Twin Troubles

I know this much is true: this book is too long. Ha ha. Seriously though, a good book. I just thought it needed some editing.

This is the story of identical twin brothers, one of whom grew to become a paranoid schizaphrenic convinced that he was destined to save the world, and the other who became a self sufficient but very angry housepainter with a lot of issues. Thomas, the schizo, was always a soft, gentle, and kind boy who was in need of constant protection. Dominick, the angry housepainter, played the role as his guardian throughout their lives. Dominick's position as bodyguard and mother to his twin brother is a cross he hopes to eventually shrug off by the time they start college, but this is the time when Thomas' schizophrenia begins to emerge and he needs him
more than ever.

Dominick's biggest fear is becoming his brother- not just crazy but also tender, vulnerable, and the butt of jokes. He wants to protect him but at the same time he wants to get as far away from him as possible.

Wally Lamb has a pitch perfect grasp on human behavior and emotion, making for a very believable and compassionate story. As you follow Dominick on his emotional journey, you begin to look at your own life and see parallels. Or at least I did.

I remember when my sister and I were growing up, I noticed how she was soft and vulnerable and emotional, and I think at some point I decided I didn't want to be that way. Maybe around the time I was 10 and she was 12. She was so sensitive, always needing to be comforted and reassured, so I made it a point never to complain or be upset. I became somewhat detached from my emotions, to the point where if something traumatic or wonderful happened, I wasn't sure what to feel. When my parents announced their divorce when I was eighteen, I was nothing but a blank. It took a few years to convince myself it was okay to feel whatever needed to be felt.

And maybe it took moving away from home and living apart from my sister to embrace my emotional, sensitive side. I understand the importance of distancing yourself from your family in order to become them, in a way.

This is partly a mystery novel. Dominick is on a quest for answers and he finds them in the most unlikely places. It is inspiring and thought provoking and maddening, and in some places, too long.

2084: 100 Years Since 1984

Who doesn't love a good apocalypse story? I read Stephen King's The Stand when I was fifteen and loved the descriptions of a world in chaos, and what people do when everything they know and depend on is crashing down. Reeling with teen angst, I had elaborate fantasies of being the last person left on earth, roaming through stores and smashing bottles off the shelves, zooming down empty streets on a motorcycle and no one to telling me what to do.

Some see the end of society as a good thing, like David Byrne in his song (Nothing But) Flowers: "Once there were parking lots/Now it's a peaceful oasis...This was a Pizza Hut/ Now it's all covered with daisies...We used to microwave/ Now we just eat nuts and berries"
Or the guy in Twelve Monkeys who decided that humans are jerks and it's best to do away with them and leave the animals to take over.

It seems that the most popular cause of human extinction is the pandemic, in most cases manufactured by one of our own. Margaret Atwood's novel Oryx and Crake is no different. It is a satire on our culture set in the unspecified future, though I would guess fifty or so years from now. There is a distinct divide between cities and the "compounds" which are like the gated communities of the future- walled off, guarded, and sterile replicas of life in the 1950's. There, scientists are working on new and interesting inventions, like pigs genetically modified to produce numerous kidneys for humans and new skins for plastic surgery procedures. Crake, a friend of the main character is one of these scientists, fabricating new animals and plants in a godlike fashion. Jimmy, the main character, is constantly asking, "Yes, but is it real?" To which Crake replies, "What is real? It's here in front of you, isn't it? How it came to be is not important."

This is a question I often grapple with. I tend to be suspicious to the point of paranoid when it comes to things that have been tampered with by people, always preferring the most "natural" version. I admit, this in itself is a dogma, since things always must change and some changes are for the better. What really worries me is rearranging the make up of something on the molecular level. I'll eat a seedless watermelon, even though it's seedlessness is a result of human tampering. But I don't like the thought of eating a tomato that has been genetically enhanced with vitamins or pesticides. It freaks me out that vegetable seeds are now patented, and are designed to be paired with a patented pesticide.

I don't trust humans to consider consequences and act with the whole of society and the natural world in mind. It seems like people will often invent some new technology out of pure curiosity (what will happen if we try to grow a human ear on the back of a mouse?), and then have to come up with some use for it to justify its existence. Any time you mess with the natural world you're going to have an imbalance.

Take forests for example. Forests are really cool the way they have a natural cycle- old trees die, fall over, act as a nutrient bed for new trees to grow, canopy and ground layer creating moist, dark floor for ferns, fungus, slugs and other things to live, also creating protection against erosion. Every so often lightning strikes a tree, resulting in forest fire, clearing out some of the clutter and making way for new life. Nice little system. Then you got people coming in and clear cutting the whole area- no trees, no ecosystem, lots of erosion and mudslides, forest animals die, river animals die. Then people say, oh well if we plant more trees it's fine. So they plant a whole forestful of the same tree at the same time, and then you have a tree farm with no natural cycle. Sighhh. Don't even get me started on cloning.

Margaret Atwood has the same message: "Ya'll are crazy, just quit it with the frankenstein crap or we'll all lose what makes us human and maybe even lose the human race." There must be a lot of people with the same fear because this is a common theme in many books and movies these days: our own technology getting out of control and turning on us. This book was gratifying to read and also terrifying. At some points I wondered if maybe her version of the future wasn't a tad outlandish, then I remembered what people are coming up with in the present and realized she's actually being pretty realistic. Highly recommended read.

Book Reviews

I love to read. I’ve always loved to read, but since graduating college 3 or 4 years ago, reading has been something like an addiction. I’ve never been in a book club and most of the friends I have like to read but don’t have much time for it, so when I finish an amazing book I really want to tell someone about it but the conversations don’t go very far. Like the other day I was telling my friend Amy about this awesome book I just read called Lives of the Monster Dogs by Kirsten Bakis.

“Amy, I just read this amazing book I have to lend you. It’s about a mad scientist from Germany in the 1800’s who created this race of dog people with mechanical hands and voice boxes and human intelligence for military purposes, and they’re living as slaves for people in an isolated village in Canada until the dogs revolt and kill all the humans and move to New York.”

Amy laughed and looked at me. “So, they look like dogs but they have hands?”

“Yeah, and they walk upright and wear old style clothes like bustles and spats and carry canes.”

“That’s funny.”

“Well, yeah, but it’s actually a very sad and touching book. It’s also very philosophical- the dogs are trying to make meaning for themselves in a world where they don’t belong…” I tried to convey the very human anguish that the dogs experienced but was realizing how ridiculous the book sounded as I was describing it.

“Huh. Sounds good,” she said.

“Yeah, I’ll let you borrow it.”

“Well, I’m still working on the last book you lent me. About the girl and the spelling bees.”

Bee Season. Another incredible book. Amy is a first grade teacher and doesn’t have much time to read. I forgot about that.

So. To anyone who might read this, please check out Lives of the Monster Dogs, as well as Bee Season by Myra Goldberg which changed my life. Also She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb which kept me in a reading cocoon on the couch for three days. Right now I’m immersed in Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood and This Much I Know Is True, another one by Wally Lamb.

ferp

meerp!