life off balance

don’t worry, i won’t make you sit through a lot of recaps, product placements, and commercials before getting to the point like a typical reality tv results show.

in the end, i only got two contestants submitting final results, so i’m going to give them both a prize: my old friend graham came in first with 6 books. sara (aka Ra) came in second with 4.5 books. congrats to them both! (hmm, does anyone think it’s a coincidence that neither of them own televisions?)

first, graham’s list. in all honesty, i knew he was a shoe-in to win before we even started, when he emailed me asking what i’d do if more than one person read all ten books on the list. i really hadn’t thought that anyone other than myself would read more than 3 or 4! in the end, among the couple of dozen books graham read this summer were 6 off the life off balance reading list: grapes of wrath, american gods, mother night, the road, little house on the prairie, and fight club (as a substitute for on the road, which he had already read).

of these, graham found grapes of wrath to be the most memorable. he says the ending is one of his favorite endings ever, and it inspired the ending to the ballet he is currently working on. i hope i get a chance to get down to austin to see the ballet when it debuts. (the last time trav and i went down to austin we saw graham’s opera genghis khan, which was just incredible. i know i’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating: graham is an amazing composer and musician and if you ever get the chance to hear/see any of his work, you will absolutely not be sorry.) graham enjoyed the other books as well, though he was disappointed that american gods lacked the strong female characters that figured so prominently in gaiman’s earlier sandman series.

for winning first place, graham will receive a $35 gift certificate to powells.com.

sara also did a great job on the list. as of today, sara has completed 4 books: on the road, wickett’s remedy, the road, and little house on the prairie. she is currently reading lady oracle.

little house on the prairie appears to be the surprise hit of the summer, receiving unanimous praise from sara, graham, and me. sara says she also “really really enjoyed” wickett’s remedy. i figured she would, as she is an infectious disease biomedical researcher. she also enjoyed on the road, but found it “almost predictable” after a while. unlike graham and me, sara was not a fan of the road.

for being the runner up, sara will receive a $15 gift certificate to powells.com.

as for me, i ended up finishing 5 books: lady oracle, the road, midnight’s children, little house on the prairie, and american gods. i’m about halfway through with on the road.

of these, little house on the prairie and the road were my favorites. since i finished the road, i’ve been thinking a little bit about the differences and similarities between them. they are both about a family trying to build a life from what they can find in the wilderness, depending solely on their own ingenuity and love for one another. yet the ingalls lived a life of luxury compared to the man and his son in the road, primarily because of the wealth of natural resources available to the ingalls: fertile soil and sunshine for growing food, animals to hunt and skin, etc. one hundred years ago on the american prairie there was more than enough resources for everyone, and it must have appeared that the bounty would last forever. whereas in the post-apocalyptic america of the road there is not nearly enough for everyone, and there never would be. it raises the question, how far along this continuum from abundant natural wealth to wholesale environmental destruction are we now?

but that has nothing to do with why i loved the road. (yes, i’ll admit that i loved it despite the irritatingly pretentious language.) the best that i can say is that i loved it because it is the most beautiful and most true depiction of love that i can imagine, told through a very simple story.

this was the perfect time for me to read this book, as it deals with a lot of things i’ve been thinking about this summer — things i’m seeing in new ways than i ever have before. even one year ago, i wouldn’t have identified so absolutely with this book as i did reading it this summer. i guess that’s why i’m having such a hard time writing about it. but as an example, i will say that one of my favorite parts is when the man gives food and clothing to an old man they find wandering the road — even though he knows that the old man will die anyway, and even though he knows that giving the stuff away may well mean death for him and his son. he didn’t do it out of compassion for the old man. he did it to make his son happy. i would have done the same thing, for the same reason. but that is something i never understood until i read the passage.

i was going to say a few things about american gods and on the road, but i’ve spent too long on this email for one day. if anyone else has read any of the life off balance reading list books (the full list is here), please leave your thoughts in the comments. i’m going to keep working on it myself, so we can revisit the list in the future, as well. thanks to everyone who participated!