Book Description
In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father—a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man—has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey—first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother’s family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family, confronts the bitter truth of his father’s life, and at last reconciles his divided inheritance.
Customer Reviews:
warning.......2007-10-09
great read, but once you're done there's no way you could look at this man the same way again.
"PT 109" for the 21st Century.......2007-10-08
As my readers will know, I am a tough critic, but I can find precious little about "Dreams from my Father" to criticize. Of course, the book will not appeal to those who don't care about race in America, or who have extremely fixed ideas about the subject. I like to think though that the majority of the reading public at least (if not the general public) are both engaged with and to some extent open-minded about our nation's central bugaboo/crisis/character flaw.
An editorial review mentioned that Obama's mother is almost absent from the book. To some extent he may have taken her somewhat for granted -- unlike his father or himself, he always had a good idea who she was and what she was about. In the preface to this edition, Obama mentions that she has died of cancer between the original publication and his nomination for U. S. Senate from Illinois, and that if he had known she would not be around to see that, he might have written a different book, spending more time hailing her for having stood by him. In the introduction to the first edition (written in 1995), he admits that he can't speak for everyone in the world. This is the most ironic part of the book, since it was only a year after that that he first ran for the Illinois state legislature. Thereafter, he has increasingly been compelled to try to do just that.
Although finding oneself has become a cliche, especially in the literary world, it was Barack Obama's mission for the first thirty years of his life. Defined as a black man, he sought to make his race more than a social construct, but something central and ineffable, and at the same time not cut off his ties to the rest of humanity, particularly his white mother and grandparents. He doesn't take his mother completely for granted -- he spends thirty to fifty pages talking about her background and that of her parents, who moved from Kansas to Hawaii, seeing it as the last frontier, when she was about to start college. Another one hundred pages or so explore his life with them in Hawaii (with a short stint in Indonesia, where his mother married a man who had studied in America and gave birth to Obama's half-sister Maya).
Readers of any race will be overwhelmed by the sheer power of Obama's writing. I choked up reading this several times. That is ultimately the best reason to read it, not the fact that Barack Obama has become a serious candidate for the presidency. This book also helps you figure out how he did that. The only thing he feels more keenly than his own hopes and fears are the hopes and fears of everyone around him. At the end of the book, having learned the whole story of his father's and grandfather's lives, he stands over their graves and weeps, feeling what they must have felt at each turning point of their lives. Although Obama is quintessentially American, I somehow would not be surprised, given the epiphany he had there, if he chose upon his death to be buried in Kenya alongside them. But perhaps my sympathy is making me romanticize the man.
This book leaves me with two regrets and one big hope. First, it is probably unfilmable. Second, there is one man running with even more vision and courage than Barack Obama, so I won't be able to vote for him in the primary election (although I will in the general if he is the candidate). My big hope is that Obama will write a third book in 2017, having waited eleven years between books as he did between his first and second, that will combine the autobiography he did with this book and the political manifesto he did with "The Audacity of Hope" (a phrase which you have to read "Dreams from my Father" to know Obama doesn't take credit for). Although I haven't finished the latter book, there is basically no way it could top this one. I give it my highest recommendation.
Moving, eloquent and inspirational..........2007-09-26
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama is a moving, eloquent and honest book that was originally published in 1995. This is an amazing story, and not just because he is a presidential candidate. Although autobiographical in scope, it is not intended to be a complete history of the author's life. Instead, it is "a boy's search for his father."
Barack Obama had a most unusual childhood. His mother was a white American living in Hawaii. His father, Barack Obama Sr., was a brilliant black Kenyan who received a college scholarship to the University of Hawaii. When Obama was two, his father graduated college and received a scholarship to obtain his PhD at Harvard. Unfortunately, the scholarship did not include living expenses for his family, and this proved the end of the marriage. After that, Obama only saw his father one more time before being killed in an auto accident when Obama was 21. Obama's mother subsequently married a man from Indoesia, where Obama lived for several years. But that marriage also ended and Obama returned to Hawaii to live with his grandparents. Dreams from My Father also includes Obama's college experiences, as well as the work he did as an organizer in Chicago.
The most moving part of Dreams from My Father involves his trip to Kenya for the first time several years after his father died. As a youth, he describes the reaction of others when they discover his background "Privately, they guess at my troubled heart, I supposed--the mixed blood, the divided soul, the ghostly image of a tragic mulatto trapped between two worlds." In Kenya, he meets his African family including grandparents, half-brothers and sisters, step-mothers, aunts, uncles and cousins. At the Kenyan airport, an airport employee recognizes his name and knew his father. "For the first time in my life, I felt the comfort, the firmness of identity that a name might provide, how it could carry an entire history in other people's memories...My name belonged and so I belonged." I was also moved by Obama's discovery of faith.
