Sunday, June 14, 2009

The Boogie Run






















Ran the 10 km (6.2 miles) Boogie Run today. The run had over 4,000 participants walking or running 2 km, 5 km, or 10 km. Skender, Adil and Charlotte ran the 5 km with Skender's school team and Daryl, Sue, Benjamin, Jonathan and I ran the 10 km run. It was a perfect morning for running, not too hot, no wind or rain. I don't know what my official time was but I think I came in under one-hour.  I enjoyed the run and it was fun doing it with so many other people. 

So what am I reading these days? I finished two good novels in the last month, Wally Lamb's "She's Come Undone" and Rawi Hage's, "De Niro's Game." It is the first novel of Lamb's that I have read. It took me a few chapters to get into the book and as I read I felt increasingly uncomfortable with the story line. Even though I knew I should feel sympathetic to the protagonist Dolores Price, I struggled to like her. As the story unfolded I felt Lamb was playing with the reader by creating a character with flaws and strengths that so many women possess to greater or lesser degrees, including myself. This is the beauty of the book. Surprisingly Lamb (a man)  challenges women and men, but most specifically women, to reflect on how we feel about our individual histories, how we respond to those histories as we age, and to acknowledge that finding inner peace after experiencing traumatic violence against oneself can be a difficult and destructive road. At the end of the novel I was sad to see the story end and to say goodbye to a character I had not only come to like but also to find strength in. 

The second novel by Rawi Hage is brilliant. I enjoy his writing so much and this is a very good novel. Hage is a master at developing his characters and in doing so leaving the reader somewhat off balance. The novel is haunting, the story seductive, and Hage takes the reader to a reality that is simultaneously local and global. It is a powerful novel of brotherly love, unbelievable loss and the horrific destruction of war. I highly recommend this to anyone who is interested in the plight of Christians during the Beirut civil war. 

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