"Plastic: A Toxic Love Story" Book Review and Reflection

First published January 26, 2012 http://www.hercircleezine.com/2012/01/26/plastic-a-toxic-love-story/

COPYRIGHT DOUG LEE HTTP://WWW.GEOGRAPH.ORG.UK/REUSE.PHP?ID=798994

PLASTIC: A TOXIC LOVE STORY by Susan Freinkel (Houghton Mifflin, 2011) is a compelling nonfiction look at our relationship to plastic. Ms. Freinkel takes a look at plastic in our lives through specific items, such as Frisbees®, combs, the ubiquitous plastic bag, lawn furniture and disposable lighters. She uses literary and popular culture references throughout the book to make it easy to relate to and understand the technical information she presents about the various kinds of plastic that exist and our uneasy relationship with them.

We love plastic when it makes blood donation possible, or Kevlar for helmets. We hate it when we see things like “beach whistles” (discarded plastic tampon applicators) next to our blankets when we’re relaxing at the shore. We are happy that plastics make pacemakers possible or countertops that are nearly indestructible. We bemoan their contribution to the death of the albatross or when their chemicals are found in breast milk and baby bottles.

In an effort to avoid plastics, we sometimes use alternatives that are far more environmentally hazardous. While your paper grocery bag can be re-used, eventually it needs to be recycled and/or can breakdown without causing harm to the environment, and it’s production is far more costly in terms of natural resources and environmental impact at its production origin. The energy, trees, chemicals and then fuel it takes to make and transport heavy paper bags causes more environmental harm or that term “carbon footprint” than a plastic grocery bag. Thus, while we lament those plastic bags blowing across highways and have heavy hearts when we see them entrap ocean animals, we need to realize the more “natural” alternative (paper) is really no better.

What Ms. Freinkel’s book did for me is to make me very aware of the types of plastic I use every day and the presence of plastic, for better and worse, in my life. Her approach is also livable. She does not prescribe a particular way of living for us, admonishing us for whatever plastics we use. Rather, she is even-handed and asks us to think for ourselves about what we bring into our homes, what we support in community campaigns for or against plastics and what we dispose of and how we dispose of it. While not preachy in any way, the author brings the issues from the personal to the global as we examine ways in which manufacturers and businesses ship plastic pellets and create resins for the products we use. We see plastic at every level of our society and lives.

Freinkel discusses the number of women involved in the plastics industry—an incredibly interesting issue. In China, mostly women work in the factories where plastic products are made and/or resins are produced. Some are quite young, and others leave their families behind for much of the year to work for a certain number of months making seasonal products like Frisbees® or those plastic chairs found everywhere across the United States. It illustrates that our consumption of plastic products is tied to a lot more than just our own use or to even environmental concerns. If we all stopped purchasing Frisbees® and those green and white lawn chairs, many women would lose the ability to support families that they’ve found in this industry. Whether the conditions in which they work or the wages they’re paid are fair and equitable are another story, yet Freinkel’s book asks us to consider every aspect of our decisions about what to buy or not buy where plastics are concerned. I learned a lot reading her book and I continue to think about all of the issues—the larger picture—of plastics long since closing the last page of the book.

Enchanted by "The Night Circus" - Book Review

First published January 19, 2012 http://www.hercircleezine.com/2012/01/19/enchanted-by-the-night-circus/

THE NIGHT CIRCUS by Erin Morgenstern (Doubleday, 2011) has earned my highest praise for a work of fiction, with the label of “adult fairy tale.” I’m not sure how to define the phrase other than to say I believe it is what Gregory Maguire accomplishes with his re-imaginings of children’s literature such as, THE WIZARD OF OZ,CINDERELLA and SNOW WHITE. Rather than the simplistic bedtime stories we heard as children, Maguire imbibes these cherished tales with the nuances of which we could only imagine or for which we hoped when we examined these books of our childhood once we were adults.

THE NIGHT CIRCUS does not re-tell a well-known tale, but rather creates one on its own. It resembles a story like that told in the Tim Burton film, BIG FISH, or the book I mentioned in my January 5, 2012 booklist, Keith Donohue’s THE STOLEN CHILD (Anchor, 2007). These adult fairy tales, as I call them, are one of my favorite genres of fiction.

By the title alone, we determine THE NIGHT CIRCUS is set mainly in a circus that is open for visitors only after the setting of the sun. This already sets the tone that we’re amongst the things of which dreams are made. We quickly learn that the circus is a venue, a stage or more of a court upon which a game is played wherein competing views of the miraculous and unexplainable aspects of the world attempt to prove their validity or possibly the superiority of one view over another. In the game, each competitor is allowed to influence a single player, and yet rather than being a solo sport, the circus as the field of competition inevitably includes others as pawns.

The short chapters are teasers that lead us through time, and yet ground the story through tangents and flashbacks. Ultimately, the story seems to be about the power of love—in all its forms, not just romantic love—and its ability to fill the gaps in our world so that it is whole as we live our lives. It is a story about story itself. We see a character, who fooled herself with stories, let go of the falsehood even as she knows it will bring less than positive results for the larger group. Then, it seems as if the story will take a tragic end reminiscent of ROMEO AND JULIET. However, rather than mere self-sacrifice, or selfish sacrifice as it might be seen, we see two characters come together to be sure that it all endures not for their own benefit, but rather for the good of all. We see that it is not just their love, but also the love of others that is required to repair the damage the game could cause in the lives of everyone the circus has touched.

