Sarah’s Key, Tatiana de Rosnay
Here’s another historical novel that I read this summer. I picked it up because I saw that it had been made into a movie and as usual I felt compelled to read the book before I saw the movie. This book is about a shameful chapter in French history: the Velodrome d’Hiver round-up of French Jews (mostly women and children) who were held in horrific conditions and then shipped off to almost certain death at Auschwitz. Although I knew a lot about WWII (or so I thought) I was unaware of this particular operation, so for that reason alone I am grateful that I read this book.
Set in Paris, there are alternating narratives in the novel: the 11-year-old Sarah in 1942, who hides her baby brother in a locked cupboard before being sent to Vel’ d’Hiv with her family; and 45-year-old Julia, an American journalist married to a French asshole and living in present-day Paris. As Julia researches the Vel’ d’Hiv round-up for a story she is writing, she uncovers some painful family secrets. Eventually the links between Sarah and Julia are revealed. Although it was reasonably engaging and held my interest, it was not as good as The Help. All in all, though, it’s a good read and appears to be historically accurate.
Sometimes I avoid books that everyone else seems to be reading. All the hoopla makes me get sick of them in advance or something. (See The Remains of the Day, in a previous post.) Anyway, along with everyone else in the universe, I just finished reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I started it one night (after getting irritated with Accidents Waiting to Happen) and then stayed up too late reading it. It was far better than I expected it to be (even though a lot of people have been recommending it). I guess I thought it would be really corny or something. It’s about the lives of black female domestic workers in Mississippi during the civil rights era. The book has provoked some controversy. e.g., see here: http://www.theroot.com/views/help-see-it-you-judge?page=0,1
The author has gotten slammed for the style in which she wrote the dialogue of the black domestic workers. I think some of the criticism is misplaced, but I’d rather not wade into that minefield. In any case, I found the book very moving. It gave you a good sense of what day-to-day life in the Jim Crow south must've been like, in a way that most history books can't. I'm glad I read it and am looking forward to the movie.
Wednesday is Indigo Blue - Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia, by Richard E. Cytowic, M.D. and David M. Eagleman, Ph.D.
Recently there was a fascinating profile on neuroscientist David Eagleman in The New Yorker. (The Possibilian by Burkhard Bilger, April 25, 2011.) While the article focused on his research on time perception and the brain, Eagleman has also done research on synesthesia, a neurological condition whereby stimulation of one of the senses yields perceptions in another sense. A sort of crossed wires in the brain, where hearing music, say, causes one to see colors (to give one example). Eagleman is a pretty interesting guy (he also writes fiction, though I haven’t read any of it), so I checked out one of his earlier books. I have a form of synesthesia myself, so I thought, cool! Maybe my boring old self is actually one of those unique creative types. (Famous synesthetes include Vladimir Nabokov, David Hockney, Franz Lizst - good company to be in.) Alas, it turns out that I have the most common form of synesthesia - graphemes-colors, which means I perceive numbers and letters as particular colors. Nothing terribly interesting about that. Nevertheless, it was fun to read about people who taste colors when they eat, or who hear colors when they listen to music. Lots of interesting brains out there. Also, I got a little ego boost when I learned a study of synesthetes revealed that they are smarter, more creative and more flexible thinkers than the controls. Even though, again, I have the most common, *un* interesting kind of synesthesia. But the thought that I may have as yet undiscovered depths of smartness or creativity is a comforting one!
