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- "The Misfits"
- Liz's Review
- The Misfits: An Adult Reader's Take On It
- Great
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The Misfits
James Howe
Manufacturer: Aladdin
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ASIN: 0689839561 |
Book Description
Sticks and stones
may break our bones,
but names
will break our spirit.
Customer Reviews:
"The Misfits".......2007-09-14
This is an excellent book for teens, and any adult who has ever been a teen once upon a time, will enjoy it, as well. As a life-long teacher (37 years) in the middle school, I truly recognize the situations that are protrayed. This should be "must reading" for students.
Liz's Review.......2007-04-13
Have you ever been teased or been called names just because of the way you look?, I'm sure a lot of people have especially during Jr high. Everybody is different in their own way.
In The Misfits by James Howe it teaches you a lesson about being different. "Misfit" means to not fit in. This book is about four friends: overweight Bobby, outspoken Addie, outrageous Joe and sloppy Skeezie. They are four best friends who are completely different from each other. The story is mostly based in 12 years old Bobby Goodspeed who has been through many hard times in his life. He lost his mother and had to start to work at a young age to help his widowed father. The group of friends formed a new political party in their seventh grade elections. They face more than one obstacle from their teachers and other students. It's about putting an end to things.
I really enjoyed reading this book because it's really funny and it teaches you a great lesson, judge people by who they are not what they look like The author is known for other great books like Bunnicula Howliday inn, Night-Nightmare, and many other books. He also has more than seventy books for young readers. He is also the editor of the Color Of Absence:12 stories about loss and hope.
I loved this book very much because it has so many parts of the book you can relate to. It makes you laugh and cry. It seems so real because you could relate to it. I recommend this book to everyone. GO GET IT!!!!!
The Misfits: An Adult Reader's Take On It.......2006-06-26
Published in 2001 by James Howe, author of the popular children's "Bunnicula" series, THE MISFITS is intended for slightly older readers, primarily children in the sixth through ninth grades.
The story concerns four "misfit" seventh graders in a small town junior high school. Bobby, the narrator is overweight; Addie is tall, mouthy, and too smart for popularity; Joe is effeminate; and Skeezie has adopted the dress and mannerisms of a 1950s greaser. They have become friends for the simple reason that most other people at their school consider them outcasts, and each week they meet at a soda shop to discuss a topic designated by Addie. Some times they take it seriously, most of the time they do not, but when Addie decides they should form a third party and run for the student council they begin to take life very seriously indeed. Along the way they will have conflicts with teachers, the popular students, and even themselves--but when they decide to run a platform to end the nasty name-calling so typical of elementary, middle, and high school students they make a bigger impact than they ever expected.
From an adult point of view, THE MISFITS deals with a touchy subject--the inescapable fact that school age children have a pack mentality that leads them to verbally attack any one who seems to differ from the norm: "Fatso," "Know-It-All," "Fairy," and "Geek" are merely four of the words Bobby, Addie, Joe, and Skeezie remember when they begin to list the names they have been called over the years. It is also about the effect this sort of name-calling can have, an effect that can, as Bobby discovers, stretch out over an entire lifetime. It is also about standing against such attacks by simply being true to yourself.
Although the story is predictable, the writing is clever, and Howe raises several very interesting issues in a fairly subtle way. The first of these is race, an issue that arises when Addie presses a black boy, DuShawn, to be their candidate as president: does Addie want him to be their president because he's the right person or because she wants to make a statement through his race? Without beating the subject, Howe uses the situation to demonstrate how even smart people with good intentions can stumble into stereotypical thinking. Howe also, even less obviously, raises the question of when labeling serves a legitimate purpose--and when it is acceptable comedy--and when it crosses the line into hurtfulness.
While I found the portrait of seventh graders slightly less than realistic, Howe is not writing Cousine Bette; he knows his audience. It is unfortunate, however, that those who would most benefit from reading the book are those least likely to do so. Even so, I think most of the target audience will enjoy it quite a bit, and I think it would be a good "read along with your kid book," for this would open the door to conversations with your child on the subjects the book raises.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
Great.......2006-05-18
For anybody who's ever been called a name (come on, admit it already), this book about a group of 4 7th graders, each oddly weird in their own way, will enthrall you right to the very end. Very good read, although a bit long. Definitely recommend this.
unrealistic but go for it anyway.......2006-04-05
the misfits is well written, witty, and guarenteed to induce thought even if your brain is fried. four unpopular kids-a tall skinny girl who doesn't know when to shut up, a fat kid living in a trailer, a gay guy with little faces painted on his fingernails, and a greaser who looks like something out of the outsiders or west side story-create their own party in the class election. Their point in the end is to stop the name calling, which does happen. some innaccuracies: 1) kids in middle school aren't that mean. 2) its unrealistic to think that four geeky seventh graders are going to get boyfriends or girlfriends, especially with popular people. 3) the ending-something out of a teen movie. still, read it.
Customer Reviews:
A Nice Book.......2007-09-06
This is a quick read on a great subject. You can't help but see yourself in Dandelion at some point in the book, so in that way it's quite moving. It took me a while to buy/read it (and I'm a Mike Dooley fan), but I'm really glad I did.
