I'm Back!

Whew, back from a way too short vacation in which I practiced my Chinese (and got yelled at by my aunt for speaking it shamelessly badly), went to the beach (Emerald Isle) on a cloudy day, went golfing at a Par 3 for the very first time (and finished the last hole with 4 strokes, wahoo! To me that counters the 10 stroke hole I had...), cried at one of my best friend's weddings... can she Really be moving to Charleston, away from ME? How dare she leave me in Ohio by myself! I have, hmm, about three more friends left in Ohio before they've all moved on to bigger and better places. Overall I had a great time and got to spend some time with my family and friends I haven't seen since college. You can't beat that! Oh, and I played a ton of my brother's Mario Cart, I even unlocked a level, go me! I should put that on my resume.

Also while on vacation I finished (and fell in love with) Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon. I've heard from two people now whose book opinions I respect that they read Beloved and did not like her style of writing and couldn't get into her. But I've also heard that if you want to get into Morrison, you should start with Song of Solomon, which is why I did, and now I want to read everything she's written! I fell in love with her prose and her story. I couldn't start my next book for two days afterwards because I was still living with Pilate, Milkman, Hagar, Guitar, and all the other characters that were so strongly developed in the story I felt as if I knew them. It's interesting, I've read a couple of books recently, all ethnic, that have this element of mysticism and magic in them: Song of Solomon, The Known World, and One Hundred Years of Solitude. This is really starting to interest me as a writer as it adds so much depth to the novel that reality can't provide. I read an interview with Edward P. Jones, author of The Known World, and he discussed this element in his novel, saying that his grandparents would speak of mystical events as if they were reality and so he grew up believing some of the outrageous stories, like the cow who had an endless supply of milk or the whole crow incident. I'm really curious about experimenting with this in my writing, but it seems like such a cultural thing I'm not really sure how to start. I need to re-read some of my Amy Tan books to entice some of the Chinese mysticism out of me, write about what I know (or what little I know) about Chinese mysticism and beliefs. As much as I've studied Chinese literature and history, I still feel stunted and inadequate in my knowledge. I feel more like an American studying it rather than a descendent of the Chinese history. Visiting my family always helps in making me feel more Chinese (by being around the language, the food and the customs) and less Chinese (by not speaking the language well enough, being unable to help cook the food - I'm a sinfully horrible cook, ask my husband - and having forgotten many of the customs in living my very American life in Ohio). The life of a bi-racial is a complicated and confusing life in which you vacillate between two cultures, never quite fitting in either and so you're left feeling like a culture of your own and growing up desperately trying to fit into both cultures. I've tried to write about it, but my stories haven't come out right. I'm still waiting for the right story to find me.

Anyways, I found this list of Banned and Challenged Books very interesting! It's so surprising the grounds some of these books were banned on, for example:

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll. Ace; Bantam; Crown; Delacorte; Dover; NAL; Norton; Penguin; Random; St. Martin. Banned in China (1931) for portraying animals and humans on the same level, "Animals should not use human language."

Oh man, check it out and be scared, be very scared...