Jeannie Out of the Bottle (Barbara Eden with Wendy Leigh)

My oldest sister is a Jeannie fanatic. When we were kids, she sat entranced at the TV when I Dream of Jeannie was on, and now she cherishes her I Dream of Jeannie DVD set almost as much as her jewelry collection.  So when she saw Barbara Eden’s autobiography, she couldn’t resist. She bought it, devoured it, effused over it, brought it to my home and left it there, insisting that I read it.  Maybe because I was just born when I Dream of Jeannie’s original run ended, I was less fond of the show.  But I accepted the book, and last week when my reading rotation demanded a non-fiction, I smiled when I opened the front cover and saw that my sister had inscribed her own name, followed by ...who always dreamed of being Jeannie.  August 2011.

I wasn’t as smitten by the book as my sister was.  Even though Eden secured the services of a writer (Wendy Leigh), the text is sophomoric and littered with redundancies (which my Facebook subscribers know I love to hate).  Either Leigh is a bargain basement writer, or she deliberately kept the text mainly Eden’s work, and just organized it a bit and fixed the worst grammatical faux pas.

I also think that Eden embellishes the anecdotes for entertainment value.  I’m certain the story of the purring lion is less than gospel truth, since lions are physiologically incapable of purring.*  Unfortunately, that yarn occurs early in the book, so I was a smidgen skeptical for the duration.

Barbara Eden, Larry Hagman, and lion on set

With those caveats, I admit that Jeannie Out of the Bottle is fun to read.  I love rise-to-fame stories, how celebrities work and chance their way to success.  Barbara Eden’s saga is distinctly heavy on work and short on chance.  She details her vocal, dance, and acting training, her hopeless auditions, her humiliating failures, and her surprising successes.  From her teens and throughout her career, she accepted (almost) any job, and with inspiring enthusiasm.  She regales us with gossip - some flattering, some frightful - but her tact is admirable.  Even her tittle-tattle is ladylike.

If Eden’s telling of her life story is indeed accurate, then her morals were quite traditional, especially among the Hollywood crowd.  She was faithful in each of her marriages and routinely declined advances from even the most alluring male stars.  She didn’t like to curse, wouldn’t pose nude, and maintained a loving relationship with her mother.  She never developed a starlet attitude, and she suffered gracefully through her personal tragedies - the stillbirth of a baby she desperately wanted, an abusive second marriage, and her only son’s drug addiction and eventual death by overdose - accepting responsibility for her role in each of these events.

Barbara Eden, 2011

 Jeannie Out of the Bottle comes with an index of names and shows, and of course, several glossy pages of gorgeous photographs.  The pictures attest to Barbara Eden’s physical beauty, but you’ll have to read the text to see the beauty of her spirit.

 *Cheetahs are the only big cats that purr.  You really, really should search “purring cheetah” on YouTube.  Really.

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Animal Farm (George Orwell)

Animal Farm is a charming fairy tale describing the dark, adult realities of political revolution and corruption, of the advantaged few gaining the trust of, and then ultimately tyrannizing the less-blessed masses.  George Orwell wrote the story in 1943-44 to criticize Stalinism, but modern readers can (and probably will) apply the themes to current political goings-on or even to some corporate tactics.  

When the Manor Farm animals revolt against their human owner and assume responsibility for all farm operations, they take on anthropomorphic societal roles:  the loyal, unquestioning workhorse; the thoughtless, slogan-bleating sheep; the vain, comfort-craving carriage horse; the elusive, self-serving cat; the apathetic old donkey; the tale-baring raven; the snarling dogs, etc.  And of course the pigs (Who else?) emerge as the leaders and masterminds of the new social system.

Animal Farm illustration by Ralph Steadman

The animals are mostly good-hearted and willing workers, but not especially bright, which makes them vulnerable to manipulation. They forget history, recite songs and slogans rather than exercise thought and reason, and implicitly trust their ruler despite glaring reasons for suspicion.