I believe we are who we are by the stories we’re told, the stories we believe and those we tell about others and especially ourselves. At the end of the book, one of the characters tells another, “YOU MAY TELL A TALE THAT TAKES UP RESIDENCE IN SOMEONE’S SOUL, BECOMES THEIR BLOOD AND SELF AND PURPOSE. THAT TALE WILL MOVE THEM AND DRIVE THEM AND WHO KNOWS WHAT THEY MIGHT DO BECAUSE OF IT…” Thus, as we go about our days, hearing and telling tales about ourselves as women, we can take the author’s other words to heart:“STORIES HAVE CHANGED…THERE ARE NO MORE BATTLES BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL, NO MONSTERS TO SLAY, NO MAIDENS IN NEED OF RESCUE. MOST MAIDENS ARE PERFECTLY CAPABLE OF RESCUING THEMSELVES IN MY EXPERIENCE, AT LEAST THE ONES WORTH SOMETHING, IN ANY CASE.” The work here at Her Circle and inContext helps us see how we have an influence in our own lives and those of others. We tell stories, describe stories and analyze them to make sense of them for ourselves, collectively. The character in the story is right; we are not only capable of rescuing ourselves, but must also realize that we are responsible for this self-rescue. This is how we change ourselves as a way of manifesting change in the greater world, as Gandhi is known for saying.

If you enjoy fairy tales, especially ones that have grown up, ones worthy of adult women and men, you will enjoy THE NIGHT CIRCUS. There are plenty of strong female characters and men worthy of them. We’re also surprised more than once to learn that even those who at first appear timid or weak, harbor their own kind of strength. While the game itself begins as a competition between two men, it is women and men, who, by working together, save the magic for all. As we live our lives, we need to be acutely aware of the stories we allow to become a part of ourselves. We need to be cognizant of the stories we put out into the world, and of those we tell about ourselves. We can see to it that the author’s words continue to manifest so that stories are changed. We must develop a meta-cognitive awareness that makes us responsible for the tales we use to motivate and influence our lives, those of our friends, families, children, community and society.

"Local" Graphic Novel Review and Reflection

GRAPHIC NOVEL: LOCAL

While LOCAL (written by Brian Wood and illustrated by Ryan Kelly, Oni Press, Portland, 2008) is billed as twelve interconnected short graphic stories that cover twelve years in the life of the main character, Megan McKeenan, the theme of the series is a young woman’s search for home. Megan must search for home because her mother, in life, never provided the boundaries and limits that home typically encompasses. Trapped in a bad marriage, Mrs. McKeenan indulges the desire to escape Megan exhibits as a typically developing, rebellious teen. Her forays into running away are never thwarted. While Mrs. McKeenan is always there to pick Megan up or with something to eat whenever she returns home, she never admonishes or punishes Megan for not being responsible.

Due to Mrs. McKeenan’s lack of reaction to Megan’s wandering, Megan’s homecomings make her feel less and less like she is home. Without any restrictions or boundaries, rather than freedom, Megan feels like her mother doesn’t care, and maybe wants her to leave. Thus, Megan travels throughout the United States and Canada for most of her twenties searching for something that is elusive. She seeks a sense of belonging, yet isn’t sure what belonging feels like. Belonging, of course, comes from being part of a community, in relationship with people. This entails a level of responsibility to others in some sense. Since Megan never had to be responsible in her family, she fears it every time it is thrust upon her as she meets people, dates them, works with them or is roommates with them. Then, she runs.

We see Megan return home at the end of the twelve stories. Her mother has died, and she is left with many unanswered questions. She repairs her childhood home as she answers herself in the process. She reflects upon her memories and those of her brother, and their very different reactions to being reared by a woman in a miserable marriage.

In Megan, we see the result of a generation of women who believe they want something different for their daughters, yet who lack road maps they might give to those daughters. “Different” is all a generation of women could ask. They hoped their daughters, armed with directionless support, could forge their own paths. Sure, “all who wonder are not lost,” as J.R.R. Tolkein is famous for writing. However, purposeful wandering is different than wandering while on a quest of some kind. Yes, daughters may forge new paths, yet they need a path from which to diverge. Otherwise, they are without even a compass.

I believe this was the challenge of the generation of mothers of the seventies and into the early eighties. They knew they wanted something different for their daughters, yet they had no idea what that was. We were told there was a wide world out there for our taking. With limitless choices, in many instances, we sat amongst tables of food and starved, not sure what it was for which we hungered.

Megan’s character represents the wanderlust of youth, and the result of a mother who hopes to live a free life, albeit vicariously through her daughter. In the end, we can hope that Megan has come to some kind of answer for her life, some direction. As women, we hope this for current and subsequent generations of daughters. We may even hope this for ourselves.

First published http://www.hercircleezine.com/2012/01/12/local-a-young-womans-search-for-home/