Books I Have Read

This mini-blog lists all (or most) of the books I have finished reading since September 2nd, 2011, as well as anything I have highlighted from the books.

War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (Chris Hedges)

A moving examination of the significance of war.

“When we ingest the anodyne of war we feel what those we strive to destroy feel, including the Islamic fundamentalists who are painted as alien, barbaric, and uncivilized. It is the same narcotic. I partook of it for many years. And like every recovering addict there is a part of me that remains nostalgic for war’s simplicity and high, even as I cope with the scars it has left behind, mourn the deaths of those I worked with, and struggle with the bestiality I would have been better off not witnessing. There is a part of me — maybe it is a part of many of us — that decided at certain moments that I would rather die like this than go back to the routine of life. The chance to exist for an intense and overpowering moment, even if it meant certain oblivion, seemed worth it in the midst of war — and very stupid once the war ended.”

***

“Yet all she and her friends did that afternoon was lament the days when they lived in fear and hunger, emaciated, targeted by Serbian gunners on the heights above. They did not wish back the suffering, and yet, they admitted, those days may have been the fullest of their lives. They looked at me in despair. I knew them when they were being stonked by hundreds of shells a day, when they had no water to bathe in or to wash their clothes, when they huddled in unheated, darkened apartments with plastic sheeting for windows. But what they expressed was real. It was the disillusionment with a sterile, futile, empty present. Peace had again exposed the void that the rush of war, of battle, had filled. Once again they were, as perhaps we all are, alone, no longer bound by that common sense of struggle, no longer given the opportunity to be noble, heroic, no longer sure what life was about or what it meant.”

***

“Once we sign on for war’s crusade, once we see ourselves on the side of the angels, once we embrace a theological or ideological belief system that defines itself as the embodiment of goodness and light, it is only a matter of how we will carry out murder.”

***

“The ethnic conflicts and insurgencies of our time, whether between Serbs and Muslims or Hutus and Tutsis, are not religious wars. They are not clashes between cultures or civilizations, nor are they the result of ancient ethnic hatreds. They are manufactured wars, born out of the collapse of civil societies, perpetuated by fear, greed, and paranoia, and they are run by gangsters, who rise up from the bottom of their own societies and terrorize all, including those they purport to protect.”

***

““Just remember,” a Marine Corps lieutenant colonel told me as he strapped his pistol belt under his arm before we crossed into Kuwait, “that none of these boys is fighting for home, for the flag, for all that crap the politicians feed the public. They are fighting for each other, just for each other.””

***

““The survivors all suffer from the same certainty: they know that if similar acts of persecution were to begin tomorrow, despite all the official demonstrations of sympathy for the victims and condemnation of the oppressors, the rescuers would be as rare as they were before,” wrote Tzvetan Todorov in Facing the Extreme: Moral Life in the Concentration Camps. “Their good neighbors who now greet them every morning would once again turn away.””

***

“But reconciliation, self-awareness, and finally the humility that makes peace possible come only when culture no longer serves a cause or a myth but the most precious and elusive of all human narratives — truth.”

***

“The German veteran of World War I Erich Maria Remarque, in All Quiet on the Western Front, wrote of the narcotic of war that quickly transformed men into beasts. He knew the ecstatic high of violence and the debilitating mental and physical destruction that comes with prolonged exposure to war’s addiction. “We run on,” he wrote, “overwhelmed by this wave that bears us along, that fills us with ferocity, turns us into thugs, into murderers, into God knows what devils; this wave that multiplies our strength with fear and madness and greed of life, seeking and fighting for nothing but our deliverance.””

***

“There are few individual relationships — the only possible way to form friendships — in war. There are not the demands on us that there are in friendships. Veterans try to regain such feelings, but they fall short. Gray wrote that the “essential difference between comradeship and friendship consists, it seems to me, in a heightened awareness of the self in friendship and in the suppression of self-awareness in comradeship.””

***

““The struggle of man against power,” wrote the novelist Milan Kundera, “is the struggle of memory against forgetting.””

