I saw this book everywhere so I put it on my reading list. I enjoyed Glass’ previous book, Three Junes, a few years ago. This book definitely held my attention too.
The book is about a pair of sisters over many years of adulthood. It was very well-written and well-constructed. In structure, it demonstrated what Olive Kittridge could have been: each chapter could stand alone as a short story, and the story is not continuous - the chapters are separated from each other by several years. Within each chapter the sisters switch off telling the story in small pieces. This meant that Glass had to write in two voices very clearly (which she did) and the reader had to pay attention (which I did).
The sisters face very different partners, careers, and parts of the country throughout the book. There’s no single story arc, rather an examination of a sisterhood that survives through oscillating intimacy and anger.
The best part of this book was its scope – Glass was courageous to try and capture such a large and complex relationship without a continuous time scale without the reader feeling like it was choppy.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris
This book is one of Mom’s favorites and I am always curious to read books that are important to people I am close to. It is about an elderly woman who returns to the small French town she grew up in. The story alternates between two time periods. Part of the book takes place in her childhood, particularly focusing on German occupation during WWII. The balance of the narrative takes place in the present, where she returns to this town and lives under an assumed name for reasons revealed through the book.
The book got off to a slow start, probably 60 pages or so of background and stage-setting. However, the rest of the book was very exciting to read; there were mysteries from her childhood that slowly unraveled, and a crisis (and love story) in the present that were quite captivating. Through a family
cookbook that doubled as a journal, the main character (and the reader) learns about secrets her mother had when she was growing up. Other members of the main character’s family are after ownership of the cookbook which they want for selfish reasons.
I thought the writing in some places was a little overwrought…the author relied on foods and cooking to provide a lot of the character development but this was sometimes contrived. That said, the writing in other places was beautiful – really evoking a time and place. The main character was harsh but likable, and her mother was just harsh but an equally well-developed character. Everyone else comprised a predictable cast.
One of the aspects of reading this book that I enjoyed the most was that, like Guernsey Potato Peel Pie, it was a view of what happened during WWII in occupied European countries. Like Guernsey, it detailed the complexities of relationships between the occupiers and the occupied.
I enjoyed the mysteries in this book and the complexities in plot and character development.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie T. Chang
This book had been on my list for a while and turned out to be some of the best nonfiction I have read recently. The author, Leslie Chang, is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal who is Chinese-American. She travels to the Dongguan province of China where she writes about young women who come from small villages to the city to work in large factories. While most of her interactions are with two young women in particular, she also meets many of their friends and colleagues, while provides a wide range of content for her description of the factories.
Interspersed with Chang's descriptions of these women's experiences is her own family history. Chang provides a well-constructed view of post-dynasty Chinese history by tracing her family's story. Not only does this juxtaposition provide a history necessary to understand China's economy today, but it also knowingly contrasts Chang's experiences "going home" to those of the young women she interviews.
The descriptions of the factories and the women's lives there was fascinating. The factories themselves are huge compounds that often include dormitories, shops, and social services. Workers have very little loyalty to particular factories and change jobs often. Many workers Chang interacted with came across as flaky and transient - often they would lose a cell phone and have no way of connecting with anyone ever again. They were often dishonest with their parents and dreaded the complications of visiting home, not unlike American college students away from home for the first time.
The workers also came across as desperate to improve themselves and their status, but completely unequipped to do so - often spending money on pyramid schemes and poorly-conceived English or etiquette classes. To Chang (and thus to me, too) Dongguan's various cities were identical, but the workers were eager to explain the difference in status in working in the various cities.
There were large sections of the book that covered the business side of the factories as well. It was interesting to see the implementation of the Lean Manufacturing in factories that I had learned about in grad school. It was also telling to see what the impact of what we consider "poor work conditions" were in implementation - within the narrative, the work conditions did not seem unreasonable until Chang referenced the pressure the American companies were putting on the factories to be more humane.
Chang also portrays the prevalence of counterfeiting and lax ideas around intellectual property. In one section, she writes about how the large factories are vertically integrated, in the case of a sneaker factory, making everything from the shoelaces to the soles. She follows that descriptions with that of a factory gang, also vertically integrated, who steal authentic materials then assemble them outside the factory and sell them on the black market. The sometimes-empty malls are filled with storefronts that are poorly-spelled takeoffs on American brands. And at one point, Chang is having dinner with some young people who, upon hearing what she is writing a book about, earnestly suggest she just translate some recent articles from Chinese magazine to save herself time.
By contrast, in the U.S., we spend significant time focusing our students on innovation - Clay Christensen's books are a staple in any MBA diet. How to encourage innovation in large companies (a la Google's 20% projects) and how to turn innovation into business are problems our MBAs are being trained to solve. What struck me the most about the Chinese factory system that Chang describes is that no matter how much money we put into R&D here, China can undercut us almost immediately, negating our innovation. Their system is set up to work that way with a seemingly unending supply of interchangeable workers.
I really enjoyed reading this book. China is obviously going to be an important player in the world economy and this book gave me a way to learn more about it through a very personal lens.
