Phaneronic
Well-Known Member
Book 3: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
Wow, I only read this in two weeks? Uh, I can't recommend this enough. I can't remember the last time I read a book where every sentence added something to the situation. Near the beginning of the book is an anecdote about a Hmong student in college being asked to give a 5-minute lecture on a recipe. The student picks fish soup, simple enough, but he proceeds to talk as well about Hmong fishing and farming practices, home life and tradition - eventually sprawling into a 45-minute lecture, the idea that the Hmong “talk of many things.” This was apparently the form Fadiman was going for when she was writing the book, which is not to say it's absurdly long. Being about the cultural differences between the Hmong and the American medical community as they come up against each other over the treatment of a young epileptic girl, rather than just give background on the Hmong and then lay out the case history - not to say there would have been lacking in that - instead finds through-lines between moments, switching between multiple perspectives in moments and between the case history and recent Hmong history on a chapter-by-chapter basis, fluidly and coherently to trace out the odd angles of the interactions themselves. This is a book Fadiman clearly had to live in to make. It'd be remiss not to caution that a little after the middle point of the book has some absolutely harrowing imagery in it - of lesser-known parts of the Vietnam War, of medical catastrophies, and the description of rituals involving animal sacrifice. But this isn't heavy and grim and humorless and devoid of light, like Heart of Darkness or whatever. These are incredibly sympathetic depictions of people going through life, which, as all lives do, contain some horrible things in it. About the only thing negative I can think to say about it is I think the first chapter is kinda stilted. I'd advise at least looking up the preface since that's readily found on Amazon, and if it seems like your kind of thing then… Add it to the pile, we all know how things go.
Man sometimes things just poke me in the right way and it all comes flowing out.
NEXT UP: BLEAK HOUSE BY CHARLES DICKENS and maybe RED FAMINE by Anne Applebaum if I feel like trying to do two longue books at once. My friend picked it up a couple years ago and it seemed like something I'd want to read and finally borrowed it off him.
Wow, I only read this in two weeks? Uh, I can't recommend this enough. I can't remember the last time I read a book where every sentence added something to the situation. Near the beginning of the book is an anecdote about a Hmong student in college being asked to give a 5-minute lecture on a recipe. The student picks fish soup, simple enough, but he proceeds to talk as well about Hmong fishing and farming practices, home life and tradition - eventually sprawling into a 45-minute lecture, the idea that the Hmong “talk of many things.” This was apparently the form Fadiman was going for when she was writing the book, which is not to say it's absurdly long. Being about the cultural differences between the Hmong and the American medical community as they come up against each other over the treatment of a young epileptic girl, rather than just give background on the Hmong and then lay out the case history - not to say there would have been lacking in that - instead finds through-lines between moments, switching between multiple perspectives in moments and between the case history and recent Hmong history on a chapter-by-chapter basis, fluidly and coherently to trace out the odd angles of the interactions themselves. This is a book Fadiman clearly had to live in to make. It'd be remiss not to caution that a little after the middle point of the book has some absolutely harrowing imagery in it - of lesser-known parts of the Vietnam War, of medical catastrophies, and the description of rituals involving animal sacrifice. But this isn't heavy and grim and humorless and devoid of light, like Heart of Darkness or whatever. These are incredibly sympathetic depictions of people going through life, which, as all lives do, contain some horrible things in it. About the only thing negative I can think to say about it is I think the first chapter is kinda stilted. I'd advise at least looking up the preface since that's readily found on Amazon, and if it seems like your kind of thing then… Add it to the pile, we all know how things go.
Man sometimes things just poke me in the right way and it all comes flowing out.
NEXT UP: BLEAK HOUSE BY CHARLES DICKENS and maybe RED FAMINE by Anne Applebaum if I feel like trying to do two longue books at once. My friend picked it up a couple years ago and it seemed like something I'd want to read and finally borrowed it off him.
's so they offered some break points if desired but even with them I had to go back a bit each time I picked up reading again.