My Christian high school didn’t teach this book, as many other schools did at the time, and I’m guessing this jab at religion is why:  Early in the rebellion, some particularly doltish beasts believe the lazy raven’s story of a carefree afterlife on Sugarcandy Mountain somewhere above the clouds.  With effort, the more discerning creatures convince the believers that Sugarcandy Mountain does not in fact exist, encouraging them instead to work hard for the present, communal good.  But over time, the corrupt leadership indirectly abets the spread of the Sugarcandy Mountain faith.

George Orwell

 Animal Farm is an extremely approachable summary of political maneuvers such as isolationism, desensitization, revisionism, scapegoating, subterfuge, fraternizing, and intimidation.  It’s a palatable little package for lightweights like me who won’t tackle a textbook on Soviet history.  In my never-to-be-humble opinion, this story should be read to children, then taught to teenagers, and enjoyed again by adults.  Pity I waited this long to read it.

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Steve Jobs (Walter Isaacson)

After reading Steve Jobs, I feel as if I know the man so well that I’m just gonna call him Steve.  I think he’d like that.  And since Steve was all about telling people what they want, I’ll tell you, you want me to call him Steve.

But I’ll call the author Isaacson because, while I admire his work (which also includes biographies of Albert Einstein, Henry Kissinger, and Ben Franklin), I just don’t know him as well.  That’s okay though.  His literary objective is to familiarize us with his subjects, not himself.

Steve, in fact, specifically solicited Isaacson to write this biography.  The choice makes sense.  Isaacson handles the job according to Steve’s basic design philosophies - the product should be simple but elegant, easily understood by the consumer despite its technical nature, with acute attention to detail.

I won’t carry on about Steve.  That’s Isaacson’s job, and he does it thoroughly, from Steve’s conception and adoption, his indulged childhood, his elementary school inquisitiveness and insolence, the high school mischief, college-age social rebellion, religious searching, troubled relationships, and business adventures and misadventures.  

Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in New York City

Isaacson manages to diplomatically present a divisive character, someone about whom lots of people had extremely unflattering things to say.  There’s no denying the negative.  It’s clear that Steve was an obnoxious spitfire.  The ubiquitous first-person accounts of his outbursts, crying fits, and astonishing rudeness will keep you reading a text that might otherwise have all the charm of a technical journal.

However, there’s also no denying Steve’s formidable business success.  Here’s what made him special:  While most of us schlubs tend to be predominantly right brained or left brained, Steve was both.  He loved design.  He loved technology.  And this resulted in products that worked great and looked great.  Steve also loved control, and the book explains how he ultimately produced a simple, friendly user experience by tightly restricting access to the internal hardware and Apple’s software.  By prioritizing quality over profit, and by narrowing Apple’s focus to just a handful of devices at a time, he created superior products that people were - and are - willing to pay for.

Walter Isaacson

 This chubby book (630 pages on paper, or 2,571 pages on my iPhone) is stuffed with goodies: end notes, an extensive index, an annotated list of characters (which is helpful since Isaacson drops hundreds of names), and most importantly, pictures!  The content is approximately 80% business and 20% personal, which seems like a fair representation of his life.  While I wish Steve’s familial relationships had been given more page space, I do love my Apple products, so I got through the business stuff with a fair degree of interest.  But Steve’s tempestuous personality is what carries the story along, and after reading this, I hope-hope-hope that Apple can also carry along without him.

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The Lover (A.B. Yehoshua)

Here’s the story:  In Haifa, Israel, during the Yom Kippur War (1973), a husband and wife, Adam and Asya, have grown emotionally distant from each other.  Adam, who owns a lucrative auto mechanic shop, has lost all sexual interest in his wife, an incisive history teacher.  When a quirky younger man, Gabriel, brings his dying grandmother’s classic blue Morris to Adam’s shop for repairs and then can’t pay the bill, Adam hires him as a research assistant for Asya, hoping (accurately) that the relationship between Gabriel and Asya will become sexual.

Gabriel then disappears after joining the military, and Adam begins a prolonged search for him with the help of a teenage employee, Na’im.  While the search continues, Na’im lives with Gabriel’s grandmother, Veducha, and falls in love with Adam’s maverick daughter, Dafi.