DANDELION, THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF A MISFIT.......2007-08-06
This book, DANDELION, by Sheelagh Mawe is AMAZING! I ordered 5 copies -- and immediately gave them out as gifts (except for 1, which I kept!!!). We ALL
loved this book -- and -- I recommend it HIGHLY!!! It's a book that
can be read AND appreciated by people of ALL ages by how the KEY-TO-LIFE journey is revealed (WHAT WE THINK ABOUT -- WE BRING ABOUT!). It's a PERFECT
gift, too, for you Animal lovers!!! WF
What a Great Book.......2007-03-06
This book is great for all ages. Required reading for every single person. This book contains a very important message. Well written, a quick read, very powerful.
Excellent!!.......2006-08-16
The story is very touching yet offers a powerful meaning to life. It is a quick enjoyable read.
Fantastic story.......2005-09-16
This is a wonderful story, with so many life truths hidden in the story line. Its a short read, but one I will come back to numerous times.
Book Description
Just before the turn of the century, a renegade Russian aristocrat named Madame Blavatsky came to America claiming that man was descended not from the ape but from spiritual beings. Thus began Theosophy, the very first "new age" religion. This thought-provoking and often hilarious study delineates the course of Theosophy and other sects which have come down through the years. Photos.
Customer Reviews:
Good read.......2007-06-12
I found this book to be quite a good read. Yes, Mr. Washington is clearly skeptical about the Theosophical Movement but he is hardly the first. I think reading ISIS UNVEILED or THE SECRET DOCTRINE would not cause most people to conclude that Washington is wrong to be skeptical. Many of the negative reviews attack his facts but few cite concrete examples. Scroeder (T) does. He claims that Washington places Madame Blavatsky's death in 1909 not its correct 8 May 1891. In my copy of the book, on page 100, Washington writes that Madame Blavatsky died on 8 May 1891. As one who grew up in Fort Wayne myself, Scroeder (T), please help me and supply a citation for the 1909 reference.
Great book on the beginnings of New Age spiritualism.......2007-02-27
Excellent history tracing the beginnings of New Age thinking and where its roots began. The current new Age movement has its antecedents in the past, which this book sets out to document in an interesting way. The cast of characters that the author brings to life, sheds light on some the the dubious claims made by these so-called spiritual teachers. If you have an open mind, this book is an eye-opener and is a sober assessment of this time period which has great resonance with today.
Laughs and last laughs.......2007-01-27
Except for the eyes, Helena Blavatsky "looked overall like a badly wrapped and glittering parcel."
And with that, Peter Washington is off to the races. In a way, there is no reason for people who do not believe in spooks to care about Madame Blavatsky and her progeny, apart from the practical fact that she introduced cremation into America, which up until the 1870s had been an exclusively burying nation. For the first century after she began, the numbers of Theosophists and their numerous offshoots were small. Washington does not attempt to enumerate them, but they could hardly have outnumbered even such small sects as Jehovah's Witnesses.
But they were so funny. Sympathetic people will feel a tug at the heartstrings at the hopeless search for inner contentment by the mystics. Heartless people, like myself, will read with glee of the self-inflicted psychic wounds of these nuts, who are summarized by Washington in one place as "the neurotic, the hysterical, the destructive and the downright mad" and in another as "bossy matrons, artistic maiden ladies, wealthy idealists and faddists of every variety."
By what must have been an effort of self-denial as heroic as anything Gurdjieff or Leadbeater ever demanded of their acolytes, Washington manages not to simply jeer for 400 pages. His occasional jabs are all the funnier for not being overdone.
In a sense, though, the last laugh is on Washington and the rest of us sane people. After three or four generations of strife, hilarity, thievery, libel, betrayal, adultery etc. by what were basically small coteries of people who had inherited money but not sense, the Theosophists, although the formal group is quite decayed, have spread their attitudes widely, if shallowly, throughout American popular culture.
The story of how this developed is amusing and almost beyond belief, but Washington, professor of literature at Middlesex, has the documents and some personal interviews to back him up.
Most of the leading spiritualists were compulsive writers, and besides being incomprehensible, their works are tedious past belief. How Washington was able to plow through the hundreds of volumes of this literature is really more astonishing than any of the claims the spiritualists themselves ever made, except bringing people back from the dead.
The spoor of the guru.......2006-06-20
To track the spoor of the Western guru from the late nineteenth century onward is the prodigious challenge which Peter Washington gamely accepts. Whether he is the right man for the job is another question. His study's title, Madame Blavatsky's Baboon, signals an unfortunate tendency to reduce issues of psychological, historical and metaphysical complexity to a tract about twisters and duffers. Extrapolating his forgivable disdain for the turquoise track suit of David Icke, he cheerfully deconstructs major progenitors of the New Age: Madame Blavatsky, Annie Besant, Rudolph Steiner, Piotr Ouspensky, Krishnamurti, Aldous Huxley and Gurdjieff; seven at one blow. That Icke is to Krishnamurti as a nail is to requiem goes unremarked.