***

“We believe in the nobility and self-sacrifice demanded by war, especially when we are blinded by the narcotic of war. We discover in the communal struggle, the shared sense of meaning and purpose, a cause. War fills our spiritual void. I do not miss war, but I miss what it brought. I can never say I was happy in the midst of the fighting in El Salvador, or Bosnia, or Kosovo, but I had a sense of purpose, of calling. And this is a quality war shares with love, for we are, in love, also able to choose fealty and self-sacrifice over security.”

***

“I recited a poem the Roman lyric poet Catullus had written to honor his dead brother.

By strangers’ coasts and waters, many days at sea,
I come here for the rites of your unworlding,
Bringing for you, the dead, these last gifts of the living
And my words — vain sounds for the man of dust.
Alas, my brother,
You have been taken from me. You have been taken from me,
By cold chance turned a shadow, and my pain.
Here are the foods of the old ceremony, appointed
Long ago for the starvelings under the earth:
Take them: your brother’s tears have made them wet; and take
Into eternity my hail and my farewell.”

***

“To survive as a human being is possible only through love. And, when Thanatos is ascendant, the instinct must be to reach out to those we love, to see in them all the divinity, pity, and pathos of the human. And to recognize love in the lives of others — even those with whom we are in conflict — love that is like our own. It does not mean we will avoid war or death. It does not mean that we as distinct individuals will survive. But love, in its mystery, has its own power. It alone gives us meaning that endures. It alone allows us to embrace and cherish life. Love has power both to resist in our nature what we know we must resist, and to affirm what we know we must affirm. And love, as the poets remind us, is eternal.”

***

Monday, March 19th, 2012
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Escape (Carolyn Jessop, Laura Palmer)

A woman's escape with her eight children from a Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints compound and her abusive husband and sister wives. Very difficult to read in parts, a very powerful book.

“That afternoon the principal, Alvin Barlow, heard a ruckus coming from a sixth-grade classroom. He didn’t know that this was a planned party, nor did he ask. He stormed into the party and began slapping students across the room and kicking them to the ground. The students in the row closest to the door were his first targets and got the worst of his wrath. Linda watched one girl get her head slammed into her desk. The principal was halfway down the second row of students before he asked the teacher if he’d given the students permission to misbehave. The teacher lied and said he had not. He feared what the principal would do to him if he knew the party was originally his idea.”

***

“It was only much later that I would learn that I was part of a business deal, a way for Merril to get back into my father’s good graces after my father filed a lawsuit against him. But at that time, my father truly believed that the prophet, Uncle Roy, had received a revelation from God that I was to become Merril’s wife. My father was so brainwashed that he couldn’t see the obvious, and I was years away from connecting those dots myself.”

***

“I told Merril that I thought Barbara knew a lot more about what her son needed than I did. Merril continued, “That will change. Barbara and I decided last night that it would be good for you to learn how to care for Jackson on your own without interference from either one of us.” I was angry. How could they be so cruel both to Jackson and to me?”

***

“Minutes later, I heard Danny crying. “Mommy, why did you hit me? Why did you hit me, Mommy?” Barbara had been away from her children for an entire week and now, after just a few minutes, was slapping her son for missing her.”

***

“Audrey told me about a time when Faunita had stood up to Merril about Barbara’s bullying. Merril locked her in the upstairs of the house and locked everyone else downstairs. Audrey and the other children heard Faunita screaming as Merril beat her. The next morning, Faunita was covered with bruises. She told Audrey, “Your father did this to me. He beat me with a mop.” Audrey screamed, “I hate him! I hate him.” Faunita grabbed her and said, “Don’t you ever say that about your father. He is a good man.” There were many more times, Audrey said, when Merril beat her mother; some were so bad that Faunita couldn’t see or hear for three days.”

