay-Final-Book-Hunger-Games/dp/0439023513):
5. How are elements of the books relevant in your own life? And, if they're disturbing, what might you do about them?

6. Reality TV is often set up as games and, like sporting events, there's an interest in seeing who wins. The contestants are usually unknown, which makes them relatable. Sometimes they have very talented people performing. Then there's the voyeuristic thrill—watching people being humiliated, or brought to tears, or suffering physically. There's also the potential for desensitizing the audience, so that when they see real tragedy playing out on, say, the news, it doesn't have the impact it should.

And her thoughts on making the book into a movie:
When you're adapting a novel into a two-hour movie you can't take everything with you. The story has to be condensed to fit the new form. Then there's the question of how best to take a book told in the first person and present tense and transform it into a satisfying dramatic experience. In the novel, you never leave Katniss for a second and are privy to all of her thoughts so you need a way to dramatize her inner world and to make it possible for other characters to exist outside of her company. Finally, there's the challenge of how to present the violence while still maintaining a PG-13 rating so that your core audience can view it. A lot of things are acceptable on a page that wouldn't be on a screen. But how certain moments are depicted will ultimately be in the director's hands.

Go to Amazon.com to see a video clip of Suzanne Collins reading Chapter 1 of The Mockingjay (Book 3): http://www.amazon.com/Mockingjay-Final-Book-Hunger-Games/dp/0439023513

Scroll down the Amazon page to see this interview:
Q: You have said from the start that The Hunger Games story was intended as a trilogy. Did it actually end the way you planned it from the beginning?
A: Very much so. While I didn't know every detail, of course, the arc of the story from gladiator game, to revolution, to war, to the eventual outcome remained constant throughout the writing process.

Q: We understand you worked on the initial screenplay for a film to be based on The Hunger Games. What is the biggest difference between writing a novel and writing a screenplay?
A: There were several significant differences. Time, for starters. When you're adapting a novel into a two-hour movie you can't take everything with you. The story has to be condensed to fit the new form. Then there's the question of how best to take a book told in the first person and present tense and transform it into a satisfying dramatic experience. In the novel, you never leave Katniss for a second and are privy to all of her thoughts so you need a way to dramatize her inner world and to make it possible for other characters to exist outside of her company. Finally, there's the challenge of how to present the violence while still maintaining a PG-13 rating so that your core audience can view it. A lot of things are acceptable on a page that wouldn't be on a screen. But how certain moments are depicted will ultimately be in the director's hands.

Q: Are you able to consider future projects while working on The Hunger Games, or are you immersed in the world you are currently creating so fully that it is too difficult to think about new ideas?
A: I have a few seeds of ideas floating around in my head but--given that much of my focus is still on The Hunger Games--it will probably be awhile before one fully emerges and I can begin to develop it.

Q: The Hunger Games is an annual televised event in which one boy and one girl from each of the twelve districts is forced to participate in a fight-to-the-death on live TV. What do you think the appeal of reality television is--to both kids and adults?
A: Well, they're often set up as games and, like sporting events, there's an interest in seeing who wins. The contestants are usually unknown, which makes them relatable. Sometimes they have very talented people performing. Then there's the voyeuristic thrill—watching people being humiliated, or brought to tears, or suffering physically--which I find very disturbing. There's also the potential for desensitizing the audience, so that when they see real tragedy playing out on, say, the news, it doesn't have the impact it should.

Q: If you were forced to compete in the Hunger Games, what do you think your special skill would be?
A: Hiding. I'd be scaling those trees like Katniss and Rue. Since I was trained in sword-fighting, I guess my best hope would be to get hold of a rapier if there was one available. But the truth is I'd probably get about a four in Training.

Q: What do you hope readers will come away with when they read The Hunger Games trilogy?
A: Questions about how elements of the books might be relevant in their own lives. And, if they're disturbing, what they might do about them.

Q: What were some of your favorite novels when you were a teen?
A: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Boris by Jaapter Haar
Germinal by Emile Zola
Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury

Reading Guide questions from: http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides_H/the_hunger_games1.asp

THE HUNGER GAMES
1. How does Katniss feel about the country of Panem? Why does she need to make her face “an indifferent mask” and be careful what she says in public?

2. Describe the relationships of Katniss with Gale, with Prim, with her mother. How do those relationships define her personality? Why does she say about Peeta, “I feel like I owe him something, and I hate owing people.” How does her early encounter with Peeta affect their relationship after they are chosen as tributes?

