Bookworm Mania

[miss_yt]

Finished David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day and Anita Diamant's The Red Tent since I started the former about noon on Sunday. I haven't been reading for pleasure lately as much as I used to, and I was quite happy to get two books in, although I really should have been working.

Comments

[pinesandmaples]

I'm surprised The Red Tent did nothing for you.

[miss-yt.livejournal.com]

What, I didn't say that! I honestly couldn't put it down all day. And I cried through a lot of it.

The stories about the wives of Jacob contain one of my favorite scenes in the Bible - when Rachel steals her father Laban's household gods and keeps him from getting them back because she's sitting on them during her time of the month. In the original story they were actually in her saddle, and she couldn't get off it to greet her father because she was menstruating, and for the same reason he couldn't search through it.

I'm also pretty sure that the Tamar referred to a few times in the book is the same Tamar who was the widow of two of Judah's sons. When he didn't marry her to his third son as promised, she tricked him into sleeping with her, thus concieving a child by him and making her his wife.

I love this kind of story. I love how Diamant brought out some of the star players of Genesis in all their very human glory, and better yet that she did the same for the supporting cast. I love seeing one of my favorite stories told from a fresh and female point of view.

I just didn't say that because the point of the post was to remark on the fact that I read two sizeable books in as many days, which maybe I shouldn't have bothered doing because it's not all that unusual for me.

[pinesandmaples]

See?
This is what a good entry about a book would be.
Boy, I'm nosy. I don't really care that someone read a book...I care more about what that book did to them. Since The Red Tent was the book that got me into free-flow and seriously made me so amazinly happy about my period, I'm always interested in seeing who else it pushes into alternative stuffs.

[miss-yt.livejournal.com]

One odd thing that came to mind when I read this book was something one of my anthro professors said. She was talking about female seclusion during menstruation in Native American cultures. I thought the whole idea was barbaric and cruel, but she said that the secluded women probably welcomed the time off and the chance to socialize.

Of course, we don't get time off for having a time of the month, and in my case at least the whole affair is painful, messy and inconvenient. There's no fun to be had from it.

Of course, there are no men saying that my mentrual blood will blight the crops, cause death curses or make them impotent either, so I don't really have reason to complain.