Resta's famous "Sphinx" photo of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky ensures a splendid book cover. What a woman! Much is to be forgiven a mystic who, apart from owning a stuffed baboon
"claimed to have ridden bareback in a circus, toured Serbia as a concert pianist, opened an ink factory in Odessa, traded as an importer of ostrich feathers in Paris, and worked as an interior decorator to the Empress Eugénie." But forgiveness is not Washington's strong suit. Just a spell of remission from his remorseless subtext écrasez l'infame would have doubled the value of this ambitious historical study. Almost everyone here is a "baddie"; it is only a question of degree. Blavatsky's obesity is grotesque, her cigarettes foul, her merits non-existent. Julia Ostrowska ("I think she is splendid", wrote Katherine Mansfield) is simply "a Polish prostitute". Young Krishnamurti is a wash-out intellectually, but, in any case, "the Oxford of the 1920s was unlikely to accept a black man who had not only been proclaimed the Messiah but also accused of sodomy by his own father". Gurdjieff, "shocking, disgusting and rude", stands for the "fascination with barbarism and primitivism which colours the politics of Fascism". Such eruptions of authorial bile are disturbing; shades here of Freud's insistence on sexual dogma as a bulwark against "the black tide of occultism". Theodor Adorno's assault on esotericism ("The offal of the phenomenal world becomes, to the sick consciousness, the mundus intelligibilis") strikes a similar note of morbid intensity.
What links Washington's galère of Western gurus and, in his view, reduces their overlapping endeavours to a baboon-like "comedy of passion, power and gullibility", is their reliance on a secret brotherhood or Hidden Directorate, tucked away in Central Asia or on some supernal plane. For Mme Blavatsky and Annie Besant, this seems a fair cop. (It would be a fair cop too for Alice Bailey, whose twenty-five books written as an amanuensis of "the Tibetan Master Djwhal Khul"" seem curious omissions from the charge-sheet.) But for Steiner? For Krishnamurti? The link allows the author his forgivable fun and intellectual indignation, but at the price of an entirely false emphasis. What this singular platoon do have in common is that all were fervently concerned, in discrepant ways, with the evolution of consciousness and the transformation of being.
And were they all quite the dunderheads implied here? To shuffle off as "fearsomely complex" Gurdjieff's integrated cosmology (Richard Rees, incidentally, shuffled it off as "bewilderingly simple") is to miss entirely its sophistication. Whether licensed theologians like it or not, here is an unconsidered by-product of esoteric spirituality which tackles audaciously the "ghost in the machine" dilemma of Cartesian dualism; bridges the discontinuity between creation and an ultra-transcendent Creator (the "Wholly Other" of Kierkegaard and Barth); eschews, conversely, the puerilities of interventionist "Thought for the Day" theism; and reconciles the suffering of sentient beings with God's putative benignity, by denying his omnipotence at the law-constrained periphery of creation (God himself cannot beat the ace of trumps with the two of hearts).
Like any tour d'horizon of modern esotericism, this book affords some entertaining cameos. Yet the genre is hardly novel. In the past twenty years, we have had James Webb's scholarly study, The Occult Establishment, Colin Wilson's amiable potboiler, The Occult, Christopher Evans's sardonic Cults of Unreason, not to mention a clutch of profound French texts by Antoine Faivre, Professor of the History of Esoteric and Mystical Trends in Modern and Contemporary Europe, at the Sorbonne. With these, as well as primary biographies, conveniently on tap, Washington lofts the art of synthetic paraphrase to new altitudes. If in these 470 pages there nestles some smidgen of original research, it is well camouflaged. Sportingly enough, the author mentions my own recent biography of Gurdjieff as one "to which the present book is much indebted". This could explain my recent feeling - almost occult in its intensity - of déjà vu.
The Western guru phenomenon does offer many delightful moonbeams from the larger lunacy; it is palpably a sector where dereliction of intellectual vigilance is commonplace and perfectly fair game. But such lunacy and dereliction are also commonplace in politics, consumerism and institutional religion. Even Voltaire nods: A.R. Orage edited the New Age, not the Little Review; Sufis do not "combine the roles of priest, magician and teacher"; Ernst Haeckel was not an Australian; Gurdjieff's birthplace, Alexandropol, is not in Central Asia; the Theosophical Society was not officially founded on September 13, 1875 (but on November 17); Upton Sinclair and Sinclair Lewis were different chaps; and Dr Vernon Harrison is a sight more germane to theosophy than George Harrison, the Beatle.
James Moore is Gurdjieff's biographer.
He undertook the Gurdjieff module in the
Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism.
Second rate at best.......2006-01-05
This is a People magazine type approach to the biographical history of some of the key players in modern western esotericim. Unfortunately, the author never rises above the level of gossip informed by a palpable contempt for his subjects.
Sadly, the author isn't even a good writer. He has as his subjects the most eccentric and quirky individuals imaginable. Yet the book is really quite dull. It takes considerable commitment to trudge through the 400 pages of text.
Besides a lack of sympathy for his subjects, it is also clear that the author's knowledge of theosophy, anthroposophy, the work of Gurdjieff and his progeny is entirely superficial. The author's intepretations and insights range from banal cliches to ill informed whoppers.
No one who actually knows anything about this subject will find this book to be satisfactory. Those who don't know much will gain little from this book except some background information.
Average customer rating:
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The Misfit (The O.C. Novelization, Book 2)
Aury Wallington
Manufacturer: Scholastic
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0439677009 |
Book Description
Break the Rules . . . Or Make Some New OnesSeth Cohen has grown up among the beautiful rich kids, but he's never been one of them. Cohen? He's the geek, the weirdo, the misfit. But not anymore. Suddenly Seth's got a friend, Ryan Atwood, who's got his back. The popular girl next door, Marisa Cooper, is talking to him. And he's got not one but two girls on the line. Seth's not playing by the same rules anymore, in fact, he's out to break them all. From the beaches to the boutiques to the parties, what you wear and what you drive matters more than who you are--welcome to the O.C.
