Impromptu Fabulous Movie

I love having Fridays off. In my library system, all of the branches are closed on Fridays due to budgeting and all that stuff. It's freakin' awesome!! It allows me to get a lot of shit done, mostly homework.

Yesterday I was working hard on my Information Audit (I promise not to bore you with the details...wouldn't want you to doze off), when my friend A called and invited me over for an Impromptu Fabulous Movies Real's Never Seen night. I told him I'd call him back later in the afternoon to see how far I had gotten on my paper. I probably should have said no...but since I got a concept for my paper, wrote the introduction and half of my objectives, and since my DH was working until 10 pm, I decided to go for it!! We watched the movie called Topper with Cary Grant and Constance Bennett from 1937. Of course, it was FABULOUS!!

Also, I finished later, at the bar: A Novel in Stories by Rebecca Barry. It is a collection of stories about a small town, its local bar, and the people who frequent it. It was a sweet story, one that reminded me of my own po-dunk-y little town that I grew up in. There is a bar where everyone goes to play darts, drink beer, and just see all their friends. Some nights are quieter than others, but you can usually find at least 2-3 good friends hanging out! My hometown has just over 400 people in it, so you know everyone, you know everyones business, and everyone knows yours. Anyway, this book made me a little nostalgic in a weird sort of way - and while I don't miss living in my po-dunk-y little town, I do miss the people there!!

A Real Librarian Rating:



Now I've moved on to The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. It is on the Top 30 Books to Read before you Die list that I posted about earlier, and I thought maybe I should read a couple of those. I've heard amazing things about this book, so I am excited to start it.

From Publishers Weekly
In this risky but resoundingly successful novel, Kingsolver leaves the Southwest, the setting of most of her work (The Bean Trees; Animal Dreams) and follows an evangelical Baptist minister's family to the Congo in the late 1950s, entwining their fate with that of the country during three turbulent decades. Nathan Price's determination to convert the natives of the Congo to Christianity is, we gradually discover, both foolhardy and dangerous, unsanctioned by the church administration and doomed from the start by Nathan's self-righteousness. Fanatic and sanctimonious, Nathan is a domestic monster, too, a physically and emotionally abusive, misogynistic husband and father. He refuses to understand how his obsession with river baptism affronts the traditions of the villagers of Kalinga, and his stubborn concept of religious rectitude brings misery and destruction to all. Cleverly, Kingsolver never brings us inside Nathan's head but instead unfolds the tragic story of the Price family through the alternating points of view of Orleanna Price and her four daughters. Cast with her young children into primitive conditions but trained to be obedient to her husband, Orleanna is powerless to mitigate their situation. Meanwhile, each of the four Price daughters reveals herself through first-person narration, and their rich and clearly differentiated self-portraits are small triumphs. Rachel, the eldest, is a self-absorbed teenager who will never outgrow her selfish view of the world or her tendency to commit hilarious malapropisms. Twins Leah and Adah are gifted intellectually but are physically and emotionally separated by Adah's birth injury, which has rendered her hemiplagic. Leah adores her father; Adah, who does not speak, is a shrewd observer of his monumental ego. The musings of five- year-old Ruth May reflect a child's humorous misunderstanding of the exotic world to which she has been transported. By revealing the story through the female victims of Reverend Price's hubris, Kingsolver also charts their maturation as they confront or evade moral and existential issues and, at great cost, accrue wisdom in the crucible of an alien land. It is through their eyes that we come to experience the life of the villagers in an isolated community and the particular ways in which American and African cultures collide. As the girls become acquainted with the villagers, especially the young teacher Anatole, they begin to understand the political situation in the Congo: the brutality of Belgian rule, the nascent nationalism briefly fulfilled in the election of the short-lived Patrice Lumumba government, and the secret involvement of the Eisenhower administration in Lumumba's assassination and the installation of the villainous dictator Mobutu. In the end, Kingsolver delivers a compelling family saga, a sobering picture of the horrors of fanatic fundamentalism and an insightful view of an exploited country crushed by the heel of colonialism and then ruthlessly manipulated by a bastion of democracy. The book is also a marvelous mix of trenchant character portrayal, unflagging narrative thrust and authoritative background detail. The disastrous outcome of the forceful imposition of Christian theology on indigenous natural faith gives the novel its pervasive irony; but humor is pervasive, too, artfully integrated into the children's misapprehensions of their world; and suspense rises inexorably as the Price family's peril and that of the newly independent country of Zaire intersect. Kingsolver moves into new moral terrain in this powerful, convincing and emotionally resonant novel. Agent, Frances Goldin; BOMC selection; major ad/promo; author tour.
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