Summer Reading List & Reviews

Whittaker Chambers by Sam Tanenhaus

It took me a while to get through this biography because I had to learn a lot about the Soviet Union and communist theory as I went along (it is also 500+ pages long). Whittaker Chambers' journey from the communist underground to defection gave me some much-needed insight into the minds of the multitude of people I have been around through my four years at an American university. Tanenhaus quotes Chambers' explanation of the appeal toward communism in his generation that I think can be easily transferred to my own generation today, "Marxism-Leninism offers an oversimplified explanation of the causes and a program for action. The very vigor of the project particularly appeals to the more or less sheltered middle-class intellectuals, who feel that the whole context of their lives has kept them away from the world of reality....They feel a very natural concern, one might almost say a Christian concern, for underprivileged people. They feel a great intellectual concern, at least, for recurring economic crises, the problem of war, which in our lifetime has assumed an atrocious proportion, and which always weights on them. What shall I do? At that crossroads the evil thing, Communism, lies in waiting" (pg.274). Chambers was a genius man and lived an interesting life, to say the least. His autobiography, Witness, is next on my reading list.


Selected Stories by Andre Dubus

Fiction of this kind is usually the last thing that I would choose, but after reading a few of these stories for a class this spring, I thought the author was well connected to the issues that I face at this particular time in my life. What caught my attention was Dubus' ability to capture a feeling so personally and realistically. He draws much of his inspiration from his own life, being taught by the Christian Brothers. One passage that was particularly expressive to me was, "For ritual allows those who cannot will themselves out of the secular to preform the spiritual, as dancing allows the tongue-tied man a ceremony of love" (A Father's Story pg. 461). After reading on through a few more stories, I started becoming uncomfortable with some of the emotions that he portrayed, feeling at first like they simply hit too close to home, but after a while realizing that the characters' lives were bordering on bizarre and depressing. I had to stop reading at least two of the stories part way through because of the blatant eroticism and twisted relationships. I am not completely turned off to his writing but not sure yet if I will dive into it again any time soon.


The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

I have been piecing together a complete and detailed review of this book to add to the bajillion of them already out there and then decided that it was not worth my energy, a waste of nerve impulses. An intellectual analysis of this book is not possible because it is overshadowed by poor writing exemplified through forced dialogue and adolescent suspense. My favorite criticism is how every seemingly dead-end was resolved by the character having an unexpected epiphany. It was a near complete waste of my time.


The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

I actually only made it through the first section of the first volume of this masterpiece because I had to return in to the library. It is long and intense and I did not want to miss one beat of what Solzhenitsyn is trying to relay. It amazes me how he can even begin to give explanations for the atrocities that occurred in the Soviet Union throughout much of the 20th century and that these explanations make any sense at all when most of what occurred was utterly senseless. I have only just begun digging into the work, but I already feel as though I have a better understanding of the chronology of events that brought the Soviet Union through its toughest times as well as eye-opening insight into human intellect and behavior.


Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

I felt almost the same excitement and emotion as I did reading The Chronicles of Narnia. It is a light-hearted adventure through childhood imagination but you still get a sense for the wisdom that comes with old age and experience. I can't wait to make it through the whole series.


Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

I have heard my share of opinions on Chris McCandless from Alaskans and wanted to judge for myself what this guy was all about. Admittedly, Jon Krakauer delivers his own suggestions of the content of McCandless' character but I still feel like I was left to make my own opinion. I am glad that I read his story and can gather that many people around here with strong opinions about Chris McCandless have most likely not bothered to do the same. The book was really more than an attempt to follow and understand what lead to the death of this young man. Krakauer draws parallels between the turmoil of McCandless' youth and his own quest for discovery that is evident in each one of us to one degree or another. I read the book today sitting on the beach looking out onto the Kenai Mountains. Some themes in the book might have seemed more outlandish had I not experienced the unrestraint of Alaska for myself. Thankfully, I did not get too caught up in "finding myself" here and expecting this great state to somehow absorb all of my inhibitions. Had I done so, I probably would have come to find, just as the author experienced on his Alaskan mountain climbing excursions that, "I came to appreciate that mountains make poor receptacles for dreams" (155). I'll let you know what I think of the movie once I see it.

Cousins and Friends

As the summer winds down, the town is getting quieter and we haven't had a lot of guests around. The air has started to feel like fall but spruce trees just don't pack the same punch in the autumn as the fall colors of Minnesota :) AND, there are not any apple orchards around here so I'd say it's about time to head home! I'll be leaving in about two weeks, after the people that I am house sitting for get back and as soon as I can find a ride to Anchorage to avoid paying for a flight. I will be kept busy these next couple of weeks though. I hope to go fishing with Captain Pete one more time to bring home some more halibut. You might be asking yourself, "is she CRAZY?" but even though I got deathly, horrifically, viciously seasick the last time I went out, Pete is a nice guy and offered me another trip out if he can't fill up his boat with paying customers some time in the next couple weeks. Plus, he contends that now that I know what it's like and if I can go on a calmer day, I should be just fine. I am trying to convince myself. I also want to go kayaking, the one big thing that I have been wanting to do but haven't yet. If I can foot the money I'll be out there next week. There are a few guests in and out of the lodge here and I am spending the rest of my time working for Ahna Iredale, a local potter. Ahna is a production potter here in Homer and makes really quite exquisite pieces, a lot of them! She has a large studio that I am helping her organize and if I were to stay a bit longer I would actually get a chance to use her facilities for my own purposes. There is always next summer.