Customer Reviews:
#1 and #3, PLEASE!.......2007-10-17
This is "TRUELY OUTRAGEOUS"! I lost the 3 of these books in a move two years ago. Im out to get them all back,thanks to amazon. #1 and #3 will be great. its amazing how i found this so easy. #1 and #3 PLEASE!
WOW!.......2007-07-30
I was so surprised to find this here! It is a must have for all Jem fans! Has a lot of endings, some bad, and some good. Please buy, it could help lead to more Jem stuff.
Book Description
A collection of stories for anyone who shuddered at the idea of senior prom, REVENGE OF THE PASTE EATERS is about the way the experiences of childhood stay with us and shape us into adults. Cheryl Peck applies her signature wit to more personal stories and reflectionsabout hurting people and getting hurt, about discovering who you are and who you want to be, about feeling not good enough, and about being biggerphysically and mentallythan many of the people surrounding you. This is a wickedly funny view of what its like to be a middle-aged woman in middle-America, and what really happened to the kids who were different.
Customer Reviews:
Hilarious!.......2007-10-10
Cheryl Peck's used to getting the short stick - she grew up overweight, unpopular and the eldest of five children (her parents' "test child," as she dubs it).
This collection of short essays -- vignettes, if you will -- take readers from Peck's childhood memories to adulthood, working in Social Services and spending time with her Beloved and her adored narcissistic cat Babycakes. (Several stories, in fact, are told in Babycakes' viewpoint.) Peck especially focuses upon growing up as one of three stairstep girls (she refers to youngest sister as the Wee One and the middle sister as the UnWee), and relates a number of opinions and experiences from her lesbian viewpoint.
Peck is a talented storyteller, and it's hard not to relate to her! Give this collection a try, and you're bound to laugh, ponder life and go through a gamut of other emotions, all at the same time.
A Fun, Easy Read..........2006-04-06
The book is organized into essays that read like really well-written blog posts. The author is lots of fun, and some of the stories she offers are both poignant and hilarious. Some of it can be a bit repetitive, but not so much as to annoy. If you're looking for some light reading and you're fairly openminded, you should definitely go for this one.
When a sequel is actually better.......2006-03-12
Overall, I liked this collection better than the first one. That having been said, I'd recommend reading "Fat Girls" first to become acquainted with the author's family. My favorite here was the transgender piece.
Witty and Insightful.......2006-03-07
Revenge of the Paste Eaters is a collection of witty, insightful and heartwarming essays about the author's life. Cheryl Peck pokes fun at herself, her family, her Midwestern upbringing, her insecurities and even her cat, but there is no malice in her words, and some of us can relate to the topics she chooses.
In "a gathering of porcupines," she tells us how her family communicates: "...writing always includes the ability to edit or erase before the final result is visible to the world...talking is a matter of just throwing yourself out there as you come, naked and unpolished, trusting your soul to the whims of the gods. The world is full of people who are entirely comfortable doing that. None of these people are related to me." The essay, "the epidemic" hit home for me as a Midwesterner as she defines one: "... my people live by three simple rules: work hard, wait for your turn, if you feel a need to talk about something, go plow a field until the need passes."
The collection of essays is a quick and lively read; most of them lasting one to six pages. No topic is untouchable, but Peck spends more than one story on her mother and her untimely death, her cat, growing old gracefully, her grandmothers, and her weight. She also reveals her coming out process in "how I came out," by writing, "It took me three weeks of conscious practice to use the word `lesbian' in a sentence that did not also include the word `not'. It took me six months to make a deliberate effort to meet another lesbian...''
While Peck repeats some themes and jumps around to different topics in no particular order, the anecdotes are fresh and down to earth. They are real and stripped of any pretense. She also doesn't take herself too seriously for the most part, but the stories are thoughtful, especially when discussing her mother whom she misses, as told in "my mentor."
Revenge of the Paste Eater is the kind of book some of us wish we had the guts to write, exposing our imperfect selves and letting others laugh at us. It takes a courageous author to bear herself honestly for all to read. Cheryl Peck does this with grace and panache. For anyone wanting a good laugh and words that make one pause, this delightful book is well worth the time.
Funny, Powerful, Sometimes Disturbing, Always Engaging .......2006-02-16
Ah! The paste eaters. Those misfit children who everyone delights to torment.
Cheryl Peck's new memoirs feel like letters from an old friend. From the reliability of old cars to strange psychic encounters and the nature of cats to the many uses of Dremels, she never fails to delight with tales from her life.
Peck mixes stories of her childhood with stories of her present. She relates the struggle of growing up with a hypercritical mother and a distant father. She also tells about her unending challenge to fit into an unforgiving world.
"Shopping" tells how for years her entire wardrobe fit in a WWII parachute bag. Even after attaining a job in a welfare office, she still dressed as close to the bottom of the fashion chain as possible. Shortly after the publication of her first book, a friend locks her in a clothing store with two clerks who wait on her hand and foot.
In "Fatso" we get a taste of what it's like to be discriminated against because of size. Peck provides a list of bad manners she has been forced to endure by denying that she, as a middle class white person, has ever experienced any of them. It is one of the most thought provoking chapters of the book.
"The Kitten," perhaps the most moving of her memoirs, falls near the end. It relates a moment from her childhood that gives insight into her person and neatly ties together the rest of the stories.
At times, Peck comes across as whiny. Her feminist sermonizing and constant complaining can hamper enjoyment of the book.