3. How does the fact that the tributes are always on camera affect their behavior from the time they are chosen? Does it make it easier or harder for them to accept their fate? How are the “career tributes” different from the others?

4. Why are the “tributes” given stylists and dressed so elaborately for the opening ceremony? Does this ceremony remind you of events in our world, either past or present? Compare those ceremonies in real life to the one in the story.

5. When Peeta declares his love for Katniss in the interview, does he really mean it or did Haymitch create the “star-crossed lovers” story? What does Haymitch mean when he says, “It’s all a big show. It’s all how you’re perceived.” Why do they need to impress sponsors and what are those sponsors looking for when they are watching the Games?

6. Before the Games start, Peeta tells Katniss, “…I want to die as myself…I don’t want them to change me in there. Turn me into some kind of monster that I’m not.” What does this tell you about Peeta? What does he fear more than death? Is he able to stay true to himself during the Games?

7. Why does Katniss ignore Haymitch’s advice to head directly away from the Cornucopia? Did she do the right thing to fight for equipment? What are the most important skills she has for staying alive – her knowledge of nature? – her skill with bow and arrow? – her trapping ability? What qualities of her personality keep her going – her capacity for love? – her intelligence? – her self-control?

8. Why does Peeta join with the Career Tributes in the beginning of the Games? What does he hope to gain? Why do they accept him when they start hunting as a group? Why do groups form in the beginning when they know only one of them will be able to survive?

9. What makes Katniss and Rue trust each other to become partners? What does Katniss gain from this friendship besides companionship? Is Katniss and Rue’s partnership formed for different reasons than the other group’s?

10. Discuss the ways in which the Gamemakers control the environment and “entertainment” value of the Games. How does it affect the tributes to know they are being manipulated to make the Games more exciting for the gamblers and viewers? Does knowing that she is on live TV make Katniss behave differently than she would otherwise?

11. When does Katniss first realize that Peeta does care for her and is trying to keep her alive? When does she realize her own feelings for him? Did Haymitch think all along that he could keep them both alive by stressing the love story? Are they actually in love?

12. What do you think is the cruelest part of the Hunger Games? What kind of people would devise this spectacle for the entertainment of their populace? Can you see parallels between these Games and the society that condones them, and other related events and cultures in the history of the world?

13. In 1848, Karl Marx wrote in The Communist Manifesto, "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." Discuss this statement as it applies to the society and government of Panem. Do you believe there is any chance to eradicate class struggles in the future?

14. Reality TV has been a part of the entertainment world since the early days of television (with shows such as “Candid Camera” and the “Miss America Pageant”), but in the 21st century there has been a tremendous growth of competitive shows and survival shows. Discuss this phenomenon with respect to The Hunger Games. What other aspects of our popular culture do you see reflected in this story?

CATCHING FIRE
1. How did Katniss’s participation in the Games change her relationship with Gale? Why does she say, “The Games have spoiled even that…There’s no going back.”

2. What emotions does Peeta stir in Katniss? Though she is stiff and formal with him, what are her true feelings? How did the events in the first Games affect their relationship?

3. Why does President Snow come to Katniss’s home? What does he mean when he says, “…you have provided a spark which left unattended may grow into an inferno …” What, exactly, was the significance of the handful of poisonous berries at the end of The Hunger Games?

4. How do the events of the Victory Tour affect Katniss and Peeta, their relationship to each other, and their feelings about their future?

5. Why does the Capitol devise a special reaping procedure for every 25th Game? Do you believe the requirements for this Quarter Quell were decided in the past or were they designed for this Game to force Katniss and Peeta back to the Arena?

6. What is the significance of the mockingjay image? What does it mean to the people in the Districts and the people in the Capitol? Why does Plutarch Heavensbee show Katniss the hidden mockingjay image on his watch? Discuss how the mockingjay species developed and how Katniss happened to wear the pin during the first Games.

7. Why does Gale refuse Katniss’s offer to try to escape into the wild? What does he mean when he says, “It can’t be about just saving us anymore”? How does Gale’s whipping change Katniss’s thinking about escape and her feelings for Gale?

8. What makes Katniss say, “No wonder I won the Games. No decent person ever does.” Is she being too hard on herself? What makes her realize that fighting the Capitol is more important than running away? What is the importance of her meeting with Bonnie and Twill in the forest?