Even if Obama was not a presidential candidate for the 2008 election, Dreams is still an eloquent and inspirational story about his search for his father and his efforts to reconcile the histories of this white and black families.
A worthy memoir of Obama's complicated early life.......2007-09-06
Due to its multi-section arrangement, falling into three precise stages, this book feels like a well-paced coming-of-age novel, an impression buoyed by the fact that, to a degree that is unusual for politicians, Obama can actually write well. If you are looking for information on what policies Obama would support as a presidential candidate, you should look elsewhere. However, the book does give the impression that the writer is unusually forthright, both about himself and his beliefs.
Watching Obama's attitudes on race evolve is one of the key points of interest in the book, and the reader comes away with a picture of a man who is both reflective and self-critical. It is somewhat apparent that the author was not running for office at the time the book was written, and yes, it (very briefly) mentions his now infamous flirtation with cocaine use. However, if you want to read a portrait of the man, if not his political platform, and interested in the struggles of someone growing up in between two different cultures, this book is well worth reading.
just great.......2007-08-17
Obama wrote his memoirs of his growing up some years ago (and with his political career I expect he'll be writing them again in twenty or so years). It is an honest book about a remarkable man who had a remarkable life. Nothing political about it.
Average customer rating:
- Excellent read
- DEMEAMING, INSENSITIVE, STEREOTYPING, TOO GRAPHIC - JUST NOT CORRECT
- Sometimes truth is better than fiction.
- Maus
- Immensely sad. Full of pathos. An immense work
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Maus : A Survivor's Tale : My Father Bleeds History/Here My Troubles Began/Boxed
Art Spiegelman
Manufacturer: Pantheon
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0679748407
Release Date: 1993-10-19 |
Book Description
Volumes I & II in paperback of this 1992 Pulitzer Prize-winning illustrated narrative of Holocaust survival.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent read.......2007-09-12
I read Maus I and II back in junior high and thought it was really cool that I was reading a book while also reading a comic. I purchased and re-read the boxed set recently when I stumbled upon it on Amazon. It's excellent. Truly a one-of-a-kind story, told in a way that gets the reader engaged in the details of what went on back in World War II. I love the cleverness of the Jews being portrayed as mice and the Nazi soldiers as cats. The only qualm I have with this series is that Maus II (the second and last book) ends rather abruptly, which is sort of understandable if you read the books. Honestly, I wanted more from the author and the storyline. Either way, it was a good read back when I was age 12 and still a good read at age 25.
DEMEAMING, INSENSITIVE, STEREOTYPING, TOO GRAPHIC - JUST NOT CORRECT.......2007-09-01
I just don't understand, how any type of stereotyping, as maus is loaded with it, can be acceptable. Stereotyping like bigotry, can "never" be justified! The graphic nature of this book is also "disturbing." With so many other books out there, I personally am unable to understand why anyone would use this book that offends "other" (3 million Catholic Poles for starters)holocaust victims. Many, many books out there get the job done, without such dark graphics and offending peoples, who were also victims. There are three books that I feel are truly objective, factual and just not as offensive, as Maus is: "Auschwitz," by Sybile Steinbacher, Richard Lukas' "The Forgotten Holocaust," which "objectively" talks about "everyone's" suffering in the holocaust; and finally, Michael R. Marrus' "The Holocaust in History." On Marrus' book: "An ideal introduction to the subject for any student of the Holocaust, and an authoritative summary for the expert." Yehuda Bauer, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem(back cover). With all the suffering and sensitivity on the Holocaust, "all" victims' feelings should be considered - maus does "not" accomplish this.
Sometimes truth is better than fiction........2007-08-21
I stumbled across this a few days ago in a book shop in Cambodia, of all places. I sat transfixed reading the book until 4 a.m., when my eyes could no longer focus. When I awoke the next day, I finished the book.
We are provided with a narrative by the father, a Holocaust survivor, and a more recent portrayal of the author (the son, who happens to be the artist, also). We see the trials and tribulations of his father and his mother as a young Jewish couple in World War 2 era Poland during the Nazi invasion and subsequent occupation.
We also get to share the experience of being the guilty son of Holocaust survivors. He worries about seeing his father as the stereotypical "miserly old Jew." Can he have judgment about people who have suffered through so much? Can he have a bit of animosity towards his parents, as most people tend to do? The author has to question how his mother could have survived the Nazi regime, but committed suicide when he was 20. He has to question the relationship with his father. Is he annoying or pitiful or admirable?