However, her writing style is virtually flawless. Each story from the book grabs our interest and refuses to let go until the last word. But we can't stop there. Completing one chapter leads us to desire the next.
Book Description
When she was seven, Rachel Manija Browns parents, post-60s hippies, uprooted her from her native California and moved to an ashram in a cobra-ridden, drought-stricken spot in India. Cavorting through these pages are some wonderfully eccentric characters: the ashram head, Meher Baba, best known as the guru to Pete Townshend of The Who; the librarian, who grunts and howls nightly outside Rachels window; a holy madman, who shuffles about collecting invisible objects; a middle-aged male virgin, who begs Rachel to critique his epic spiritual poems; and a delusional Russian who arrives at the ashram proclaiming he is Meher Baba reincarnated. Astutely observed and laugh-out-loud funny, this astonishing debut memoirnow available in paperbacksignals the arrival of a major new literary talent. The hardcover edition was named a Book Sense Pick and was selected as aBook of the Week by BN.coms Book Club.
Customer Reviews:
Yes, we know you're intelligent. .......2007-07-08
I hate to disagree with my Fellow Readers, but I found this to be an insufferable diatribe about how intelligent the author is. Yes, we know she was an early reader. Yes, we know she had a terrific vocabulary by the age of 7. I was so tired of hearing how bright this child was that I found it hard to finish the book. As an American Educator, I found her mother's quote insulting as well; "American schools don't know how to deal with kids as bright as you are." Give me a break; we are trained to enrich as we are trained to remediate~her experience shouldn't be fodder for such an unfair generalization. Maybe she should have elected to edit her mother's comment or leave it out altogether. At any rate, I have better things to do with my summer vacation than finish this essay. I did enjoy some of the snippets into Indian and ashram life so if you can get by this author's attempt to hit you over the head with her brilliance, it may be worth your while.
A Very Bitter Person.......2007-03-29
I heard about this book from a friend and read it out of curiosity. Brown really has a way with words and a gift for evocative description. However, from the very first, I was struck by her deep-seated resentment and bitterness, and the impression that as a child she wasn't much fun to be around. Although Brown tries to be funny, I find it hard to forget that she is vilifying real flesh-and-blood human beings, not her own imaginary characters. True, she changes their names, but I doubt this makes them hard to recognize by the people who know (or knew) them.
This is not a story, but a series of episodes that are linked together by Brown's need to condemn her parents for taking her to India to live in an ashram with a collection of oddball spiritual seekers. When it comes to plot in the Aristotelian sense, there is no "there" there.
In this work, Brown is critical and derisive towards everyone, while portraying herself as a special, heroic, and misunderstood victim. Reading between the lines, she needs to rationalize her own bratty and hostile behavior towards everyone around her except, I think, one kid named Walter. I can understand a child being self-centered, and utterly devoid of compassion or tolerance, but it's hard to understand these traits in an adult looking back on her life.
Given what's happening in today's world, I was especially disappointed by Brown's gross insensitivity to the principles of religious tolerance. I'm not a religious person myself, but I respect the beliefs of others, and especially their Constitutional right to religious freedom in America. There may be abusive nuns and priests, but that doesn't give anyone the right to abuse a religion that encompasses millions of sincere Catholics. It's just plain wrong to make fun of people -- even those who follow the teachings of an obscure Indian guru -- based on their religious or spiritual convictions.
In addition, I was quite disturbed by Brown's veiled implication that one of Meher Baba's disciples touched her with sexual intentions. If the disciple touched Mani inappropriately, then this is a very serious charge that should be addressed by her parents and the entire Meher Baba community. If he didn't touch her inappropriately, then it's very wrong of Brown to make this implication. Brown is honest to the point of cruelty throughout the book, so why the sudden coy ambiguity surrounding such a serious issue?
This book was not a page-turner for me, but I kept hoping for the kind of insight that often arrives to people who make an inquiry into their own lives and behavior through the medium of writing. I'm very sorry for the suffering that Brown went through as a child and hope that writing and publishing this book was a way for her to find personal healing. It's just too bad she had to hurt so many other people in the process. In some cases this was revenge, but in other cases she was exposing innocent people who never meant her any harm to contempt and ridicule.
Funny, Informative and Honest.......2007-02-16
The memoirs that I have most enjoyed are well-written, containing elements of fiction such as a strong "plot," which even leads to a crisis point, making it read like fiction. When I find books such as those, they trump even a good novel in my book. All the Fishes Come Home to Roost is exactly that kind of read. Rachel Munija Brown is an American misfit in India, as the subtitle proclaims. She writes about her less-than-ideal childhood, most of which was spent in an ashram (religious commune) in India. What I admire most is that the story is told for the most part without blame. She knows that it influenced who she was as a child and who she became as an adult, but she does not harbor bitterness or resentment. She tells her story in a straightforward manner, including the ups and the downs with a liberal dose of humor to lighten what would otherwise be seen as quite an unfortunate situation. It's not meant to be a tell-all, or a self-help book, or an attempt to prove what the author has overcome.
One way in which I could identify with Brown was in her love of books. She grew up reading, and throughout her memoir, she is reading, and she mentions the titles of the books, and sometime the plot if it helps to further her own plot. I couldn't help but smile when she mentioned books that I have read, like Cherry Ames, Student Nurse.
