Well, as you can see, I took a breather from this after NaBloPoMo, for several reasons. One is that I'm just busier. I was playing in two orchestras this season, so I had two rehearsals a week to make, plus job hunting, getting ready for the holidays, etc. But I guess mostly it's because NaBloPoMo just wasn't that enjoyable for me this year and that it sort of killed some of the fun of the blog for me. Also, I haven't been reading anything spectacular. I've got For Whom The Bell Tolls going, but it's going kind of slowly and I couldn't really even state an opinion about it at this point.
But I picked up an old favorite this week, and felt like writing about it. I remember when I first got Girl by Blake Nelson. It's hard to believe that was almost fifteen years ago. I really enjoyed the book, and I'm pleased to say that I still do.
I don't know how much other people would like the book anymore. For teenagers today, it would probably seem like an artifact. Maybe in the future, it will be routinely assigned in history classes for students to learn about life in the 1990s, although there is an awful lot of fucking in it.
At base, it's a coming of age story. It's written in the vibrant voice of Andrea Marr, exactly as she'd tell the story verbally. Andrea's just a cool person. the back of the book says that it "chronicles Andrea's jittery journey from suburban mall to Portland's thriving underground rock scene -- and back again, as she discovers sex, betrayal and even love." And I guess that's as good a summary as any. Andrea is very energetic, and her run-on, breathy sentences tingle with such excitement that even a routine trip to the local after-school hangout seems like a momentous event. In her life, it is. Similar to The Perks of Being a Wallflower, it's about someone in the process of becoming who she's going to be, and seeing the whole world open up before her, bit by bit.
I was a little older than Andrea when I read the book, but it still resonated for me. I was also buying lots of clothes from thrift shops, going to see local bands, hanging out in coffee shops and meeting lots and lots of interesting people. I didn't then and don't now agree with all of her choices. I think she sort of "sold out" towards the end, as she started spending more time with a more conservative preppy crowd. I also think that she let her best friend Cybil go too easily, after Cybil's band took off and scored a record deal in Seattle. She played fast and loose with some of the men in her life, too.
But it never kept me from enjoying the book. Andrea reminded me somewhat of my best friend at the time, and when I gave her the book and told her that, she was a bit offended by the comparison because she thought Andrea was a slut. But what attracted me to Andrea -- and to Karen too -- was her energy and her love of life. Andrea's a character that pops right off the pages and inspires you, even if you're not exactly sure how. Karen was a lot like that too, and I think she felt better once I told her
that.
I was interested to see what had become of Blake Nelson, and how others viewed the book. Amazon.com shows that he's written several other books about teenagers since Girl's debut. There were two editorial reviews that completely opposed each other. One pointed out that it was more authentic than many teen books which came off more like catalogues than anything else ("Jenna called me on my iPhone and wanted to go to Starbucks, and I told her I was watching Surivivor but she insisted so I threw on my Gap jeans and my favorite American Eagle t-shirt and finished my Coke and ran downstairs to find my sketchers and beg my parents for the keys to the Jetta..."). They also pointed out ("they" being Publishers Weekly, I should have said that from the start) that the book didn't encourage judgement and captured the inconsistency of emotion.
Kirkus Review was fairly scathing, accusing Nelson of "bad valley girl parody" and superficiality. They also stated that the Cybil character wasn't developed enough, for allegedly being andrea's best friend. Some of these are valid criticisms, but I had an issue with the way they kept saying the book was about "teenage rebellion." Like the "teen angst" tag they tried to hang on Wallflower, it trivializes the experiences. I guess it's an easy way to dismiss a book you don't care for, but I thought it was horribly inaccurate in this case. There's little hint of Andrea wanting to 'rebel'. She doesn't spend a lot of time around her parents, but she does value the opinions of most of the adults she encounters. There's an early scene where she wears one of her thriftstore dresses out to Cybil's first big show. Her mother sees her and is horrifed. She ultimately lets her wear it, with a parting shot along the lines of "If you want to dress like a clown, that's your problem." It rings in Andrea's ears the entire way to the club, and she's a wreck by the time she gets there. That's not the point of view of someone who's out to 'rebel'.
Andrea is just seeking out alternative ways of living. When you're a teenager, the way most adults live looks mind-numbingly boring. They spend a lot of their time at some job, a good chunk of the rest of it doing things like maintaining the house and paying bills, and most of their so-called "free time" watching TV or reading stuff. Andrea's asking the age-old question "Is that all there is?" in her own way.
Showing posts with label favorites. Show all posts
Showing posts with label favorites. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
The Weekly Meme
The question before the panel this week:
This is a tough one. A lot of books about couples either end with them split up, or they focus solely on one person in the relationship, with the partner as a cookie-cutter symbol happiness and fulfillment. A lot of the guys that the heroines of chick-lit wind up with can barely be defined even in the broadest terms (smart? funny? caring?).
But in thinking it through a bit, I came up with two outstanding couples. The first, isn't a "couple" in the sense of romantic involvement, but are bound together nonetheless. In Richard Russo's Nobody's Fool, the "title character" Sully has had his share of romantic failures. At 60, he's been divorced from the mother of his son for decades. He nurtures a crush on his boss's wife Toby, who is about the same age as his son. For 25 years, he's also carried on a half-hearted affair with Ruth, a married woman 15 years younger than him. I liked this coupling a lot too, because it was realistic. In the movie version of the book, they had Melanie Griffith play a glammed-up Toby, and positioned her as the love interest. Ruth, a young grandmother who worked as a supermarket cashier and waitress and wore cheap slacks, was totally absent from the movie. There are more women in small towns like Ruth than like Toby, and a woman like Ruth would be more likely to take an interest in Sully.
But the real woman in Sully's life is Miss Beryl. She was his eighth-grade English teacher, and her husband was his football coach all through high school. Miss Beryl had a spinal deformity all of her life that gave her a strange appearance and made her the butt of her students' jokes. Long after her husband, Clive Sr., has died, she remains surprised by him choosing her. Her son, Clive Jr., runs the local bank and stops in frequently. But the two are completely different in their beliefs, attitudes and outlooks, and are not very close, although they do care for each other.
