July Book-o-th'-Month

I have a few alternatives for the July book, and was hoping for some feedback before I made my decision. Here are the options I'm considering:

Nudge (Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler)

This sets forth the idea of "libertarian paternalism." The essential idea being not to necessarily heavily regulate things that are bad for us, but to make bad decisions slightly more difficult, thereby nudging people toward good decisions. I'm not a big fan of the concept, but the book is influential (as is Sunstein, who has been a constant counselor to Obama and heads the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs).

Every day, we make decisions on topics ranging from personal investments to schools for our children to the meals we eat to the causes we champion. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. The reason, the authors explain, is that, being human, we all are susceptible to various biases that can lead us to blunder. Our mistakes make us poorer and less healthy; we often make bad decisions involving education, personal finance, health care, mortgages and credit cards, the family, and even the planet itself.

Thaler and Sunstein invite us to enter an alternative world, one that takes our humanness as a given. They show that by knowing how people think, we can design choice environments that make it easier for people to choose what is best for themselves, their families, and their society. Using colorful examples from the most important aspects of life, Thaler and Sunstein demonstrate how thoughtful “choice architecture” can be established to nudge us in beneficial directions without restricting freedom of choice. Nudge offers a unique new take—from neither the left nor the right—on many hot-button issues, for individuals and governments alike. This is one of the most engaging and provocative books to come along in many years.

Home (Marilynne Robinson)

I read Robinson's Pulitzer-Prize winning Gilead a few years ago and found it very beautiful. Ask me what it's about, and I can't really tell you. Fathers and Sons, I suppose, and multiple generations of mid-West farm stock, religious men. Light on plot, heavy on lyricism. Anyway, Home is evidently a sort of follow-up to the original novel.

Hundreds of thousands were enthralled by the luminous voice of John Ames in Gilead, Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel. Home is an entirely independent, deeply affecting novel that takes place concurrently in the same locale, this time in the household of Reverend Robert Boughton, Ames’s closest friend.

Glory Boughton, aged thirty-eight, has returned to Gilead to care for her dying father. Soon her brother, Jack—the prodigal son of the family, gone for twenty years—comes home too, looking for refuge and trying to make peace with a past littered with tormenting trouble and pain.

Jack is one of the great characters in recent literature. A bad boy from childhood, an alcoholic who cannot hold a job, he is perpetually at odds with his surroundings and with his traditionalist father, though he remains Boughton’s most beloved child. Brilliant, lovable, and wayward, Jack forges an intense bond with Glory and engages painfully with Ames, his godfather and namesake.

Home is a moving and healing book about families, family secrets, and the passing of the generations, about love and death and faith. It is Robinson’s greatest work, an unforgettable embodiment of the deepest and most universal emotions.

The Road (Cormac McCarthy)

This is the only one of the three that I've already read. I just finished another of McCarthy's books (Cities of the Plain) and I find him very consistently enjoyable, occasionally thought provoking, with a spare writing style and focus on strength (particularly male strength) that makes him read like a modernized Hemingway. Bonus: this will be released as a feature-length film, starring Viggo Mortensen, later this year, so reading it now will give you water-cooler cred. Also a Pulitzer-prize winner, evidently.

The searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece.

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food--and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, "each the other's world entire," are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.

James Dean as Cain

I read the book a long time ago, and liked it a lot, but at that point, I had decided it didn't warrant an encore and I planned never to read it again--the book (especially Kate's evilness) was my first exposure to some very bad things.  So I wimped out like Alvin, and rented the old movie for the first time instead of reading the book again.  While I did enjoy Jimmy Dean's performance, and I generally like anything with Burl Ives, I realize, like Alvin, I think, that the film only touches a very small portion of the story . It attempts to, and does well at getting some of the themes in, but it really only hits the tip of the iceberg.  That being said, I've been fascinated with Steinbeck for a while (ever since the Grapes of Wrath in high school--I can't believe not everyone has read that!), and while some of his books are very good, this is definitely his masterpiece, and I've put it back on my list.  Incidentally, the movie does have a little Timshel--Cal recalls at the end that Adam always taught them that they had a choice--he doesn't have to be bad.  Cain to me is a special case, and I'll have to have another read or two of the Bible text and Steinbeck's novel to think it through.

I'm planning on posting for David O McKay book soon; I wanted thoughts from Eden to settle. 

A Visit to the Van Ordens

Come to visit us and look what you can do...



If you're up for some real excitement, there is also...

Of course, there were also a few games played during the visit, but we've found it's bad form to take pictures of our guests right after they've lost. ;)




Thanks for coming to visit, Glenn!

Jonah James Rees

We have another boy. Jonah James Rees. 8 lbs 9 ounces. 22 inches long. Natural birth. I should have posted this a while back, but I've been a little pre-occupied. Anyway, he's cute. We'll keep him. And one day soon, he'll even have a nice remodeled home to play in.