Interesting memoir.......2007-01-22
I am always reading biographies, memoirs and all kinds of true stories. This book is the true story of Rachel Manija Brown's life growing up as an Indian in a hippie and fanatical enviroment. She keeps you intrigued and interested in her entertaining way of telling the story.
A fascinating memoir emerges which is hard to put down........2006-12-12
The author's childhood in All the Fishes Come Home to Roost: An American Misfit in India was distinctive indeed: not only did she come of age in India, but she was the youngest resident of an Indian ashram populated by hippies and fanatics. Her memories of her childhood there are permeated not only by cultural observation of India and hippies alike, but by humorous notes on a child's-eye view of a culture we rarely get to see: hippies overseas. A fascinating memoir emerges which is hard to put down.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
Book Description
Frederick Exley was at once unique and prototypical. He inhabited his own bizarre universe and obeyed no rules except his own, yet he was a familiar and characteristic American literary type: an author whose reputation rests on a single book. His life, which he described, and disguised, and distorted in all three of his books, rivaled his "fiction. Everything he did involved a struggle, and the most important struggle of his life was his writing; out of that strife came A Fan's Notes, which Jonathan Yardley believes is one of the best books of our time.
Exley was an alcoholic who drank in copious amounts, yet he always sobered up when he was ready to write. In his younger days he did time in a couple of mental institutions, which imposed involuntary discipline on him and helped him start to write. He was personally and financially irresponsible--he had no credit cards, no permanent address, and ambiguous relationships with everyone he knew--yet people loved him and took care of him.
The center of Fred's strange world was Watertown in upstate New York, where he was born and grew up. Other important points of his compass included various places in Florida and Hawaii, and a funky bar in New York's Greenwich Village called the Lion's Head. No matter where he was, in the dark of night he phoned friends and subjected them to interminable monologues. To many, these were a nuisance and an imposition, but later, in the light of day, they were remembered with affection and gratitude.
In Misfit, the Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic of The Washington Post portrays in full one of the most tormented, distinctive, and talented writers of the postwar years. Exley's story, which in Yardley's telling reads as if it were a novel, reveals a singular personality: raunchy, vulgar, self-centered, and even infantile, yet also loyal, self-deprecating, and unfailingly humorous. Sympathetic and affectionate, honest and unsparing, Yardley's portrait gives us a man who sacrificed everything in order to write and who becomes, even more than before, his own most memorable creation.
Customer Reviews:
this sad bastard exley.......2005-02-11
exley managed to write, amidst the tumultuous and chaotic uncertainty of his own life, one legendary and immortal book, which everyone who cares about modern american literature must explore. yardley, here, gives us a portrait of the man, who must have been among the most exasperating creatures ever to walk the earth. yet his goodness and talent shine through, and i can't say that i wouldn't have been one of the willing multitude sucked into his web. if you hold 'a fan's notes' sacred, as i do, this is a necessary bookend.
Resolutely superficial.......2002-02-05
Frederick Exley was perhaps the quintessential one-book wonder, though he did write a few decent magazine articles along the way. A Fan's Notes is a terrific read and deserves the accolades it has received from Yardley and others. But Yardley is the wrong guy to write a biography of Exley. He is so obtusely literal and middle-brow that he does something I would have thought impossible: make Exley boring. Maybe Nick Tosches should have a crack at this subject. His hallucinatory method would be far more apt than Yardley's plodding fact-after-fact approach.
EXCELLENT.......2000-10-26
Jonathan Yardley has scored with this very readable story of a very different man's life. Frederick Exley (author of A FAN'S NOTES)is someone who would normally be hard to write three paragraphs about - but a whole book? Yes. And with style. MISFIT isn't a full-blown biography, it is a story of a man's life without learning where his grandparent's were born, etc. Yardley gives us much insight into an author who hit the long ball with A FAN'S NOTES and then well.....after reading this book, you'll know why that was the only book in him. Exley authored two other novels, but they are hardly worthy to be mentioned in the same review as Yardley's MISFIT. My suggestion - unless you are a huge Exley fan, read A FAN'S NOTES and then read MISFIT. Then if you feel you must, read the other two - but don't miss this one.
An enigma remains elusive........1999-11-04
I'm divided on "Misfit." I'm relieved that the book isn't an 800 page hagiography, relentless detailing every awful event in Exley's life. What a candidate he would be for that kind of treatment, apparently! Yet in abandoning traditional biographic approaches like chronicling dates and places and keeping it freeform, Yardley goes up against some awesome competition for chronicling Exley's life: Exley himself, in A Fan's Notes, Pages from a Cold Island, and Last Notes from Home. I enjoyed this book but it seemed a little breezy, an homage to the elusive Exley rather than any definitive tackling of his "strange" life. A Fan's Notes still rules!
a polite quickie.......1999-09-08
Mr. Yardley admits at the outset that he was, in a telephonic way, a friend of Exley's. This gives you the immediate expectation that you are going to get a kid-gloves treatment of the late author. That expectation is borne out completely by this brief book.
In _The Culture of Narcissism_ Christopher Lasch used _A Fan's Notes_ as Exhibit A in the development of a narcissistic culture in late 20th century America. Lasch defined a narcissist as someone who has no real self, but instead cobbles one together based on the continually and desperately solicited approval of others. This project of manufacturing a self is all-consuming and leaves the narcissist with little energy to direct toward paying attention to the existence of other people. In _A Fan's Notes_ Fred Exley attempts to construct a self that is "not-Frank Gifford"; he is a nobody. That he was able to get this down on paper in a coherent form was the achievement of his lifetime and he deserved all the recognition he got, but of course the recognition merely fed his narcissism.