In high school, Sully was a frequent dinner guest at Miss Beryl's house. His own house was a horrible place to be: he had an abusive, drunken father who frequently vented his anger on Sully, on their timid mother, and on Sully's older brother Patrick, who died in a car crash. Fifty years later, Sully is a permanent tenant in an apartment in Miss Beryl's home, much to Clive Jr.'s chagrin. But their relationship is more than just that of a landlord and tenant. Miss Beryl saves the mail Sully chucks in the trash without opening and maintains a file of important papers for him. Sully helps her maintain the house, and rushes her to the hospital when she has a stroke halfway through the book. They support each other in subtle ways, and by the end of the book it's clear that in their relationship, they've both found the mother-son relationship they've always wanted, so late in life that even the memory of wanting it had almost faded away.
A more traditional "favorite couple" of mine is from The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery. Valancy Stirling, at 28, has led a lonely and unsatisfying life. No friends -- ever. No boyfriends -- ever. The object of derision from her large and annoying family, including, unfortunately, a stunningly beautiful and popular cousin her own age. When a doctor tells her she may have only a year to live, at most, she's determined to change everything. She breaks with her family. She moves in with disreputable local man to care for his ailing daughter (who was also the unwed mother of a baby that died). And then, most shockingly of all, she marries local ne'er-do-well (they still had them back then) Barney Snaith.
I picked them as a favorite couple because they were unconventional in drably conventional times, in a drably conventional literary genre. Most couples, both in real-life Victorian Canada and in books aimed at 10-13 year-old-girls, live in houses and go to nightclubs or parties for fun. Barney and Valancy lived in a shack in the woods. They rarely socialized or even went into town. When they wanted to have fun, they went hiking through the woods, looking for wild flowers (but never picking any, as Valancy didn't believe in removing them from their naturally wild place), getting to know the animals, picking roots and berries, and other woodsman stuff. Barney and Valancy were also not firmly joined at the hip: one of his pre-conditions for marrying her was that she allow him his space, stay out of one particular area of the house, and not ask questions when he told her he was going away for a few days. All of these sound to a modern women like items from Dear Abby's "Is He Having An Affair?" checklist, but Valancy accepted them without question and their relationship blossomed.
I mentioned at the beginning of this blog post that in many books, one half of the happy couple is a straw man for fulfillment and happiness. Usually, these books tell the story of courtship and end with the marriage, or at least the suggestion of long-term involvement. Barney and Valancy get married towards the beginning of the book, and throughout the rest of it, their happiness in their unconventional life sparkles and shines in comparison to Valancy's earlier misery at being mired in a more conventional one. The book has an over-the-top happy ending to the point where you actually expect someone to appear leading a diamond-encrusted unicorn for the couple to enjoy as a pet, but it doesn't diminish the developing story of their relationship.
Monica suggested this one:
Got this idea from Literary Feline during her recent contest:
“Name a favorite literary couple and tell me why they are a favorite. If you cannot choose just one, that is okay too. Name as many as you like–sometimes narrowing down a list can be extremely difficult and painful. Or maybe that’s just me.”
This is a tough one. A lot of books about couples either end with them split up, or they focus solely on one person in the relationship, with the partner as a cookie-cutter symbol happiness and fulfillment. A lot of the guys that the heroines of chick-lit wind up with can barely be defined even in the broadest terms (smart? funny? caring?).
But in thinking it through a bit, I came up with two outstanding couples. The first, isn't a "couple" in the sense of romantic involvement, but are bound together nonetheless. In Richard Russo's Nobody's Fool, the "title character" Sully has had his share of romantic failures. At 60, he's been divorced from the mother of his son for decades. He nurtures a crush on his boss's wife Toby, who is about the same age as his son. For 25 years, he's also carried on a half-hearted affair with Ruth, a married woman 15 years younger than him. I liked this coupling a lot too, because it was realistic. In the movie version of the book, they had Melanie Griffith play a glammed-up Toby, and positioned her as the love interest. Ruth, a young grandmother who worked as a supermarket cashier and waitress and wore cheap slacks, was totally absent from the movie. There are more women in small towns like Ruth than like Toby, and a woman like Ruth would be more likely to take an interest in Sully.
But the real woman in Sully's life is Miss Beryl. She was his eighth-grade English teacher, and her husband was his football coach all through high school. Miss Beryl had a spinal deformity all of her life that gave her a strange appearance and made her the butt of her students' jokes. Long after her husband, Clive Sr., has died, she remains surprised by him choosing her. Her son, Clive Jr., runs the local bank and stops in frequently. But the two are completely different in their beliefs, attitudes and outlooks, and are not very close, although they do care for each other.
In high school, Sully was a frequent dinner guest at Miss Beryl's house. His own house was a horrible place to be: he had an abusive, drunken father who frequently vented his anger on Sully, on their timid mother, and on Sully's older brother Patrick, who died in a car crash. Fifty years later, Sully is a permanent tenant in an apartment in Miss Beryl's home, much to Clive Jr.'s chagrin. But their relationship is more than just that of a landlord and tenant. Miss Beryl saves the mail Sully chucks in the trash without opening and maintains a file of important papers for him. Sully helps her maintain the house, and rushes her to the hospital when she has a stroke halfway through the book. They support each other in subtle ways, and by the end of the book it's clear that in their relationship, they've both found the mother-son relationship they've always wanted, so late in life that even the memory of wanting it had almost faded away.
A more traditional "favorite couple" of mine is from The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery. Valancy Stirling, at 28, has led a lonely and unsatisfying life. No friends -- ever. No boyfriends -- ever. The object of derision from her large and annoying family, including, unfortunately, a stunningly beautiful and popular cousin her own age. When a doctor tells her she may have only a year to live, at most, she's determined to change everything. She breaks with her family. She moves in with disreputable local man to care for his ailing daughter (who was also the unwed mother of a baby that died). And then, most shockingly of all, she marries local ne'er-do-well (they still had them back then) Barney Snaith.
I picked them as a favorite couple because they were unconventional in drably conventional times, in a drably conventional literary genre. Most couples, both in real-life Victorian Canada and in books aimed at 10-13 year-old-girls, live in houses and go to nightclubs or parties for fun. Barney and Valancy lived in a shack in the woods. They rarely socialized or even went into town. When they wanted to have fun, they went hiking through the woods, looking for wild flowers (but never picking any, as Valancy didn't believe in removing them from their naturally wild place), getting to know the animals, picking roots and berries, and other woodsman stuff. Barney and Valancy were also not firmly joined at the hip: one of his pre-conditions for marrying her was that she allow him his space, stay out of one particular area of the house, and not ask questions when he told her he was going away for a few days. All of these sound to a modern women like items from Dear Abby's "Is He Having An Affair?" checklist, but Valancy accepted them without question and their relationship blossomed.