***

“I knew Merril was terribly angry at me for sparking the insurrection. I also knew that he held grudges and when the right moment came he’d lash out at me. I wasn’t proud of what I’d done. We had been reduced to fighting for food. I thought it was completely hypocritical that Merril would let a large family like ours go hungry while he and Barbara were indulging themselves in Page.”

***

“FLDS members are usually not allowed near water because it’s considered the devil’s domain. We’re taught that if you put yourself in a place where the devil has sole power, he can take your life. But this belief was often ignored. People swam in the FLDS, but only completely clothed. If your body is covered, swimming is considered daring, but not evil or wrong.”

***

“The changes Warren Jeffs mandated were obeyed because it was believed he was the voice of the prophet, Uncle Rulon. People did not resist the more oppressive policies he advocated. Instead, it was widely believed that we were being called to a higher way of living the gospel. This wasn’t oppression, this was grace. God was giving us a new and better way of being more faithful to him via the prophet and his mouthpiece, Warren Jeffs.”

***

“For thirty-two years, I’d believed that every person on the outside of the FLDS community was evil. It was not lost on me that the only people willing to fight for Harrison’s life and help him survive were outsiders. But doctors and nurses weren’t the only ones who were kind. A social worker at the hospital came by to make sure I had money for meals and had a change of clothes. Merril never asked me if I had enough money to survive while I was in Phoenix. I’m sure he thought that as long as I was in rebellion, I was on my own.”

***

Tuesday, December 20th, 2011
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Triumph: Life After the Cult, A Survivor's Lessons (Carolyn Jessop)

Outlines Carolyn Jessop's involvement in the raid on the FLDS’s YFZ Ranch and the ensuing criminal prosecutions. Carolyn takes the opportunity to reflect on what gave her the wherewithal to escape the cult earlier, and the importance of the support she received along the way.

“The most symbolic was the door that Warren Jeffs had decreed only God could walk through. That did not really impress the Texas Rangers, who blew it wide open. There they discovered a room surrounded by a thick wall of limestone and an enormous vault door. They went to court to get a search warrant to enter.”

***

“Brian’s dad had been career military, and Brian couldn’t fathom why the same basic human rights that his father had fought for overseas were being denied to children here at home. Brian could never understand why the government was not upholding its moral obligation to protect children from abuse. He got so outraged about some of the things I told him that happened to women and children in the FLDS that I would have to give him the information in small doses.”

***

“A mother has the right to teach her children about religion. But she doesn’t have a right to injure them or allow others to do so, even if she believes that the man hurting her children is a prophet of God.”

***

“Then when Warren Jeffs took over in 2002, after his father died, things got even worse. Even children had to wear long underwear as soon as they were potty-trained. Warren Jeffs also banned red, bright purple, and any fluorescent color. (When he was captured by a Nevada state trooper in 2006, the Cadillac Escalade he was driving was red—yet another example of his complete and utter hypocrisy.)”

***

“Goddard was blunt with the senators about one of the most outrageous FLDS abuses: education. A child without an education is a child without a future. Why do the Taliban destroy schools and forbid education for girls in Afghanistan? Like the Taliban, the FLDS knows that ignorance and submission depend on each other.”

***

“Mom said my full sister Lydia also called begging her to lie about me. Mom asked her outright why it was so important. Lydia told her if she didn’t lie, Merril was going to lose all of his kids. My mom said that might not be such a bad idea. That’s when the phone call ended.”

***

“When Barbara learned she was going to lose custody of her daughter, she did something shocking: she asked if she could substitute someone else’s daughter for her own so she would not have to relinquish custody of the daughter at the center of the trial! Barbara proposed swapping a random child who belonged to another FLDS mother whom the state had never suspected of being sexually abused. Barbara’s request came in a meeting with CPS after the verdict. It was indicative of the arbitrary power Barbara still felt she had. One of the CASA workers who described this incident to me said Barbara was told, “This isn’t about us wanting your child or that we want a child from you. This is about protecting your daughter from you.””