All these muddled emotions and the true story of a man who lived through the most brutal crime of the 20th century all come into play.
The drawings are great. The format is great. The idea to show different races as different animals is also great. Because, as silly as that sounds- isn't even sillier that people see our own races as different creatures?
Maus.......2007-08-10
As a Polish/american/alsacian I need to say this book is amazing. It captures all cultures together and produces the most authentic representation of WW2 I have ever read.
Immensely sad. Full of pathos. An immense work.......2007-06-13
More than a graphic novel. Rather a powerful moving tale of a son's recovery of a father's experience of the years of the holocaust and how this trickled down into contemporary family life. Reflective and immense in scope. I would recommend this book genuinely to anyone interested in what makes life worth living. The vignettes of Spiegelman's father are harrowing and inspiring, accentuated by a matter of fact story telling style. Spiegelman's insertion of his own family into the narrative serves to contrast the relatively normal travails of a modern family with those of families on the edge of survival and extinction.
Book Description
What do you wish you had asked your dad?
What did you feel the first time you cradled me in your arms?
What was your proudest day as a dad?
A little book that asks big questions: some serious, some playful, some risky. "I had ample opportunity to ask Dad these questions when he was alive. But it seemed that a million reasons not to do so could always be found. It was a waste of everything Dad had ever seen, done, and thought about not to hear his answers, and I regret not finding out more about him when I had the chance." This book was borne of that regret and has one underlying objective: to develop a blueprint for discovery so that children of any age can start to build a clearer, deeper picture of the man behind the word Dad.
"So this is for my dad. And for all dads, past, present, and future. And for their sons and daughters. And for the simple pleasure of talking to each other."--Vincent Staniforth
Customer Reviews:
Reminder of what's important.......2003-12-18
The questions in this book allow the reader to muse on their own relationships with their parents and others close to them, and hopefully to realise how important it is to make time to communicate within families. Buy it to read, think and keep it visible on your bookshelf as a reminder of what is important and that there is always time to talk to those close to you, however busy you think you are.
A dark ride.......2002-09-25
At first glance I thought this was just another "quick-fix" book offering [bad] platitudes about the quest to reveal the mythical father-figure.
I started to leaf through it and three days later I'm still excited and troubled by what "Questions" has revealed to me.
The questions are, quite simply, stunning in their originality and form. There's stuff here I wouldn't have thought of asking in a million years.
And then there's the narrative that is sprinkled throughout the text; a dark and troubled trans-America motorcycle trip during which the author has an eerie insight into the importance that his father has played in his life. Too late, of course. Staniforth returns to England just in time to watch his Dad die, and so begins the internal intellectual voyage of discovery about his father.
Read it, use it, buy it for a father or a child. This book can save families.
Questions for My father: finding the man behind your dad.......2002-06-12
A wonderful book to learn more about your father and yourself.
It's also a fantastic conversation maker. Don't miss out on
this jewel of a book.
Asking both hard and easy questions.......2002-01-25
This book asks both hard and easy questions. It gives the reader a chance to get to know the man with the utmost depth. Some of the questions are a little deep, but I encourage the reader to ask them all. Some of the questions may be superficial, but you might get some surprising answers. Good book. Great starting point for getting to know the man behind your dad.
Carthartic Self Discovery.......2002-01-09
Great book for learning about yourself and passing along your feelings, foibles and future wishes to your children. Works well for those that had a great relationship with their own father and want to continue the tradition; works even better for those who weren't close to their own father and want to make the most out of that special relationship with their own children.
Book Description
A writer renowned for his insight into the mysteries of the body now gives us a lambent and profoundly moving book about the mysteries of family. At its center lies Sherwin Nuland’s Rembrandtesque portrait of his father, Meyer Nudelman, a Jewish garment worker who came to America in the early years of the last century but remained an eternal outsider. Awkward in speech and movement, broken by the premature deaths of a wife and child, Meyer ruled his youngest son with a regime of rage, dependency, and helpless love that outlasted his death.
In evoking their relationship, Nuland also summons up the warmth and claustrophobia of a vanished immigrant New York, a world that impelled its children toward success yet made them feel like traitors for leaving it behind. Full of feeling and unwavering observation,
Lost in America deserves a place alongside such classics as
Patrimony and
Call It Sleep.
Customer Reviews:
Lost in America.......2007-10-19
WHAT A GREAT AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL PIECE. I WAS ALMOST THERE WIN YOUNG SHERWIN AND FAMILY. HOW DIFFICULT IT AL MUST HAVE BEEN!
