Let's Bust a Recap : Living Life Backward

"Life is gift, not gain."

If I could sum up my takeaway from Living Life Backward in one sentence, that would be it. And in my mind, I kind of chant it like the sharks in Finding Nemo talking about fish. 

Living Life Backward is David Gibson's 2017 treatise on the book of Ecclesiastes. Cody read this a few years back, and when I asked him to recommend a couple of books for my book list last year, this was the first one he pulled off the shelf. I did actually start it in November, but it got put on hold while I poured all my reading energy into finishing David Copperfield before the end of the year. And then it got put on hold again while I focused on our first book club book The Reason for God. (I usually don't like to have more than one non-fiction book going at once.) But I finally picked it back up and finished it the second week of February. 

In Living Life Backward, Gibson systematically works through the entire book of Ecclesiastes. It's easy to view Ecclesiastes through a pretty depressing lens. Some translations open with "Everything is meaningless." But Gibson's argument is that the wisdom we can derive from the book of Ecclesiastes actually frees us up to live lives that are ultimately more happy and fulfilling. The only thing we can be absolutely certain of in this life is that death comes for us all. Though we don't know when or how, we know that at some point, every one of us will die. Everything else in this life, from our perspective, is uncertain. One of the things Gibson says in his book really struck me: that we like to live as if the one thing that's certain—death—will never come, while all the things that are actually uncertain are certain for us. We spend our lives trying to figure out unknowable things, and pretend like we aren't going to die. Obviously, this sets us up for a very unsatisfying life because, like we all know deep down, we do all die. Gibson and the writer of Ecclesiastes point out that living life in light of the end—living life backward, if you will—informs our day-to-day living. 

So "life is gift, not gain"...what is that? If we live our lives constantly striving to gain more, more, more; then ultimately we will come to the end feeling like everything was meaningless. I mean, he who dies with the most toys...still dies. What were we working so hard for? Everything that we acquire can't go with us when we die and most of us will be forgotten after we're gone. But if we view life as a gift from God, we can enjoy what He's given us and not only that, we're supposed to enjoy what He gives us. By enjoying this life, we're actually fulfilling God's purpose. When I'm not afraid to die, when I live my life with open hands and a peaceful heart, people around me have to wonder, what does she know that I don't? 

I'm probably making this sound super-trite and overly clichéd, but Gibson's book was a breath of fresh air. It was a timely reminder. And it did really help me understand Ecclesiastes better. There are things in that book that can seem contradictory, but Gibson does an excellent job of breaking it all down. Don't let my cheesy review put you off. Living Life Backward is a book I highly recommend and one that I would definitely read again.

Let's Bust a Recap : The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Tales of Terror

"Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is one of the most famous pieces of English literature, and is considered to be a defining book of the Gothic horror genre." So says wikipedia and so say I. I would even venture to say that Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson is one of the most well-known authors of all time. Even if you haven't personally read his work, you're likely to recognize titles like Treasure Island or Kidnapped and know what they're about. 

I had never actually read Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde for myself, but was familiar with the plot given how famous it is, and when Cody suggested we read it together during the power outage caused by Hurricane Helene, I immediately agreed. 

The story is narrated by a character called Gabriel Utterson, a lawyer and upstanding citizen who is friends with the titular Dr Jekyll. He becomes concerned for his friend's welfare after drawing up Jekyll's will and worrying that he is being blackmailed by a shady character called Hyde whom Jekyll has named his sole beneficiary in the event of his death or disappearance. Jekyll refuses to talk about it, but when Hyde murders another of Utterson's clients, Utterson confronts Jekyll directly. Hyde then disappears for a while, but through a twisty series of events, we learn that Hyde is Jekyll's evil alter ego and that because Jekyll has indulged this evil version of himself for so long, that side of his personality is taking over Jekyll completely. 

It's a fascinating study on good versus evil and the depravity of man. Stevenson posits through the character of Dr Jekyll that every human being has a great capacity for evil that they can either struggle against daily or completely succumb to. An interesting point to note is that the Dr Jekyll side of the dual Jekyll/Hyde personality is not completely good but has to face the normal human struggle of overcoming sin in his life; whereas the opposing personality of Mr Hyde is completely wicked and enjoys his wickedness—there is nothing good about him. 

Because I knew the famous story so well before reading it, the big reveal wasn't as shocking as I imagine it was for its original 19th century audience. But I was utterly fascinated by the plot nonetheless. 

The next story in this small collection is "The Body Snatcher", a short story first published in 1884. The characters in this story were based on criminals employed by the surgeon Robert Knox around the time of the notorious Burke and Hare murders in the early 19th century. Basically, this surgeon was buying corpses from these murderers to dissect during his anatomy lectures. In Stevenson's fictionalized short story, we see this play out from the perspective of the students employed to collect the corpses and pay the suppliers of these bodies. When the main character Fettes recognizes one of the bodies and is convinced that the woman must have been murdered, his comrade Macfarlane talks him out of reporting it, then later uses this against Fettes when Macfarlane himself kills a man and then brings the body in to Fettes for dissection and payment.

"The Body Snatcher" is a case study of the human conscience as both men are overcome with the guilt of what they've done. I found both Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde and Body Snatcher stories all the more interesting knowing that Stevenson himself rebelled against formal religion and his parents' teaching and called himself an atheist for a time before ultimately coming back to some form of his faith later in his life. 

