Last week I read Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying.  It was excellent!  I loved it!  I think I liked it so much because it reminded me of the way I write.  I loved that it had multiple narrators, and we were hearing their thoughts as they thought them.  I felt like it had to be taken as a whole.  I didn’t try to construct or deconstruct any of the narrative.  I just read on, and questions I hadn’t asked were answered.  I didn’t have that many questions.  It was the first Faulkner I’ve read!  Now I want to read something else.  Any suggestions, anyone?

Yesterday I was having a true crime craving, and had none to read.  Tim and I went to Barnes & Noble and I chose 3 books.  There isn’t a lot of choice in true crime there, but I found what appeared to be a balanced, comprehensive account of the Amanda Knox case called Murder In Italy.  I’ve wanted to get all the scoop on this story for a long time, and I am amazed at how misleading the media coverage has been.  I found it all confusing, but definitely possible, before I read this book (which I have not completed, by the way), but I’m convinced of her innocence already.  The prosecutor was under investigation and has been convicted of serious wrongdoing in another famous case.  3 people were convicted of murder.  The guy who did it, whose DNA was found there, had been caught during burglaries (several) in the weeks/months before this crime, and was a police informant, so he had a relationship with them. 

Knox & her Italian boyfriend, who were made out to be these kinky, deviant people in the press, were just two people who had known each other for a week, and spent the whole time together before the murder, in a honeymoon phase of a young relationship.  He was pretty introverted, she was outgoing, a free spirit. 

I think what bothers me a little is something like this could have happened to me at that age.  I write my emotions down all the time, and she did also.  Everything she did was criticised, even if one thing she did was opposite the next thing garnering criticism.  She was talkative, open and friendly with everyone, and horribly naive.  After days of intense questioning about the victim’s sex life, which she found stressful, she was made to believe that maybe she was there and had forgotten it, and she named a person who was not there.  He is now suing her for slander. 

No doubt anti-American sentiment played a part in this.  Even in Knox’s coerced, false confession, she didn’t say anything about being involved in sexual assault of the victim, Meredith Kerchner.  What she said, under duress, was maybe she & the other fellow, Patrick, had gone back to the house and she was in the kitchen & heard Meredith scream.  The police told the press that it was a sex orgy gone awry.  It is pretty unbelievable to me that a jury was convinced of her guilt.  She & her Italian boyfriend (who was never implicated as being at the scene, at least not so far) were convicted & sentenced to 26 & 25 years each.  The man who the forensic evidence implicated was given a 30 (or about) year sentence and it has already been reduced to 16.  He was quietly tried & convicted during the noisy, media crazed lead-up to Knox & Sollecito’s trial.  His was separate, theirs was together.  It’s quite nuts!

I also got 2 more books at B&N.  One is called The Forever War by Dexter Filkins.  Filkins is one of the most respected war correspondents in the world.  He’s been in Afghanistan and Iraq since 1996, and the book is about the rise of the Taliban, 9/11 and the “war on terror”.  I found it interesting when I saw it, because at the same time I looked at a book about the Crusades, and the efforts of the Christian church around 1100 C.E. to destory Islam.  Amazing, isn’t it, that the same thing is happening almost a milennia later?  Or vice versa.  I’m sure many would say Islam is trying to destory Christianity, but I take it more as Islamic extremists (and there are, admittedly, many) trying to destroy the West, rathern than Christianity.  It should be interesting. 

The last books is a memoir by Julia Scheeres called Jesus Land.  It’s about being brought up by a very religious family, reform school with her adopted brother, David.  (oddly, my real name is Julia and I have a brother named David!)  Anyhow, looks kind of sad. 

Fundamentalism is in my face for some reason.  I watched a film called Jesus Camp.  It was very scary.  What they are teaching children is criminal.  And it’s a whole generation of kids who have grown up hearing this crap.  They bring the kids up with games, fun, dancing, etc., then the next moment they are in tears, full of shame and fear.  It's terrible, but the film is striking, and I recommend it.

Need to get to bed. Ta!