I mentioned at the beginning of this blog post that in many books, one half of the happy couple is a straw man for fulfillment and happiness. Usually, these books tell the story of courtship and end with the marriage, or at least the suggestion of long-term involvement. Barney and Valancy get married towards the beginning of the book, and throughout the rest of it, their happiness in their unconventional life sparkles and shines in comparison to Valancy's earlier misery at being mired in a more conventional one. The book has an over-the-top happy ending to the point where you actually expect someone to appear leading a diamond-encrusted unicorn for the couple to enjoy as a pet, but it doesn't diminish the developing story of their relationship.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
A Creepy Vision of the (near?) Future
Another birthday gift I received this year was Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood. Unlike Wicked, I'd read this one before, all right -- renewed it twice from the local library and still wound up bringing it back late. It's a pretty captivating, scary, well-written book.
In the mid-nineties, my fellow women's studies minors and I had a similar reaction to another one of her books, The Handmaid's Tale. The professors must have felt the same way we did, because I had it assigned to me at least twice. For those of you who were attracted to a different discipline or went to college in a different era, this is a dystopian version of the future where right-wing Christian lunatics have taken over and taken away every freedom and privilege women now enjoy. That includes their right to choose sexual partners and raise children. That's what a "handmaid" is: she lives in the home of one of the elite married couples, and the man of the house has sex with her in order to get her pregnant (due to environmental catastrophe, a lot of women are infertile. Never the men, of course). If she succeeds, the couple keeps the baby and she goes away somewhere else to try again. If she fails, she's given a few other chances before it's the salt mines for her -- literally.
What can I say? Those were slightly different times, and the book scared the crap out of us. We talked at length in class about how a lot of that stuff could totally happen, although maybe not all of it at once. The Republican Revolution of 1995 had just happened, abortion clinic bombings were rampant, and one abortion provider. Dr. Bernard Slepian, was murdered in his own home in the next town over from where I grew up. Admittedly, I haven't re-read the book in a while, but looking back, our fears seem misplaced.
What to make, then, of Oryx and Crake? This is also a dystopian novel, but its themes are science run amok, corporate domination, and environmental ruin. It's also a little more complex in structure, as it weaves almost at random between the past and the future. It's hard to say much about it without giving things away, but I will say that this book seems as plausible to me now as The Handmaid's Tale did ten years ago. What Atwood is masterful at is personalizing her dark visions of the future. We hear what it's like to live in these times through the eyes of people that were intimately affected by them.
I wonder how I'll feel about Oryx and Crake in ten years. I wonder if some of that stuff will have happened, or if (hopefully) it will lurk on my bookshelf as a sort of souvenir of an earlier time. But thinking about the two books, one thing they both have in common is a society subdued by fear. In The Handmaid's Tale, a key concept used to control women is the difference between "freedom from" and "freedom to." The powers that be argue that, yes, women may no longer have the freedom to go where they please, marry who they want, or hold jobs, but they get freedom from sexual harassment and assault -- no one would dare anymore. In Oryx and Crake,the slight resistance against the corporate domination of society is failing because the corporations have more resources than any group of individuals could ever hope for, so the dissenters are getting increasingly desperate and turning to terrorism to make their point. So those who are less inclined to dissent put up with all sorts of restrictions on their freedom, believing that they're trading safety for freedom.
Yet, it's always a bad trade. It's one we've been asked to make repeatedly since September 11th. Surely, you don't mind if the government knows what books you're checking out at the library, do you? It's not like you're reading anything bad, after all. And if someone was reading something bad, think how many lives could be saved if we knew about it, and did something while the person was still reading and not acting. And that's how you make reading a book a crime, that's how you wiretap ordinary citizens, that's how you arrest teenage girls at Barnes and Noble for trying to get a conservative senator to autograph a copy of a book opposite his philosophy. So although the finer points of Margaret Atwood's dystopian books may not hold up over time, the larger messages do: fight for your freedom, don't let fear win, don't let art die, and above all else, keep thinking.
In the mid-nineties, my fellow women's studies minors and I had a similar reaction to another one of her books, The Handmaid's Tale. The professors must have felt the same way we did, because I had it assigned to me at least twice. For those of you who were attracted to a different discipline or went to college in a different era, this is a dystopian version of the future where right-wing Christian lunatics have taken over and taken away every freedom and privilege women now enjoy. That includes their right to choose sexual partners and raise children. That's what a "handmaid" is: she lives in the home of one of the elite married couples, and the man of the house has sex with her in order to get her pregnant (due to environmental catastrophe, a lot of women are infertile. Never the men, of course). If she succeeds, the couple keeps the baby and she goes away somewhere else to try again. If she fails, she's given a few other chances before it's the salt mines for her -- literally.
What can I say? Those were slightly different times, and the book scared the crap out of us. We talked at length in class about how a lot of that stuff could totally happen, although maybe not all of it at once. The Republican Revolution of 1995 had just happened, abortion clinic bombings were rampant, and one abortion provider. Dr. Bernard Slepian, was murdered in his own home in the next town over from where I grew up. Admittedly, I haven't re-read the book in a while, but looking back, our fears seem misplaced.
What to make, then, of Oryx and Crake? This is also a dystopian novel, but its themes are science run amok, corporate domination, and environmental ruin. It's also a little more complex in structure, as it weaves almost at random between the past and the future. It's hard to say much about it without giving things away, but I will say that this book seems as plausible to me now as The Handmaid's Tale did ten years ago. What Atwood is masterful at is personalizing her dark visions of the future. We hear what it's like to live in these times through the eyes of people that were intimately affected by them.
I wonder how I'll feel about Oryx and Crake in ten years. I wonder if some of that stuff will have happened, or if (hopefully) it will lurk on my bookshelf as a sort of souvenir of an earlier time. But thinking about the two books, one thing they both have in common is a society subdued by fear. In The Handmaid's Tale, a key concept used to control women is the difference between "freedom from" and "freedom to." The powers that be argue that, yes, women may no longer have the freedom to go where they please, marry who they want, or hold jobs, but they get freedom from sexual harassment and assault -- no one would dare anymore. In Oryx and Crake,the slight resistance against the corporate domination of society is failing because the corporations have more resources than any group of individuals could ever hope for, so the dissenters are getting increasingly desperate and turning to terrorism to make their point. So those who are less inclined to dissent put up with all sorts of restrictions on their freedom, believing that they're trading safety for freedom.