9. Why does the Capitol push plans for the wedding of Katniss and Peeta if they know that they will be returning to the Games in the Quarter Quell? What does the Capitol hope to gain by sending previous victors back to the Games? Is it really, as Katniss says, a way to show “that hope was an illusion”?

10. What do Katniss and Peeta learn when they watch the video of Haymitch’s Hunger Games, the 2nd Quarter Quell? How does it affect their understanding of Haymitch and the mockingjay symbol? How did Haymitch trick the Capitol?

11. How do both Peeta and Katniss mock the Gamemakers during the “talent show” portion of the training? Why do they each take the chance of offending those who will control the Games? How does this change their feelings for each other?

12. Discuss the effect on Katniss of what happens to Darius and Cinna. Why are the Capitol officials attacking those who have befriended her? Why is Cinna attacked just before Katniss is placed in the Arena?

13. Why is Katniss determined to keep Peeta alive during the Games, even at the expense of her own life? When does she realize the importance of forming alliances with the other tributes? Why does Finnick save Peeta’s life? When does Katniss realize that her first impression of Finnick was wrong?

14. Describe the relationship between Katniss and Johanna. What made Katniss realize that Wiress and Beetee would be helpful allies in the Arena? What important contribution does each one of the allies make to keep the group alive? What is the role of the unseen “sponsors”?

15. What is more harmful to the players in this Game --- the physical traumas like the fog and rain of fire, or the emotional trauma of hearing the jabberjays?

16. What does Haymitch mean when he tells Katniss before the Game begin, “You just remember who the enemy is – that’s all.” Who is the enemy? Have the other tributes been trying to keep Peeta or Katniss alive? Which of them is most important to the rebellion?

17. Why were Katniss and Peeta not aware of the plans for the rebellion? Why were they kept in the dark when other tributes knew about it?

18. What is the meaning of the title? How many different ways can you identify the theme of “catching fire” in this volume?

Comparing The Hunger Games and Catching Fire:

1. Discuss the differences between the Games in the first volume and the second --- the training sessions, the interviews, the set-up of the Arena, the strategies that Katniss and Peeta use. How is each of them changed by the time they spend in the Arena?

2. What are the forces that contribute to the rebellion in Catching Fire? Were they already starting to happen in The Hunger Games? What clues can you find in the books about the rebellion?

3. Why are all citizens of Panem required to watch The Hunger Games on television? How does this affect the people? Why haven’t they rebelled earlier against the brutality of the Games? Discuss the effect of television and reality TV in your own life.

4. What are your predictions for the third volume in the series?

5. Compare the society in Panem (the government, its tight control on the population, and the growing rebellion) to others that you have studied or encountered in books or films. Consider historical and contemporary nations as well as fictional worlds. What does Panem have in common with these cultures, and how does it differ? What can we learn about our own world from studying and reading about historical and fictional societies?

Thursday, February 24, 2011

The Traveler (Fourth Realm Trilogy, Book 1) by John Twelve Hawks

Consider the following two questions that have been part of every empire's growth as villages moved from farms to city-states to countries and dynasties:
How does a society control its population and why?
Who are the rebels and how do they fight the "machine"?


The Traveler (Fourth Realm Trilogy, Book 1) is a 2005 novel by John Twelve Hawks, which impressed critics and became an international bestseller, in part due to the reclusive behavior of its author. The Dark River, book two of The Fourth Realm Trilogy, was published in July 2007. The final part in the trilogy, The Golden City, was released September 8, 2009.

Visit John Twelve Hawks Page: http://www.randomhouse.com/features/johntwelvehawks/
Evergreen Foundation: http://www.randomhouse.com/features/traveler/

Summary from his site:
Powerful, mainstream fiction built on a foundation of cutting-edge technology laced with fantasy and the chilling specter of an all-too-possible social and political reality. The time is roughly the present, and the U.S. is part of the Vast Machine, a society overseen by the Tabula, a secret organization bent on establishing a perfectly controlled populace. Allied against the Tabula are the Travelers and their sword-carrying protectors, the Harlequins. The Travelers, now almost extinct, can project their spirit into other worlds where they receive wisdom to bring back to earth—wisdom that threatens the Tabula's power. Maya, a reluctant Harlequin, finds herself compelled to protect two naĂŻve Travelers, Michael and Gabriel Corrigan. Michael dabbles in shady real estate deals, while Gabriel prefers to live "off the Grid," eschewing any documentation—credit cards, bank accounts—that the Vast Machine could use to track him. Because the Tabula has engineered a way to use the Travelers for its own purposes, Maya must not only keep the brothers alive, but out of the hands of these evil puppet-masters. She succeeds, but she also fails, and therein lies the tale. By the end of this exciting volume, the first in a trilogy, the stage is set for a world-rending clash between good and evil.