Don't Judge a Book Based on it's Movie?

OK, so I didn't read the book. I saw the movie, and I thought that would be enough to get me in on the discussion. But this Timshel stuff wasn't in the movie at all. It's a nice flick, though. I'll comment on other's comments (mostly Karl's), since I can't talk about the book.

Karl - We just purchased a foreclosed home, so I totally understand the fix-it-up lifestyle, except my wife isn't about to give birth. (That's a pretty big difference.) Actually, I made my father-in-law do most of the "fixing", and we've mostly being doing painting, cleaning, and more painting and cleaing. Everything takes longer than you think. We moved in last week, and we've been busy preparing for the visit of another PVS member.

As for losing weight, we bought an elliptical machine after Thanksgiving last year, and I began to exercise while watching things on the computer. I've lost 10 pounds and am about back to pre-marriage weight. Painting is also great exercise, and it has covered for some terrible eating habits of late.

And speaking of Lost, you'll recall my previous dilemma with the show. Ultimately, I decided I wasn't going to sit on the couch and watch it without my wife. Then I started exercising, and as I was consuming media alone anyway, I started watching Lost again. I saw the season finale, an excellent episode, and I am now faced with the new dilemma of waiting to find out what happens next.

On the positive side of cleanliness in media, we did get a ClearPlay DVD player. It seamlessly edits movies, according to the settings you choose. You download the edits, and the DVD player skips or mutes the movie accordingly, so it works on rentals or borrowed library movies. If a movie's entire theme is sinister, there's not much that can be done, but it does an amazing job of cutting out the "one bad scene" or violent moment or bad word. It can edit TV shows on DVD like Lost, but the downside is you have to wait for them to come out on DVD.

As for your profession, didn't it produce some of Einstein's greatest work? Who knows where our understanding of the universe would be without the patent system.

Robert- No Steinbeck here either. (Rural Illinois education.) The biggest difference is that I still haven't read a Steinbeck.

Peter- I was expecting/hoping for more comparisons between the book and the movie, since you mentioned how much you enjoyed the film. No thoughts on the tragic career of James Dean? I'm also jealous that your library system has the David O McKay book, since mine doesn't.

Doug - Good luck with the unpacking. Know that you're not alone. I think you'll really like North Carolina. I sure did. I have a cousin that's in Durham (Spencer and Brooke Cutler); my brother is serving in the mission and was just transferred from Durham; and my in-laws live in Cary. We come to visit often, so we'll have to stop by sometime after you've unpacked.

In reference to your marriage comments, I often get the feeling that there are more disfunctional relationships than functional ones, so I am constantly grateful for my marriage. Still, people keep getting married, so maybe successful relationships aren't as rare as they are often portrayed.

Glenn- See you tomorrow! Bring a good book to listen to, as it will be a commute to your conference.

Quick Steinbeck Comments

Oh man. I am usually pretty immune to tech blunders but I just lost my post. This is my substitute post. Mostly this is just my demonstration that I'm still participating and enjoying this forum.

Thanks to Karl for picking the book; I loved it.

Writing - I agree that Steinbeck is a fantastic writer. I have given some thought to re-reading his books I read long ago; I may like them much more as an adult.

Timshel - My old post was longer; the point is I think that the exercise of agency is a vital part of life. We can't buy our own salvation, but can do something great nonetheless. An unrelated example of this comes from the medical world: it is sad how many people live their lives as a "victim," medically speaking. Obesity (possibly the single biggest epidemiologic challenge facing America), diabetes, lung disease, HIV, and several other conditions are largely avoidable, and yet the incidence grows. Why? A bad decision made, nobody chooses to reverse course. It's easier to be a victim. Oh, and I love the seminary video reference, Peter.

Prostitution - also longer in my lost post, I just wanted to say that I think someone with Steinbeck's abilities could have written this story without the promiscuity. I know prostitution is common today and was then (and promiscuity without payment is nearly ubiquitous). This is art and a representation of things as they are in the eyes of the artist. But I personally don't want to read about it.

Caricature - I usually get sucked in to a story this long and well-written. The thing that kept me from "believing" this book was the fact that all the characters are one-dimensional, basically representing one part of human nature. Of course I'm sure this is on purpose and did make me ponder what in my nature is represented by a Charles, an Adam, a Kate, or a Lee. But I do not find any of the characters believable as individuals.

Marriages - There are a few uplifting relationships in the book, mostly involving Lee and others, or Sam Hamilton and others. But it seems like every marriage in this multigenerational, multi-family saga is a shell of a relationship. I actually began to wonder if Steinbeck himself was unaware of how good a marriage can be. Kate was blind to goodness; was this Steinbeck's blindness? Like I said above, he's really caricaturizing, but it does always tend to be in the direction of less-meaningful marriages.

