The problem with a book everyone loves…

A few years back, the book everyone was talking about was THE ALCHEMIST by Paulo Coelho. I saw the book everywhere; online, in bookstores, in peoples’ hands, and everyone was saying what a fantastic book it was. It was recommended to me by several people, and I was both loaned a copy (that I – gasp – still have) and gifted a copy, but for whatever reason I never got around to reading it. I always believed that someday I would, but meanwhile my reading life went on, and very busily so, with many other books.

So when one of the gals in my book club chose it for this month’s read I was actually pretty jazzed. I would no longer be able to put off reading it because I didn’t want to be a flunkatoid – that’s the title we give ourselves in my club when we fail to read the book that’s been chosen. And I had two copies to read already! I only had to find one of them.

Perhaps the reason I’d previously put off reading it was that I had heard it was allegorical, and a bit mystical, and about a shepherd boy (who, by the way, is not really a boy at all actually, but a man.) I had heard that it was enlightening, inspiring and philosophical. I like all those things, but I usually read fiction for pleasure and nonfiction for research, and allegory for nothing. But I was ready at last to read the book everybody had been talking about and that has sold millions upon millions of copies.

Here’s the thing with a book that all the world loves; your expectations of it are extremely high. Stunningly high, at least for me. I was ready to be wowed, undone, amazed. And while I enjoyed it, I finished the book a bit underwhelmed and kind of sad. I wish now I had heard nothing about it. And I also think I should’ve kept looking for the new copy that I have somewhere here in this house and hadn’t settled for the friend’s copy which had been underlined already. I would see those underlines coming up and I would feel like I was stumbling upon someone else’s discovery. I wanted to have my own discoveries, and when you read a borrowed book with underlines already inside, you don’t get them. And I do believe this is the kind of book where you need to have them.

I came across this blog post on the author’s website (penned by a Huffington Post writer) as I was pondering why I didn’t adore the book, and I actually love what this person said about why THE ALCHEMIST resonated with so many millions of people. It offered people a blueprint for how to live a meaningful life. This writer came up with the book’s ten most powerful passages and what they teach us, and of those ten, there are six that I see now did in fact resonate with me:

Fear is a bigger obstacle than the obstacle itself
What is “true” will always endure
Embrace the present.
Make the decision
Keep getting back up
Focus on your own journey

Yes, yes, yes, I am a fan of all six of these pearls of wisdom. But in the reading I’ve discovered I don’t want to dive for pearls of wisdom by way of allegory. I did when I was a kid, but I don’t now.

I am fully of the persuasion that there are life lessons to be learned, but not all life lessons are learned the same way. My preferred learning style (I know this now) is to hear a lecture or read an essay rather than read a work of allegorical fiction. And I absolutely need to make my own highlights.

In my search to figure out why I didn’t adore the book everybody adored (I LIKED it friends. I did), I came across the article and was astounded that this book was written in only two weeks. You might also want to know that it was not a success until it was translated into English, and that it spent 300 weeks on the NY Times bestseller list. Click to read the rest of the article.

What this book’s phenomenal success tells me more than anything is that people are hungry to know their purpose in life. I find that wonderfully refreshing because it quietly speaks that at our core, we know we are more than former primordial ooze. We were made in the image of God, we absolutely do have a purpose, and our souls are restless until we discover it. I am glad this book encouraged so many to discover for themselves what it is.

And now, of course, I would love to hear your thoughts!

Thank you, Rosamunde Pilcher

My grandmother, who loved THE SHELL SEEKERS.

When I learned this morning of novelist Rosamunde Pilcher’s death, my first thought flew to my grandmother, my dad’s mom, who I spent much time with in my growing-up years. She and my Papa lived just a short drive away from my San Diego home, and my sisters and I spent our summer days at their house when we were out of school. My paternal grandmother, who was known as Grammary in the family, often took us to her local library on those long summer days, letting us poke about the shelves and check out books on her card, and she always came home with books for herself. She was yet another one of the people in my childhood years who exampled to me the love and joy of reading.

It wasn’t until my adult years, back when I was in my early thirties, when I hungered to be a novelist but didn’t think I could accomplish it, didn’t even know if it was in the realm of possibility, that she told me her new favorite novel was The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher. She loved it, told me it was writing to aspire to, and gave me her copy which I still have. I read it and fell in love myself with this book that in mass market form is as thick as an Oxford dictionary. And in its own way The Shell Seekers did indeed nourish my desire to try my hand at novel-writing – even though it was another decade before I attempted it – every time I saw its ample spine on the bookshelf.