I LOVE NULAND'S BOOKS AND IF HE IS AS GOOD A SURGEON AS HE IS A WRITER I ENVY HIS PATIENTS. I would consult him any time
A powerful memoir .......2007-06-03
This powerful and moving memoir tells the story of the childhood and growing- up years of the physician- author Sherwin Nuland. While the greatest emphasis is on the author's relation to his father, his relationships with other family members that shared the same household, his mother, his Bubbe, his Aunt Rose, his older brother are also described.
The book opens with Nuland's description of himself in total depression, and about to receive a lobotomy, when a young psychiatric student prevents this, and instead prescribes an alternate treatment. Nuland receives twenty shock treatments and they take him out of his depression.
He then by implication relates the depression to the story of his difficult childhood, and relation with his father. His father Max who worked as a tailor , was completely alone in America aside from his wife's family. He was a difficult suffering hypersensitive easily humiliated, easily outraged parent. Nuland tells the story of life in a home where his Bubbe and aunt did not speak with his father, and in which his beloved mother was the center until she passed away. Nuland tells of the years in which he accompanied his father,supported him as he limped along, and was ashamed of him. He quotes at length his father's Yiddishized English, a language which appears somehow grotesque and awkward without redeeming humor.
Nuland also tells in a most moving way of dramatic moments in the family's life. The day his father comes home broken and weeping, carrying with him a Jewish Forward account of how in his native city the entire population had been murdered, machine gunned to death by the Nazis.
Another moving tragic day is the day of Nuland's mother's death.
One beautiful moment is the one in which Nuland is told that he has been made Chief Surgical Resident at Yale Presbyterian. He races to his father's hospital bed and tells him the news. And he feels his father's sense of triumph and justification.The older immigrant generation, his father, his mother, his Bubbe, his aunt had lived for the 'hope' of what the younger generation might become in America. And Nuland's success as a doctor justifies the father's life to himself. The person who had always felt insulted, humiliated comes a short time before his death to feel that it all has been worthwhile.
This is once again a tremendously moving story. What I missed and what I have questions about are the other aspects of Nuland's life which are not written about. For instance it must have taken him an incredible amount of work and dedication to arrive at where he arrived in his studies. Nothing is said of that.
And you thought YOUR parents were weird?.......2006-06-28
Dr. Nuland thought his immigrant father was simply weird or peculiar or just never adjusted to life in America until he was well into medical school, and diagnosed his father's tertiary syphilis by reading about it in a textbook. It explained everything, and in the tradition of the day, his father was never told the truth - not that anything could have been done. By the time he received treatment, his nervous system was already permanently damaged.
Interwoven are colorful stories of his own growing-up years (my personal favorite: learning the F word from older boys in the neighborhood), and the tragedy of his mother's death from cancer when he was 11. The type was never specified in the book; I had come to a conclusion that it was cervical or uterine cancer, and a Google search revealed that it was colon cancer. Either way, the results were the same. His father never remarried, but lived a platonic existence with two older female relatives (I read it a while back so don't recall the exact nature of their relation).
He kicks off the book with his own episode with mental illness and the resulting institutionalization which destroyed his first marriage. I first heard about that in a Book TV interview where I learned about this book as well. How much of this might have been precipitated by his childhood experiences is unknown.
It's a roller coaster ride of a story.
A Winner.......2005-10-12
Haven't read this one yet, but my friend & neighbor said that this is the best book that she ever read!!
Moving, marvelous reading.......2005-07-28
A most moving, thoughtful, disarmingly candid, disarmingly honest perusal of what it was to grow with an immigrant father apparently deffective in every respect, however full of love for a son both as he was and as he came to be, almost a dissection of human emotions yet a most loving one; we share the awe, mixed love-shame and adventure of the author in discovering the scope of what is a human being and what a human being can be, as he uncovers a past ultimately bountiful with the reward for him of overcoming hindrances and prejudices in a new world. I don't think the author aimed to show this, but by overcoming hindrances and prejudice he ends gaining his own rightful place in that new world and in the process makes his father triumph. The book, and the journey, is a triumph of the human spirit.
Average customer rating:
- Great family relations insights on every page
- A Portrait of the Families We Inhabit
- Touching, Engaging Stories about Family Relationships
- Brilliantly Insightful Stories about Families
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My Father Married Your Mother: Writers Talk about Stepparents, Stepchildren, and Everyone in Between
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
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ASIN: 0393060888 |
Book Description
Eye-opening essays by esteemed writers about the rich and complicated lives of American stepfamilies.