Maya is determined to help him defend the last two Travelers alive. However, Shepherd, the last American Harlequin, has become a member of the Brethren. Working for the other side now, he tries to kill Maya. With the help of a young woman named Vikki (entire name: Victory from Sin) she is lucky to get away. Vikki is a member of the I. T. Jones Church, a church of followers of the Traveler Isaac T. Jones, who was killed by the Brethren in 1889 with Lion of the temple (known as Zachary Goldman) a harlequin. Together they are able to find an ally, Hollis, a Capoeira trainer from Los Angeles and a former member of the Isaac T. Jones Community. The three of them are able to find the last living Travelers, Michael and Gabriel Corrigan. Before they are able to give them protection, Michael is captured by the Brethren. Instead of killing him immediately they try to convince him to help them. The Brethren recently started a new Program. They were in contact with a technologically advanced civilization dwelling in another realm. Aiming to travel through the realities, they need the help of a guide, someone who is able to travel without technology - like a Traveler.

Interview with John Twelve Hawks
By Rob Bedford (2005-12-04)
http://www.sffworld.com/mul/146p0.html
It is safer to live off the grid, unconnected to the vast technology, because unseen people are watching our every move, employing technology we have barely imagined. Worse, they are controlling our every move. Those we think are running the country, rather the world, are mere beards for the true puppet masters. This is the world John Twelve Hawks has envisioned in his debut novel, The Traveler. Like the best science fiction, the story begs the reader to question the reality in which we live.

CHARACTERS (information in paragraphs from Wikipedia, our comments in bullets)

Travelers – Corrigan brothers
The Travelers are individuals with a special gift, often but not always inherited, which allows them to detach from their bodies and journey through elemental barriers (water, fire etc) to other realms. They do this by detaching their “light” (internal energy seemingly analogous to the soul but found by the Tabula to be empirically measurable) from their body. Travelers’ experiences and gifts (they can view the world around them with greater speed and clarity than normal people) can lend them great charisma, wisdom and vision. Many Travelers become religious prophets, or opponents of the Tabula, and the random element they add to societies makes them enemies of the Tabula who have hunted them almost to extinction. The idea that all people possess the "light" within and can travel through other states of consciousness or "realms" is also a basic tenet of Gnosticism.
  • “You don’t believe in anything.” (Traveler) “I believe in seeing clearly.” (Harlequin)
  • “I will decide what gives meaning to my life.” (Thomas Walks the Ground)

Harlequins
People who are assigned to protect travelers. They are trained from childhood in sword fighting, etc. The position is inherited. Harlequins defend people who make spiritual journeys. “Dammed by the flesh, saved by the blood.”
  • A descendent of groups like the Knights Templar.
  • “Harlequins and their Travelers are not friends, just soldiers in the same army.”
  • “Travelers are like epileptics with temporal lobe seizures.”
  • “Harlequins don’t need to wield a sword or master Marshall Arts, but they do need to overcome their fear.”
  • “Giving into anger influences your decisions.”
  • “Love is just another means of manipulation.”
  • Like Ender in Ender’s Game, Maya was raised to be a harlequin with no other options. This was her duty and there were no other choices.
  • Was Sheppard a traitor? A sell-out?
  • There are “good guys” and “bad guys” in all levels of society and government.
  • There is a network, like Harriet Tubman’s underground railroad, to help you get a new identity and travel across state lines.
  • In many religious and cultural belief systems, such as in Native American culture, protecting your healers and spiritual leaders is part of the belief structure. Look at the Vatican guard!

Path Finders
The Pathfinders are individuals capable of teaching potential Travelers how to break the light free from their body. Pathfinders can be priests and holy men, agnostics or atheists – different Pathfinders will use different teaching methods and have different beliefs, but all can help Travelers to utilize their gifts. Pathfinders are also hunted by the Tabula.
  • Pathfinders are like gurus, priests, and shamans.
  • They often live “off the grid” or in a special, protected area of society.
  • “True freedom is tolerant, it gives people the right to live and think in new ways.”

