The Zoo in Winter by Polina Barskova

The Zoo in Winter by Polina Barskova is a collection of selected poems, translated for the first time into English, written by a woman commonly regarded as the finest Russian poet under the age of forty working today. The Zoo in Winter contains excerpts from four of Barskova's collections, as well as a section dedicated to her newer work.

The first portion of the collection poems from the collection A Squeamish Race (1993), though lovely, was unfortunately not something I was really able to probe for deeper meaning because my lack of knowledge regarding all the literary references used. Yet even if I had to Google who Laertes was (a character in Shakespeare's play Hamlet by the way, and one of many who are featured in the collection) I was able to appreciate the beauty of lines, in the poem "Farewell to Laertes":

"Death's a reliable cell
     We'll wind up there together."

This was the case with almost every poem from this portion, "Farewell to Polonius", Polonius is another character in Hamlet, which I certainly need to read, Barskova begins with the stanza:

 "I still recall the eyes: two cooled sores on a cooling body.
Still see the fluttering of those short-fingered hands:
The agony of junkyard pigeons.
Behind him crawled the interlacing shades of
Those swallowed by the quenchless Chronos."

What a lovely way to say how time swallows us up without mercy, passes without hesitation. Even without any understanding of Shakespeare at all, I think that is an undeniably beautiful turn of phrase. Still, I will certainly have to reread this section in the future after picking up Hamlet, as I am sure there will be many more layers revealed once I do.

The second collection included is Evridei and Orphica (2000) features a poem, "Anaximenes" after the philosopher (thank you Google) among many other literary references I am sure I missed. The poems from this portion have a sort of dark humor to them, almost as if the narrator is laughing at themselves, and not in an entirely pleasant way. The final poem, "Reflection" epitomized this for me and it ends with the stanza:

"Head thrown back, you laughed, forgetting why.
Your laugh bounced like a ball among shadows.
And I, hugging you, watched as into the chasm,
We go. And the futher, the deeper, the darker the lacquer." 

The next collection excerpted was published only a year later, Arias (2001) and begins with "She Will Never Come in From the Cold", a sort of twisted fairytale about masters and frogs and adulterers, in which she paints an unattractive view of herself, writing:

"let's begin with health
my body seems to me a frosting
a meringue as a sweet-toothed-Gallomanic would say with a grin
pudgy and blinding-white on the outside
it's filled with hay-dust"

The poems from the collection have a slightly mystical and earthy feel to them, "Happiness" involves transmogrifying into a pot made of clay, while "Pottery/Poetry" draws comparisons between the two arts, or "The craft that I choose and the craft that choose me", in which "clay grows like a tumor on a blameless body." Prince Charming makes an appearance in "Madre Selva" while Tarzan and Little red Riding Hood show up in "A Baboon's Widow", resulting in poems I found to be more approachable in that the literary references appeared mostly to be ones which are slightly more well-known.

The last collection The Zoo in Winter draws from is Brazilian Scenes (2005) in which the reader truly feels like they have visited Brazil thanks to Barskova's sharp and insightful details, her rich and intricate language in the long title poem, "Brazilian Scenes". These poems focus on human and sometimes ordinary, yet unique, moments, a wedding dress before a wedding in "I Examine My Wedding Dress", "Verses About That Time I Washed Eric's Hair and Foam Got in His Ear", and a baby being comforted by the piano in "Chopin."

The final, and by far the longest, section in The Zoo in Winter contains New Poems (2005-2009). This last and most recent chapter is, in terms of number of pages, nearly half the book. The title poem, "The Zoo in Winter" is quiet and odd, using images of cabbage and parnish and lemurs and whales, but in a way that is both puzzling and beautiful. One of my favourites was "Turner", a poem full of fishy metaphors, part grotesque ("And out of them sticks tufts of sea grass / As from the armpits of a dead old woman.") and part sharp beauty ("Be evil silver of the unseen swarms of fish.")

