Skip to main content

Educated 10 chapters

Mormon author describing her childhood in Idaho with an "end of the world is coming" father.  No schooling. The Feds are satanic. Guns and stored food.

Notable scenes:  Father has daughter help him with his junkyard work and nearly kills her.  Piece of metal goes through her leg.  She's supposed to hop out of her father's dump truck just before he dumps it and help "settle" the iron into the larger container.  She is pinned by the metal in her leg and just manages to jump out at the last second. 17 foot fall, serious bruises, but she feels she's let him down--and he does, too.  "How did you manage that?" he asks.

Older brother and narrator listening to classical music together--a shared bond outside the narrow scope of the family.  He leaves the house later, pointing the way for her.

Another brother, helping the father, junk cars, is badly burned by car gasoline. Our narrator, at 10, manages to get the brother's leg into a black plastic bag filled with water that is held in place by a garbage pale. No doctor. Father on hillside putting out fire before the whole mountain burns. Brother screaming in agony.

Mom becomes midwife but is then injured badly in the second snowy/dark crash the family has.  Both are caused by driving in insanely difficult conditions. Dad thinking "angels" are watching over him. After the second accident, Mom can't remember well enough to mix herbs for medicine or supervise child birth. She becomes a "muscle reader," some hocus-pocus tapping on muscles gives her the "power" to divine illnesses.

Who ever said Mormon's were a little odd?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Tess of the D'Urbervilles, continued 2/3rds

"To all humankind, Tess was only a passing thought. Even to friends, she was only a frequently passing thought." Angel Clare is a good character. He's "enlightened," in so many ways, but when Tess's confesses her "crime," he reverts to ancestral form . . . Tess's "confession" comes earlier than I expected, right after Angel reveals that he has had a bad moment with a woman. Tess points out the similarity in their transgressions, though his is the only true transgression, expecting forgiveness. She doesn't get it. She returns to her mother . . . realizes she can't stay with her. Thoughts to suicide. Unhappiness that divorce is not possible. Departs. Tragic in that the two, if Angel could just see clearly, would indeed be a great couple, each adding to the other.  Nature as a definite force involved in the tragedy.  It's not neutral--when things go bad, the very skies mock Tess. Tess as unaware of the power of her bea...

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin . . . finished

 Follows Sadie and Sam (Mazer) from childhood to mid-thirties when both are feeling old and a bit out of it in the gaming world.  Characters are well-rounded, develop throughout the novel in interesting way.  Plot is involved but sensible.  Not a single, "Oh, come on!" moment.  The book could have been faster paced. Odd, since the main topic is video games which are not for their speed of engagement and Gabrielle Zevin clearly knows her video games. Recommended by Michael Connelly in an interview.  He also has Bosch pick up the book in his novel, Resurrection Walk, as Bosch tails a possible witness to a crime as she moves through a bookstore. Sadie and Sam do not get together at the end, which is good.   Marx killed by homophobic nutcase who really wants to kill Sam, but Sam isn't there. Marx is father of Sadie's child.