Citizens
Average folks who are part of “the vast machine.”
  • The hungry ghost symbolizes the hunger citizens have for material things that don’t really make them happy.
  • “Acquiring things cannot soothe spiritual hunger.”
  • The hungry ghost comes from Tibetan Buddhism, where not having possessions is a spiritual path.
  • People allow their privacy to be invaded and lost.
  • Encouraging a desire for useless objects is a way to control.
  • Creating fear and panic is a way to control. For example, during the H1N1 scare, many people scrambled to get the vaccine. What if this virus were created by the government and then the vaccine was released with an identity chip or tracking device inside? Or a poison? Everyone would be afraid of H1N1, so would get the vaccine, not knowing it had even greater risks!
  • We wondered if the author really thought citizens were so materialistic and simple, even stupid OR was he trying to point out how we don’t even know we are being controlled? Some of us thought that it didn’t matter, we are smart and making certain choices knowing that the benefit outweighs the other issues (like lack of privacy). For example, when we buy products on the web or with a store card, we get a discount, but then our information is sold to someone and adds pop up in our emails or on our Facebook pages related to the products we have bought!

Tabula
This Virtual Panopticon is made possible through the use of surveillance cameras, centralized databases, RFID-like tags for each citizen, and assorted spy gear (heat sensors, infrared cameras, X-rays, etc...). The Tabula are a relatively small group, operate largely in secret, but they have great power across the planet, in part by manipulating politicians and other powerful individuals/organization, and in part because of their great wealth and advanced technology, which is in some cases far beyond the technology available to other groups and even governments. The author has written a post-script at the end of the book in which he talks about his reasons for writing the novel and discusses, among other things, the development in western countries regarding surveillance (such as CCTV), data-mining, RFID and GPS, the Information Awareness Office, etc. He claims that all of the technology referred to in the book is either already being used or in the advanced stage of development.
  • Monitored and controlled
  • Distracted and aroused
  • Brethren are from London, Moscow, Tokyo, Dubai.
  • We discussed how language is tracked on phones and in emails (Patriot Act looks for traitors and terrorists), so people learn and use “soft language” to discuss topics.
  • If you are a “person of interest” (either extreme: trouble-maker or scientific researcher), then governments may use all those systems to monitor and control you.

The Panopticon
A type of prison building designed by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in 1785. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners without the incarcerated being able to tell whether they are being watched, thereby conveying what one architect has called the "sentiment of an invisible omniscience." Bentham himself described the Panopticon as "a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example."
  • Government uses fear to control citizens (“terrorist attacks”).
  • Privacy is lost (Facebook, identity theft, store cards).
  • If you believe you are being monitored then you act like it even when you are not. Less people are needed to monitor and control you, since you act like more people are watching than really are.
  • Social control doesn’t work if you can go outside the system – that’s why Travelers are a perceived threat (they can leave their bodies).
  • All ideas that challenge the ruling structure are criticized and put down.
  • A society is healthy and productive when it’s under control.
  • Truth is determined by whoever is in power.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

EXISTING “ADVANCED” TECHNOLOGY
Biometric data
Skimmer (scanner)
Full body X-rays (at the airport)

FAMOUS PEOPLE MENTIONED
Newton
Joan of Arc
St Francis of Assisiz

BACKGROUNDS/ETHNICITIES MENTIONED - It was easy to feel connected to this book because there were so many cultures and ethnicities. We couldn’t remember a book where so many places and people were acknowledge as part of the storyline – not just because someone has the means to travel. We asked ourselves whether or not the book was racist. This question led to an interesting discussion about research on how people are better able to differentiate individuals among their own racial group and we shared our personal stories. When most people in your group have brown skin, brown eyes, and black hair, for example, you have to differentiate based on nose/lip shape, cheek flatness/highness, and/or hair texture. Among white racial groups, hair and skin color are a significant marker.