Many of Barskova's poems are unsettling in a way, she has an abstract ability to confront human emotion, an uncanny way of showing their darkest underbelly. In "Love Verses About Pro-Motion" she writes:

"What should I say about life?
Such a tiny little thing,
But so painful and swollen."

It is from this slightly damaged beauty the Barskova constructs her finest work. There are many literary and mythical references- by now I had pretty much gotten used to them, the mix of fairytale and classic literature- Thumbelina in "Assimilation",  I.S. Turgenev in "Winter Tales", Persephone in "Kidnapping". Some of these retellings reminded me slightly of Transformations by Anne Sexton or The World's Wife by Carol Ann Duffy. Hecate appears in "Verses of Winter Gone By From Henry VI", where she writes:

"The face of love: it is unstable, it is evil.
Its features flame from underneath a layer
Of pride, lust, ignorance, and vanities."

When Barskova turns her mind to the twisted intricacies of life, the result is beautiful turns of phrase and thoughtful metaphors. There were many poems in The Zoo in Winter that simply didn't work for me, and this is probably because I didn't grasp the many literary references present in them, but for those looking for layered meaning and willing to probe below the surface there is much to find in the collection.

Release Date:  March 24th 2011
Pages: 176
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Source: Netgalley

The Book of Lies by Mary Horlock

The Book of Lies by Mary Horlock begins with a confession from fifteen-year-old Cat Rozier, living on the island of Guernsey in 1984, who recently killed her best friend Nic, although she swears it wasn't her fault. Instead, Cat blames history and in order to understand what happened she not only reminisces about the past, but also includes letters written by her father as well as transcriptions of tapes left behind by her uncle regarding the German occupation of Guernsey during WWII. As The Book of Lies is pieced together, Cat lets the reader in on the arrival of the startlingly beautiful and charming Nicolette and how the two soon become best friends. Until, that is, Nic thinks that Cat has betrayed her and decides to take her own cruel revenge.

Cat has an engaging and unique voice and much of The Book of Lies reads almost like a ramble from an eccentric, somebody who doesn't realize quite how ridiculous they sound and is all the more entertaining for it. It also reinforces the natural drama of being a teenager, how each relationship and friendship feels like the most important thing in the world, an aspect Horlock captures flawlessly. That said, I definitely think Cat is a little crazy! At one point she says,  "Do not think for a minute I am a violent person. Just because I like watching mindless violence on television doesn’t mean I want to go round cutting throats (or that I would know how to)."

Although I loved Horlock's writing and the believably teenage voice of the narrator, I did find the ending of The Book of Lies to be a bit of a cop-out. It is the kind of ending that tries to please everyone but ends up pleasing no one (or at least not me.) The book is written in several formats including transcripts, letters, and a confession but it was definitely Mary's voice that I enjoyed the most. That said, the insight into life on Guernsey during WWII was really interesting and was a nice compliment to what I already knew from reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows last year.

Overall, The Book of Lies was an entertaining and quirky novel so despite being disappointed by the ending I got enough enjoyment out of Horlock's book that I'd definitely consider reading future offerings by her.

Release Date: March 3rd, 2011
Pages: 368
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Source:

This review was a part of TLC Book Tours. Click here to read what other tour hosts thought. For the purpose of this review I was provided with a copy of the book which did not require a positive review. The opinions expressed in this post are completely my own.

Don't Kill the Birthday Girl by Sandra Beasley

Don't Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life is a memoir by Sandra Beasley, who previously published two poetry collections, about living with severe and lifelong allergies that include: dairy, egg, soy, beef, shrimp, pine nuts, cucumbers, cantaloupe, honeydew, mango, macadamias, pistachios, cashews, swordfish, and mustard. Right from the introduction of her memoir Beasley writes "those with food allergies aren't victims. We're people who- for better or for worse- experience the world in a slightly different way. This is not a story of how we die. These are the stories of how we live." This positivity is consistent throughout the book in a way that was very refreshing. It would be easy for a person who has so much added burden in life to complain and whine about how difficult things are, but Don't Kill the Birthday Girl is not a call for pity, instead it is a look into what life is like with multiple fatal allergies, as well as the science and history behind the study of allergies.

