ESCAPE/Carolyn Jessop with Laura Palmer

[Berwyn Patsy]

I just finished Escape.  I thought it was a great book, but found it to be quite
disturbing.  It is so hard to believe that people actually live like that, in cults and treat
women and children in such an abusive manner. Any one else read it yet? 

[Cathy]

I am currently reading this book.  Excellent!  I am having a hard time putting this book down.  It is amazing how brainwashed these women are.  It starts at birth. 
I  also find it quite disturbing but facinating.

[Berwyn Patsy]

Disturbing,  is a book called "a Thousand Splendid Suns", by Khaled Hosseini.
While reading this book, there were moments I had to actually put it down take a breath, and
have to wait a few seconds until I could continue on.
Both Escape and this one are books that are hard to put down, and an expierence of reading one will
not forget.

[Cathy]

Thank you.  I will have to look for that book too. 

[Berwyn Patsy]

I am glad to reccommend a good book, let me know what you think , especially after reading
a Thousand Splendid Suns.  Maybe we can have a book club on line here!  Lol. It would be fun to open
up a book discussion.

[Bear]

Well BP et al, you will be glad to see the fall line up
on ABC and CBS...They are in tune with a certain female demographic...

Idol pooched so it is being replaced with American Cult, followed by
Dancing with Charles. America's new pablum.

8p central, 9p eastern

[Berwyn Patsy]

No Bear you can't join our book club no matter how much you beg!!

[Cathy]

Bewyn Patsy:

I just finished Escape.  What a great story.  I am now going to read Stolen Innocence.  Did you read this one?

[Berwyn Patsy]

No , I have not got to Stolen Innocence yet.  Some times I have to break away from one type of
read, and then go back to it!
I just bought Mariah Stewart'S book called Mercy Street.  T he inside cover is telling me it is a
murder, mystery about 4 high school seniors. 
The whole polygamy thing intigues me, so I will be sure to read Stolen Innocence next.  Thanks .

[M]

I am glad to reccommend a good book, let me know what you think , especially after reading
a Thousand Splendid Suns.  Maybe we can have a book club on line here!  Lol. It would be fun to open
up a book discussion.

I'm reading A Thousdand Splendid Suns right now.  Very good book...very disturbing, as well.

[Berwyn Patsy]

After you finish A Thousand Splendid Sons, let me know at which part did you actually
have to put the book down, take a breath and say to yourself "oh my God"?  Everyone
who I no who read it talked about different parts, where they had to catch thier breath.
Be  prepared it is disturbing!

[M]

After you finish A Thousand Splendid Sons, let me know at which part did you actually
have to put the book down, take a breath and say to yourself "oh my God"?  Everyone
who I no who read it talked about different parts, where they had to catch thier breath.
Be  prepared it is disturbing!

I have about 70 pages left, so I've been through several disturbing parts.  I was horrified when the women couldn't make their escape.  I had been so hopeful!  Then they were both beaten horribly.  So much of the book is terribly sad.

[Cathy]

I went to the library to get A Thousand Splendid Suns.  All the copies are out.  I decided to the Barnes and Nobel to purchase it.

I am almost done with Stolen Innocence.  It is amazing how this book confirms everytihing in Escape.  I can't believe how these women are treated and what the children have to endure.

I am looking forward to starting A Thousand Splendid Suns after reading what the two of you have posted. 

[Berwyn Patsy]

Cathy, I will wait until you finish A thousand splendid Suns, before I tell you what part ,made
me sick enough to have to put the book down and take that deep breath, to be able to go
on with it.
Another great one by the same author is of course, "The Kite Runner", it's about 2 boys
growing up in Afganistan, one rich and one poor.
This is great, I feel like a book club is growing here, right on BTf.

[Bear]

No Bear you can't join our book club no matter how much you beg!!

You chicks read such depressing stuff, it amazes me. Here is an uplifting short for
you...

Requiem For A Dreamer


By Kurt Vonnegut

18 October, 2004
In These Times


Editor's note: What follows is a conversation between Kurt Vonnegut and out-of-print science fiction writer Kilgore Trout. It was to be their last. Trout committed suicide by drinking Drano at midnight on October 15 in Cohoes, New York, after a female psychic using tarot cards predicted that the environmental calamity George W. Bush would once again be elected president of the most powerful nation on the planet by a five-to-four decision of the Supreme Court, which included "100 per-cent of the black vote."
TROUT: I've never voted in my whole damn life. I didn't want to be complicit. But is it time I did?

KV: The planet's immune system is obviously trying to get rid of us, and high time! But sure, go vote for somebody. What the hell.

TROUT: Everybody's so ignorant.

KV: The overwhelming popularity of President Bush, in spite of everything, finally shows us what the American people, whom we have so sentimentalized for so long, a la Norman Rockwell, really are, thanks to TV and purposely lousy public schools: ignorant. Count on it!

TROUT: You ever meet anybody who was really smart?

KV: Only one: Saul Steinberg, the graphic artist who's dead now. Everybody I know is dead now, present company excepted. I could ask Saul anything, and six seconds would pass, and then he would give me a perfect answer. He growled a perfect answer. He was born in Rumania, and, according to him, he was born into a house where "the geese peeked in the windows."

TROUT: Like what kind of questions?