Yet, it's always a bad trade. It's one we've been asked to make repeatedly since September 11th. Surely, you don't mind if the government knows what books you're checking out at the library, do you? It's not like you're reading anything bad, after all. And if someone was reading something bad, think how many lives could be saved if we knew about it, and did something while the person was still reading and not acting. And that's how you make reading a book a crime, that's how you wiretap ordinary citizens, that's how you arrest teenage girls at Barnes and Noble for trying to get a conservative senator to autograph a copy of a book opposite his philosophy. So although the finer points of Margaret Atwood's dystopian books may not hold up over time, the larger messages do: fight for your freedom, don't let fear win, don't let art die, and above all else, keep thinking.
Friday, April 18, 2008
The Unluckiest Man in Upstate New York
The last time I went to the library, I was on a nonfiction tear. After the haul of lackluster novels, I thought I'd try some nonfiction. Then I didn't. I got about a quarter of the way into a book on the Black Dahlia murder and never picked it back up, or any of the other books. While my library sends me increasingly angry emails ("Please return the following at once!") I've been reading an old favorite, Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo.
I first read this book in graduate school and have since come to believe that I've located all of the inspirations in Upstate New York for the fictional upstate New York town of Bath, where this book is set. The geographic location of it -- about a half hour north of Albany near the Northway, in proximity to a wealthier town -- would put it where Ballston Spa is located, its wealthy, tourist-destination sister city being Saratoga Springs. Yet, I think the idea of the economically depressed former tourist magnate came from the haunting town of Sharon Springs further west, with its large, palatial, abandoned mineral bath hotels (I also think some of the inspiration for Disney's Tower of Terror came from here, too). Finally, I think the inspiration for the subplot about the proposed amuseument park came from the expansion and rebranding of the Great Escape in Lake George.
Knowing all of these places fairly well makes me feel an intimate connection with the story, but Russo's characters are so terrific that you can't help but feel that anyway. He has a knack for making them feel both ordinary and extraordinary. They're not "colorful" in a manufactured way, but they seem like real people with complexities, eccentricities, pasts, hopes and dreams. This is a holiday story, starting on the day before Thanksgiving and wrapping up around New Year's. It chronicles the life of Sully -- Don Sullivan, mid-50s, long-divorced, in a long-term affair, renting a flat from his eighth-grade English teacher and working under the table for a local construction magnate and tomcat.
Sully is, at heart, a lone wolf, who's drifted through life largely without strings. That's his own position, and the surface evidence seems to support it. He owns nothing but a beat-up pickup truck. He has no profession. He's been having an affair with the same woman for twenty years, but she's not really his. He has a son from his marriage, but he's not close to him. Yet, the more you read, the more you see how connected he is to everyone in town, and even to the poeple in his own life. By the end of the book, he begins to see this too. You also get glimpses into his past that explain his aggressive avoidance of ties.
This is really Sully's story, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the other principal in this story. Sully's landlady, Miss Beryl, was Jessica Tandy's last role in the film version and a moving character in the book. She's probably in her late eighties, and few fiction writers seem to want to take on writing from the point of view of an elderly character (this book is written from an omniscient point of view). Russo handles it deftly. Miss Beryl struggles with her own mortality and her increasing physical limitations. She struggles with her feelings about her grown son, and whether they represent more of an accurate assessment or are a harbinger of failing faculties. She struggles with her conflicting desires to remain a part of society and her disgust with that same society after having seen a lifetime of it. Empire Falls gets more attention, but this is far and away my favorite Richard Russo book.
I first read this book in graduate school and have since come to believe that I've located all of the inspirations in Upstate New York for the fictional upstate New York town of Bath, where this book is set. The geographic location of it -- about a half hour north of Albany near the Northway, in proximity to a wealthier town -- would put it where Ballston Spa is located, its wealthy, tourist-destination sister city being Saratoga Springs. Yet, I think the idea of the economically depressed former tourist magnate came from the haunting town of Sharon Springs further west, with its large, palatial, abandoned mineral bath hotels (I also think some of the inspiration for Disney's Tower of Terror came from here, too). Finally, I think the inspiration for the subplot about the proposed amuseument park came from the expansion and rebranding of the Great Escape in Lake George.
Knowing all of these places fairly well makes me feel an intimate connection with the story, but Russo's characters are so terrific that you can't help but feel that anyway. He has a knack for making them feel both ordinary and extraordinary. They're not "colorful" in a manufactured way, but they seem like real people with complexities, eccentricities, pasts, hopes and dreams. This is a holiday story, starting on the day before Thanksgiving and wrapping up around New Year's. It chronicles the life of Sully -- Don Sullivan, mid-50s, long-divorced, in a long-term affair, renting a flat from his eighth-grade English teacher and working under the table for a local construction magnate and tomcat.
Sully is, at heart, a lone wolf, who's drifted through life largely without strings. That's his own position, and the surface evidence seems to support it. He owns nothing but a beat-up pickup truck. He has no profession. He's been having an affair with the same woman for twenty years, but she's not really his. He has a son from his marriage, but he's not close to him. Yet, the more you read, the more you see how connected he is to everyone in town, and even to the poeple in his own life. By the end of the book, he begins to see this too. You also get glimpses into his past that explain his aggressive avoidance of ties.
This is really Sully's story, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the other principal in this story. Sully's landlady, Miss Beryl, was Jessica Tandy's last role in the film version and a moving character in the book. She's probably in her late eighties, and few fiction writers seem to want to take on writing from the point of view of an elderly character (this book is written from an omniscient point of view). Russo handles it deftly. Miss Beryl struggles with her own mortality and her increasing physical limitations. She struggles with her feelings about her grown son, and whether they represent more of an accurate assessment or are a harbinger of failing faculties. She struggles with her conflicting desires to remain a part of society and her disgust with that same society after having seen a lifetime of it. Empire Falls gets more attention, but this is far and away my favorite Richard Russo book.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Booking Through Thursday
The question before the panel this week:
Heroine February 28, 2008
Filed under: Wordpress — --Deb @ 1:32 am
Who is your favorite female lead character? And why? (And yes, of course, you can name more than one . . . I always have trouble narrowing down these things to one name, why should I force you to?)
For years, I have loved Eilonwy from Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles. You can say what you want about the plotline of the chronicles itself. Fans will find it classic and admire the way it draws on influences from Anglo-Saxon legend to Tolkien. Detractors will find it derivative and they may try to claim there's nothing new there, but they'll overlook the character of Eilonwy.
