The Glass Castle: A Memoir (book)

Dickensian world of poverty is so abominably tenebrous that we tend to think of it simply as an anachronistic, if not antediluvian, work of fiction apropos of a bygone Victorian era, without translating its elemental essence of nobleness of human spirit that arises from predicaments into our own zeitgeist. The fictitious characters of Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, and Pip are the embodiment of such resilience, phoenix-like spirits enduring sordid conditions that life could impose upon us to the extent possible. Spinoza, the Dutch thinker and watchmaker, once said that it is Amor fati, love of fate, by which man’s inner strength could raise him above his outward fate. In fact, Nietzsche centuries after corroborated by saying: “That which does not kill me only makes me stronger.” Given the above axioms, what if someone in our contemporary time a fortiori lives to tell such victory of human spirit? That was the reason that I chose The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. All of the aforesaid noble triumph of human spirit over existential horrors of life is substantively and stoically recorded in this compelling living memoir with all her spirit, with all her intelligence, and with all her heart.The story starts as Walls invites us to board her memory train and travel back in times until we return to where we depart along the long and winding railroads of her windy but beloved past. We meet her charismatic, intelligent father whose engineering feats are passed in smolder by his ever independent, anti-establishment, recalcitrant spirit a fortiori emboldened by a spirit of Dionysian portion. The artistically inclined mother is all liberality: She is a devout Catholic - although far from being sanctimonious - and has a heart of gold, save a practical sense of the world. Then there are one brother and two sisters, all of whom are highly intelligent and well-behaved thanks to the moral upbringing by their parents. The parents do not have the gumption to support their children, let alone themselves in terms of economic security, which was the cause of the existential ills of the family, pushing Walls into a position of a de facto breadwinner of the family.What is most profoundly august about Walls through living amid the straits of constant economic insecurity, frequent threats of family separation by social agencies, and dangers of physical harassments was her strong sense of responsibility for her life and for her family that enabled her to endure the existential predicaments. Many people mired in such situations might have develop disputatious streaks of rebellion against everything ascribed to them. However, Walls and her siblings took different attitudinal values to their existential dilemmas: they held on to a sense of purpose and a tenacious grasp on togetherness nurtured by their yearning to achieve a higher aim in life. In fact, such attitude toward life corresponds to one of the tenets of Logotheraphy: in order to find a meaning of life however trivial or nihilistic it many seem, taking a different, constructive stance on what is ascribed helps us to rise above biological, social, and cultural inhibitions during a difficult times because we give our suffering meaning by the way in which we respond to. Which also brings us back to Spinoza’s Amor fati axiom: a different approach to our suffering is sublimated into supremeaning of life in travails by believing in its meaning to every situation with will to live a meaningful life, which then ceases to be a suffering itself.The literary merit of this memoir lies in its absence of unbridled namby-pamby outpourings of emotions in the narrative with a certain air of stoicism. Ironically, Walls’s frank, touchy-willy, matter-of-fact manner of discoursing her story belies her overwhelmingly heartrending heartaches, disappointments, and dismay smothered under factual descriptions of her past that renders the authority of truth and the power of reality without hindrance of prohibitive emotions that often results in fabrication. In her literary confession, Wall achieves catharsis by putting what was in her mind on pages after pages, pushing her pen through in expense of her will to come to terms with her parents, let alone herself, producing forgiveness of her parents’ wrongdoings and acceptance of their frailties in a package of love and tenderness.All in all, Walls’ s message to her reader is clear: you can’t choose your fate, such as a family, but you can choose what to make out of what you are given. In one way or another, the story itself chimes the bells of emotions and thoughts of many of us: the problems and issues that the Walls had and the ones we have or had may have are not oranges and apples through our voyages of life. Walls shows us that notwithstanding all the vicissitudes of life, self-reliance, resilience, and determination helps us to sail through with cheerfulness and humor as handmaids to courage. This honest-to-goodness tale of a woman rising above the planes of her inhibitions speaks straightly to our hearts. This book is a one-of-kind testament to its veracity and quality that upon reading this book, you will feel as if you knew Walls telling a story with a sense of elemental kinship which you can relate to. Moreover, this bona fide memori gives us a sense of relief that no family is perfectly blissful, which resonates with Tolstoy’s view of families as inscribed on the first page of Anna Karenina: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

A beautifully told story of a very hard childhood, but with grace given where possible and beauty found in darkness. I really loved this book.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, an emotionally gripping story of the major events and day-to-day struggles of the narrator, is a stunning read. It has earned both a Christopher Award and a New York Times Notable Book award and was the #1 New York Times Bestseller for 3 years. The author has also written titles such as Half Broke Horses and The Silver Star. Jeannette Walls is the second-oldest child of 4, with the oldest being a girl named Lori, the youngest below Jeannette a boy named Brian, and the absolute youngest a girl named Maureen. Her mother’s name is Rose Mary Walls and her fathers’ was Rex Walls.The memoir begins not with the start of her life, but with a memory of her mother and her sitting and eating in a restaurant when she was an adult. It establishes an important baseline for her relationship with her mother throughout the book, and also sets up what kind of person her mother is for the reader. From there, the book continues on about her life as a young girl and the various different places she and her family travel to as she grows older. It features such sites as Battle Mountain, Phoenix, and other locations, and all throughout this bout of traveling, the interactions between the characters establish their various personalities and ideals. Her father is an intelligent, ambitious man with eccentric tendencies and grand plans for continuing their adventures. He teaches her much about math, science, the stars, and all the while still fulfilling the role of a caring father. Her mother is an aspiring artist and writer, and wherever they travel, whole rooms and a multitude of materials are dedicated to her mother practicing her craft. Brian is an athletic boy, always out playing and roughing it up in all the new places they frequently travel to. Lori is the typical intelligent bookworm, only occasionally venturing outside to play and normally stuck reading a book inside on a comfortable perch. Maureen is only a young baby for most of the book, and so I’ll not go into detail about her.It quickly becomes apparent to the reader, though, that her family is, to put it simply, heavily dysfunctional. For all her father’s brilliance, grand plans of adventure for the family, and everything he taught Jeannette, he was a severe drinker, and it wasn't uncommon for him to be gone for hours at a time, getting absolutely pickled and only stumbling home when he was retrieved by his family or managed the walk there. Her mother, in spite of loving her children, tended to place her own wants and desires above theirs were her art or literary career concerned, like the time she kept refusing to go to her job at their local school unless forced to by her kids. She also held out of the ordinary beliefs, and this governed the way she raised her kids. The chief example of this is when, as a very young child, she was being treated at a hospital for severe burns after spilling boiling water over herself at home. After a few weeks spent at the hospital, getting her burn wounds healed, her family broke her out of the hospital, with her mother herself suggesting that they should’ve just taken her to a local Native American witch doctor.

Excellent writing. Rich characterizations portraying lived experiences of severe poverty, hunger and survival. I appreciated that the author did’t depend on narratives of victimization, which she justifiably might have done.

I enjoyed Jeannette's honesty in this memoir, success in spite of upbringing she endured. It is proof that if you really want to succeed in your field you can.