Religion - Although there are multiple references to religious individuals, there is no reference to uplifting religiosity. I again questioned whether this was a little of Steinbeck's personal bias slipping through.

Anyway, this was a fun read. I look forward to David O. McKay, which I will start reading as soon as we unpack in North Carolina. Becky packed the bookshelf before I could nab the book.

The Tree of Knowledge planted Eastward in Eden

Thinking about what Glenn said, about Aron and Kate being alike, I realized that knowledge plays a significant role in the development of all the main characters. Adam is perhaps the most striking example; at first he's unable to receive or process knowledge, hence his inability to consider his father's embezzlement and his blinders with regards to Kate, when in both instances Charles was able to see the situation clearly. Adam is presented with knowledge dramatically, when Kate leaves him; it takes him some time, and the help of a couple of his friends, to come to grips with that knowledge, but it eventually leads him to become a moral man. It gives him power over the scheming Kate, and an ability to face the challenges of life.

Kate, on the other hand, refuses (or is unable*) to process knowledge (of good, not evil). Aron is unable to process knowledge of evil (at least, within the scope of the book. Who knows whether his final scene is just him embarking on a journey of discovery similar to Adam's). Cal is an interesting case; he seems to seek out knowledge. This leads to abuses when he's young and unable to control the power the knowledge gives him, and later when his passions are inflamed over the slighting of his present. But he grows through the novel in wielding the power, and in the end shows a level of maturity and even responsibility.

As far as timshel goes, I think I side with Glenn. As presented, it's more or less the embodiment of agency. Which, as we all remember from the Book of Mormon seminary videos, is dependent on knowledge.

With regards to Cal's gift, and why it was rejected, I don't know about the "cultural" interpretation. I know it can be many things at once, but to me Cal's gift is steeped in an instrumental view of the world, where things (and other people) are there to be manipulated and used, rather than a respect for others as co-equals. I think it reflects very much the aspects of socialism and communism that Steinbeck believed so strongly in. This isn't a uniquely "American" question, in that sense, but America, particularly the West, where things are new and ready to be remade into other things is a perfect setting to work out these issues.

Finally, on the actual text, I'll just say that while I read it I was struck by how much better the writing was than a lot of the stuff I choose to read. I'd been thinking about whether classics were simply popular novels that got enshrined because they ended up on some English teacher's reading list. But in this case, the writing really is, IMO, sublime.

* On the issue of Kate's inability to process knowledge, it strikes me as counter to Steinbeck's conceptualization of timshel. He protrays her frequently throughout the novel as being incapable of good, thus the "thou mayest" construct doesn't seem to apply to her. Perhaps that's why he introduces her as being sub-human, a demon, etc. in the opening section; otherwise he couldn't rectify his thesis with one of his main characters.

~ 2 hrs East of Eden (give or take several thousand years)

I generally like central Missouri, except summers: hot, humid, plenty of ticks.
I miss California, except for budget shortfalls and crazy politics, and it was in a way fun to read this book and catch the names of somewhat familiar places.

I finished the book a couple of months ago and didn't write anything down as I was listening to it while I worked in the yard, walked the dog, etc. Though I do remember more of this book that I do of Grapes of Wrath, I don't have any worthwhile excerpts that I could quote.
I really enjoyed reading it, except some of the descriptions of Kate's vulgarness. Steinbeck is a master storyteller. His descriptions of people/places/events came across as very natural, as though they would be the words that would scroll across my mind if I were watching the story. Though Steinbeck is not quite as masterful as Tolkein in being able to tell a story with effective brevity, I felt as though he was able to keep the story flowing.

The character Kate reminded me somewhat of Benjamin Linus from the series LOST. She is a dangerously clever individual who is able to think several steps ahead of everyone, but ultimately she gets caught in her own game.

On the topic of Karl's first point, I agree and disagree. Karl says that Lee's take on timshel "ignores the role of Christ in overcoming sin, and places all of the responsibility of overcoming sin on the individual." Perhaps I am misunderstanding Karl's interpretation of the novel's commentary, but I believe that the Plan of Salvation truly tells us - "thou mayest." The only certainty is Christ. We will all be resurrected, and we all have the opportunity to accept the Savior's atonement and offer a proper sacrifice of our own will, but it is not a certainty. Despite everything Heavenly Father offers me, I may or I may not accept it.
But of course, Lee doesn't express it quite that way in the book (at least from what I can remember, I'd have to go back and look). Nevertheless, I remember my feeling as I listened to Lee while I washed the dinner dishes; timshel is a wonderful truth.

Thanks, Karl for getting me to read this book, and for initiating a good discussion. And congrats on the house. I look forward to seeing before and after photos.