We first meet Eilonwy when she drops her "bauble" into the dungeon where the hero, Taran, is being held (her bauble is a spherical, glowing object that turns out to be quite important. I heard that word for the first time in these books, and it's always had that sort of magic connotation to me.) Eilonwy, it turns out, is the niece of the evil queen who is holding Taran, but decides to help him rather than remain loyal to her aunt and the rest of the creeps. She is very brave, very funny, very clever and very strong. Throughout the series, she seeks out adventure and years for opportunities to prove herself.
It's to Alexander's credit that he makes her an actual asset to Taran and the rest of the men. One very common criticism of Tolkien's books is the lack of depth of his female characters. Eilonwy is never a mere ornament. Her value is recognized by all, from Taran's father-figure enchanter Dallben to the Crown Prince Gwydion himself. Taran's occasional stupid remark about her being "just a girl" is never tolerated by the other men, and even when there's no one around to correct him, the stupidity of it is usually evidenced by subsequent events.
After saying all that, I will add that I've always been angered by the ending of the series. Eilonwy has to make a terrible choice, one that faces many women in real life (although generally in a less dramatic fashion). She has to choose between a man and her identity. I bet you can guess which she picked. Her destiny felt inevitable -- you knew that the two characters were destined to be together from the moment her bauble dropped into his cell -- but still. It would've been better if she'd found a way to use her considerable skills and ingenuity to compromise, or to avoid the choice altogether. It doesn't change my love for the character, though.
Heroine February 28, 2008
Filed under: Wordpress — --Deb @ 1:32 am
Who is your favorite female lead character? And why? (And yes, of course, you can name more than one . . . I always have trouble narrowing down these things to one name, why should I force you to?)
For years, I have loved Eilonwy from Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles. You can say what you want about the plotline of the chronicles itself. Fans will find it classic and admire the way it draws on influences from Anglo-Saxon legend to Tolkien. Detractors will find it derivative and they may try to claim there's nothing new there, but they'll overlook the character of Eilonwy.
We first meet Eilonwy when she drops her "bauble" into the dungeon where the hero, Taran, is being held (her bauble is a spherical, glowing object that turns out to be quite important. I heard that word for the first time in these books, and it's always had that sort of magic connotation to me.) Eilonwy, it turns out, is the niece of the evil queen who is holding Taran, but decides to help him rather than remain loyal to her aunt and the rest of the creeps. She is very brave, very funny, very clever and very strong. Throughout the series, she seeks out adventure and years for opportunities to prove herself.
It's to Alexander's credit that he makes her an actual asset to Taran and the rest of the men. One very common criticism of Tolkien's books is the lack of depth of his female characters. Eilonwy is never a mere ornament. Her value is recognized by all, from Taran's father-figure enchanter Dallben to the Crown Prince Gwydion himself. Taran's occasional stupid remark about her being "just a girl" is never tolerated by the other men, and even when there's no one around to correct him, the stupidity of it is usually evidenced by subsequent events.
After saying all that, I will add that I've always been angered by the ending of the series. Eilonwy has to make a terrible choice, one that faces many women in real life (although generally in a less dramatic fashion). She has to choose between a man and her identity. I bet you can guess which she picked. Her destiny felt inevitable -- you knew that the two characters were destined to be together from the moment her bauble dropped into his cell -- but still. It would've been better if she'd found a way to use her considerable skills and ingenuity to compromise, or to avoid the choice altogether. It doesn't change my love for the character, though.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Booking through Whatever Day This Is
This week's question, from Booking Through Thursday:
What’s your favorite book that nobody else has heard of? You know, not Little Women or Huckleberry Finn, not the latest best-seller . . . whether they’ve read them or not, everybody “knows” those books. I’m talking about the best book that, when you tell people that you love it, they go, “Huh? Never heard of it?”
I like this one a lot, because most of my childhood favorites resonate with no one else but me, then or now. Growing up, my favorite books were Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles (well-known but not terribly hot in my elementary school); L.M Montgomery's The Blue Castle, which may not have even been available in the United States; and several books by Zilpha Keatley Snyder.
In fourth grade, we had to pick one of our favorite authors and write a letter to him or her. I picked Zilpha Keatley Snyder. My teacher had never heard of her, but I was incredibly honored when she wrote back. I got a pre-printed letter with a photo of her and what we would now call a FAQ, but she wrote me a note addressing a question about how a dowsing rod worked, and even drew me a picture! Pretty cool.
From an adult perspective, I would say that the books I liked the best by her (The Egypt Game,The Changeling, and The Headless Cupid) were about older children who played elaborate games and dealt with the real world of complicated friendships, family issues, and just plain growing up through these games. As a kid, though, these books were no less than blueprints. The characters in all of those books, to me, had gotten close to that something else that I was sure was waiting for me, perhaps just through an old wardrobe or maybe even through a picture I drew myself on the sidewalk. I read The Changeling over and over, I tried to become a witch one summer like the people in The Headless Cupid so that I could commune with spirits, and I played The Egypt Game for a little while too.
But for some reason, no one else did. Her books didn't catch on, and I wonder if they're still read, or if she's still writing. I haven't read them in years, but they'll always have a special place in my heart.
What’s your favorite book that nobody else has heard of? You know, not Little Women or Huckleberry Finn, not the latest best-seller . . . whether they’ve read them or not, everybody “knows” those books. I’m talking about the best book that, when you tell people that you love it, they go, “Huh? Never heard of it?”
I like this one a lot, because most of my childhood favorites resonate with no one else but me, then or now. Growing up, my favorite books were Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles (well-known but not terribly hot in my elementary school); L.M Montgomery's The Blue Castle, which may not have even been available in the United States; and several books by Zilpha Keatley Snyder.
In fourth grade, we had to pick one of our favorite authors and write a letter to him or her. I picked Zilpha Keatley Snyder. My teacher had never heard of her, but I was incredibly honored when she wrote back. I got a pre-printed letter with a photo of her and what we would now call a FAQ, but she wrote me a note addressing a question about how a dowsing rod worked, and even drew me a picture! Pretty cool.
From an adult perspective, I would say that the books I liked the best by her (The Egypt Game,The Changeling, and The Headless Cupid) were about older children who played elaborate games and dealt with the real world of complicated friendships, family issues, and just plain growing up through these games. As a kid, though, these books were no less than blueprints. The characters in all of those books, to me, had gotten close to that something else that I was sure was waiting for me, perhaps just through an old wardrobe or maybe even through a picture I drew myself on the sidewalk. I read The Changeling over and over, I tried to become a witch one summer like the people in The Headless Cupid so that I could commune with spirits, and I played The Egypt Game for a little while too.