Haifa, Israel

The Lover is wrought with psychological tension.  Yehoshua humanizes the broader Arab-Israeli struggles by highlighting more intimate unsettling coexistences.  For example:

• Adam is not especially educated, but he’s wealthy and extravagant; Asya is a serious academic, but she’s embarrassingly frugal.
• Young, restless, Arab Na’im lives with and cares for old, immobile, Jewish Veducha.
• Secular Gabriel camouflages himself in the Orthodox community.

The mismatches lead to identity disorientation:  Straight-laced Asya has a powerful libido and wild dreams.  Veducha fancies Na’im a substitute grandson.  Na’im starts feeling Jewish.  Even the spunky blue Morris morphs into a black, belabored workhorse.  

Yehoshua

You may also begin to ask yourself, Is Gabriel necessarily “the lover”?  The other relationships in the story - the youthful romance of Na’im and Dafi, an illicit event between Adam and a teenager, and the guarded tenderness between Veducha and Na’im - raise questions on the variations of “love.”

 
My apologies if I missed crucial elements.  Like My Michael (which I reviewed in August 2011), The Lover is a Hebrew book, and I read an English translation.  My understanding, therefore, is necessarily less than complete.  While I’m not really qualified to comment on whether the translator (Philip Simpson) successfully captured the author’s original meaning and tone, I offer a small criticism, and this isn’t about Yehoshua specifically.  All (three) Israeli books that I’ve read have been penetrative and poignant, but not one of them has been even peripherally lighthearted.  They’re decidedly humorless, saturated in gloom.  So, I ask those of you who are more familiar with Israeli literature, is this the cultural standard?  Don’t any Israeli authors have a sense of humor?  Help!  Show me an Israeli book that’s smart and funny!

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Dani’s Story: A Journey from Neglect to Love (Diane & Bernie Lierow and Kay West)

After reading an interview with Kay West, the ghost writer of Dani’s Story, in the City Paper (a Nashville news magazine), I vaguely remembered hearing about the abuse case on the national news, but I couldn’t recall the details.  The interview was compelling enough to send me to Amazon for the book.  

Dani’s Story tells about a little girl in Florida who was profoundly neglected by her biological family and was eventually rescued and adopted by Diane and Bernie Lierow after they chanced upon a photo of her and felt an immediate connection.  Although Danielle would have been a healthy, normal little girl, the abuse she endured for the first part of her life rendered severe consequences:  She couldn’t feed herself.  She couldn’t talk, but only howled and grunted.  She was in diapers full time.  She walked on tip toe, a result of a neurological underdevelopment.  She had no sense of social or physical boundaries, running and climbing anywhere - into ocean waters and swimming pools, onto furniture, and into the kitchen freezer.  The biological mother had never taken Danielle to a doctor, but when she was examined after her rescue, at almost eight years old, she tested no higher than twenty months of age for various developmental functions.

Although Dani was initially “feral” and therefore extremely demanding, she was also surprisingly sweet natured, considering the abysmal conditions in which she’d been kept until Diane and Bernie found her.  Through tremendous sacrifice, patience, and love, the Lierows helped bring Dani to a normally functioning level on many counts.

The Lierow family, 2009

What struck me most about this story is that there is nothing extraordinary about the adoptive family.  Neither parent is too highly educated.  Neither has a glamorous career.  They had both been divorced twice before.  They’re not wealthy or otherwise privileged.  The mother’s first-person narrative isn’t poetic or intellectual.  She sounds like someone you’d run into at the grocery store - someone who looks and sounds completely typical until she tells her very atypical story about the gorgeous little girl beside her.  

When you read Dani’s Story, you’ll be confounded by the ignorance and incompetence of some people, but you’ll also be inspired by the wholehearted service and commitment of others, especially adoptive parents, and even more especially those like Diane and Bernie Lierow who adopt children with profound needs.

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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Ken Kesey)

This is the chain of events that led me to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest:

1. I read a segment of The Right Stuff (Tom Wolfe) for a college writing class and loved it.
2. I read The Right Stuff in its entirety and fell in love with Tom Wolfe.
3. I read The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test because Tom Wolfe wrote it, and I was intrigued by Ken Kesey in the story.
4. I read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest because Ken Kesey wrote it, and I loved it.