With the U.S. divorce rate hovering around 50 percent, most people recognize remarriage as a now-familiar occurrence. And remarriage often means stepfathers, -mothers, -brothers, and -sisters, and the formation of a new type of blended family. Jacquelyn Mitchard, Barbara Kingsolver, Roxana Robinson, Susan Cheever, and others share experiences of being stepdaughters, stepmothers, or ex-wives. Andrew Solomon writes about his relationship with his stepmother. Kate Christensen celebrates the stepfather who brought guidance to her life. There are essays from writers in the same family, each with a different take on his or her postnuclear situation: Phyllis Rose discusses her second husband's qualities as a stepfather, while her son, Ted Rose, writes about his tumultuous relationship with his stepbrother from his own father's remarriage. These poignant, heartfelt, sometimes biting tales remind us of the outdated myth of the perfect nuclear family while shedding light on what it means to forge relationships with stepfamily members.
Customer Reviews:
Great family relations insights on every page.......2007-05-22
The subject matter here is ideal for writers. By definition, every relationship having a step-someone in it came about following death or divorce in the family -- so the universal themes of personal loss and renewal provide the overarching themes of each one of these pithy 7-to-10-page essays, which immerse us in the most profound of human struggles. I could have read dozens more of these stories of sundered and resurrected family ties, and fervently hope the editor will bring out a supplemental volume every year.
A Portrait of the Families We Inhabit.......2006-11-08
This inspiring book of essays is a natural choice for anyone who is a stepparent or stepchild and therefore part of the modern phenomenom of a blended family. In many ways the book casts an even wider appeal because so many of the essays are about the struggles we all face in modern family life--how to live with people in your family who may have different desires and outlooks in life than your own. I really loved this book, and I found myself alternately laughing out loud (Phyllis Rose's piece on her absent-minded second husband was endearing and hilarious), wincing (Dana Kinstler's essay on father-love was all too familiar), and crying (Stephanie Stokes Oliver's piece on her love for her stepdaughters moved me). I ended up buying more copies of this book and handing them out to my sister, my friend from business school who is a stepmother, my stylist (no kidding) who lost her father when she was two. The essays are short enough to read one a night before falling asleep--my favorite time of the day to read. This is definitely a great gift idea for yourself or someone else in your life.
Touching, Engaging Stories about Family Relationships.......2006-05-19
The personal stories in this collection are moving and the writing so incredibly revealing. You get so many different points of views, shared experiences from stepmothers, stepfathers, from stepchildren. You get it all and each story is beautifully written - some are funny, witty; some are sad; some are triumphant. It's a wonderful read even for those who don't have the shared stepfamily experiences like myself. I loved it!
Brilliantly Insightful Stories about Families.......2006-05-16
I began reading this book for its gossip value -- I was curious to understand the intimate lives of some of the famous writers whose essays are included here. I assumed that I wouldn't actually relate personally to the stories because I'm not part of a step-family. But in fact these stories gave me tremendous insights into my relationship with my father and my mother, old boyfriends, and also into the kind of person I am -- simply because the essays are full of tremendously acute observations about relationships as well as fascinating and delicious scenes.
Every time I finished an essay I couldn't help myself from plunging immediately into the next, reading the chapters in exactly the order assembled (after checking out the work of the writers about which I was most curious). This is SUCH a good book! I kept putting stars in the margins and thinking, Oh I want to copy that into my notebook -- because what's illuminated is the "ordinary" family, too. The first essay (by Dana Kinstler) made me think about the roles of daughters and fathers, and then in Phyllis Rose's I was thinking about whether my own father had provided enough strength and direction for me to feel secure (apparently not) and Sasha Troyan's lovely and droll and funny piece made me think about how people look while they are falling in love, and Andrew Solomon's made me marvel about the sort of people able to get a tremendous amount done, and the nature of parental love, and a thousand other things. I ADORED the quirky, funny, touching essays by D. S. Sulaitis (who I'd never heard of; now I'm dying to read more by her) and Sandra Tsing Loh, and the haunging one by Alice Elliott Dark, and the heartbreaking one by Jacquelyn Mitchard -- but all of them taught me something. I found this to be such a useful, smart, absorbing book. It provides stories that give insight into one's own life (which is what I for one really want stories to do). Actually, this book did feel like good gossip - but the kind that illuminates your own life.
Book Description
The renowned analyst and author here provides deep insight into the process required to bring feminize wisdom to consciousness in a patriarchal cultureâas struggle in which many women are more fully engaged today that ever before. Presenting the personal journeys of three wise women as maps, she points the way to the state of inner wholeness and balance she calls "conscious femininity."