El Salvador
Iran
Bengali
Serbian
African American
Samoan
Latino
German
Britain
Roma
Japan
Senegalese
French
Latvian
Mexico
Central American

Religions: Sikh, Buddhist, Sufi, Jewish, Christian

The Boston Museum of Science is running a great exhibit on race that goes into the history of using race to subjugate, the impact of race on medical treatment, stereotypes based on race, that race is socially constructed, and that race is, at best, based on ancestry/place/region not biology/genes. Race: Are We So Different? Museum of Science Exhibit http://www.understandingrace.org/home.html

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Think about what it means to have and/or be leader and to have/be "controlled" - as well ls how much of Orson Scott Card's "science fiction" turned out to be a "science fact"

BACKGROUND - this book was first published in 1984, but the short story was published in 1975, and the idea was conceived in 1967! The Internet became widely used in 1992 and portable laptop computers in 2000. The movie rights/idea has been in the making for almost as long. Orson Scott Card was asked to write a screenplay, but the first one didn't have the umph he wanted for Ender, given that Ender is a strong silent type and a lot of his conversation is internal. Card didn't want to have the character talking over the actions. Once Card wrote Bean's story into a book, Ender's Shadow, he then had a character who could "tell" Ender's story without sacrificing the strong, silent, Ender character. Given all this, the reason there is no movie is because the author insists that the character be played by a 12 year old (or younger) and that limits the acting pool. Every once in a while you get an Elijah Wood (his words), but how can you get a dozen for all the battle school children? The story only works when you have a pre-pubescent adolescent who is able to be controlled by adults. A 16 year old would tell grown ups to "get lost" and refuse to participate in the manipulation. Every contract he has received has a clause somewhere that the director or producer has "final say on casting" or "can cast within 4 years of any ages described in the contract." Well, they aren't looking for a 6 year old, so that leaves looking for a 16 year old, and Card will have none of that.

The snow held off long enough for a few of us to talk about the book. We all loved it and had each given it to another person in our lives and that person had read the book, too! Several of us are reading the next book in the series on our own.

Orson Scott Card is a prolific writer with over 50 published books, many part of a series. For what it’s worth, he also wrote the Abyss – which was made into a movie. His website is below:

What’s it like to be a “third”?

Valentine was empathetic
Peter was ruthless
Ender had a little of both

Peter saw what others hated about themselves and made people FEAR what he wanted them to fear. Valentine saw the “good” and what people liked best about themselves. She could flatter them and make them WANT what she wanted them to want. Locke and Demosthenes were their alter egos. Even though Peter created them both, eventually, Valentine’s personality came through in Demosthenes – the voice of reason, the voice of the people.

How do you feel about Ender?

"Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender. The best you can do is choose to be controlled by good people, by people who love you." (Valentine)

“There was no doubt in Ender's mind. There was no help for him. Whatever he faced, now and forever, no one would save him from it. Peter might be scum, but Peter had been right, always right; the power to cause pain is the only power that matters, the power to kill and destroy, because if you can't kill you are always subject to those who can, and nothing no one will ever save you.”

"Human beings didn't evolve brains in order to lie around on lakes. Killing is the first thing we learned. And a good thing we did, or we'd be dead, and the tigers would rule the earth." (Valentine)

We talked about how it takes huge leadership skills to earn the respect of your enemies as well as your friends. That Ender’s behavior towards those who “bullied” him was a lot like battered women who kill their spouses. It came down to a mentality of “it’s them or me.” We also came up with some words and phrases to describe Ender: compassionate; strong and effective leader; manipulated; defensive but not violent; lonely; controlled. Ender is a child who gets treated like an adult, and controlled like a puppet. He has a gift from bringing groups together. He gains respect from his friends AND his enemies. He was also kept solitary, lost his childhood from age 6 onward, and maybe even has an attachment disorder.

From Sparknotes: http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/endersgame/ Ender can be a killer like his brother. But Ender hates himself for that quality. Other people put him in situations where his negative side emerges, but Ender always wishes for events to be resolved without violence. His compassion is his strongest trait, and it binds people to him; his ruthlessness wins their unswerving faith in him as a commander.

What did you think about Battle School?

"Individual human beings are all tools, that the others use to help us all survive." (Graff)

"There is no teacher but the enemy." (Mazer Rackham)

"It wasn't a dark game, but it wasn't a bright one either-the lights were about half, like dusk. In the distance, in the dim light, he could see the enemy door, their lighted flash suits already pouring out. Ender knew a moment’s pleasure. Everyone had learned from Bonzo's misuse of Ender Wiggin. They all jumped through the door immediately, so that there was no chance to do anything other than name the formation they would use."

