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three book reviews!
Feb. 1st, 2012 04:51 pmmaybe this is silly but i am going to try to number these all sequentially -- see my first review batch here. apologies in advance, this batch contains one book i abandoned, one book i hated and was not even the book i was supposed to read, and one book that is a qualified recommendation (better ideas than writing?). but hey -- books! reading and reviewing! not so much the pretending-they-are-all-awesome, right?
here we go!
3. The Valleys of the Assassins: and other Persian Travels, by Freya Stark.
I'm not happy that my third book of the year is Status: Abandoned but I'd rather record it and move on than mope around and pretend I'll finish it later. Because even getting two-thirds through was a hard slog, sadly. I was excited about 1930s travel in Persia/Iran with Freya Stark (whose name I kept thinking I had cribbed from Game of Thrones), bona fide fascinating gal, but instead it was dry and awful. This was not in the camp of bohemian adventure, or even colonialist misadventures, it was just straight-up uninteresting writing with the culture-clash anecdotes sprinkled too thinly to keep me interested, even in the titular Valley of the Assassins part. Even once I started skimming the interminable descriptions (she was often map-making for the RGS) it was boring, sadly, so I just stopped. The most interesting part, if you can call it that, was how it made me think about the relative value of culture. Who has a right to sell out a previous culture? In the book the locals are constantly helping her rob graves, which they are okay with because the previous cultures were not Muslim and therefore not worthy of respect, even though there was some genetic links between the older culture and the current (semi-nomadic) one. But even though she was allegedly in an untravelled (by white people) area of the Persian mountains and highlands, almost all the "interesting" graves had already been looted. So I don't recommend this book at all, really. I wanted to add this to my bookshelf of British interesting women's bios and writings but it doesn't quite fit. Maybe what I need is a book about Freya Stark. Ah well.
4.The Last Word on The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense, by Suzette Haden Elgin.
It's always a bad sign when you can't even find an image of the cover of the book you've read, but oh well, I'm not recommending this one, either. This was a book recommended by Havi for those of us entering a year-long program she's running. In theory, I love the idea of gentle verbal self-defense, but this book was awful awful awful and I need to process how awful it was. First: reading dialog and descriptions of verbal abuse was very uncomfortable (hi, mom!). On the one hand I had trouble thinking about where the heck this would apply in my life, but then on the other hand I kept thinking, ugh, this is exactly what my mom sounds like. Second: it is super outdated, written in 1987 and I had a hard time translating some of its 80s-ness into modernspeak. Third: I often disagreed with the author. In the sense that I felt her points were sometimes poorly made, but also that there was invisible culture I couldn't interpret, like the Josephine Ferrero anecdote that just made no sense to me. Fourth: Very disorganized. Who is the audience for this book?
Drat and blast and fuck. In the process of writing this and looking up the book I've now discovered that I read the wrong one. Havi's picture is of one book, but her link goes to the wrong title because Elgin wrote a half-dozen different sequels and follow-ups to her original book. Okay. Listen up, imaginary personified feminist American science fiction and also nonfiction author Suzette Haden Elgin, I'm giving you one more chance to not suck. I recognize that this is pretty violent verbal language but hey. I'm trying to be okay with the fact that I wasted time reading this (and disliking it) because of someone else's mistake.
5. Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, by Marshall Rosenberg.
This is another book recommended before starting Havi's program (see #4 above) and I went into it with Havi's constant reminder: don't forget to skip the problematic poetry in this book, which truly does suck. It's true. Marshall Rosenberg is a wonderful empathetic listener and a tolerable writer, but his poetry just doesn't do it for me.
Poetry aside, this book is a great, easily digested intro to the concepts and practice of NVC. If you've never run across it before, the basic idea is to listen for observations, feelings, needs, and requests, and reflect those back to the other person. I love this idea, and Rosenberg does a good job of telling lots of stories in which it is useful outside of the academic/therapy context -- such as between street gangs, within hostile work environments, or during boring meetings, or between cantankerous family members. In my own life, I feel like I haven't quite gotten the trick of applying this yet. Perhaps the most mind-blowing idea is listening to the implied-fact statements people make and then respond with language that helps the person unpack that feeling and get down to what they really want. But not in a robotic therapist way -- in a way that demonstrates compassion for what they're really saying or trying to say. This concept is deeply connected to ideas of self-compassion that I believe in -- the idea of not being able to express empathy for others until you can be compassionate towards yourself. We all have trouble being aware of our own needs, and expressing them, and this is a pretty cool system for trying to get closer to that practice.
One of the most powerful parts for me was when he describes choice/value statements. Instead of saying "I hate my job" you make a statement like "Even though I dislike my job, I choose to go because I value financial stability" or something similar. This is a pretty powerful tool for me because it asks me to identify with choices and values rather than ascribing my pain to an arbitrary awful reality, like a job I hate or a house I regret buying or whatever. His techniques also apply to full expression of our emotions, awareness of our motivations, and other related issues behind empathy and NVC communication in general. I think of this stuff as Advanced Practice -- awesome to know, hard to put into work all the time. But when I take the time to be more aware in this way, I can sense that my communication becomes gentler in general, always a good thing. A good example is how the author models the little quizzes at the end of the chapters. No answer is wrong: he says "we are not in agreement" and explains his reasoning. Oh if only every so-called expert was more aware of their language in this regard!
My end judgment: if you're at all interested in this stuff, read it. The writing is not stellar but it's serviceable. Kind of like a pop textbook, if that makes sense. Skip the poetry or send little healing thoughts to the part of you that cringes in embarrassment when you read it, and recognize that this is part of it: recognizing when it's difficult to witness others being vulnerable. And then read the actual book, and maybe you'll love it. Or at least its ideas. But if just reading this review has made you puke a little bit, move along, no harm done.