***

“When we finally made it to the fourth floor, I turned in my cell phone and gave Brian a quick kiss good-bye before walking into the courtroom. The young girls in that crowd had probably never seen an affectionate couple. I’m Brian’s lover, not his slave, and I hoped the young girls in the pastel dresses would begin to consider the difference between the two.”

***

“I took the coffee to Merril. He said nothing. He took one sip, then another. The silence felt deliberately calculated to make me feel uncomfortable. Finally he spoke. “I appreciate my ladies asking me before they make themselves coffee.” (Men in polygamous groups commonly refer to their wives as “my ladies.”) Was this for real? I had to ask him if I could make myself coffee in the morning?”

***

“In his memoir, Man’s Search for Meaning, the psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl wrote about how even in the concentration camp, he understood that he still had choice. While he couldn’t control what happened to him, he could control his response. This gave him a power that the Nazis could not destroy. Even amid the most acute suffering, Frankl was always able to find meaning.”

***

“I was so angry with Merril and the rest of the family that I decided that if I had to give up my religion, my culture, and my heritage to protect my children, I would. It made no sense to me that I had to allow my children to be abused in order to become like God.”

***

“In the FLDS, if someone harmed you and you refused to have anything further to do with that person, you were the one committing a crime by holding on to bad feelings. If you ever complained again, you were the offender. This twisted logic created a kingdom of sociopaths, because no one was ever held responsible for harm except the victims. The FLDS notion of forgiveness had been used in such hurtful and damaging ways that it became a way for an abuser to maximize the damage he or she could inflict without any consequence. It certainly guaranteed that a victim would remain powerless.”

***

“I have never understood why homeschoolers are so defensive. If you are educating your children well, why fear accountability?”

***

“The far-reaching impact of my victory brought back memories of one of my grandmother Jenny’s best stories. A man was traveling and came to a deep ravine. He knew he could still continue with his journey because he was young and strong enough to climb through the ravine to the other side. But once the man got to the other side, he realized that many subsequent travelers would not be strong enough to climb through the ravine and would thus be unable to complete their journey. So he halted and built a bridge, making it possible for others to complete their journey regardless of their physical strength.”

***

“Every night before I go to bed, I make sure to leave the light on above the front door. It’s a moment of hope. As long as my Betty is still absent from our family, I will leave the light on so she can find her way home.”

***

Sunday, December 18th, 2011
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Finding Everett Ruess (David Roberts)

Examines the life of the vagabond artist Everett Ruess, from childhood up to his mysterious disappearance, and beyond.

“I have been one who loved the wilderness—
Swaggered and softly crept between the mountain peaks
I listened long to the sea’s brave music;
I sang my songs above the shriek of desert winds.”

***

“Everett would continue to work on this poem — arguably the best he ever wrote — for another two years. It was published posthumously in 1935, under the title “Wilderness Song,” in the Los Angeles Daily News. Its penultimate stanza (quoted in the prologue to this book) has served ever since as a kind of autobiographical epitaph for Everett: Say that I starved; that I was lost and weary; That I was burned and blinded by the desert sun; Footsore, thirsty, sick with strange diseases; Lonely and wet and cold … but that I kept my dream!”

***

“One of the least attractive aspects of Everett’s five-year swagger across California and the Southwest is the way that, surrounded by the detritus of the Depression, he managed for the most part to ignore the hopelessness and poverty he saw at every hand. And when he did not ignore it, he sometimes railed against the stricken men and women whose paths he crossed as if their blighted dreams and everyday misery were their own fault, the natural outcome of failed imagination and sedentary torpor. All this, while Christopher and Stella were subsidizing his endless ramble.”

***

Sunday, December 18th, 2011
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How to Build a Fire: And Other Handy Things Your Grandfather Knew (Erin Bried)

A short guide on how to do everyday tasks.

“Instead of walking in and venting about your day to anyone within earshot, try asking your family how their day was first. If their troubles seem insignificant compared with yours, well, good. You want their troubles to be tiny.”

***

Sunday, December 18th, 2011
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