We talked about how the Battle School Game was a soldier’s (children’s) status, identity, and purpose. The teachers, commanders, and/or adults were in control. Even though they pushed the young boys, they did get punished for allowing one to die. We wondered if Mazer Rackham was really a hero? Was Earth really attacked by Buggers? Why aren’t there more details?

What did Card “get right” in his premonition of the future?

Card had avatars in the video games, which he called “figures,” and let’s not forget that video games were nothing in 1984 compared to what they are now! Everyone had their own personal “desk” which meant they had a laptop computer. He called the World Wide Web, the “Net,” but he knew it would exist about twenty years before it became an everyday reality and modern convenience. He even understood its power to disseminate information anonymously through articles and chat room comments.

Themes quoted from Sparknotes: http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/endersgame/

THE GAME

The concept of a game is the novel's major theme. All of the other important ideas in the novel are interpreted through the context of the games. Ender wins all of the games, but it is not so clear what that means. He thinks for a large part of the book that the games are no more than they appear, and he does not realize the real meaning of his final game until it is far too late. The difference between what is a game and what is reality becomes less and less clear as the story unfolds. The very first game played in the book is "buggers and astronauts," a game that Peter makes Ender play, and it is a game that all kids play. However, in Ender's case the game is more than it seems, because Peter's hatred for him is real, and he inflicts physical pain upon Ender in the course of the game. This is one game that Ender never wins.

At Battle School, Ender faces two different types of games. On his computer he plays the mind game, a game that even its creators do not properly understand and one that effects Ender's life in direct ways. It is through the mind game that Ender is able to come to terms with the changes that are occurring in his life and it is the images of this game that the buggers use to communicate with Ender at the end of the book. In the battle room Ender plays war games. These games are everything to the kids at the school. Their lives revolve around playing games, and so the meaning of the word itself shifts from a voluntary fun experience to a necessary and crucial aspect of life. These games and their implications cause Bonzo's death and create rancor and jealousy throughout the school.

Finally we come to the greatest games that Ender plays, while he is the commander of the Third Invasion. Playing these games is debilitating to Ender's health. He cannot sleep, he barely eats, and he is forced to be a leader and not a friend to those whom he cares for. Ender destroys the buggers because he wants the games to end, and he is successful, but if he had ever known that it was not a game he never would have participated. In the end it is not very clear how to separate a game from reality, for the playing of a game can have a profound impact on a life, and sometimes the game itself is reality.

ADULTS & CHILDREN

Much of Ender's Game details the lives of children, and at every point they are contrasted with those of the adults around them. Although the adults often manipulate or control the children, this is not always the case. Peter and Valentine, two kids, manage to dominate the worldwide political system through their control of adults. Ender, who does not wish do exert influence over anyone, is brutally manipulated by adults, yet even they are aware of his superior intelligence. Children in this book are smaller than adults in size, but that is about the only difference. Their thoughts are just as real, and their emotions just as valid as their older counterparts. In fact, even the International Fleet commanders who use them are aware of this, because they are willing to place the fate of humanity in Ender's hands. Children must be taken seriously, for they are capable not only of killing, manipulating, and hating—the worst features of adults—but also of creating and helping.

COMPASSION

Compassion is the redeeming feature in Ender's Game. Compassion is the theme that runs through Ender's life. It is the defining feature of his existence. The reason that he plays the games so well is his ability to understand the enemy and to inspire loyalty. More than that, it is compassion that saves Ender. If not for his compassion he would have been turned into an automaton; he would have become either a killing machine or a power hungry creature like Peter. Ender's compassion for the buggers makes possible for him to make up for destroying their race by giving them a chance to start anew. Graff's compassion for Ender causes him to seek Valentine's help, and her compassion in part is what saves Ender when he despairs. Even those characters who are not allowed to show their compassion, like Mazer Rackham, later demonstrate that they are capable of it, and it makes them human. Finally, the buggers demonstrate compassion to Ender, and this convinces him that he must make it his mission to see that their queen is found a safe home to start anew. Compassion provides hope for the future.

RUTHLESSNESS

This is the dangerous theme of the book, the one that, if not overcome by compassion, will lead to the destruction of humanity. Ruthlessness is sometimes necessary, as in Ender's treatment of Stilson, but it is a last resort, something to be avoided at all costs. Colonel Graff, Major Anderson, and Mazer Rackham are forced to be ruthless in their treatment of Ender, but they do so in order to save humanity, and they have compassion for the boy even as they act. Only Peter is purely ruthless, and in him the danger of pure manipulation without conscience comes into full effect. Peter is able to gain what he wants because he does not care about others, and he will stop at nothing. Ruthlessness is the human condition devoid of its humanity, and it is the danger that threatens total destruction.