A few weeks ago we hosted a wedding rehearsal dinner at the Inn which was a lot of fun. Half of the family was from Pensacola and stayed with us all week. They were very sweet, extremely considerate, southerners which was a refreshing change from some of the high maintenance people we've been dealing with this summer. The dinner went well and was really more like an actual wedding if you ask me. They had so many toasts I was afraid they were going to run out of things to say at the actual wedding. Here is Mindy setting up the buffet.

I also made a friend at the wedding who hung out with me for a couple days after the whole wedding business was over. It was nice to have someone my age to go hiking with! I showed him my favorite spot in the entire world, the Diamond Creek Trail, and we spent a good part of the evening hanging out at the beach.I finally got to prove to everyone here that I do, in fact, have friends...really good ones at that because they came to visit me!!! Lydia and Joe managed to pull together some money and flew to Alaska two weeks ago! It had been raining for a good two weeks before they got here and the minute they left the rain started up again but while they were here it was gorgeous! We went out for halibut tacos the first night they were here and spent some time on the harbor looking for the Time Bandit, which we found.

I took them right over to Bishop's Beach which was at low tide so we did some tidepooling. Joe, the aquatic biologist that he is, was in heaven. Here we are touching a jellyfish.The next day we dropped Joe off at the fishing hole to try and catch some salmon while Lydia and I toured the art galleries. He didn't have much luck his first time salt water fishing so we decided to go up to the reservoir. Lydia and I went canoeing while Joe fished for trout. Here are the three of us at the reservoir. Notice the hats, gotta represent.I love this picture of Lydia and Joe. I think it is quite representative of their relationship thus far an also a glance at what a large portion of their marriage will be like:

On Friday, Lydia and I hopped a water taxi across the bay to go hiking while Joe (you guessed it) went fishing. Although I had done it before, we went on the glacier hike because it is just too beautiful to pass up. I tested my "popping glacier ice" theory but it didn't really seem to do anything. Then Nick and I licked a piece, just to say we've done it. We hung out in the sunshine at the lake for a good hour, mostly because we were not anxious to make our way back into the forest among the bears. We successfully avoided seeing any but they were around all right.While we waited at the end of the Saddle Trail for the taxi to pick us up, Lydia put her feet in the ocean for the very first time :)The water is frigid cold but we were good and sweaty from hiking up a small portion of the alpine ridge trail which is the steep ridge that runs along the right side of the glacier if you go back and look at my picture from my first hike to the glacier. On our way back across the bay we could see the fog rolling in and pretty soon we were engulfed. It was very eerie feeling like we were lost in a bubble in the middle of the ocean but we made it back after a while. We were so excited to hear if Joe caught any salmon while we were goneand he did! Even though we were all tired and it was super foggy, I took them to my favorite spot, which you all know by now. The Diamond Creek hike is so beautiful because you can hear the creek roaring underneath you as well as the ocean approaching as you walk down the bluff side and if you look to the horizon through the trees you get a good view of the distance volcanoes and the Kenai Mountains across the bay. The fog hindered any such view, but I think Lydia and Joe really understood what I was talking about as I raved about this hike all week. When we got to the beach it was high tide which is not very exciting and so we decided to hike a bit up the creek. We came across a couple little waterfalls that we played around for a while.

What I'm not showing you is when Lydia and I took off our clothes and jumped off the waterfall. The picture kills me...even though we are jumping, our heads are still above the waterfall, we could have stepped down but jumping seemed more exhilarating.

The next morning we dropped Joe off with Captain Pete to go halibut fishing and then went back to bed for a while. Those fisherman get up too early if you ask me. Lydia and I then went for a trail run up here on the Homestead Trails to the blueberry patch. Let me reword that, I took Lydia on a "run" through the "trails." Finally, someone I know can laugh with me about the Alaskan version of a hiking trail. We considered going to the spa after our run but realized we didn't have enough time. I told Pete what us girls had planned for the day when I dropped Joe off in the morning. When we picked him up later that day, Pete asked us how the spa was. We told him we didn't go to which he responded, "let me see, you didn't go to the spa so my guess is you hit up the Salty Dawg, the meadery, the brewery, and the winery." He was on to us. Lydia and I went wine tasting and scoped out the Salty Dawg that afternoon. Joe had an amazing time on the charter and caught two good sized halibut and a bunch of cod that he also got to keep.

I snapped a picture of Pete filleting Joe's halibut. He is cutting out the cheeks which are supposed to be the best part of the fish. To me, they taste like halibut. Alaskan's call them butt cheeks. (Get it, halitBUT cheeks?)That night we hit up the Salty Dawg and tacked our dollars to the wall. Lydia and Joe's said, "The next time we come back, we'll be MARRIED!" Which I thought was cute. They started talking about coming back the second they got off the plane.

Unfortunately, they had to leave the next morning but I couldn't send them off without seeing a moose!This was exciting for me too because it was the first bull moose that I have seen. NOW my moose experience is complete. No more moose pictures, I promise.

And so, they headed back to Minnesota, back to school and job searching just like I will be doing in two weeks. They felt the connection with the landscape here after just a few short days as I knew they would. You just can't beat days like this,

or nights like these.