But for some reason, no one else did. Her books didn't catch on, and I wonder if they're still read, or if she's still writing. I haven't read them in years, but they'll always have a special place in my heart.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Announcing a new feature: "Why I love him" (or her)
So, I know I haven't been back here since I totally rocked NaBloPoMo with my awesome daily posting. I've been working on a book that is interesting, but not compelling: the sort you enjoy while you're reading but won't move heaven and earth to spend time with. Then I realized that if I didn't post soon and innovate on my blog, I would've failed NaBloPoMo in the larger sense. Like the kid with the ability to memorize all the facts out of a history book but without the ability to analyze, extrapolate and make comparisons, I would've rocked the test only to fail the subject. Plus...I missed you, and missed my blog!
So, the idea behind this feature is simple. On my sidebar is a massive list of "Authors I love, guilty pleasures included." So, from time to time, I'm going to pick one and say...you guessed it..."Why I love him (or her)".
Today, I pick V.C. Andrews. When I was in grade school, I was scared shitless of her books. I think it's because the movie version of Flowers in the Attic was marketed as a horror movie. (I finally saw it when I was in college. It's scary, all right, but not in the way the producers intended). I remember there was a girl in my math class, Melanie Tobias, who was working on If There Be Thorns (the second-to-last book in the FITA series). I used to look at her book all the time (it was more entertaining than math) and it made me feel afraid: the hints of mind control and evil possession freaked me out. I think I approached the series differently than most, though. By the time I'd gotten around to reading them, she'd gone back and written Garden of Shadows, a prequel to the series. Most prequels to anything are blatant money grabs and add little to the saga. This one actually made you empathize with someone who was portrayed thereafter as thoroughly evil and twisted. You understood what made the grandmother the way she was, and what fears and disappointments drove her. Would any reasonable person act the way she did over the course of the next two books? Probably not. But still, it lent humanity to her bizarre behavior.
After I finished the FITA series, I read the Dawn books, the Heaven books and her stand-alone novel My Sweet Audrina. They started to seem horribly derivative. Every girl had a dark secret and an evil relative (who usually knocks her up and then blames her for it). Every girl wound up a captive of some sort for a brief period of time. The girls generally started off with nothing and wound up rich through various quirks of fate, rarely through hard work and effort. There was always incest, often consensual. Blah blah blah.
I know that the V.C. Andrews books aren't particularly good. Although I re-read the FITA series from time to time, I haven't touched most of the rest since the first time I read them. So why does she have a place on my favorites list? I guess it's because of the way the books made me feel. Not only did they make me feel grown up, but they made me feel part of a community of readers. Most of the other stuff I gravitated towards, I couldn't really share with anyone except my best friend growing up. When I checked out a V.C Andrews book from the library, the library volunteer would often say "Oooohh, that's a really good one", or someone in line behind me would say "After you finish this series, you've gotta read the Dawn ones, they're even better." I knew they were trashy at the time, but they were totally absorbing. And that's "Why I Love V.C. Andrews."
So, the idea behind this feature is simple. On my sidebar is a massive list of "Authors I love, guilty pleasures included." So, from time to time, I'm going to pick one and say...you guessed it..."Why I love him (or her)".
Today, I pick V.C. Andrews. When I was in grade school, I was scared shitless of her books. I think it's because the movie version of Flowers in the Attic was marketed as a horror movie. (I finally saw it when I was in college. It's scary, all right, but not in the way the producers intended). I remember there was a girl in my math class, Melanie Tobias, who was working on If There Be Thorns (the second-to-last book in the FITA series). I used to look at her book all the time (it was more entertaining than math) and it made me feel afraid: the hints of mind control and evil possession freaked me out. I think I approached the series differently than most, though. By the time I'd gotten around to reading them, she'd gone back and written Garden of Shadows, a prequel to the series. Most prequels to anything are blatant money grabs and add little to the saga. This one actually made you empathize with someone who was portrayed thereafter as thoroughly evil and twisted. You understood what made the grandmother the way she was, and what fears and disappointments drove her. Would any reasonable person act the way she did over the course of the next two books? Probably not. But still, it lent humanity to her bizarre behavior.
After I finished the FITA series, I read the Dawn books, the Heaven books and her stand-alone novel My Sweet Audrina. They started to seem horribly derivative. Every girl had a dark secret and an evil relative (who usually knocks her up and then blames her for it). Every girl wound up a captive of some sort for a brief period of time. The girls generally started off with nothing and wound up rich through various quirks of fate, rarely through hard work and effort. There was always incest, often consensual. Blah blah blah.
I know that the V.C. Andrews books aren't particularly good. Although I re-read the FITA series from time to time, I haven't touched most of the rest since the first time I read them. So why does she have a place on my favorites list? I guess it's because of the way the books made me feel. Not only did they make me feel grown up, but they made me feel part of a community of readers. Most of the other stuff I gravitated towards, I couldn't really share with anyone except my best friend growing up. When I checked out a V.C Andrews book from the library, the library volunteer would often say "Oooohh, that's a really good one", or someone in line behind me would say "After you finish this series, you've gotta read the Dawn ones, they're even better." I knew they were trashy at the time, but they were totally absorbing. And that's "Why I Love V.C. Andrews."
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Childhood Favorites
My old description used to say that this was "A Blog About Books, From a Lifelong Fan of Them." It's true. Ever since I can remember, I've been a reader. When I was 13, I went to a school dance and slept over at a friend's house, and my dad said that he was pretty sure it was the first time I'd gone anywhere for an extended period of time without a book. Even now, I'll often carry an "emergency book": for example, you never know when you might be waiting on the side of the road for Triple A with nothing to do.
As a kid, one of my favorite authors was Zilpha Keatley Snyder, who wrote a lot about children who had encounters with the supernatural or imaginary worlds. My favorite by her was The Changeling, about Martha and Ivy's friendship. Martha came from a socially prominent family. Even her older siblings were popular, but Martha didn't fit in. She never had a friend until she became acquainted with Ivy Carson. Ivy, too, was a misfit in her family: the only one without any criminal aspirations. Ivy was into magic, and showed Martha a whole new way of looking at things. They talked to horses and trees. They spent a lot of time babysitting Ivy's sister, who had past-life experiences. They had a magic place where they hung out. It was totally my kind of story.
I talked a few days ago about how much time we spent searching for the gateway to Narnia; obviously that series was another favorite. I also loved the Prydain chronicles by Lloyd Alexander, which I wrote about in detail when he died.