FRIENDS & ENEMIES

In Ender's Game it is never entirely clear who is a friend and who is an enemy. Graff, Anderson, and Rackham, who are undoubtedly Ender's friends, appear to him as enemies and are forced to do so. Peter attempts to befriend Valentine merely to get what he wants, but she never forgets that he is not a real friend. Petra Arkanian and Dink Meeker are always Ender's friends, but at times he is uncertain of where they stand. But by far the most striking juxtaposition occurs with the buggers. The only enemy that Ender truly fears, the buggers in the end prove to be friendly. The earth's greatest enemy, the alien race it was at war with, turns out not to have been intentionally hostile. Card constantly proves that friends and enemies are not clear distinctions.

HUMANITY

The question of what it means to be human is taken up several times in Ender's Game. In the first place, children are affirmed to be just as real human beings as adults, even as the children are robbed of their youth. It is, after all, a group of children who save the world. But more fundamentally than this, to be human is to have compassion. The ability to feel for others is the mark of humanity. Peter's humanity is questioned, while Ender's is what saves the planet. In the end, the buggers themselves suggest to Ender that if things had gone differently both races could have celebrated the other's humanity. Their compassion for the humans they killed and their sorrow over the war means that they are human, and this is why Ender feels the need to do something to help them and why he so keenly mourns his destruction of their race.

ENDER

Ender is very much a representative of all that is good. He is filled with sorrow for any destruction he causes and wishes no ill to any other creature. He is good because he is kind, but he is also good because he makes the sacrifices that he has to make. It is good to do what is needed, even if what is needed does not seem right. Ender does not hate Graff or Rackham for what they did to him, because he realizes that they did what had to be done. At the same time, he is crushed by the thought that he wiped out an entire race. He is good because he is forgiving—he understands even those who hate him. Finally, Ender is good because he sees his evils and tries to remedy them. There is no idealized, perfect good in this novel. Ender represents the best that a person can do, given the circumstances of life.

PETER

Peter does what he wants. He takes power because he desires it, and other people's thoughts and emotions are only important to him insofar as he can exploit them. It is true that he makes a good ruler because he is not evil incarnate. Evil in this book is acting for the wrong reasons, regardless of the outcome. Although Peter saves lives by coming to power on earth, he is evil because he did so only out of expediency. Good can come out of evil, but that does not make the evil any better. Peter is an awful human being, but it just so happens that he makes a good ruler. What is scary is that an evil person does not care whether their actions are good or bad.

From: The little-known dark side of Ender’s Game by Fabius Maximus

Ender gets to strike out at his enemies and still remain morally clean. Nothing is his fault. Stilson already lies defeated on the ground, yet Ender can kick him in the face until he dies, and still remain the good guy. Ender can drive bone fragments into Bonzo’s brain and then kick his dying body in the crotch, yet the entire focus is on Ender’s suffering. For an adolescent ridden with rage and self-pity, who feels himself abused (and what adolescent doesn’t?), what’s not to like about this scenario?

On the same webpage is a creepy comparison of Ender to – wait for it – Hitler!
Let me tell you about a book I just read. It’s the story of a young boy who was dreadfully abused by the grown-ups who wanted to mold him into an exemplary citizen. Forced to suppress his own emotions in order to avoid being paralyzed by trauma, he directed his energy into duty rather than sex or love. In time, he came to believe that his primary duty was to wipe out a species of gifted but incomprehensible aliens who had devastated his kind in a previous war. He found the idea of exterminating an entire race distasteful, of course. But since he believed it was required to save the people he defined as human, he put the entire weight of his formidable energy behind the effort to wipe out the aliens.

You’ve read it, you say? It’s Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, right? Wrong. The aliens I’m talking about were the European Jews, blamed by many Germans for gearing up World War I for their own profit. The book is Robert G. L. Waite’s The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hilter.

Ender’s chastity until his marriage at the age of 37 is puzzling. But, again, when we look at the Hitler connection, all becomes clear. Probably because of his childhood trauma, Hitler remained chaste for an unusually long time. He isn’t known to have felt love for any woman until — are you ahead of me here? — age 37.