Review: The Glass Castle
Jan. 23rd, 2008 06:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebI finally got around to reading Jeannette Walls' The Glass Castle: a Memoir (2005), recommended to me by fraeuleinchen. I can't remember now why she recommended it; I didn't even remember that it was nonfiction. I do think she recommended it as a book that I, specifically, might like rather than as a book that is so good that everyone should read it.
It's mostly about the author's childhood and in so many ways, she has the coolest parents ever. Even some things that sound like pretty bad parenting at first, once you get the whole story, turn out not to be. I thought she and her siblings are going to turn out to be the greatest grown-ups ever! If they can just live long enough. And not become riddled with neuroses.
The parents were desperately poor, but fun, interesting, adventurous, creative, and caring. And more than with even most fiction, I really never knew what was going to happen next. It's real life and doesn't have to fit our preconceived notions of a good storyline. Are things going to go back and forth between better and worse? Will there come a point when things start getting better and better? Or worse and worse? I really couldn't tell.
This book is exciting, funny, sad, scary, horrifying, everything.
I think one reason I liked this book is that I seem to have a fascination for doing something with nothing. I am fascinated by plants growing from bare rock, for example.
Another reason I got sucked in is the sociologist in me. I love learning about other cultures and subcultures (without actually having to join them). And the family culture in this book has just that combination of familiar and strange that makes it most gripping. Only small differences in one thing can lead to big differences in something else. Some things were done very, very poorly in this family, and how did that happen? I have trouble figuring that out.
You can sure learn a lot about your beliefs about parenting by reading this book and noticing how you evaluate various incidents. You can also learn about other useful issues such as how to help others, how to help yourself, responsibility, maintaining things, moving to a new town, and how you might have a lot more options than you think you do.
I don't think this is a book I'll buy. I suspect it will stay stuck in my head just fine without ever reading it again. It's quite intense.
Warning: If you like to read books to escape, this may not be the book for you!
It's mostly about the author's childhood and in so many ways, she has the coolest parents ever. Even some things that sound like pretty bad parenting at first, once you get the whole story, turn out not to be. I thought she and her siblings are going to turn out to be the greatest grown-ups ever! If they can just live long enough. And not become riddled with neuroses.
The parents were desperately poor, but fun, interesting, adventurous, creative, and caring. And more than with even most fiction, I really never knew what was going to happen next. It's real life and doesn't have to fit our preconceived notions of a good storyline. Are things going to go back and forth between better and worse? Will there come a point when things start getting better and better? Or worse and worse? I really couldn't tell.
This book is exciting, funny, sad, scary, horrifying, everything.
I think one reason I liked this book is that I seem to have a fascination for doing something with nothing. I am fascinated by plants growing from bare rock, for example.
Another reason I got sucked in is the sociologist in me. I love learning about other cultures and subcultures (without actually having to join them). And the family culture in this book has just that combination of familiar and strange that makes it most gripping. Only small differences in one thing can lead to big differences in something else. Some things were done very, very poorly in this family, and how did that happen? I have trouble figuring that out.
You can sure learn a lot about your beliefs about parenting by reading this book and noticing how you evaluate various incidents. You can also learn about other useful issues such as how to help others, how to help yourself, responsibility, maintaining things, moving to a new town, and how you might have a lot more options than you think you do.
I don't think this is a book I'll buy. I suspect it will stay stuck in my head just fine without ever reading it again. It's quite intense.
Warning: If you like to read books to escape, this may not be the book for you!
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The Glass Castle
on 2008-01-25 01:31 am (UTC)And just this week, both my mom *and* my friend L are also reading and loving this book.