But I read it thirty years ago and all I could remember about the book besides it being Grammary’s favorite was that I loved it too. So when news of Pilcher’s passing reached me, I felt a pang of sadness – not just because a good writer had left us – but because the news reminded me of my Grammary, whose wit and jokes and cooking and hugs and love I miss.

She lived into her nineties and saw me become what I wanted to be. I’m glad for that.

And I’m glad books were important to her and our trips to her library were routine and that I have her The Shell Seekers, which is, according to Goodreads, a story “of connection: of one family, and of the passions and heartbreak that have held them together for three generations…it’s a magical novel, the kind of reading experience that comes along only once in a long while.”

Here is the premise, in case you want to know, which I had to re-read to adequately remember: “At the end of a long and useful life, Penelope Keeling’s prized possession is The Shell Seekers, painted by her father, and symbolizing her unconventional life, from bohemian childhood to wartime romance. When her grown children learn their grandfather’s work is now worth a fortune, each has an idea as to what Penelope should do. But as she recalls the passions, tragedies, and secrets of her life, she knows there is only one answer…and it lies in her heart.”

So of course now I am going to have to take it back up and re-read! I peeked to the end to see how many pages (nearly 600!) and I love again how it ends: “She paused, to turn upon him a smile the brilliance of which he had never seen before. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s a particularly lovely day.’ She went through the door. Into her kingdom, her world.”

Thanks, Ms. Pilcher.

And thank you, Grammary, for coaxing me to find my own little kingdom, in my own world. I am grateful.

And I miss you…

Ordinary Grace = extraordinary book

It’s been way too long since I’ve posted on the blog and I feel bad about that. The holidays, as they often do, got in the way of normal routines because I let them, and then in January, I began in earnest to write a new book – about which I will keep you in the loop in future posts – and I let that heady experience also keep me from feeding this blog on Fridays. I apologize.

But I’m back in the saddle today with a book recommendation. Last month (I have to say that because January is already GONE!) that I absolutely loved. Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger is a five-star book all the way around. The title was a new one for me and was the choice of one of the readers in the book club I am in. I was surprised – still am – I hadn’t heard of this novel because it is masterfully written and it has been out for several years.

The story is one of those where the narrator in midlife is looking back on his childhood and sharing about an experience that forever shaped him. It’s also set in Minnesota, which is where I lived for 13 years, and pretty much in the same area, so I could see, taste, touch, and feel nearly every scene. Frankie is the 13-year-old son of a small town Methodist minister. He has a younger brother, who, incidentally, was my favorite character because of his tender heart, funny lines, and aching vulnerability. Frank tells the story of a particular summer where death had hold on their little town, in many different ways – from the tragedy of a little boy playing too close to train tracks to suicide to a murder. It was a summer like no other for lots of reasons but certainly because life itself was being dealt a blow. And when life is dealt blow we who know that life is precious can’t fail to wonder what impact it will have on us. I hesitate to share more about the storyline because I do not want to spoil it for you. Suffice it to say I was compelled to keep reading, and I didn’t want it to end.

But I will leave you with a quote from the book that resonated with me and I still find it echoing in my mind weeks after having read the book. The scene takes place at a funeral and Frankie‘s father is giving the message. The community is reeling from so much loss of life and he offers this bit of comfort to all those who mourn:

“When we feel abandoned, alone, and lost, what’s left to us? What do I have, what do you have, what do any of us have left except the overpowering temptation to rail against God and to blame him for the dark night into which he’s led us, to blame him for our misery, to blame him and cry out against him for not caring? What’s left to us when that which we love most has been taken? I will tell you what’s left, three profound blessings. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul tells us exactly what they are: faith, hope, and love. These gifts, which are the foundation of eternity, God has given to us and he’s given us complete control over them. Even in the darkest night it’s still within our power to hold onto faith. We can still embrace hope. And although we may ourselves feel unloved we can still stand steadfast in our love for others and for God. All this is in our control. God gave us these gifts and he does not take them back. It is we who choose to discard them.”

I’ve long known and loved the verse in the letter to the Corinthians Krueger references here, but I have never thought of those three graces – faith, hope, and love – that way; that they are ours to hold onto and ours to let go of, but that they can’t be stolen from us. Only abandoned by us. The thought still moves me. There were other portions of the book that were like this, deeply part of the story, but deeply relevant to our real lives outside the novels we read to escape them for a bit.

So there you have it. Good words to begin 2019 with. Highly recommend. Happy reading, folks…

Archive: February 15, 2019

The problem with a book everyone loves…

Thank you, Rosamunde Pilcher

Ordinary Grace = extraordinary book