Beasley does an expert job smoothly weaving personal anecdote with scientific study in an easy to read way resulting a book that merges memoir and non-fiction perfectly. It is actually a style of writing I encountered, awkwardly, earlier this year in Lonely by Emily White but in this case Beasley manages to make her science approachable to average reader. She also avoids listing an overwhelming number of statistics, which was greatly appreciated as when it comes to allergies there certainly are plenty, but it's not really what I am are looking for when I pick up recreational reading. What I loved so much about Don't Kill the Birthday Girl was that although I never felt like I was learning, I came away from the book both more knowledgeable and more compassionate about food allergies.

As somebody who has always suffered from many environmental allergies including pollen, dust, mold and basically every animal ever, there were many days going through boxes of tissues, with a bright red nose and itchy eyes and dosed up on antihistamines that left me drowsy- sometimes caused by nothing more than a nice spring day or sitting next to somebody with a cat- that I wished for a food allergy, something easy to avoid. After reading Don't Kill the Birthday Girl, in which a kiss on the cheek from somebody who just ate a cupcake leaves hives in a lip-shape across Beasley's cheek, a trip to the movies requires Benadryl because of nearby buttered popcorn, and a first date at a new restaurant can mean a trip to the hospital, that I truly understand how lucky I am.

As an individual with celiac disease, I was curious if the illness, though not an allergy but also an illness triggered by certain foods, would appear in Don't Kill the Birthday Girl. Although the focus was of course allergy, there were several mentions of celiac disease. The first paragraph in which it appears made me clench my jaw with concern for the rest of the book, as it says "in acute cases, the severity of the reaction demands zero tolerance for exposure" when in fact all cases of celiac disease require no gluten at all in the diet including such demons as cross-contamination. Luckily, despite preparing myself for ranting about its portrayal, gluten and celiac disease appears regularly alongside food allergies when Beasley is talking about dining out and social situations in the rest of the book. 

There are so many issues people with allergies face outside of just staying alive and Beasley enlightens the reader about them in a way that is light and clever, while still getting the facts across. Don't Kill the Birthday Girl tackles everything from food on an airplane to traveling internationally to dealing with weddings and birthdays. Beasley lets you in on what life was like growing up with so many allergies, especially before the main stream acceptance of them that has appeared more recently, and how she deals with accidental contamination, especially in social situations. She lets you know why so many allergic children hate using their epi-pens, and what it was like living in a collage dorm. Beasley ponders the longterm sacrifice that is required for shared living, both for her and any future spouse, as well as how she would raise her own children who may or may not have allergies, or may even have different allergies altogether. Throughout the course of Don't Kill the Birthday Girl it becomes clear that for those with life-threatening food allergies, it's not just a medical condition but a way of life- and although it may not be "normal" it is one Beasley lives with pride and exuberance, taking it one day of carefully prepared food at a time.

Release Date: July 12th 2011
Pages: 240
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Source: Publisher

Gluten-Free, Hassle Free by Marlisa Brown

Gluten-Free, Hassle Free: A Simple, Sane, Dietitian-Approved Program for Eating Your Way Back To Health by Marlisa Brown is pretty much exactly what is says, a straightforward guide for the gluten-free novice, as well as a great read for affected family and friends. As a recently diagnosed celiac, I am still adapting and adjusting to the life long change the diet presents, and learning hope to cope with it is something that can feel insurmountable at times. Brown provides relief.

One of the neat things about Gluten-Free, Hassle Free is that there is an entire 30 day menu plan included. I doubt anyone would follow it exactly, but it is loaded with ideas for gluten-free cooking and lets the reader know that even though it doesn't always feel that way, there is still plenty for the gluten-free person to eat. The menu includes GF before things that you need to be sure to check, like salad dressings and yoghurt, and that's also a good reminder be vigilant about anything that is store bought instead of home made.