C & A : East of Eden

I enjoyed reading East of Eden and I have to confess that I had never read Steinbeck before...nope, not even Grapes of Wrath. (That is Idaho education for ya)


Steinbeck had great character developement. There were characters I loved, some that I hated, many I related to, and some that simply disturbed me. I can see why this book was of "moral concern" when it was originally published in the early 50's. A few seasons of Law & Order SVU will pretty much desensitize a fellow.

I don't know that I have anything brilliant to say about the book. I expected the Genesis analogy to be more difficult to extract from the abstract, but it was pretty straight forward. I read reviews of the book after I finished it just to make sure there wasn't something I missed.


The prinicple of "thou mayest" struck a chord with me and fit perfectly into my understanding of agency. As Karl said, the role of a merciful Savior is essential for us to overcome justice.

East of Eden Discussion Starters

First, a little personal news. Angela and I bought a fixer-upper at the end of last month and, wow, has this month flown by as we've been fixing it up. Except for Sundays and the season finale of Lost, I can't remember the last time I sat on my couch. The sad part is, there's no way we can finish it now before Angela is scheduled to be induced. But hey, it's fun, I'm losing weight, and I'm sure it'll all be worth it in the end.

And now for East of Eden. The problem with discussing this book is that there's so much to discuss. I think my notes below are just scratching the surface.

1) Timshel. I've read several debates on whether Steinbeck got this right from a linguistic standpoint, and the reviews are mixed. So I'll back off from the linguistic side of things and focus more on the doctrine. On the one hand, Lee's interpretation seems somewhat dangerous--it ignores the role of Christ in overcoming sin, and places all of the responsibility of overcoming sin on the individual. This, as we know, is an impossible task. So it sets us up for failure. Instead, "will" may be a more accurate word than "may" because Christ overcame sin for everyone. On the other hand, I believe that Lee's interpretation is true in the sense that it imparts upon Adam and Samuel the possibility of man improving his own condition--so if by "overcome sin" we mean to learn form our mistakes, then yes it's an accurate interpretation.

An interesting side thought--Jehovah (at least, my understanding is that by "the Lord" the text refers to Jehovah at this point), is addressing not only Cain but all of mankind. Is He therefore including himself? Could it be that the prospect of "overcoming sin" was still conditional, in His mind, because he had not yet done it?

2) Could this story have worked without Kate being a whore? I think Steinbeck does an A- job of leaving things to the imagination instead of spelling things out, but I worry about the movie version of this that is supposed to come out in the next year.

3) Steinbeck goes out of his way to call Kate a half-human. But is Adam also a half-human? Is Adam the half that Kate is missing? I was initially inclined toward this interpretation, but towards the end I began to think that Aaron was in fact the other half of Kate. His inability to accept sin was just as pronounced as Kate's inability to understand good. I think this statement about Aaron describes both Aaron and Kate: "[He had] the ability for generalization that only the inexperienced have."

4) Steinbeck walked a fine line throughout the novel between writing an epic and writing a sermon. In fact, my chief complaint in the novel was that he used Lee and Samuel more to give sermons than as characters. All in all, I think Steinbeck writes well enough that I don't mind the sermons so much.

5) Lee--I just don't buy him. Especially the pidgin thing. I know Steinbeck was trying to make a point about cultural attitudes towards Asians, and I give Steinbeck props for being a little ahead of his time as far as multi-culturalism goes, but I think he's still a little guilty of stereotyping.

6) One thing I think Steinbeck did very well was constantly tease us. We all knew where the story was going. But the way he danced around the inevitable was what made the story entertaining. For instance, how many of you thought that Charles was going to kill Adam? But instead of resolving it there, he backs off completely and resets the story for a second movement.

7) Favorite metastory narrative observations: "I think the difference between a lie and a story is that a story utilizes the trappings and appearances of truth for the interest of the listener as well as the teller." and "If the story is not about the hearer, he will not listen."

8) Narrative statement most packed with hidden meaning: (with regard to Adam) "Perhaps the hard flat light of the West was blotting out his birthplace."

9) Just another thought-provoking quote: "if the Lord God wanted you to understand it He'd have given you to understand or He'd have set it down different." (from Liza)

10) Why was Cal's gift to his father so "wrong?" In Steinbeck's description of the Cain story, Steinbeck suggests that the unsuitability of Cain's gift was largely cultural. So was Cal's gift wrong because it went against the culture of the era to profit off of the war? Or is Steinbeck, as I suspect, saying something more fundamental about capitalism?

11) To what extent is it important that this is an American novel. Lee's discussion with Cal in Chapter 51 sets forth the paradox that is America--e.g. "we're overbrave and overfearful--we're kind and cruel as children." And I can't quite figure out if this is side commentary, or somehow crucial to the story.

12) When I first finished the novel, I was so distracted by Timshel, that I thought Timshel was the main point to the novel. I don't think so anymore. I think the story is more about fathers and son, birth and rebirth, the quest for immortality and perfection. It can be summed up with Lee's question to Cal: "Can you think that whatever made us--would stop trying?"

