My Summer of Reading Like Brendan

My ability last summer to outread my brother outraged several of our fearless followers (no, of course I'm not referring to you, Martin), which led me to defend my reading choices. This summer, I contemplated (for a nanosecond) whether I wanted my win to be questioned again and decided on a different strategy: I would simply read the same books as Brendan. That would stop the criticism, right?

With this decision made, I picked up "A Long, Long Time Ago & Essentially True", Brigid Pasulka's debut novel and one of Brendan's earlier summer reads. Pasulka weaves together two stories, that of Anielica (Nela) and Czeslaw (the Pigeon) in World War II Poland and Beata (Baba Yaga), their grandchild living in 1990s Krakow. As a reader, I was taken by the details of the small community of Half-Village (located in a remote section of the mountains) and the slow development of the relationship between Anielica and the Pigeon. Pasulka drops in enough Polish phrases that I finally forced myself to pause and look up the vocabulary instead of guessing it (worth the effort, although I have since discovered that Pasulka has all the pronunciations and definitions on her website).

Beata's life to date has been similar to her grandparents' early years. Also raised in Half-Village, she has lived within the bubble of her small community, raised solely by Nela following her mother's death and father's abandonment of her. Upon Nela's death, 20-something Beata moves to Krakow to live with her (much older) cousin, Irena, and 20-something daughter, Magda. Life has certainly not been easy for Beata, but as more is revealed about her family's trials in the war, I couldn't help but wish she showed more of their strength and determination with her own struggles (and found myself mentally shouting, "It's in your genes to be a survivor, so stop being so mopey about your life!").

While parts of Beata's story dragged for me, the final chapters made up for it, with descriptions of the raw truths of wartime (a time when revealing a secret could absolutely end in someone's death) and the sacrifices families make that are kept in confidence for decades.

(P.S. to Brendan: Standing still in a fountain to avoid being captured by the Nazis seems rather extreme...and wet. Running very, very fast for a long, long time is always an option, and one I'd totally support.)