Customer Reviews:
it don't get better than this!.......2004-08-22
Buy this book if
1. You're looking to go there.
2. You're tired of pretending.
3. You want to read something your body likes as well as your head.
4. The book falls off the shelf and hits you on the head.
wow.......2001-11-20
In middle age,life can seem to drag to a halt. Marion Woodman and her coauthors demonstrate that the richest part of inner work is possible when we no longer are focusing most of our energy on the outer world of our families,or our careers. the stories these women tell of their own dream journeys are almost beyond belief, and inspired me to resume dream work i abandoned years ago. the journey never ends, and Leaving My Father's House begins a whole new ring on the spiral to wholeness. my only complaint is that at times the book felt too wordy.
Required Reading For Women (& Men).......2001-07-31
If life had a reading list, this book would certainly be on it. Woodman does a supreme job of linking the women's narratives -- clarifying and filling in their experiences in archtypical and Jungian terms -- without dimming the spotlight on their individual experiences.
How long will we live our lives unwhole and blaming others (or even ourselves!) for our unhappiness? Until we all read this book and others like it, I'd guess.
An honest and heartfelt look at woman's path........1998-10-28
With this book, Marion Woodman guides us through a complex and difficult journey. Her work with women through the often painful and lonely process of coming into their own life is shared with wisdom, compassion and deep love. I have found this book to be fundamental to my growth and my process. The women who shared their stories have enriched my life and have helped guide me on my way. I've given this book as a gift to many women friends, and I feel it can be a helpful and useful tool for anyone embarking on the inner journey.
Book Description
"A remarkable achievement . . ." The Philadelphia Inquirer
A bittersweet evocation of a divided childhood, with its inevitable disappointments, family secrets, surprising discoveries, loneliness, and love, SWEET SUMMER also recalls, with breathless anticipation, living on the cusp of the social revolution of the 1960s. An achingly honest and beautiful reminder of the universal challenge of growing up and facing one's parents as an adult.
Customer Reviews:
Moore Campbell's Masterpiece.......2002-10-07
Once in a great while - about as often as Halley's Comet - a book comes along which stirs the soul and rattles your heart; a book which can transcend race, gender, age, place and time. This is such a book. Moore-Campbell is a magnificent writer; her verses poetic, her theme universal. Her autobiogrophy tells the story of growing up black and young without a full-time father, and the affects it can have on a child. It's not just her story; she shares this life with her cousin Michael (again, young and black without a full-time father), their Mothers, Grandmothers, Aunts, and assorted 'father figures': Dads, Uncles, Reverands, Neighbors. One child (BeBe) can learn to adapt graciously, while the other (Michael) has a tougher time, as they each learn difficult 'truths' about their patriarchy. Beautifully written, the reader hangs on every word, as this wonderful story unfolds.
WONDERFUL.......2000-06-14
This is a wonderful book and I recommend it to any one out there living or growing up with and without a father.
A Powerful Book.......2000-03-20
Bebe Moore Campbell writes from personal expierance in the novel, Sweet Summer. Campbell tells about growing up as an African American girl living in the South during the 60's. Through this story I learned the prejudice of racism, the struggle of growing up with a divoraced family, and the will to live life. This story touched my heart, because it provided me to a differnt point of view about life.
I thoroughly enjoyed this poignant story!!!!!!!!.......1999-08-17
This was a well written story detailing accounts of her childhood and early adulthood with class and style. BeBe made me think twice about the men in my life who were ordinary superstars. kudos!
Sweet Summer is a book that embraces you with lots of love........1999-06-20
I enjoyed reading "Sweet Summer" so much that I had to share it with all my coworkers that wanted to listen. This book was really easy reading. I follwed the storyline as if it was my own life story. It was especially interesting because the storyline dealt with a familiar place, Northeastern North Carolina, my homestead. Anyone in Northeastern North Carolina that has not read this book needs to stop what they are doing now and purchase this book or go to their local library and read it.
Book Description
Burton traces the evolution of Edgefield County from the antebellum period through Reconstruction and beyond. From amassed information on every household in this large rural community, he tests the many generalizations about southern black and white families of this period and finds that they were strikingly similar. Wealth, rather than race or class, was the main factor that influenced family structure, and the matriarchal family was but a myth.
