Bring on Halloween

I had hoped to blog about the wines from one of my favorite wine bars, but I was only able to get one glass due to slower than expected service. It was a Chilean Chardonnay called Los Vascos with guava, apricot, stone fruit, and hints of sage. The waitress said it was "an unusual wine" but I really liked it. The last few times I've been to that wine bar I've always ordered Charles Chimicky Trumps Shiraz, which has been one of my all-time favorite reds. Wine Diva bought me a bottle of it recently, which I may crack open this weekend and enjoy on my patio while I dive into our Halloween-themed October book - Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead.

This Young Adult novel is not meant to be a thought-provoking work of literary genius but is supposed to give us a much needed break from all these books about suicide and death... Hmm - I wonder if a story about the living dead is the best choice...

Little Bee by Chris Cleave - Review

I'm writing up my thoughts before our discussion tomorrow, because we're meeting at one of my favorite wine bars, and I'm thinking I may want to do a second blog just about the wines... mmm...  Now on to my thoughts:

Little Bee was VERY different than I was expecting. After the first few chapters, I sensed that there was a gruesome story to be told, involving some horrible thing that happened on a beach in Nigeria. My mind went to the darkest place it could go... the Rwandan Genocide... so when the story was finally told, I couldn't help but think "is that it?"

But, let's back up. The story opens in a detention center where 16 year old Little Bee, the Nigerian girl who has learned the Queen's English, is being released after 2 years. She's been locked up for attempting to escape from her country and is only getting out due to (let's call it) a technicality, and she's trying to get to Sarah & Andrew. Who's Andrew? Well, he's the guy hanging from the ceiling... Did I mention there's quite a bit of suicide in this book? Anyway, the author circles back and tells both Little Bee's and Sarah's story intermittently, showing how they got to the place where they are when the book began, then moving forward in the present.

Sarah earned my respect when she tells the story of how she met Little Bee and what she sacrificed for her on that Nigerian beach. Oh, and Sarah's little boy is the shining star of this book! He wears his batman suit all the time to keep the "baddies" away and says the cutest things, sometimes heartbreaking...

Little Bee has had a hard life, and even though her story wasn't quite of  Rwandan Genocide proportions, it's still alot for one person to bear, and I found myself musing on the comedic words of Louie C.K. when he talks about 'White People Problems'. Here's Little Bee - crouching under an upside-down boat, thirsty and tired and listening to these horrible things happening to her sister and wondering when the men will come for her. Her life is so bad that the first thought she has upon entering a room is "if the men come for me while I'm here, how can I kill myself?" Now, here's one of my own Louie-inspired "White People Problems" - "OMG! I went to Starbucks today to get my Grande Half-Caf, Extra Hot, Soy Latte with Caramel drizzle and my iPhone was frozen so I couldn't use my gift card off the App!" Seriously? Oh, we're so entitled, aren't we? Meanwhile, people around the world are struggling just to live another day...

Global Awareness

I haven't finished reading Little Bee yet, but I'm wondering if some message in that book has slipped into my sub-conscious. I just read a story on Yahoo! that 43  people - mostly ice hockey players/coaches died in a plane crash in Russia. At first I gasped - because for some reason my mind filled in "Americans" into the headline. Then I realized they were mostly Russians, and I SIGHED. But why? I am no more impacted by the deaths of Americans I don't know as I am by the deaths of Russians I don't know... yet somehow, that distinction mattered. In acknowledging this, I felt guilty. So, I did something I typically don't do when I learn that someone has died -- I humanized them. I thought about the hard winter and (perceived) joyless life in Russia and how happy they must have been to find a sport they could excel at and see the world through, and I wondered how many of them had Olympic dreams... Then I cried.

Somehow I feel Little Bee is responsible for my new global awareness.