A Double Book Review of "The Bean Trees" and "Operating Instructions"

Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year by Anne Lamott
The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver

Warning: If you're a stickler for details, there could be a few spoilers in here.

This past week, I found myself with a lot of free time even while at work, so I brought a couple of books to pass the time. It's nice, nay, thrilling! to find myself in the zone where I actually am reading for the sake of it, not as an exercise or obligation. Anyway, these two books were excellent, satisfying, and definitely allow to you feel. I read Operating Instructions first, and The Bean Trees second, and this was definitely the right order in which to do it.

Anne Lamott, whom I thoroughly regret not going to see speak last semester at school, writes this autobiographical piece that chronicles the first year of her son's life, though throughout it you are given glimpses of her background. Likewise, her voice as narrator is inescapably rooted in her past, through which she views and understands her son Sam, as well as all the people who surround her in raising a newborn. Much ado is made about her unlikely Christian spirituality and faith, though I must admit that it does not much reflect my own experience and background with Christianity. Nevertheless, the honesty and transparency with which Lamott writes appeals very much to my own similar personality.

The greatest strength of Operating Instructions is its communication of the positive and negative extremes that go into motherhood, and the love for child that sustains the mother throughout it. As a male, I'm almost envious of the connection that Lamott shares with her child as a mother (heck, it makes me want to be mother). In the same breath, her experiences as a woman interacting with men serve as a reminder to us of the damage we can so easily inflict. In some ways, though, this poignancy of the message is lost in Lamott's dark humor. Of course, it could just be that I have a dark obsession of my own with being guilt tripped into things.

I would also mention that I wish I had read this before working at the Washington State Migrant Council this summer. Interacting with children every day at early hours of the morning and in the hot afternoons puts you in some frustrating and trying situations. Absent an understanding or even appreciation for the love that a parent has for the child, it can sometimes be hard to muster the patience and long-suffering to bear with the kids.

Because Lamott went to such lengths to flesh out the connection between mother and child, it also helped me understand some of the emotions and situations between the characters of Taylor Greer and Turtle in The Bean Trees. This book being Barbara Kingsolver's first novel, you can detect a difference in the character and plot development as opposed to the maturity and length displayed in The Poisonwood Bible, which I also read just recently. Kingsolver doesn't take the characters into as many situations as she could have, and having Lamott's development of mother-child connection filled in some of the gaps that could have been more fleshed out.

Even so, after being in Tucson recently and meeting numerous people who were involved in the Sanctuary Movement that provides a sub-plot to The Bean Trees, the story resonated with me and struck numerous chords. There must have been at least six places where I wanted to pull out half a page worth of text and post it here. Nevertheless, I'll stick with two that especially hit the spot. I'll get to those later, though.

What impressed me most about the characters here is how they grew to know each other. The kindness and hospitality of Mattie in the face of Taylor's posturing (which, granted, develops out of her own desperation) is an beautiful example of loving the stranger who comes in the night. One of the difficulties I've had becoming so acutely aware of many of the issues surrounding something like immigration today is that you become highly sensitive to prejudices and ignorance about something you are so passionate about as a result of experience. Instead of bearing with a person, befriending them, accepting them, helping them, it is altogether too easy to simply push them away and not give them time to grow. For example, in this first excerpt, I see myself reflected in Taylor's anger:

"One month," he [Estevan] said. "I work with a very kind family who speak only Chinese. Only the five-year-old daughter speaks English. The Father has her explain to me what I must do. Fortunately, she is very patient."
Mrs. Parsons muttered that she thought this was a disgrace. "Before you know it the whole world will be here jibbering and jabbering till we won't know it's America."
"Virgie, mind your manners," Edna said.
"Well, it's the truth. They ought to stay put in their own dirt, not come here taking up jobs."
"Virgie," Edna said.
I felt like I'd sat on a bee. If Mama hadn't brought me up to do better, I think I would have told that old snake to put down her fork and get her backside out the door. I wanted to scream at her: This man you are looking at is an English teacher. He did not come here so he could wash egg foo yung off plates and take orders from a five-year-old.
But Estevan didn't seem perturbed, and I realized he must hear this kind of thing every day of his life. I wondered how he could stay so calm. I would have murdered somebody by now, I thought, would have put a chopstick to one of the many deadly uses that only Lou Ann could imagine for it.

Estevan's grace in response is admirable in more ways than one. Being the recipient of such prejudice, he swallows and moves on, not forsaking the relationship that would later develop into one of indirect support.

The second excerpt isn't all that profound, but it is true. It comes during a discussion of Estevan and Esperanza's indigenous background. The point it brings up is essentially that a Eurocentric writes and teaches a history that obviously favors and glorifies itself as "civilizers" and benevolent saviors as opposed to conquerors.

"What's a Mayan, exactly?"
"Mayans lived here in the so-called New World before the Europeans discovered it. We're very old people. In those days we had astronomical observatories, and performed brain surgery."
I thought of the color pictures in my grade-school history books: Columbus striding up the beach in his leotards and feathered heat, a gang of wild-haired red men in loin clothes scattering in front of him like rabbits. What a joke.

Both these books are quite enjoyable reads. Lamott's voice is incredibly easy to take in and appreciate, though perhaps shocking to some at times. Kingsolver's plot takes awhile to pick up, but soon enough you are able to enter into the story well enough.