Customer Reviews:
A handbook on battling two culture.......2007-07-20
I have read many book in short, and few have had the impact this book had on me. It was an inspiring and emotional description of how children of immigrant parents are sometimes from old world beliefs and new world knowledge. Richard elegantly describes his battle and rightfully titles his book as an argument to his father that he is no less of a mexican if he acquires other beliefs of knowledge that contradicts that of old Mexico. It was a breathtaking book that I connected to it in some level. The quotes and images of old Mexico and trying to "prove" that you are no less mexican is a reality that many of mexican american kids face today. For them, this book is a must read.
Not For Everyone, Not As It Seems, Better Than You Think........2006-07-07
Richard Rodriguez, is, to say the least, a dense writer. His prose overflows with allusions to the demonic Romantic founder William Blake, work ethic orientated Victorian philosopher Thomas Carlyle, with small dash of natural theologian St. Thomas Aquinas, among others. And these are only the obvious references to me. Add that to classical literature, Roman Catholic philosophy, pre and post lapsearian filters on the role of Mexican Americans in the United States, and you have a philosophical self examination that rivals Dante Alighieri. "Days of Obligation" is a purposely dense, complex, at times conciliatory and confusing allegory of examination of self via international relations. Rodriguez attempts to unravel the relationship between Mexico and California as he unravels his own relationship with the native land of his parents.
He opens his collection with his travels with a BBC crew to find his roots. He feels alienated in a place where everyone assumes he would feel most comfortable. This feeling of alienation continues throughout the collection, and extends to his observations of alienation of those around him. Father Huerta is alienated from others because of his yearning to reunite the body and head of Joaquín Murrieta. The disillusion between the tú and usted forms in Mexico. The alienation that he feels from his family. More optimistic about his life's potential than his fathers cynicism, more comfortable than his mother who dreams about better days in Mexico.
What I found most interesting about this collection is that it seemed, whether intentional or not, to follow basic Blakean philosophy. He makes a reference to a "Blakean angel" in "Late Victorians", which to me implies that he had some conscience effort go into that. One of the tenets of William Blakes philosophy is often misunderstood as duality, but its actually the opposite. In a simplified sense, Blake believed that people are neither good or bad, but both good and bad at the same time. And I think that is how Rodriguez sees himself in this collection. He is neither American nor is Mexican, he is both, living in both worlds, unable to fully commit to one or the either.
Another interesting thing that I noticed was an emphasis on work. Thomas Carlyle wrote that work was therapeutic, purification process, that made people more focused. Rodriguez seems to play on that idea in a satirical tone in `Late Victorians' when he writes that "Body building is a parody of labor, a useless accumulation of the laborer's bulk and strength" Rodriguez seems to believe that there should a reason for work, but this is such an obscure allusion that I'm not sure what to do with it. The book seems to continue with this theme also, but there is nothing specifically that I can point out that seems to obviously fit with that model.
I brought up Thomas Aquinas because Rodriguez is a Catholic apologist. As well as a gay man. I thought that tied up into the Blakean philosophy quiet well. Two forces that are generally seen as opposing forces coexisting in one being at the same time in the same place. He is constantly defending the Church, something that I'm sure many people would find perplexing giving the Church's position on homosexuality.
I greatly enjoyed the book. It was unlike any other non fiction that I have read. It doesn't concern itself with the typical "I feel--" statements that generally profusely overflow in contemporary non fiction. His style is reminiscent of Alexander Pope in a way--dense and literal at the same time; pretentious and personal. There is no doubt that his postulations will cause some people to walk away puzzled. He has no yearning to return to Mexico, as some people may assume, but is more than willing to admit that he does not understand the country as much as he would like. He's more than willing to, and does, to write above the average readers head. This alone is what most likely turn readers off. Unless one has a background in ethnic studies, theology, or English literature, the metaphors, references and allusions will go over the everyday readers head. But research into whatever questions the reader has will ultimately make reading the collection a richer experience.
Over all, I enjoyed the book, and when my next pay period comes in, I know that I will make a few purchases of his other works to get a greater understanding of his writing. And that is one of the greatest compliment I think that any writer can receive.
English is not a toy........2004-09-03
"European vocabularies do not have a silence rich enough to describe the force within Indian contemplation. Only Shakespeare understood that Indians have eyes." (p. 23) And how would Mr. Rodriquez know anything about the force of Indian contemplation? He doesn't allow Americans, among whom he numbers himself, to know much of anything. And what's this about Shakespeare? Didn't he just say something about European vocabularies?
Informed by his immersion in Elizabethan English, Rodriguez fashions poetry out of absurdity, misanthropy and breathtaking contradiction. He fools high school kids (and it seems a lot have been assigned this book), but the educated, well read adult will be skeptical. How can he complain that he was taught that the Indians were gone, then drag multicultural education through the mud? I'm ANGRY that U.S. history was fed to me divorced from North America. I thought Montezuma was a legend! I defend all efforts at inclusion even when some ridiculous stuff comes along with it. Keep those ideas coming!