After "The Body Snatcher", Robert Louis Stevenson's short story "Olalla" first published in 1885 was included in this collection. "Olalla" is a Gothic romance. In it, an unnamed Scottish soldier is telling his story of taking up residence with a once-noble local Spanish family at his doctor's recommendation during his convalescence. Although he is offered a room under the stipulation that he remain a stranger to the family, he is heartily welcomed by the son and soon begins a casual friendliness with the mother as well. When he finally catches a glimpse of the daughter, he immediately falls madly in love with her and she with him. But after a terrifying scene in which the mother attacks the soldier, Olalla begs him to leave. 

"Olalla" has sometimes been interpreted as a vampire story, however Stevenson's narrator clearly regards the mother's actions as the basest of animal instincts and does not ascribe any supernatural reasons to her behavior. For pure entertainment value, I enjoyed "Olalla" the most in this collection because I knew nothing about it and had no idea what was going to happen.

Finally, an abridged version of Stevenson's 1888 essay "A Chapter on Dreams" was included at the end of this collection. This contains some of his musings on dreams and nightmares and how he often remembered his dreams and adapted them into his work. It makes sense that this was included since "Olalla" and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde were both based on dreams Stevenson had. It was interesting to read, but I wish they had just included the entire essay instead of an abridged version. 

All in all, a great little collection and much spookier, in my opinion, than The Haunting of Hill House. 

Have you read any of Robert Louis Stevenson's work? Am I the only one who thinks of The Pagemaster whenever Jekyll and Hyde crop up in pop culture references? 

Let's Bust a Recap : Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine shot onto the scene in 2017 scooping up awards left and right and popping up on a whole passel of must-read lists. Normally, a book this new wouldn't even be a blip on my radar, but after joining the #bookstagram at the end of 2018 and being a general fan of skimming over must-read lists, this one kept crossing my path. When people were still raving about it at the beginning of this year, I happened upon a copy at my favorite spot (you know the place) and promptly purchased it. But instead of bringing it home to languish on my shelves for an indeterminate amount of time as is my usual MO when I bring home a new stack of contemporary fiction, I ended up reading it right away. And I'm glad. Because it was great.

Debut novel of Scottish writer Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine was actually published after Honeyman submitted the first three chapters to a competition for unpublished fiction by female writers. In it, we meet 29 year old social misfit Eleanor who always says exactly what she thinks and spends her weekends alone eating frozen pizza and downing a couple bottles of vodka. After attending a local concert, she decides that she's meant to be with the lead singer of the band and begins a process of self-transformation. As Honeyman weaves together this story around themes of isolation, loneliness, friendship, and kindness, we wonder about Eleanor's mysterious past and how she has come to be where she is. 

NPR.org describes Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine as "deadpan, heartbreaking, and humorous all at once" and that description is dead on the money. I fell in love with Eleanor pretty quickly and was heartbroken over how she seemed to miss the mark on connecting with people even while chuckling at her total bluntness. I was a fan of any person who reached past her awkwardness to show her kindness. And I was rooting for Eleanor to be more than just fine, for her to make the human connection and thrive. When we finally learn the truth about Eleanor's life in a twist I did not see coming, I even more earnestly wanted her to discover the good things in life and come out stronger. 

Altogether an excellent novel, well-written and engaging throughout. I highly recommend it. Fair warning: there is a bit of rude language scattered throughout, if that's something that puts you off, but I personally thought it fit the circumstances and characters and was hardly gratuitous or shocking. I'm really impressed that this was Honeyman's debut novel in a field it seems she never planned on entering. She managed to write a very heavy story with a measure of quirky wit and lightness that made it a pleasure to read even as you cringed at the trauma of it. Well done. 

Several people compared Honeyman's Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine to Fredrik Backman's A Man Called Ove which was on my 2019 book list, but which I still haven't read. So now I'm even more anxious to get to that one sooner rather than later. (Although as I mentioned on Monday, I have a few more books I want to prioritize this year so I probably won't get to Ove until next year.) Have you read either of these books and did you connect to Eleanor or Ove? Do you keep up with all the hot new releases or do you wait to see if a book is going to stick around like I do?

Let's Bust a Recap : Peter Pan

Peter Pan. My first read of the new year. And my, what a delightful, charming, jolly book it was to start off with.

According to Wikipedia, "J.M. Barrie first used Peter Pan as a character in a section of The Little White Bird (1902), an adult novel where he appears as a seven-day-old baby in the chapter entitled Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. Following the success of the 1904 play, Barrie's publishers, Hodder and Stoughton, extracted chapters 13-18 of The Little White Bird and republished them in 1906 under the title Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, with the addition of illustrations by Arthur Rackham. [J.M. Barrie] returned to the character of Peter Pan as the centre of his stage play entitled Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, which premiered on 27 December 1904 in London. Barrie later adapted and expanded the play's story line as a novel, published in 1911 as Peter and Wendy." Barrie based Peter Pan on his older brother who died before his 14th birthday in an ice skating accident. Barrie himself was a Scottish novelist and playwright most famous for creating Peter Pan. 

I found the history of the novel interesting because when my siblings and I were kids, we had a VHS tape of the stage production of Peter Pan, and we absolutely loved it. I think it's amusing that I saw Peter Pan through this medium before ever reading the novel, and, as it turns out, the stage show actually did come before the book.

I'm sure you're all somewhat acquainted with the story so I won't go into that, but I will say that the novel is just as pleasing and captivating as you might imagine, and I highly recommend it. I wanted to start the year off with a bit of whimsy and that's exactly what I got. Two enthusiastic thumbs up for Peter Pan.

Have you ever read Peter Pan? Have you seen the stage show? What do you think about never growing up?