In Cuckoo’s Nest, a mentally-ill American Indian, “Chief Broom,” narrates the goings-on of his psychiatric ward in the heyday of electroshock therapy and lobotomies.  Via his exaggerated perspective and his hallucinations (the Combine, the fog, the machinery in the walls), you see the greater forces, flaws, and effects of the system.

When Randall McMurphy, a rabblerouser and consummate gambler, joins the ward as a new patient, he bets the other patients that he can shake the impenetrable composure of their nemesis, Miss Ratched (“the Big Nurse”) within one week, and he in fact spends the rest of his institutionalization doing exactly that.  The previously perfectly running mental ward becomes the key battleground in psychological warfare between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched.  To the other patients, McMurphy functions as a raunchy, roughneck Jesus, coming to them on their own turf, challenging the powers that be, and working for the deliverance of his followers.  In the end, McMurphy succeeds:  He erodes the Big Nurse’s influence, and he effects the release or escape of those who want to leave.  But, like Jesus, McMurphy pays a tragic price for their salvation.

Ken Kesey

Kesey’s prose is artistically colloquial, relying heavily on dialogue for precise characterization - McMurphy’s congenial cockiness, Harding’s effeminate intellectualism, Billy Bibbit’s childlike innocence, etc. Through the narration, Kesey also captures Chief Broom’s quiet pride despite the indignities forced upon him, a symbol of his Indian ancestors.

The conclusion is sad and heroic and horrific and lovely, so much so that I’m reluctant to see the movie for fear that it will distort the sentiments Kesey intended.  I think I’ll wait a year or two.

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The Year We Disappeared: A Father-Daughter Memoir (Cylin Busby and John Busby)

The Year We Disappeared is the memoir of a Falmouth, Massachusetts, police officer, John Busby, and his daughter, Cylin, who alternate the narration as they recall the brazen murder attempt on John in 1979, the subsequent damage to their family, and finally, their hard-earned healing.

For nearly a year after John is shot in the face with a shotgun, the Busby family stays in their house in Falmouth with round-the-clock police protection as the “investigation” bungles along.  The longer they stay, the more guarded they must become, until they’re essentially prisoners in their house.  Meanwhile, the slimeball culprit lives freely, protected by his own connections in the political structure.

During his narrative, John matter-of-factly relates how he knows who shot him, how the investigators suppress the evidence, and how he plans his revenge.  He also plainly describes the unpleasantries of his medical treatment and recovery.  In her comparatively innocent nine year-old voice, Cylin describes the childhood angst associated with constant visible police presence, the resulting dissociation from her friends, the terror of living with ever-looming death threats, and the horror of losing a happy, healthy, handsome father, and having him replaced with an angry, freakish, machine-dependent waif.

John and Cylin before the shooting

In the course of the year, John’s anger surges as he sees that the investigation has been lost to corruption and he witnesses the harm done to his family:  His wife suffers nervous breakdowns.  The children can’t play in their own yard.  Cylin’s brothers perform poorly and behave violently in school.  All of the kids lose friends and withdraw, suppressing their emotions and refusing to talk about their struggles.  So, in order to pursue a normal life, John and his wife decide they all should “disappear.”  They move from Massachusetts to a farm in Tennessee where they know absolutely no one, and where no one - not even law enforcement - knows they’ve gone.

John and Cylin now

The Year We Disappeared is, to say the least, an easy read for adults.  I blew through the 329 pages in a few days and never consulted my dictionary once.  Cylin (the primary author) has written several books for the tween and teen set, and this book, while fine for adults, is also more appropriate for juvenile readers.  She handles the violence and medical descriptions gracefully enough to be emotionally manageable for young readers, but starkly enough to illustrate the horrific nature of the crime.  This book may teach your kids to appreciate the threats placed upon police officers, to understand that evil exists even in institutions that are supposed to suppress it, and to be empathetic to others who have problems they can’t understand.

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