13) And finally, Samuel Hamilton (and the patent system). I don't know how accurate Steinbeck's depiction of his grandfather is (certainly, his character seems a little over-idealized and flat, with the exception of his last conversation with Adam). Clearly John admired his grandfather greatly. At any rate, Steinbeck wasn't exaggerating too much when it came to Samuel and the patent system. John's grandfather actually had three U.S. patents.

I probably ought to be defending my profession after passages like this:

Meanwhile Samuel got no richer. He developed a very bad patent habid, a disease many men suffer from. He invented a part of a threshing machine, better, cheaper, and more efficient than any in existence. The patent attorney ate up his little profit for the year. Samuel sent his models to a manufacturer, who promptly rejected the plans and used the method. The next few years were kept lean by the suing, and the drain stopped only when he lost the suit. . . But he had caught the patent fever, and year after year the money made by threshing and by smithing was drained off i npatents. The Hamilton children went barefoot, and their overalls were patched and food was sometimes scarce, to pay or the crisp blueprints with cogs and planes and elevations.

But, well, it's true. The patent system has a lot of flaws. Anyway, it's very rare that my profession pops up in literature, so I found this link to be a pleasant surprise. (Ironically, about the same time I was reading East of Eden, I was watching Dickens' Little Dorritt on Masterpiece, and Dickens also paints unkind pictures of the patent system, at least as it's implemented in the U.K.).

---

I hope everybody enjoyed the book as much as I, and I hope it wasn't too long for some of you. Namely Jesse :)

Geraldine Brooks' explanation of the end of Year of Wonders

So a few weeks back, Geraldine Brooks came to Lexington with her husband Tony Horowitz (who is also an award-winning author) to talk about historical writing. Most of their presentation was a question and answer period, and I took the chance to express my disappointment with the character assassination of Rector Mompellion at the end of Year of Wonders. I asked whether she just got to the end and needed some resolution, or if she'd planned the twist all along.

Her response was essentially that it had nothing to do with the Reverend. Rather, she wanted Elizabeth to end up in a warm, happy place. And that wasn't possible in the town of Eyam, because (remaining true to the historic record) the town would be essentially desolate for the next 100 years. So she needed some vehicle to drive Elizabeth away, and chose one she felt was most consistent with the rest of the novel. The actual account of her ship being captured by pirates and her being taken captive to the Barbary coast is also based on the historic account of two sisters who set out from Ireland and ended up being sold for slaves in Northern Africa (thanks to their ship being captured by pirates). But, due to their ability as healers, they were accorded positions of honor within the household of a wealthy merchant in the area.

Anyway, just thought it was interesting. It was clear, after listing to Ms. Brooks talking about her books for an evening, that she's a very thoughtful and intelligent and conscientious author, but that what she put into Year of Wonders was quite different from what I got out of it.

June 2009: David O Mckay and the Rise Of Modern Mormonism

I'm proposing a book about David O McKay for June. It is longish, and I'm about halfway through. The 1st sixty or so pages alone would serve as enough fodder for book club conversation and are on google:

David O McKay and the Rise Of Modern Mormonism .

My Life as a Traitor: Two last thoughts?

So I went into Traitor expecting something like a cross between Elie Wiesel’s Night and The Kite Runner. Needless to say, Traitor did not live up to my expectations. Most of the time, I felt like I was reading the diary of a whining teenage girl who thinks she knows everything about the world because she’s read a lot of books.

I believe I read somewhere that she wrote the text (or translated it herself) in English, so maybe that’s the problem. I wonder if the story would be better in Farsi. (Although, it has occurred to me that maybe the best way to portray the experience of isolation in a prison is to bore the reader to death with stream of conscious. Given that the background chapters are so much more interesting, I wonder if she’s aware that she’s doing this.)

But, as evidenced by the fact that I finished it (and actually finished it rather quickly), it was still an interesting read. For instance, the portrayal of post-revolutionary Iran during the war with Iraq was new to me. For some reason, I think my mind had just lumped everything that occurred after the revolution into a big black hole.

At any rate, I’ve pushed off writing this for so long that I can’t remember all that I wanted to say. Perhaps that’s just as well, since this way I can ensure that what I’m only commenting on my lasting impressions from the book.

Here are the two lasting impressions that come to mind:

1) Like several of you, I couldn’t help but think “thirty days?” Are you serious? And as the story progressed, I found myself annoyed, frustrated, and embarrassed by how “weak” Zarah seemed. However, I couldn’t discount the fact that to Zarah, at least, this was suffering.

And then it occurred to me—this isn’t a story about torture or injustice. This is a story about being a woman. To a man, to Zarah’s male friends, for instance, 30 days in an Iranian prison wouldn’t mean that much. To really appreciate Zarah’s suffering, however, we have to be inside the mind of a female. And perhaps even more specifically, we have to be inside of the mind of an Iranian female.

