Confessions

Book Review Numero Dos!

Book: The Confessions of Max Tivoli
Genre: Fiction
My Rating: 4.5 (on a scale of 1-10)



This book was interesting. It was well written - I appreciated the wide vocabulary of the author (Andrew Sean Geer) and the writing style, although at times it seems overly drawn out. It was written in a fairly eloquent way, however because of that, often tended towards wordiness. The story itself was sad and left the reader (well, this reader, haha) with a melancholy feeling. The storyline follows a man named Max Tivoli (who later goes by the name Asgar Van Daler). This man *spoiler alert* is a man who is born as a old man and ages oppositely throughout his life. Make sense? No? Yeah...didn't make sense to me at first either. Literally he is born as an old man...and gets progressively younger throughout the book. When he is 17 he falls in love with a 14 year old girl...although it seems much creepier than that because his interaction with her is one of an old man (even though he is 17, to the world he is 70) and a young girl. More or less the rest of the story follows this young man's desire for the girl (Alice) and how his "age disorder" affects his lust (I would say love...at one point *spoiler alert* he does marry her and they don't stay together). Max Tivoli lives a backwards life in which his family is embarassed of him, his father leaves him, he is obsessed with a teenage girl, his wife leaves him, and in the end he ends his own life - rather than degenerate into an infant for the final years of his life. What are Max Tivoli's confessions? The confessions of his life, what it really was, and who he really was. Virtually no one, save his only friend Hughie and his mother, ever knew you Max really was, or believe who he was. This book is bitter (and not sweet at all!). It was an interesting read, but I have to admit that I kept hoping Max would be able to tell the truth to the only person he loved and they would live happily ever after...too much Disney in my life I guess, ;)

I'd recommend it only if you unlimited reading time on your hands..otherwise, look for something a little more worth your time and with a better message to it's reading.

also...

as an aside to the post I just posted....I've started getting tons of books from the library - from whatever Amazon recommends for me. However, I'm also open to any of your suggestions (you people, I value your opinions much higher than the computer generated list Amazon provides for me)! So...suggest away :)

Book Review Numero Uno

I Dared to Call Him Father:The Miraculous Story of a Muslim Woman's Encounter with God

by Bilquis Sheikh and Richard H. Schneider

This book was exactly what the second half of the title claims - a miraculous story of a Muslim woman's encounter with God. I have to admit...I never finished the book! I read at least 5/6ths of it...but I got a little bored. Parts of this book were certainly inspiring, Bilquis is a woman of incredible faith...However, the action occurring in the book seemed very repetitive (something like this....I started to feel oppressed/I stopped feeling the presence of the Spirit....then I realized that I needed the presence of the Spirit back, so I prayed and stopped sinning...and there He was!)...Which, is all great and encouraging...but it's similar to my everyday life (except that hers took place in a country full of spiritual oppression).

The thing that I did really appreciate about this book was how intensly intune Bilquis was with the Holy Spirit. She was able to pinpoint feelings of the moment she walked away from the Spirit. I, on the other hand, tend do drift away and not really notice it until it becomes painful. haha.

Anyway, I'd recommend the book for easy reading - and perhaps you have a better attention span than I and you'll make it through the entirety of the novel. Despite my lack of focus during my reading of this book, I walk away from it with a deeper respect for those who live in truly religiously oppressive countries as well as a desire to have the deep intuition of the spirit that Bilquis had in the book. Because really - walking the Spirit is soooo much better than walking away. Right??? the answer is yes... :)

Facedown

"Facedown worship always begins as a posture of the heart. It's when we are so desperate for the increase of Christ that we find ourselves decreasing to the ground in an act of reverent submission - becoming so captivated by the Almighty that to bend low in true and total surrender seems the only appropriate response."

Excerpted from "Facedown" by Matt Redman. Pg 14.

I don't have any profound thoughts about this, but I read it and it struck a chord with my heart....how great to be in such awe of the Lord. How easy it is to take God for granted and stop being captivated by His majesty. Isn't He AMAZING?

$$$$$$

I'm in the process of figuring out what I want to do in the future...and just so you know - Grad School is reallly realllllly expensive! Boo :( I'm still looking into it anyway...I've certainly discovered that I can't work at Washington Mutual forever. But I have committed to a year here, and that is what it will be....hopefully a more interesting post will be coming soon.

Spanish and Sunshine

A couple days ago at work I got my first opportunity to talk to a customer in Spanish....He came up trying to get a money order, but was very confused when I tried to ask him some simple questions about his transaction. It was pretty apparent that he was not a native English speaker, but I was trying to be culturally sensitive and not assume he was latino (something I've become very aware of since getting back to the states). However, when he finally understood that I was asking for 2 pieces of ID, he pulled out a drivers license and a Permanent Resident Card (GREEN CARD). He was from Mexico. So then I just asked him (in Spanish of course..) if he spoke Spanish. At first I think he was so shocked he didn't know what to say....I'm sure his thoughts were something along the lines of "crazy white girl, how does she know my language?...or, is she messing with me?" Needless to say, when he recovered from the shock he was quite pleased and I was easily able to explain the transaction to him in Spanish. After a few moments of silence while I processed, he finally asked me the question I was anticipating...."....Where did you learn Spanish?!" After I told him that I spent some time in South American, naturally he inquired as to what part of South America. We went on to talk about Venezuela - and you'll never believe it.....His wife is from Venezuela! and their daughter was born there.....how random??! Then we talked about Merida, he had visited there AND his wife's sister lives there.....just goes to show what an incredibly small world we live in!! We ended up talking for a significant while even after I had processed his transaction, we talked mostly about Venezuela and especially about how different the Venezuelan accent is from the Mexican one (of course, in his opinion the Mexican one was better....I chose not to debate it, seeing as how I've never been to Mexico). Anyway, it was fun to talk to him, especially because no one around could really understand what we were saying, except Allyson who understands some Spanish. And of course, it warmed my heart to speak and think of my beloved Venezuela :) I think of it often....and certainly now that winter is upon us here in the PNW! It chills me to the bone the moment I'm out of bed in the morning, and I had to scrape ice off of my windshield for the first time in a loooooooong time. Merida weather sounds more than perfect to me right now.....mmmmm sunshine.

"The nice thing about egotists is that they don't talk about other people."
- Lucille S. Harper

Think about that for a minute...