Yardley mentions Exley's famous monologues (given in person and over the phone) many times and says only that they consisted of disjointed stories of people that Exley knew and interacted with. He hints, but never states, that these narratives were more real to him than his own life. Yardley also mentions the negative review by Alfred Kazin of _Pages from A Cold Island_, the second Exley book; Kazin nailed Exley for living his life solely for the purpose of having something to write about. That is, Kazin outed Exley as a narcissist. Yardley completely misses this dimension of the Exley character and therefore his "analysis" of the man goes nowhere.
If you were unfamiliar with the basic details of Frederick Exley's life, then this book will supply them for you. The interpretive aspect of this book is too kind to an old friend and allows Exley to remain an enigma when, in fact, he is has been explained better elsewhere by Christopher Lasch.
Book Description
When the United States entered the Gilded Age after the Civil War, argues cultural historian Christopher Benfey, the nation lost its philosophical moorings and looked eastward to “Old Japan,” with its seemingly untouched indigenous culture, for balance and perspective. Japan, meanwhile, was trying to reinvent itself as a more cosmopolitan, modern state, ultimately transforming itself, in the course of twenty-five years, from a feudal backwater to an international power. This great wave of historical and cultural reciprocity between the two young nations, which intensified during the late 1800s, brought with it some larger-than-life personalities, as the lure of unknown foreign cultures prompted pilgrimages back and forth across the Pacific.
In
The Great Wave, Benfey tells the story of the tightly knit group of nineteenth-century travelers—connoisseurs, collectors, and scientists—who dedicated themselves to exploring and preserving Old Japan. As Benfey writes, “A sense of urgency impelled them, for they were convinced—Darwinians that they were—that their quarry was on the verge of extinction.”
These travelers include Herman Melville, whose Pequod is “shadowed by hostile and mysterious Japan”; the historian Henry Adams and the artist John La Farge, who go to Japan on an art-collecting trip and find exotic adventures; Lafcadio Hearn, who marries a samurai’s daughter and becomes Japan’s preeminent spokesman in the West; Mabel Loomis Todd, the first woman to climb Mt. Fuji; Edward Sylvester Morse, who becomes the world’s leading expert on both Japanese marine life and Japanese architecture; the astronomer Percival Lowell, who spends ten years in the East and writes seminal works on Japanese culture before turning his restless attention to life on Mars; and President (and judo enthusiast) Theodore Roosevelt. As well, we learn of famous Easterners come West, including Kakuzo Okakura, whose The Book of Tea became a cult favorite, and Shuzo Kuki, a leading philosopher of his time, who studied with Heidegger and tutored Sartre.
Finally, as Benfey writes, his meditation on cultural identity “seeks to capture a shared mood in both the Gilded Age and the Meiji Era, amid superficial promise and prosperity, of an overmastering sense of precariousness and impending peril.”
Customer Reviews:
Unexplored Gilded Age Antics.......2006-08-05
In 1854, Commodore Perry and his Black Ships sailed into Edo Harbor, demanding that the Japanese sign a commerce treaty acknowledging a new friendship with the United States. Over the next half century, a multitude of Americans would make the long voyage to Japan, hoping to discover that ancient and alien world known as Old Japan. In his book, The Great Wave, Christopher Benfey recounts the misadventures of characters like Henry Adams, John LaFarge, Herman Melville, Okakura Kakuzo, Isabella Stewart Gardner, Frank Lloyd Wright, and many others.
Japan, for a short time, was an unexplored frontier for Gilded Age Americans. Some searched for spiritual fulfillment in Buddhism, like Henry Adams who traveled there after the death of his wife clover. He was overwhelmed by the funerary shrine at Nikko, but with other Americans in Japan, he was less impressed. Of Ernest Fenollosa, Adams wrote: "He has joined a Buddhist sect: I was myself a Buddhist when I left America, but he has converted me to Calvinism with leanings toward the Methodists."
Adams' traveling companion, the artist John LaFarge, went to Japan for artistic inspiration, which he found in spades. Like Frank Lloyd Wright, whose own architecture would be greatly influenced by Japanese conceptions of negative space, LaFarge found inspiration in everything from tea utensils and the kimono to Buddhist statuary and woodblock prints. Japanese art intrigued not only the artists, but the great collectors of art as well. Mrs. Jack Garner even created a Buddhist meditation room in her Fenway Court museum where she also displayed Japanese art collected by her good friend Okakura. Both the Peabody Essex Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston became the primary beneficiaries of this new interest in Old Japan.
Christopher Benfey has contributed greatly to an unexamined period in American history, which deserves greater attention. The Gilded Age is remembered almost exclusively as the domain of the Robber Barons, but The Great Wave reminds us that Japan was equally important (in fact setting the stage for 20th century events), warranting a trip from the great American mikado, President Ulysses S. Grant.
Uneven but absorbing.......2005-11-23
The first half or so of Benfey's account of the influence of Japanese culture on American arts and letters is very fine, particularly his chapters on Melville and Manjiro and on Edward Sylvester Morse. This is academic writing at its very best. Ultimately, as the Japanese influence on American taste becomes more pervasive, the book begins to sink under the sheer volume of information that must be conveyed in order to cover the ground. I found the last half informative, but that's because I have an interest in this particular period in American history and literature. Benfey's a fine writer and cultural historian, and I look forward to reading more of his work.