The shaved hair, the possibility of permanent facial scarring, the isolation, the feelings of helplessness. I’m not saying I’d like to go through any of that, but to understand how terrifying these experiences are to Zarah, I think I would need to be female. More importantly, the prison is largely symbolic of a more general suffering. Her whole world is a prison. The clothes. The lifestyle. The rules. What scares Zarah most is the thought of the whole universe collapsing in on her until there is nothing left of her.

This brings me to a tangent. Yes, perhaps Zarah’s ideals lacks a certain “morality.” But is she really culpable in this lack of morality? The fact is, she hasn’t had the freedom to openly make the kind of choices she would like to make. So in her thoughts and dreams, she tries to obtain as much “freedom” as possible. The more radical the thought, the greater freedom she’s “obtained” in thinking it. And when a rare opportunity to express her freedom on the outside crops up, she takes it, to prove to herself that she has some degree of individuality. I wonder if, with more “freedom” on the outside, she might have more of an opportunity to develop a sense of morality that we Mormons would better approve of on the inside.

2) Why does Zarah seek to universalize her experience? I wish I had the book so I could draw some direct quotes here, but she qualifies too many of her statements with something like “like all men” or “no different than any other culture” or “as they always do.” She does this especially often with reference to people she dislikes: men, people in positions of power, and complicit women. It makes me distrust her as a narrator. Sure, there may be some similarities between Southern wives at a church social in Georgia and the complicit, completely-covered wives of Iranian business men at a party, but really, what does she know about Georgia? Or Nazi Germany? The more she tried to generalize her experiences, the more I distrusted her. The whole point of her narrative is that her experiences have a uniqueness to them, and I think she does a great disservice to Iranian women when she tries to dismiss that uniqueness.

Anyway, I’m done with East of Eden as well. I’ll save those comments for another day. Right now, I’m busy buying and fixing up a house, hopefully in time for the baby next month.

Introducing Ivy Sophia Jones

Ivy Sophia Jones was born this morning at 6:45. Weighing a healthy 9 lbs. 3 oz., she's the largest of our children so far. These are pictures of friends and family meeting her for the first time today at the hospital.

Next challenge: squeezing three car seats in the back bench of a mid-sized sedan.

Me: He-Man or Pillsbury Doughboy?

It was better than I expected, though I was a little underwhelmed by her experience in prison. I might be softer than I think and break as Zarah did, but I honestly feel that I could endure the torture she describes. I could defy them if they handed me personal physical or psychological torture, but if those same threats were directed toward family or friends, I would fold much more quickly.

For me, the best parts of the book were her memories of life if Iran. It seems very culturally colorful. These parts of the book reminded me of a movie I saw a while back called "Children of Heaven." I don't remember if I saw it at the BYU International Cinema, but it is a fantastic movie that opened my eyes to Iranian culture. The country and the people are not full of conspiracy and hatred as some might have us believe.

I thought the ending was good. It seemed artsy, like the ending of a foreign film.

Well, that's it for this book.
I finished East of Eden. Can't wait to discuss it. Maybe I'll rent the movie to tide me over.

My Thoughts on the Traitor

I thought this was an interesting read on several fronts, and the length fit well into my schedule. Thanks Jesse for picking it out. My book's already back at the library, so you'll forgive me for doing this from memory...

Did she Suffer? So for me, the most shocking part of the book was not any part about smelly guards, being beaten, isolated, or convicted without a trial. I was genuinely surprised when her sentence was pronounced at... 30 days in prison. The desert of despair she seems to have traversed, the heights of her pain, the depths of her introspection, her professed insight into human nature and the response to torture... all of this had me thinking in terms of months at least, possbly more. 30 days seems, well, short.

Don't get me wrong; I am not condoning what was done to her, and she did certainly teach me a lot about living in an Islamist state.

But I'm wondering what she would have made of the 35 days I spent as a Surgery intern last October. It was all there... sleep deprivation, verbal abuse, mental anguish, one's convictions called into question nearly with every moment. There was even a room barely large enough for a bed, with blankets stained by previous users, where you were relieved to be - if only for a 15-minute period before being dragged back to the Emergency Room by your pager. There's a great guy in my program who did surgery this month, and it's amazing the transformation in his countenance. This is the most trying month of his life, and it shows.

The thing is, it was still only 5 weeks and I left that month with 1)gratitude that I'm not one of these guys living that life for 5-7 years, and 2)an appreciation of how short 5 weeks really is. I had the same experience this January in the Intensive Care Unit - minus the verbal abuse.

After hearing the 30-day number, I began to reconsider whether Zarah is the one who really suffered that much. I was like "Wait a minute! It really isn't that big of a deal to have your head shaved, is it?" I thought mostly about all of the other people in the prison who don't have rich friends, those who probably suffered the torture Zarah only feared. Those are the people I would like to liberate.