There is also a list about "Dos and "Don'ts" for making the change to gluten-free eating, and although many of the points are obvious, they remind you that it's not the end of the world and there are ways to make your life easier, like by bringing gluten-free snacks with you when you travel. One point that really summarizes how I'm personally taking this lifestyle change was where Brown writes, do "be excited about all the new interesting food choices you are making," don't "start feeling depressed because you can’t do things exactly as you are used to." Yes, this is a big change and it will take a lot of work, but along the way I am learning to eat less processed things. I now cook things from scratch I never would have before, for example I now add my own seasonings to GF bread crumbs rather than buying premixed Shake 'n' Bake,  and so the result is not just that I am healthier and happier, but that many of things I am learning to cook are just as, if not more, delicious to eat.

Gluten-Free, Hassle Free contains quite a bit of information on how to break the news to your family and friends and help them understand that no, not even a crumb of gluten is okay, not even occasionally. It reminds you that cross-contamination hurts and it takes three years for your intestines to recover, and if you're still feeling sick, chance is that's because you are still getting gluten somewhere in your diet. There's also a section you can copy explaining it simply for people you know, and dozens of dining cards in various languages, as well as ones adapted for specific types of cuisine, that you can copy and use when traveling to make sure your waiter understands your diet restrictions.

The main fault Gluten-Free, Hassle Free was that it was a bit too heavy on the lists for me, sometimes there are pages and pages of safe or unsafe foods, and a lot of this stuff is not only specific to your location- I'm a Canadian and the guide is American so I'd have to recheck everything packaged anyway- but either logical (ie: fresh fruits and vegetables) or something you could good online if you were looking for it (ie: brands of gluten-free bread). It also means a lot of the book will be out of date quite quickly. That said, there is plenty of helpful and long lasting advice as well. Going gluten-free is a big and scary change, and while it may not be immediately "hassle-free" with Gluten-Free, Hassle Free Brown gives you the advice to help make your life and the transition just a little bit easier.  Can't complain about that!

Release Date: December 1st, 2009
Pages: 378
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I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl by Kelle Groom

I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl is a memoir by poet Kelle Groom about the death of her son at only a year old, whom she had as a teenager and gave up for adoption to an aunt and uncle, and how his death as well as her ever-present alcoholism impacted her life for the subsequent two decades.

Groom's writing is undeniably beautiful, but her story is not told chronologically and quite a few times I found myself confused, unsure of where she was living and what had happened. The writing style is already quite abstract and metaphoric, so I feel like a little more clarity when it came to the timeline of events would have helped with understanding it. Like History of a Suicide by Jill Bialosky,  I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl is clearly written by a poet in a way that is unique and engrossing. However, unlike Bialosky's examination of the science behind suicide, Groom's story is entirely personal and all the more heartbreaking because of the incredible pain she has suffered. In fact, so many tragic things happen to Groom that if this wasn't a memoir, it wouldn't make believable fiction, from drinking to rape to death, this is certainly not an uplifting story.

Particularly beautiful, as well as painful, are Groom's writings on what life was growing up, on how alcohol changed her, and the things she experienced as a young woman. Perhaps it is my own age that made it difficult to connect with some of her experiences as she reached middle-age, but it seems more that with the passing of time Groom is able to capture her past with a blurred, yet sharp, lens that recent events do not allow for. She is general with the details and yet specific with her metaphors. At one point she writes:

"I could be made of felt, cut into the shape of a woman- I keep arranging an expression on my face that is the opposite of crying."

Making the reader wish so desperately they could reach through the page and comfort her with a hug. In writing about alcoholism, Groom not only offers a cautionary warning about the downward spiral it presents, but also helps the reader understand the incredibly seductive and addictive nature of the beast. Ultimately though, I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl is a tale of redemption, and for every person like Groom who overcomes immense suffering, there are those that shatter in the face of such pain and although I found her story confusing at times it manages to bring hope to a situation which may seem irrevocably bleak.

Release Date: June 7th  2011
Pages: 256
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Source: Simon and Schuster Galley Grab