L.M. Montgomery was another favorite author of mine. I got to know Anne of Green Gables through the made-for-TV version with Colleen Dewhurst as Marilla and Richard Farnsworth as Matthew. I went on to read all eight of the Anne books. I grew up near the Canadian border, and went to Toronto regularly. There was a large bookstore there, in the days before Barnes & Nobles and Borders inhabited every strip mall. Not only was it huge, but they had books that Waldenbooks didn't. I read several more of L.M Montgomery's books this way. My favorite was the romantic The Blue Castle. The heroine, Valancy, awakes on her 29th birthday deeply depressed. She is unmarried and lives with her overbearing mother and aunt. She has never done anything her whole life: she's never had a close friend, or a suitor, or any memorable experiences at all. She sees a doctor -- secretly -- about some pains she'd been having and learns that she has a serious heart condition and only a year left to live. This book is the tale of what happens to her in that year. For some reason, I identified strongly with Valancy. I re-read this one regularly at one point in my life, and have read it so often, in fact, that I probably really don't need the book anymore.
Lest anyone think I was a pure child, I'll point out that I also loved things I knew I wasn't supposed to read. I'd often make an incursion into the young adult section, and my parents didn't censor my choices much (although I thought they might start when I told my mom about the book About David, which is about a teenaged girl whose best friend David murders his parents and shoots himself. I think I was 9 at the time.) The "problem novels", with all the sex, were always enjoyable. I'm pretty sure that I learned where babies came from in one of these books. I also liked Erma Bombeck's Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession, although I wondered what the first oldest profession was until I was in middle school. Judith Viorst's Yes, Married was probably dated by the time I got my hands on it, but there was a lot about sex in that book too. I'm sure it was mostly in a context like: "It's hard to have energy for sex after spending the day washing dirty socks and cleaning up after the kids" but still, it fascinated me, probably more for the glimpses of adult life than anything else.
And like any good child of the eighties, my friends and I were all titillated by Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel. We never read the whole book, just this one particular part. I'm not even sure who turned me on to it, but there's apparently a pretty graphic sex scene in there somewhere (well, graphic if you're ten, anyway). The only phrase I remember is "thick and throbbing." It's never been enough to induce me to attempt them as an adult (although maybe it'll go on my list...) but was a surefire giggle inducer growing up.
What were some of your favorite books growing up?
As a kid, one of my favorite authors was Zilpha Keatley Snyder, who wrote a lot about children who had encounters with the supernatural or imaginary worlds. My favorite by her was The Changeling, about Martha and Ivy's friendship. Martha came from a socially prominent family. Even her older siblings were popular, but Martha didn't fit in. She never had a friend until she became acquainted with Ivy Carson. Ivy, too, was a misfit in her family: the only one without any criminal aspirations. Ivy was into magic, and showed Martha a whole new way of looking at things. They talked to horses and trees. They spent a lot of time babysitting Ivy's sister, who had past-life experiences. They had a magic place where they hung out. It was totally my kind of story.
I talked a few days ago about how much time we spent searching for the gateway to Narnia; obviously that series was another favorite. I also loved the Prydain chronicles by Lloyd Alexander, which I wrote about in detail when he died.
L.M. Montgomery was another favorite author of mine. I got to know Anne of Green Gables through the made-for-TV version with Colleen Dewhurst as Marilla and Richard Farnsworth as Matthew. I went on to read all eight of the Anne books. I grew up near the Canadian border, and went to Toronto regularly. There was a large bookstore there, in the days before Barnes & Nobles and Borders inhabited every strip mall. Not only was it huge, but they had books that Waldenbooks didn't. I read several more of L.M Montgomery's books this way. My favorite was the romantic The Blue Castle. The heroine, Valancy, awakes on her 29th birthday deeply depressed. She is unmarried and lives with her overbearing mother and aunt. She has never done anything her whole life: she's never had a close friend, or a suitor, or any memorable experiences at all. She sees a doctor -- secretly -- about some pains she'd been having and learns that she has a serious heart condition and only a year left to live. This book is the tale of what happens to her in that year. For some reason, I identified strongly with Valancy. I re-read this one regularly at one point in my life, and have read it so often, in fact, that I probably really don't need the book anymore.
Lest anyone think I was a pure child, I'll point out that I also loved things I knew I wasn't supposed to read. I'd often make an incursion into the young adult section, and my parents didn't censor my choices much (although I thought they might start when I told my mom about the book About David, which is about a teenaged girl whose best friend David murders his parents and shoots himself. I think I was 9 at the time.) The "problem novels", with all the sex, were always enjoyable. I'm pretty sure that I learned where babies came from in one of these books. I also liked Erma Bombeck's Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession, although I wondered what the first oldest profession was until I was in middle school. Judith Viorst's Yes, Married was probably dated by the time I got my hands on it, but there was a lot about sex in that book too. I'm sure it was mostly in a context like: "It's hard to have energy for sex after spending the day washing dirty socks and cleaning up after the kids" but still, it fascinated me, probably more for the glimpses of adult life than anything else.
And like any good child of the eighties, my friends and I were all titillated by Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel. We never read the whole book, just this one particular part. I'm not even sure who turned me on to it, but there's apparently a pretty graphic sex scene in there somewhere (well, graphic if you're ten, anyway). The only phrase I remember is "thick and throbbing." It's never been enough to induce me to attempt them as an adult (although maybe it'll go on my list...) but was a surefire giggle inducer growing up.
What were some of your favorite books growing up?
Monday, November 26, 2007
One from the archives
Well, I've mentioned before my love for Motley Crue's autobiography, The Dirt. It's time to finally post about it!
I am not a big fan of The Gilmore Girls, but I have watched it from time to time. Lorelei had a fine explanation of this book: "It's like, just when you think you've read the most disgusting thing, they come up with something else." That's a pretty fair explanation. If they were to film this book as written, it'd get an NC-17 for sure, for large amounts of sex scenes, heavy drug use, snorting of ants, drug-fueled violence, depiction of a telephone inserted into a girl's vagina while another girl talked on it, depictions of urination in a bar, multiple drug overdoses, and other things I won't mention since I don't want this blog to be NC-17.
The book is told in all four of their voices. Each of the bandmates (Tommy Lee, Mick Mars, Nikki Sixx, and Vince Neil) take turns narrating their tale from their own perspective. Sometimes, other guys (like their producer, their manager, and the guy they hired to replace Vince Neil when he quit) get to talk. But mostly, it's the band. The bones of it are the traditional Hollywood story: the early years, when they all share a shithole apartment and play every gig that comes their way; the big success where they get record deals, women, private jets and everything; the personal descent into drugs and alcohol; hitting bottom; then clawing their way back.
