by Philip Graham is a travel book about a year he spent with his wife and daughter in Lisbon. On the surface, that is. When I began reading this book I was excited to read about Portugal, a place that has always mystified me. What I got instead was an amazing account on fatherhood, growing up, and finding yourself.
The book is a series of dispatches for McSweeney's and begins like a trip begins, how they go there. It moves to unpacking their items in their new apartment and on to exploring the nooks and crannies of Lisbon. Graham writes beautifully about the culture, inserting the Portuguese language at the most key of moments and speaking honestly about the good and the bad of Lisbon. He is definitely a narrator you can trust.
As the book moved on, for me, it became less about Lisbon and more about Graham's twelve-year-old daughter Hannah. She struggles at her first school where she knows none of the language and is bullied by other kids. After switching to a new school she finally starts to find her place and fit in, but only after a crash course in Portuguese and changing her eating habits. As a girl on the brink of adolescence she faces challenges that her parents do not face, and perhaps do not entirely see. Graham takes the blame too, he admits that taking his daughter to Lisbon might have been a bad idea. At the end Hannah does love Libson, and wants to return immediately, so there is a sense not all was lost.
Overall this was a fascinating book, one of my favorites I've read this year. It's a quick read and I truly think there is something in here for all of us.
Paperback: 168 pages Publisher: University of Chicago Press; 1 edition (November 15, 2009) Language: English
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As it is simple and as it is healthy! So it would be desirable to exclaim, looking at the simple object created by Portuguese architectural bureau Ateliermob. Under an amusing canopy the cafe disappears.
Shadow Surface consists of the concrete roof placed on three walls, creating a courtyard filled with sunlight spots, or even the whole hares getting through drawing from round apertures. Through the same apertures rain water inside gets, creating an original show. The one-storeyed cafe is between this canopy and a children's playground on which there are high windows.
The Project Purpose: to unite apartment houses
On the lift or on steps from under a canopy it is possible to go down in an underground parking.
The Concrete Romanticism in Lisbon, 8 out of 10 [based on 673 votes]
The interesting detail noticed in this hotel (the project of Portuguese bureau Risco constructed along harbour Belem in Lisbon) are jalousie which close not only windows, but also deep balconies.
Altis Belém Hotel
The design of an interior is executed by studio FSSMGN
Can I start a review with holy shit? Well, whatever your answer is, I'magonnadoit.
Holy shit. I didn't think it was possible, but Jeffrey Eugenides has once again succeeded in writing a book that grabbed me by my eyeballs and yanked me into the story. I read Middlesex over the summer and I loved it so much I've taken to calling it my favorite book. I'm not committing yet, just trying it on for size. Since I survived the beefy, wonderful Middlesex, I wasn't afraid at all to try his other book, The Virgin Suicides, even though I had already seen the movie and that usually ruins a book for me. The movie did not ruin the book for me. Just like Middlesex, the writing in the first few pages was enough to make me sit still and read the crap out of this book.
"...our eyes got used to the light and informed us of something we had never realized: the Lisbon girls were all different people. Instead of five replicas with the same blond hair and puffy cheeks we saw that they were distinct beings, their personalities beginning to transform their faces and reroute their expressions. We saw at once that Bonnie, who introduced herself now as Bonaventure, had the sallow complexion and sharp nose of a nun. Her eyes watered and she was a foot taller than any of her sisters, mostly because of the length of her neck which would one day hang from the end of a rope" (26). Eugenides goes on from that point to describe each sister in a similar fashion, exuding innocence and creepiness the whole way through. Everything in this book is innocent and creepy, suburban and having sex on the roof of your parents house. (Can I insert a little squeal here? Thank you.) The story is written from the point of a view of a group of boys in the neighborhood who watched the Lisbon girls their whole lives, except now they are adults and the Lisbon girls have been dead for a long time. They retell the whole story and occasionally talk about specific evidence they have. Photographs, clothing, makeup. They call these Exhibit 1-97, and they insert them occasionally throughout the story until you reach the end where the girls commit suicide (I'm not giving away anything here, you know the whole book it's going to happen) and the boys bombard you with evidence for everything as they explain to you why the girls died.