.
onward! i just received hrdy's mothers and others in the mail yesterday, a book has been recommending for oh about five years now. looking forward to reading that. and to using my library privileges at work, too. so many books, so few dollars. yes.
here we go!
3. The Valleys of the Assassins: and other Persian Travels, by Freya Stark.
I'm not happy that my third book of the year is Status: Abandoned but I'd rather record it and move on than mope around and pretend I'll finish it later. Because even getting two-thirds through was a hard slog, sadly. I was excited about 1930s travel in Persia/Iran with Freya Stark (whose name I kept thinking I had cribbed from Game of Thrones), bona fide fascinating gal, but instead it was dry and awful. This was not in the camp of bohemian adventure, or even colonialist misadventures, it was just straight-up uninteresting writing with the culture-clash anecdotes sprinkled too thinly to keep me interested, even in the titular Valley of the Assassins part. Even once I started skimming the interminable descriptions (she was often map-making for the RGS) it was boring, sadly, so I just stopped. The most interesting part, if you can call it that, was how it made me think about the relative value of culture. Who has a right to sell out a previous culture? In the book the locals are constantly helping her rob graves, which they are okay with because the previous cultures were not Muslim and therefore not worthy of respect, even though there was some genetic links between the older culture and the current (semi-nomadic) one. But even though she was allegedly in an untravelled (by white people) area of the Persian mountains and highlands, almost all the "interesting" graves had already been looted. So I don't recommend this book at all, really. I wanted to add this to my bookshelf of British interesting women's bios and writings but it doesn't quite fit. Maybe what I need is a book about Freya Stark. Ah well.
4.
It's always a bad sign when you can't even find an image of the cover of the book you've read, but oh well, I'm not recommending this one, either. This was a book recommended by Havi for those of us entering a year-long program she's running. In theory, I love the idea of gentle verbal self-defense, but this book was awful awful awful and I need to process how awful it was. First: reading dialog and descriptions of verbal abuse was very uncomfortable (hi, mom!). On the one hand I had trouble thinking about where the heck this would apply in my life, but then on the other hand I kept thinking, ugh, this is exactly what my mom sounds like. Second: it is super outdated, written in 1987 and I had a hard time translating some of its 80s-ness into modernspeak. Third: I often disagreed with the author. In the sense that I felt her points were sometimes poorly made, but also that there was invisible culture I couldn't interpret, like the Josephine Ferrero anecdote that just made no sense to me. Fourth: Very disorganized. Who is the audience for this book?
Drat and blast and fuck. In the process of writing this and looking up the book I've now discovered that I read the wrong one. Havi's picture is of one book, but her link goes to the wrong title because Elgin wrote a half-dozen different sequels and follow-ups to her original book. Okay. Listen up, imaginary personified feminist American science fiction and also nonfiction author Suzette Haden Elgin, I'm giving you one more chance to not suck. I recognize that this is pretty violent verbal language but hey. I'm trying to be okay with the fact that I wasted time reading this (and disliking it) because of someone else's mistake.
5. Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, by Marshall Rosenberg.
This is another book recommended before starting Havi's program (see #4 above) and I went into it with Havi's constant reminder: don't forget to skip the problematic poetry in this book, which truly does suck. It's true. Marshall Rosenberg is a wonderful empathetic listener and a tolerable writer, but his poetry just doesn't do it for me.
Poetry aside, this book is a great, easily digested intro to the concepts and practice of NVC. If you've never run across it before, the basic idea is to listen for observations, feelings, needs, and requests, and reflect those back to the other person. I love this idea, and Rosenberg does a good job of telling lots of stories in which it is useful outside of the academic/therapy context -- such as between street gangs, within hostile work environments, or during boring meetings, or between cantankerous family members. In my own life, I feel like I haven't quite gotten the trick of applying this yet. Perhaps the most mind-blowing idea is listening to the implied-fact statements people make and then respond with language that helps the person unpack that feeling and get down to what they really want. But not in a robotic therapist way -- in a way that demonstrates compassion for what they're really saying or trying to say. This concept is deeply connected to ideas of self-compassion that I believe in -- the idea of not being able to express empathy for others until you can be compassionate towards yourself. We all have trouble being aware of our own needs, and expressing them, and this is a pretty cool system for trying to get closer to that practice.
One of the most powerful parts for me was when he describes choice/value statements. Instead of saying "I hate my job" you make a statement like "Even though I dislike my job, I choose to go because I value financial stability" or something similar. This is a pretty powerful tool for me because it asks me to identify with choices and values rather than ascribing my pain to an arbitrary awful reality, like a job I hate or a house I regret buying or whatever. His techniques also apply to full expression of our emotions, awareness of our motivations, and other related issues behind empathy and NVC communication in general. I think of this stuff as Advanced Practice -- awesome to know, hard to put into work all the time. But when I take the time to be more aware in this way, I can sense that my communication becomes gentler in general, always a good thing. A good example is how the author models the little quizzes at the end of the chapters. No answer is wrong: he says "we are not in agreement" and explains his reasoning. Oh if only every so-called expert was more aware of their language in this regard!
My end judgment: if you're at all interested in this stuff, read it. The writing is not stellar but it's serviceable. Kind of like a pop textbook, if that makes sense. Skip the poetry or send little healing thoughts to the part of you that cringes in embarrassment when you read it, and recognize that this is part of it: recognizing when it's difficult to witness others being vulnerable. And then read the actual book, and maybe you'll love it. Or at least its ideas. But if just reading this review has made you puke a little bit, move along, no harm done.
.
onward! i just received hrdy's mothers and others in the mail yesterday, a book has been recommending for oh about five years now. looking forward to reading that. and to using my library privileges at work, too. so many books, so few dollars. yes.