Swept away.......2003-10-28
This is an excellent book on what Japan meant for the people who visited in the early days of the Meiji period. The author concentrates on a series of vignettes to explore the significance of Japanese culture in the lives of some of the leading US citizens of the period. It was not all just collections of fans and diets of raw fish. Some of these early travlers used a trip to Japan to acquire ancient artifacts (many of which are in Boston's Museum of Fine Arts), Henry Adams went on quest for nirvana, the artist John La Farge went with him and absorbed new artistic techniques that marked his subsequent work. The cast of characters also includes Isabelle Stewart Gardner and Theodore Roosevelt.
This is a very interesting book, sure to delight the reader who really wants to know what happens when west meets east.
Informative but boring.......2003-09-10
I had great hope for this book -- what promise! Tying together "gilded age misfits, Japanese eccentrics." The first chapter on John Manjiro and Melville has great narrative power, unfortunately the rest of the book falls into a poor mix of ties between New Englanders and the Japanese. One of my big problems with the book is that the Japanese presence is hardly felt -- instead we have long, winding chapters on Henry Adams, Percival Lowell, Mabel Todd, etc. (interesting people in their own right) but whose ties to Japan don't have the sustaining narrative power as those like Melville or Manjiro.
Mr. Benfey's book is definitely informative. I found his list of sources and quotations to be appetizing -- yet I could barely force myself to finish the book. Its focus is more on what the New Englanders, ok white Americans, came away with from Japan even if it was the boiled down crack of Okukura's "Book of Tea" or Nitobe Inazo's "Bushido." Thank god Okakura existed -- otherwise, Mr. Benfey would have not had any glue to keep his American characters in this book.
"To open Japan culturally meant to open themselves in turn.".......2003-07-20
The Meiji emperor's opening of Japan to trade in 1868 led to a relentless wave of Yankee artists, writers, and scientists who gravitated to Japan for the peaceful and beautiful alternatives it offered in the aftermath of America's Civil War. A coarse, business- and trade-centered culture of commercialism was replacing what they saw as America's old values as the country rebuilt, and they sought solace and inspiration in a completely different, aesthetic world. In this story of the remarkable interactions of Japanese and American intellectuals from 1868 - 1913, Benfey shows how the two cultures viewed each other, learned from each other, and influenced each other's future, focusing on the literary, artistic, and aesthetic legacy, rather than on the hard political realities.
Like a wave spreading outward in concentric circles, the intellectuals of New England radiated their enthusiasm for Japan and its traditions. The American travelers knew each other, learned from each other, and influenced each other. Edward Sylvester Morse of Salem, Massachusetts, was one of the first to make a life commitment to Japan, attracting in his wake Isabella Stewart Gardner, William Sturgis Bigelow, Percival Lowell, and artist Ernest Fenollosa. Isabella Stewart Gardner, in turn, introduced T.S. Eliot, Edith Wharton, and Henry and William James to Japanese art and thought, while historian Henry Adams and painter John La Farge attracted William Morris Hunt, architects H. H. Richardson and Frank Lloyd Wright, and others. Kakuzo Okakura, journeying to the U.S., had similar influence.
Benfey brings American and Japanese cultural history to life, creating real people with real emotions, problems, and commitments. His insight into the creative process adds verisimilitude to his portraits, and his ability to describe and evoke moods, whether they be in his recreation of samurai life or his depiction of a tired climber's first glimpse of Mt. Fuji, give a liveliness to the prose usually more characteristic of fiction than non-fiction. His nature imagery is so vibrant that the reader experiences journeys to the countryside alongside the participants.
In an Epilogue, which focuses on the year 1913, Benfey ties up the loose ends and finishes the stories of the characters on whom he has focused. His limited time frame has allowed him to explore America's influence on Japan in great detail, along with the "Japanese phenomenon" in this country, bringing to life the individuals who were responsible for it and illustrating the long-term effects. The book is a thoughtful and lively account of one of the most important cultural exchanges in history, and Benfey makes it both understandable and exciting. Mary Whipple
Average customer rating:
- I loved this book
- A personal journey of, and for, the misfit
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The Misfit: Haunting the Human-Unveiling the Divine
Larry Lewis
Manufacturer: Orbis Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
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Missions & Missionary Work
| Evangelism
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General
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ASIN: 1570751226 |
Customer Reviews:
I loved this book.......2002-02-11
Lewis' story touches you at your very core. He has a wonderful spirit and is a great gift to the human race.
A personal journey of, and for, the misfit.......1999-06-18
Larry Lewis takes us on a spiritual journey, a journey that began in his youth soon after the death of his grandfather and again to China, where he taught English to students at the university immediately before -- and during -- the uprising at Tiananmen. Lewis is adept at weaving his own life stories of "misfitness" and a wide array of literature into a fabric that portrays the absolute beauty of all things human. The book's peaks and valleys represent the ebb and flow of the human spirit, a rhythm of life recognition beyond any I have come across before. Reading this book, I have learned to appreciate my own human frailities and rejoyce in my "misfitness."
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- The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers (Voices That Matter)
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- The Sight (Warriors: Power of Three, Book 1)
- The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything
- The Spinner's Companion (Companion)
- The Stolen Child: A Novel
- The Sweet Far Thing
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