Interspersed with Chang's descriptions of these women's experiences is her own family history. Chang provides a well-constructed view of post-dynasty Chinese history by tracing her family's story. Not only does this juxtaposition provide a history necessary to understand China's economy today, but it also knowingly contrasts Chang's experiences "going home" to those of the young women she interviews.
The descriptions of the factories and the women's lives there was fascinating. The factories themselves are huge compounds that often include dormitories, shops, and social services. Workers have very little loyalty to particular factories and change jobs often. Many workers Chang interacted with came across as flaky and transient - often they would lose a cell phone and have no way of connecting with anyone ever again. They were often dishonest with their parents and dreaded the complications of visiting home, not unlike American college students away from home for the first time.
The workers also came across as desperate to improve themselves and their status, but completely unequipped to do so - often spending money on pyramid schemes and poorly-conceived English or etiquette classes. To Chang (and thus to me, too) Dongguan's various cities were identical, but the workers were eager to explain the difference in status in working in the various cities.
There were large sections of the book that covered the business side of the factories as well. It was interesting to see the implementation of the Lean Manufacturing in factories that I had learned about in grad school. It was also telling to see what the impact of what we consider "poor work conditions" were in implementation - within the narrative, the work conditions did not seem unreasonable until Chang referenced the pressure the American companies were putting on the factories to be more humane.
Chang also portrays the prevalence of counterfeiting and lax ideas around intellectual property. In one section, she writes about how the large factories are vertically integrated, in the case of a sneaker factory, making everything from the shoelaces to the soles. She follows that descriptions with that of a factory gang, also vertically integrated, who steal authentic materials then assemble them outside the factory and sell them on the black market. The sometimes-empty malls are filled with storefronts that are poorly-spelled takeoffs on American brands. And at one point, Chang is having dinner with some young people who, upon hearing what she is writing a book about, earnestly suggest she just translate some recent articles from Chinese magazine to save herself time.
By contrast, in the U.S., we spend significant time focusing our students on innovation - Clay Christensen's books are a staple in any MBA diet. How to encourage innovation in large companies (a la Google's 20% projects) and how to turn innovation into business are problems our MBAs are being trained to solve. What struck me the most about the Chinese factory system that Chang describes is that no matter how much money we put into R&D here, China can undercut us almost immediately, negating our innovation. Their system is set up to work that way with a seemingly unending supply of interchangeable workers.
I really enjoyed reading this book. China is obviously going to be an important player in the world economy and this book gave me a way to learn more about it through a very personal lens.
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
The Delivery Man by Joe McGinniss
I read this book in preparation for a new book club I just joined. While the past books this club has read seem to match my taste, this one was not a winner in my book.
The story is about a group of teenagers and young twenty-somethings who live in Las Vegas. During the summer this takes place, one of them becomes a chauffeur for the women (girls, really), who form a prostitution ring. He struggles with the ethics of this role, as well as with his relationship with one of the prostitutes, whom he has known since childhood. He also struggles with wanting to leave Las Vegas to be with his successful career-driven girlfriend in LA, but isn't able to overcome the inertia of where he is today. Interspersed with the current-day story are flashbacks to when this group of friends were children, growing up together.
The writing was actually pretty good. One review on the back compared it to a work by Joan Didion; while that is an exaggeration in my book, the author did a good job of evoking time and place. What I disliked about the book was how graphic it was and how young the characters seemed. It was disturbing - at times I had to skim certain passages that were too hard to read. Having had that experience recently with Running with Scissors, it makes me wonder if is me who is having a harder time reading these passages as I get older rather than authors getting too graphic.
Either way, there was an air of hopelessness in this book that (spoiler alert) did not end happily. Each character became increasingly less redeemable throughout the book. If McGinniss was trying to paint a picture of despair, he was successful - I just didn't get anything out of the journey of reading the book.
The story is about a group of teenagers and young twenty-somethings who live in Las Vegas. During the summer this takes place, one of them becomes a chauffeur for the women (girls, really), who form a prostitution ring. He struggles with the ethics of this role, as well as with his relationship with one of the prostitutes, whom he has known since childhood. He also struggles with wanting to leave Las Vegas to be with his successful career-driven girlfriend in LA, but isn't able to overcome the inertia of where he is today. Interspersed with the current-day story are flashbacks to when this group of friends were children, growing up together.
The writing was actually pretty good. One review on the back compared it to a work by Joan Didion; while that is an exaggeration in my book, the author did a good job of evoking time and place. What I disliked about the book was how graphic it was and how young the characters seemed. It was disturbing - at times I had to skim certain passages that were too hard to read. Having had that experience recently with Running with Scissors, it makes me wonder if is me who is having a harder time reading these passages as I get older rather than authors getting too graphic.
Either way, there was an air of hopelessness in this book that (spoiler alert) did not end happily. Each character became increasingly less redeemable throughout the book. If McGinniss was trying to paint a picture of despair, he was successful - I just didn't get anything out of the journey of reading the book.
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