Cloud Cuckoo Land

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr is a book about the importance of writing: writing stories, information, feelings, instructions, anything that strengthens rather than divides the bonds of humanity, especially during these divisive and conflicted times. Spanning several continents and time periods, the frenetic plot is nicely tied together in the end. Somewhere in this sprawling novel lurks a cautionary tale about AI and the havoc humans are wreaking on our planet. I'll be pondering the lessons embedded in Cuckoo Land once the covid-induced dumpster fire in my head subsides. This may be my new all-time-favorite book (beating out John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany), and I may have to check out some of the author's other works, such as All the Light We Cannot See.

Good Morning, Monster

 

I gobbled this one up! So relatable, even though it’s been years since I was in therapy. I’ve been struggling a bit lately and could probably use a psycho-tune-up. Fighting the negative tapes set in my head is a full time job and unfortunately I have yet to retire from my miserable real job.

Also, my therapist was in her 70s in the 90s—so do the math—and the thought of trying to find a new one makes me depressed. 

Good Morning, Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories of Emotional Recovery by Catherine Gildiner might just get me through my savage case of S.A.D. this winter. Reading Gildiner’s accounts of her interactions with these five very diverse cases, I recognized many familiar themes from my own therapy experience.

"What Laura, Peter, Danny, Alana, and Madeline can teach us is that we can all be heroes. Their struggles exemplify Thomas Hardy’s words in his poem “In Tenebris II”: “If way to the Better there be, it exacts a full look at the Worst.” They remind us that it is possible, although not always easy, to overcome our fears, to break out of our self-imposed boundaries where we mistake confinement for security. Finally, these heroes inspire us by showing that all self-examination is brave."

 Head shrinking requires a courage that only the strongest among us even attempt.

The Last White Man

 

Three books in three days?! Who even am I? 

Well, I'm grieving the end of 2022 for some reason. Winter has been mild but rough for me emotionally. Anxiety, discontent, work stress, changing routines. . . damn Judy Woodruff' leaving the PBS news broadcast, and soon Jim Broude will no longer host Greater Boston. My weeknights from 6-7:30 pm (bedtime) will be forever changed!

I've learned a lot from Braude, even though he makes me cringe at times. I was intrigued when he interviewed Mohsin Hamid, the author of The Last White Man, so I picked up a copy of the book when I saw it at Target. It's been sitting in my to-be-read pile for months. I'm glad I finally made time for it. 

Here is Maureen Corrigan's description of the book in an npr book review from August 2022. "A deft, if narrow, Twilight Zone-type fantasy about identity, The Last White Man only seriously strains credulity at its very end. No doubt, it says something about our own anxious times that the happy ending here seems too far-fetched." 

This short book has an unusual writing style, bordering on long, run-on sentences. The dystopian theme was inspired by Kafka's Metamorphosis. With references to society's "addictive quest for celebrity" and recognition of "the local paper having shut down long ago," Hamid's future world reflects some troubling aspects of our current world of miscommunication and fake news. His rambling prose brings a sense of urgency to his message.

"In a world that did not care and was getting worse all the time, worse and worse and more and more dangerous, a danger you could see all around you, all you had to do was to look at the crime and the potholes in the streets and the weird people who now came when you called for anything, for a plumber, an electrician, for help with your garden, for help with anything at all."