KV: I said, "Saul, what should I think about Picasso?" Six seconds went by, and then he growled, "God put him on Earth to show us what it's like to be really rich." I said, "Saul, I'm a novelist, and many of my friends are novelists, but I can't help feeling that some of them are in a very different business from mine, even though I like their books a lot. What would make me feel that way?" Six seconds went by, and then he growled, "It is very simple: There are two kinds of artists, and one is not superior to the other. But one kind responds to the history of his or her art so far, and the other responds to life itself."

I said, "Saul, are you gifted?" Six seconds went by, and then he growled, "No. But what we respond to in any work of art is the artist's struggle against his or her limitations."

TROUT: OK.

KV: You seem unimpressed.

TROUT: I said, "OK."

KV: You said it so emptily.

TROUT: Sorry. You know me: Always running on empty.

KV: Somebody else smart? OK, try this: After the Second World War I enrolled in the graduate division of the Anthropology Department of the University of Chicago, the most conceited university in the country. And in a seminar for about eight of us, half of us vets on the GI Bill of Rights, my favorite professor, in fact my thesis advisor, put this Socratic question to us: "What is it an artist does?"

TROUT: Hold on: What makes Chicago so conceited?

KV: That it isn't Harvard.

TROUT: Got it: That it isn't high society.

KV: Bingo. Anyway, I'm sure we all came up with smart-ass answers, since a graduate seminar in any subject is a form of improv theater. But the only answer I remember is the one he gave: "An artist says, 'I can't do anything about the chaos in the universe or my country, or even in my own miserable life, but I can at least make this piece of paper or canvas, or blob of clay or chunk of marble, exactly what it should be.'"

TROUT: OK.

KV: Did you forget to take your Viagra today?

TROUT: Very funny. But what he said an artist does is what I do every time I brush my teeth or tie my shoes. You thought this guy was smart? He's an ####.

KV: Look, when you put a piece of paper in your typewriter, don't you try to make it exactly what it should be?

TROUT: No, I just effing write.

KV: What are you effing writing now?

TROUT: It's about how the future has as much to do with the present as the past does. Giraffes can only have come from the future. There's no way evolution in the past would have let something that defenseless and impractical live for 15 minutes.

KV: If you say so.

TROUT: Try this: The First World War was caused by the second one. Otherwise the first one makes no sense, wasn't about anything. And all Picasso had to do was paint pictures that were already hanging in museums in the future.

KV: OK.

TROUT: Just trying to be Einstein. You never know. But hey, the two people you said were so smart were both men. Women say smart things, too. I went walking with a woman the other day, if you can believe it, and I stopped to retie my shoes, and she said, "Every time I go for a walk with a man he always has to stop to retie his shoes. Why won't men tie double knots? A fear of commitment?" How's that for anthropology, the science of man? I'll bet they didn't teach you about men and shoelaces at Chicago.

KV: That isn't anthropology. That's sociology.

TROUT: What's the difference? I've often wondered.

KV: A sociologist is paid by the Sociology Department. An anthropologist is paid by the Anthropology Department.

TROUT: Glad to have that cleared up.

KV: Knowledge is power.

TROUT: Well, I'm off. Ciao, adios and aloha.

KV: Whither bound?

TROUT: Back to Cohoes for an AA meeting.

KV: But you're not an alcoholic.

TROUT: It's the only place I can pick up women. They have their defenses down. "Hello, I'm Kilgore Trout and I'm an alcoholic." And I've met this babe named Flamingo who is a professional psychic. She's going to tell me our country's fortune. Who'll win the next election.

KV: OK

TROUT: Take care.

KV: You too.

© 2004 In These Times

[Cathy]

I'm sorry it took me so long to post.  I was in Bloomington for the Special Olympics.
Anyway, I read A Thousand Splendid Suns.  This was a terrific read.  So many parts were disturbing.

I cried when Laila had to leave Aziza at the orphanage.  When she says she can smell her sleep smell. 

What upset me the most was when you find out that Tariq is still alive and that Rasheed had paid that horrible man to tell her Tariq was dead.  Laila had spent all those years with that horrid Rasheed. 

I was happy when Mariam killed him.  When they executed her I thought about how sad that she didn't find freedom, but she was at peace.

[Berwyn Patsy]

The part that turned my stomach, made me stop , take a breath was when Rasheed
made Mariam chew on pebbles and stones until her teeth cracked and fell out of her mouth!
All because she had not cooked his rice to his perfection.
How sad and desperate these women must feel, and to think there are parts of the world, that,
that same abuse is happening this very moment.
I just started Stolen Innocence, I know this is going to be a good one, I can hardly put it down.

[Cathy]

I found that Stolen Innocence was a bit slower paced than Escape, but still facinating.

Enjoy.  Let me know what you think.

[Berwyn Patsy]

Finally finished Stolen Innocence.  It takes a bit longer in the summer to read!  I almost
am looking forward to a rainey fall day, where reading a good book is a must!
Anyway, I think I liked Stolen Innocece better then Escape.   I still can't imagine living or growing
up in that life style.  So sad to me.
There is yet another one of these books, but about a young boy growing up in FLDS community.
Amyone know the title?

[Cathy]

I'll have to look into that book. 

I have been passing both of these books on to others to read.  Everyone is enjoying the books.

I just gave A Thousand Splendid Suns to my mother to read.  It should be interesting to hear her comments.