Who is the Hero? I am intrigued by Peter's comments about the boyfriend (Benham?) being perhaps the most laudable of the characters. He certainly seems to have spared our protagonist the worst of what could have been. Benham and his peers probably do have the only course to lasting reform in a country like Iran; it seems a revolt/revolution would only lead to the next oppressive and dogmatic regime. Zarah clearly outlines the history of this very dynamic in Iran. Zarah also makes something of a hero (if not an effective reformer) for her willingness to do what she believes, no matter the obvious consequences which await.

I don't know what this says about me, but my hero became the prisoner upstairs - Sohrab. Assuming his story is completely true (wrongfully accused prior to the murder etc.) I find myself sympathetic with his plight. Well not the part where he goes out and kills a man, but right up to that. He was going to prison for no reason other than trying to do the right thing. Now here's a guy who has been in the prison far, far longer than Zarah's -- wait for it... -- 30 days, and he does still have enough humanity to help the inexperienced girl downstairs get through it all. Plus he's a doctor. Somehow for me, the most emotional part of the book was when she was leaving and she promised she would never forget him. I'm sure he's still in there, periodically shouting at the guards so he can change life's pace with a beating or two. He is also the character that leaves me wondering about what we do in America with killers, but perhaps that's a topic for another day.

I learned a lot about Iran, whatever else you might say about the story. This is mostly because I am starting from no understanding at all.

Zarah's Morality has already been eloquently described by previous posts. I can only say Amen. I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and say that pink shoes and pretty hair are really just symbolic of the hidden wishes of an oppressed people who have seen nothing but tyranny and war. But her "let's all be friends and stop pretending there's a God" attitude does fail to resonate with me. I also don't sympathise with her desire to sleep with the professor any more than I do with Americans who want to have fun getting pregnant but keep babies out of it (also a topic for another day). I'm not going to impose any "laws against a man's beliefs," but Zarah's moral agenda in this book didn't change my belief that there is joy in living according to Christ's teaching - joy that can be enjoyed by anyone who will partake. I'm sure if I told her about this joy, she would answer as did so many French people who told me happiness (and spirituality) is a many-sided mountain, with many routes to the top.

Overall, I had a great time reading this book and am glad it was chosen. I guess my comments are mostly negative, but you don't need me to point out all of Zarah's good points - she already made them herself.

Another Photo, but a Goodie... MTC October 1996

Nathan Hale she Ain't

Zarah as paper hero
I think this was the most surprising thing about the book to me. When Jesse chose it, I thought, "Great! A book about courage and the indomitableness of the human spirit." Yeah, that's not it at all. An uncharitable side of me thinks if Zarah's pink-shoe rebelliousness was really so important to her, why was she so able to throw it by the wayside? There are people who have suffered far worse torture than she did and yet remained true to their ideals. For me, it made the book an interesting story, but actually weakened my sympathy for the cause of Iranian dissent.

Of course, the more charitable side of me is simply horrified by what happened to her. This, I'm sure, was the intended reaction. By casting herself as just a normal person with normal likes and dislikes; just a college student who did nothing more than collect a few signatures, Zarah makes herself into the common (wo)man. She is at pains to do this throughout the book, from her descriptions of her family life to her infatuations with various boys to her adolescent admiration for her teachers. While this makes her more relateable, to me it defeated her larger purpose, which I think was to decry the injustice of her situation. Instead, it just made me pity her for making such naive, bad decisions. For someone apparently so naive to enter a collision course with a brutal regime seems, I don't know, inexcusably stupid. There I am being uncharitable again.

Value of suffering
I was talking about the value of suffering with a friend yesterday. I was comparing the different reactions of two families in my ward to diagnoses of terminal cancer. The first family lost a 14-year-old son, after years of sickness. Our ward really supported them, financially and emotionally, throughout the illness; but afterward they simply weren't able to get over the unfairness of the death. They drifted (back) into inactivity. On the other hand, there's a family now facing a similar trial; the father, who's probably five years older than me, has terminal cancer. In their case I've been astounded at the depth of change in their outlook on life. He and his wife both bear their testimonies of the beauty and truth of the Plan of Salvation.

Suffering is a crucible, and a refiner's fire, but I wouldn't agree that it's pointless for those who don't yet have wisdom, or courage, or faith as Zarah says. I don't believe such things are binary, that either you have them or you don't. Rather, suffering can develop your wisdom, courage and faith, or it can diminish them. And I believe that what it does to you is largely your choice. Not entirely, but largely.

Am I my Iranian brother's keeper

You know who I think was the hero of the book? The erstwhile boyfriend who got her released from prison and protected her while she was there. I wish there were a book about him. He's the one who supplied the student movement with funds; he's the one who actually demonstrated an ability (if not a will) to change things. Zarah casts him as blithely amoral, willfully blind to the injustices perpetrated by the regime, tacitly complicit. But he did more to advance their cause than the would-be revolutionaries did, and I think given the chance, he and his class will do more to actually change Iran.