The story moves slowly and Eugenides has perfected the art of creeping through the pages. Even though it's slow I kept turning the pages just to soak up more of his writing. This is also the first time I have ever read a story where I believed it was told from a group of people rather than just one person. He doesn't spend a lot of time defining characters, but he doesn't have to because the point of the story is that no one really knows anyone. He doesn't glamorize suicide. He says things anyone who has been exposed to suicide has thought. Once again, he is a masterful storyteller.
Most people seem to think Middlesex is amazing and The Virgin Suicides is pretty great. I'll put myself in that camp too. I honestly don't have any complaints about the book at all, but when compared to Middlesex I just didn't feel that there was as much to the story. Part of that is probably the nature of the book, as I said there is very little characterization happening, just snippets here and there, but it wasn't enough for me to throw down the book at the end and start hyperventilating like I did with Middlesex (slight exaggeration).
To end this I'll share one of my favorite parts of the book, a part I think really shows Eugenides talent at summing up human emotion in one little thing.
"Jerry Burden found the following doodle: a girl with pigtails is bent under the weight of a gigantic boulder. Her cheeks puff out, and her rounded lips expel steam. One widening steam cloud contains the word Pressure, darkly retraced" (142).
I give this book an A.
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I've already been busy reading for most of the day, which is good because I have a very busy evening ahead of me.
I'm reading my first George Eliot book right now, Middlemarch
. I'm really enjoying it even though it is a challenging (and long) book. I've been considering hosting a George Eliot challenge. If there is anyone interested in that please let me know. It would be a light challenge, probably only one book and a movie.
I'm also reading The Moon, Come to Earth: Dispatches from Lisbon
by Philip Graham. The book is a travelog about Graham's year in Lisbon with his wife and daughter. It's a quick read with some really beautiful passages and great questions about place and travel. I'm about halfway down with it.
I spent about nine hours reading yesterday (mostly homework) so I'm kind of taking a lighter day today. I have three meetings to go to tonight so I will be very busy for the rest of the day.
This week I plan on continuing the books I've already mentioned as well as finish The Lover
by Marguerite Duras. I will probably pick up another book but I haven't decided which yet.
This weekend I'm joining over one hundred blogs in the Got Books? event where we are all giving away some books to our lovely readers, new and old. This is really my first book giveaway and I put a lot of thought into the books I wanted to give away. One of them is a book I continuously talk about even though I've never reviewed it here and the other is a book I read when I first started blogging and it's one of my favorite books I've read since I started blogging. So what books am I talking about?
The first book is Notes From No Man's Land by Eula Biss. This is the book I haven't reviewed on here since I read it over a year ago before I even had a blog. I have talked about one of Eula Biss's essays though, The Pain Scale. This is a fantastic book of essays that I think a lot of you would enjoy. It deals with race, gender, human differences, and America. I mean, I read it over a year ago and I'm still talking about it, so that has to tell you it's pretty good right?
The second book I'm giving away is another work of nonfiction, The Moon, Come to Earth by Philip Graham. This is a book that came out of Graham's McSweeney's dispatches from Lisbon, Portugal. It's a travel narrative, but different from a lot of travel narratives I've read because it's about Graham's experience traveling with his family. The story actually really comes away from being a simple travel narrative and becomes more about the experience of being a parent. I posted a review back in November when I was still trying to figure out this whole blogging business. It was the tenth review I ever wrote on here! How crazy is that. Anyway, I also posted about a reading of his, which I attended.
If you'd like to enter (and I really hope you do!) just fill out the form below. You can enter for one book or both. The contest is open until Sunday, July 25 at MIDNIGHT Central Time. You can earn extra entries by being a follower or by tweeting, but you don't need to be a follower to enter the contest. This is only open to U.S./Canada.
