The Color of Water (part tres)

    First things first, I have to get this off my chest.  I might be the only one thinking this, but it has gotten on my nerves for as long as I can remember.  Why, pray tell, do poor people have so many children when they clearly can't afford it?  The way that Ruth talks about having children it's as if they just pop out whenever they feel like it.  But now that that's out of the way, I have to actually talk about the book itself, which I frankly enjoyed.  Despite his rough start, McBride managed to eventually find solid ground on which to end the book and his incessant whining, pleasantly giving the book a respectful conclusion.  Although I have already stated my immense confusion and distaste for poor people who reproduce at ridiculous rates, I came to respect Ruth and actually wish that I could have met her.  Every day I hear of stories of people who pushed through adversity, but her story just seems to top them all.  Basically, older Ruth is much more impressive than younger Ruth, primarily because she seems much more human, as though she actually had some idea of the world around her rather than living in a state of induced obliviousness.
    Overall I would have to say this probably won't be a book I'll make a priority to remember.  Sure, it was a good read, and yes, it did paint an accurate vision of the prejudice in the older US via a firsthand account, but I just feel like it was a little too 'needy'.  Throughout the whole book McBride seemed to expect people to feel sorry for him and every other black person in the world, which is understandable, but at the same time, a bit outlandish.  Despite a shaky beginning, I managed to gain tidbits of knowledge and understanding from The Color of Water.

The Color of Water (part dos)

    Although in my previous post I clearly made it evident that I wasn't enjoying this book, it's begun to grow on me.  Sure, James's mother is still an oddball, and he is still a gullible, confused guy, but I'm starting to understand why his mom did what she did and why James decided to write this book in the first place.  First off, as most of us know, Ruth's father was a complete (insert appropriate word here).  At first it was just the sexual abuse (Yeah, just) but then it escalated to a stage well past the vicinity of obscenity.  Simply put, he was a jerk.  The more I read about Ruth's upbringing, the more I realize why she cared for her children and their privacy so deeply, which was mainly because she knew that it's priceless.  I'm also extremely impressed by how she handled all of the obstacles thrown at her during her childhood, taking them all in stride and just going with the flow.
    McBride has started to captivate me with his writing, as opposed to annoying me (See: Chapters 1-9.).  Up to this point he was a useless little kid who had no idea what he was doing or what was going on.  As he aged, he started to understand the world around him, despite still being absolutely boggled by his mother's actions.  His maturity makes the book much easier to read and much less annoying to comprehend.  Although I'm enjoying the book much more than I first did, I'm still not excited about continuing.

The Color of Water (part uno)

After reading roughly 85 pages of a book that my little sister could probably read in an hour or two, I've come to a few conclusions about James McBride and his Hitler-esque mother.  First and foremost was the latter, primarily her obsession with telling her children to be social outcasts and to care about nobody but themselves.  I understand her telling them to worry about themselves only, but the way she tells her children to completely disregard other people and their opinions was a little outrageous.  Had McBride followed his mother's instructions exactly, he never would have gotten this book published or accomplished anything noteworthy in his life.  My problem isn't as much with McBride as it is with his mother's philosophy on life.  Sure she had a rough childhood, but that doesn't mean she had to attempt to shield her kids from the real world because, despite what she may have thought, they were going to be thrown into it eventually.  Yet, I did admire one aspect of McBride's mother: her intentional obliviousness.  She had a great mindset when dealing with problems, the best mindset actually, which was to completely ignore them.  This is a lost quality that doesn't seem to exist anymore.  For example, imagine me, a small white boy, walking in the hallway and accidentally brushing shoulders with a black girl who was, admittedly, a little on the chunky side.  I, knowing that the halls were crowded and that it happens regularly, trudged on, ignoring the incident.  She, on the other hand, turned around and let out a roar of anger, the likes of which I'd never heard, exclaiming that, and I quote, “This white boy done pushed me up!”  The scene that ensued was a flurry of empty threats and foul language (Not from me, of course.  This is a true story by the way.) that would make any old lady plug the ears of the nearest child.  Evidently, we can all use a little bit of voluntary obliviousness.
    The more I read the more I tired of hearing stories of McBride's troubled childhood.  They all repeat the same, endless message: "We are poor.  Listen to how poor we are.  Man, we were so poor that this one time...”  I enjoyed the first chapter, but the incessant redundancies soon took their toll, and I was overwhelmed with feelings of lethargy and utter boredom.  I'm sure McBride thought he was being funny or cute when he was writing these tales, but enough is enough.  Unfortunately, there are a great many pages left to read, and I fear that there are many more 'adorable' stories of McBride's childhood to come.  We'll just have to wait and see.

On Writing: Summation Essay (or part quatro, whichever you prefer)

    Through his writing, King managed to convey to the reader that the only way to be successful in writing is to persevere.  Now, anybody can say that perseverance is necessary to mastering a skill, but the opinion's one should value most are those from people with experience.  Simply put, King has this quality.
    "I came home to Bangor on July ninth, after a hospital stay of three weeks. I began a daily rehab program which includes stretching, bending, and crutch walking."  What would you do in this scenario?  My guess would be that you would retire to your house and try to milk the scenario for all it's worth.  The ever-vigilant Stephen King, on the other hand, decides that he wants to continue writing his unfinished books.  The man has a passion for writing.  However, at this particular instant, I think that it was more of a personal objective to prove his worth to himself rather than a concrete desire to continue writing.
    Obviously King has an affinity for writing, else he wouldn't do it so often.  But his dedication to the craft is what sets him apart (to me at least) from other writers.  Don't get me wrong, other authors go through adversity, but King's story does have a little more significance than that of any other author's that I've heard.  When skimming along the pages (or Kindle screen, whichever), the reader notices one consistent theme in On Writing: King is always writing.  Even when he's faced with the dreadful writer's block (Gag. I hate writer's block.) King remains persistent: "it all just seemed too hard, too fucking complex. I had run out too many plotlines, and they were in danger of becoming snarled.  I circled the problem again and again, beat my fists on it, knocked my head against it... and then one day when I was thinking of nothing much at all, the answer came to me."  Personally, I would have given up when I was beating my fists on it.
    Without a doubt, King is a dedicated person.  We can all take a lesson from the man whose first great book was about a teenage girl who had telekinetic powers and had tampons thrown at her by other teenage girls in a locker room.  And if this twisted, horrifying scene doesn't sum up the business of writing, then I don't know what does.