So what does this have to do with being our brother's keeper? I guess I feel like we do have a duty to alleviate pain and suffering and injustice where we meet it. But as outsiders, to have any effect we need allies within the culture. If I were choosing an ally, it wouldn't be Zarah and her friends; it would be the moderate Iranians, like the boyfriend, who (pragmatically) have the means to effect a change and (ideologically) have the groundedness to understand how a change can best be effected.

I guess what I'm saying is this book didn't call me to the barricades like I expected it to. Rather it demonstrated to me the futility and the emptiness of the barricades. Of rebellion and transformation, I'll take transformation nine times out of ten.

Moral relativism

Zarah's mild embrace of Zorastrianism reminded me very much of the secular morality of our society. Try not to hurt people, enjoy beauty, don't be too sure of your own rightness. This is how people get along in a diverse society. They certainly aren't bad things. But when they are the only things, when there is no private conviction deeper than a superficial dedication to being polite, I think something's wrong. And I don't honestly believe that's the case in Zarah's situation; she has a dedication to those poets. They are her deeper morality. She glosses over what she really believes in, but I think you can back it out to some degree. She's a sensualist, dedicated to the beauties of the world around us. This shows up in her repeated references to Omar Khayyam, as well as more overt things she says. I guess it's really at the heart of her pink-shoes rebellion. Maybe it's more evident than I at first thought...but I felt like she chose to bury it to some extent (even though it's right there on the page) in order to make herself more common, more like everyone else (particularly the reader).

Doug Signing In!

Hi guys! I have Facebook to thank for finding Alvin, who pointed me to the site. I have enjoyed reading everyone's thoughts and updates. It's amazing how 1 year together has translated into a lasting comraderie. I'm glad to take part. So here's me...


Family - I married Becky Payne December 18, 1998; 3 months after getting off the mission. It's been a great decade since then. The kids are 7, 5, 3, and 7 months. They're a lot of fun.

Calling - Ward Organist and Perpetual Nursery Worker. None of my kids has been through nursery without my having been the teacher.

Job - Currently a first-year medical intern; Five years of radiology training is forthcoming.

Geolocation - Columbus, Ohio since 2004; will be Durham, NC until 2014.

Last 13 years in 100 words or less: I finished freshman year and moved back to my hometown for one last summer of work and wooing Becky before heading on my mission to Paris, France. (I did have Ryan Larsen as my zone leader for a few months while I was in the office.) As mentioned, I was married 3 months after the mission and back at BYU.

I graduated from BYU in Chemical Engineering , and took a job in Portland Oregon with Intel. I worked in their manufacturing branch on flash memory for cell phones, then later with the Pentium 4 when it was new. Sometime in there, I decided that medicine was really what I wanted to do with my life, so after 3 years we moved out to Columbus for medical school at Ohio State. Besides developing an understanding of what true college sports fanatacism is, I got a good medical education.

I now find myself at the end of the "intern" year, grateful for the legislation of an 80-hour workweek. I don't know how this was done by earlier physicians, at least not by those with a family. I will be moving in July to Durham, NC for Radiology training at Duke University. I have a 5-year course of study at Duke.

More About Me: In my luscious amounts of free time, I still get out for the occasional run, or spend some time at the piano. Our family enjoys road trips and visiting family and friends. Oh, and treats with Family Home Evening.

Traitor!

A quick read.   I have a few small thoughts. I tend to skip over gruesome details, so every other chapter was a skim.

On writing:
I am sure that this book was written in two parts—one inside the prison and one before. Then the two parts were spliced together. I thought it made the book more palatable because the stories were so different. I wondered about chiasm. But the point? Maybe the following: Iran under “the primitives” is bad, torture is bad, but we can keep our humanity.

Was this book written by Hillman or by Zarah Ghahramani? I felt that, while the content of the book was obviously Zarah's, the writing was Hillmans. It almost seemed like the language had been forcibly simplified.

Suffering definitely eats away at her humanity. Jesse's quote, "It's OK if you already have character and wisdom and courage, but if you don't, suffering won't build such things in your heart and soul. It will consume what little courage you have, and then you are left with nothing." While she was left feeling empty, I think the refiners fire left more than nothing. I don't know if she emerged ennobled. I do think it's typical for suffering to mature/weather us. I think she grew up—not that she was immature before, only that the prison aged her, tempered her activist rage into a more intelligible emotion that will likely serve to influence more people than otherwise.

This book “made me sad.” I suppose that was the goal, but I wish it had made me more angry. When I'm saddened, I usually don't do anything—depression for me leads to inaction. I have to be mad to take action against injustice.