And why is it that the people who have benefited most from affirmative action spit in its face? It's especially odd coming from a man whose parents moved to the U.S. for the express purpose of bettering their children.
Rodriguez is entertaining on the topic of alienation, but he's the perfect example of why I've yearned for a minority gripe: It gives the human soul a hook on which to hang the cloak all mortals wear, the weight of an elegiac separation from God and other people. It's not about being Mexican/American, it's about the human condition: Read the poetry of the precortesian Mexican philosopher Nezahualcoyotl, who, as King of Texcoco, was hardly a stranger in a strange land.
Warning to readers: Rodriguez saves all his personal attacks for women. If you find man-hating literature tiresome, which I do, beware misogyny from a man who waxes lyrical about bedpans.
Rodriguez strives valiantly to be Octavio Paz, and is even trotted out as our answer to Mexico's Nobel laureate. (See, we Americans can search our souls in inscrutable, contradictory ways, too!) My advice? READ OCTAVIO PAZ INSTEAD. At least he loved life.
The Juicy Apple.......2004-05-25
Rodriguez sinks his teeth into the juicy apple of race and somehow pulls off enlightening concrete distinctions between the single extant species of Homo sapiens remaining on earth. Essentially (and we allow here for the purposes of discussion some generalities) Rodriguez asserts that Americans/Northern Europeans are divorced psychologically from their historically inseparable neighbors, the Mexicans/Indians, because the Americans/Northern Europeans represent masculine, aggressive, individualistic, Protestant, optimistic, or "comic" values. The passive, Catholic, communal, familial, feminine value systems of the Mexicans/Indians he terms "tragic." (The tragic race, incidentally, is much happier and less medicated, etc., it's so substantially less destructive and selfish.) I grew up in Southern California, lived in Mexico for a few years, and three years ago married a Mexican woman, so I epitomize the fabulous collision of opposite worlds that this book describes (and really helped me to understand). Gorgeously composed, arrogantly honest, and a whole lot more. Intellectually one of the ten most important books of the last two decades. When I admire a book I immediately read it again. I read this one three times.
A controversial voice that deserves to be heard.......2002-08-01
In this and his other collection of personal essays, "Hunger of Memory," Richard Rodriguez describes how becoming an American has been an experience much like Alice's trip through the looking glass. It has distanced him from his Mexican-born parents and separated him almost entirely from his Mexican roots. The central idea running through many of these thoughtful, earnest essays is a heightened awareness of the differences between our public and private lives. They also focus on the impact of education on himself and his siblings as children of Spanish-speaking immigrants.
After reading his books, nothing about becoming American seems as simple as it's often represented in popular fiction and movies. You see, for example, how learning English and the way Americans use it immediately create cultural conflicts. Rodriguez' parents had valued education as a way to get ahead in America. Ironically, the greater success he experienced in school, the further he became removed from the world of his parents.
Still a boy, he lost the ability to converse in Spanish. Becoming a public figure in the English-speaking world, he seemed to betray his ethnic background, which valued privacy and separateness from the English-speaking (gringo) world. Ironically, for all his achievements as an "American," Rodriguez learns that because of his background, he remains in many ways an outsider. Lacking a middle class upbringing, he has passed through the educational system as a "scholarship boy." This term, borrowed from Richard Hoggart's book "The Uses of Literacy," describes the son of working class parents who is granted the privilege of a middle class education, but while rising above his humble origins, never fully transcends them.
The political positions Rodreguez takes as an adult flow as a logical extension from the experiences that shaped him -- especially the benefits of the education he received in a private school. Later there were the benefits that came to him as a "minority student" -- advantages he considered unwarranted. Concerned by poverty in America and the underfunding of schools that would help end poverty, he takes positions that have been unpopular among many educators. In these essays, he challenges the assumptions underlying both affirmative action and bilingual education.
Rodriguez writes with great clarity, and his sentences seem crafted with considerable care. He wants very much to say precisely what he means. And this cannot have been always easy, as many of his ideas grapple with both irony and paradox. Often you read paragraphs that seem to have been thought through deeply, then carefully written and rewritten. The care that he takes in writing these essays reflects a wish to be read carefully. Those who have found reason to be offended, angered, or "bored" by his ideas are evidence that he touches on a great many sensitive issues.
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My Father Spoke Finglish at Work: Finnish Americans in Northeast Ohio (Voices of Diversity)
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