Motley Crue is a little different in that they've done this cycle a couple of times.
One thing about this book, and probably the reason I like it so much, is that it's honest. They say, straight up: "The reason we drank and drugged so much is that we thought it was fun." They don't try too much to rationalize their mistakes. They talk about cheating on their wives and girlfriends, fighting with each other, destroying property at hotels, the whole nine yards. They're also honest about other, harder things. Mick Mars has suffered from a rare degenerative disease called ankylosing spondylitis since he was in his twenties. The disease limits his motion and has condemned him to live in crippling pain. He never revealed it until this book. Vince Neil talked about two deaths that hit him hard: that of a friend of his in the 1980s, which he himself caused by driving drunk; and the cancer death of his three-year old daughter. Tommy Lee described his version of what happened between him and Pamela Anderson that caused him to go to jail for spousal abuse. And Nikki Sixx opened up about his painful upbringing and its influence on the rest of his life.
I don't want you to think that these guys wind up looking good. With the exception of Mick Mars, they really don't, and I would say Mick Mars looks more like a tragic figure than "good". But with the heavy population of drug dealers, strippers, groupies, mud wrestlers (yes, Vince Neil's ex-wife), drug addicts, sleazy record business types, cops, judges, rehab counselors, and loudmouthed fellow musicians in this book, and with the four larger-than-life narrators, it's a good time. Motley Crue, as they themselves would admit, have always been about fun, cheap entertainment. I don't think they're doing too much of that with their music anymore, but the book provides quite a bit of that.
I am not a big fan of The Gilmore Girls, but I have watched it from time to time. Lorelei had a fine explanation of this book: "It's like, just when you think you've read the most disgusting thing, they come up with something else." That's a pretty fair explanation. If they were to film this book as written, it'd get an NC-17 for sure, for large amounts of sex scenes, heavy drug use, snorting of ants, drug-fueled violence, depiction of a telephone inserted into a girl's vagina while another girl talked on it, depictions of urination in a bar, multiple drug overdoses, and other things I won't mention since I don't want this blog to be NC-17.
The book is told in all four of their voices. Each of the bandmates (Tommy Lee, Mick Mars, Nikki Sixx, and Vince Neil) take turns narrating their tale from their own perspective. Sometimes, other guys (like their producer, their manager, and the guy they hired to replace Vince Neil when he quit) get to talk. But mostly, it's the band. The bones of it are the traditional Hollywood story: the early years, when they all share a shithole apartment and play every gig that comes their way; the big success where they get record deals, women, private jets and everything; the personal descent into drugs and alcohol; hitting bottom; then clawing their way back.
Motley Crue is a little different in that they've done this cycle a couple of times.
One thing about this book, and probably the reason I like it so much, is that it's honest. They say, straight up: "The reason we drank and drugged so much is that we thought it was fun." They don't try too much to rationalize their mistakes. They talk about cheating on their wives and girlfriends, fighting with each other, destroying property at hotels, the whole nine yards. They're also honest about other, harder things. Mick Mars has suffered from a rare degenerative disease called ankylosing spondylitis since he was in his twenties. The disease limits his motion and has condemned him to live in crippling pain. He never revealed it until this book. Vince Neil talked about two deaths that hit him hard: that of a friend of his in the 1980s, which he himself caused by driving drunk; and the cancer death of his three-year old daughter. Tommy Lee described his version of what happened between him and Pamela Anderson that caused him to go to jail for spousal abuse. And Nikki Sixx opened up about his painful upbringing and its influence on the rest of his life.
I don't want you to think that these guys wind up looking good. With the exception of Mick Mars, they really don't, and I would say Mick Mars looks more like a tragic figure than "good". But with the heavy population of drug dealers, strippers, groupies, mud wrestlers (yes, Vince Neil's ex-wife), drug addicts, sleazy record business types, cops, judges, rehab counselors, and loudmouthed fellow musicians in this book, and with the four larger-than-life narrators, it's a good time. Motley Crue, as they themselves would admit, have always been about fun, cheap entertainment. I don't think they're doing too much of that with their music anymore, but the book provides quite a bit of that.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Straight Man by Richard Russo
At the moment, I have two wonderful books going, one at work and one at home. The problem is that my "home" book is too stimulating for before-bed reading. It has lots of ideas in it and it gets my brain going, and I can't fall asleep. So I've turned to an old favorite, Straight Man by Richard Russo.
Although the main character is a straight man, the title refers to comedy, not sexuality. And the book is pretty funny. It chronicles an unusual week in the life of Hank Devereaux, an English professor at a state school in Western Pennsylvania, and a man to whom, by his own admission, things seldom happen. They sure do this week, though. Hank is the interim chair of the most divided group of people you could imagine (one of them injures his nose in a committee meeting: having had it with his sarcastic comments, she smacks him in the face with a spiral notebook that had a loose wire. On the way home, another practically runs him off the road, just to make him get out of the car so he could take a picture.) He also has some issues in his personal life: his youngest daughter's marriage is on the rocks, and his father (a distinguished academic who walked out of his life when he was 10) is coming home to stay with his mother.
I've read all of Richard Russo's books and find him to be a somewhat uneven writer. Mohawk and The Risk Pool were not terribly good, nor was his book of short stories. Nobody's Fool and Empire Falls, by contrast, were TERRIBLY good, so good that you carried the mood of them around for days. I put off reading Straight Man for a long time, because I suspected it would be one of the bad ones. I was very pleasantly surprised.
The characters are delectable. He has a young colleague nicknamed Orshee because he's so opposed to sexism that whenever anyone uses the male pronoun generically, he pipes up with "or she". Another colleague is an alcoholic who is struggling to put his ten kids through college, and often calls up, drunk, to berate him in tirades that always start "You Judas Peckerwood..." A workshop student named Leo writes very bad, very violent and misogynistic short stories and can't be dissuaded from his belief that he's the next Hemingway. There's his mother's landlord and would-be suitor, Mr. Purty, who collects and sells junk and is given to malapropisms. There's the cynical CEO of the college, and the chief of security, who's just dying for the opportunity to call in the National Guard to quell a student rebellion.
But above it all, there's Hank. Hank is in the throes of some pretty serious stuff: aside from all the family and work stuff, there's an internal crisis there. Once, he published a novel. He hasn't written anything since, and is facing the question of who he is and what his life will ultimately mean. He's getting old and time's ticking. These issues, and the humor with which he approaches them, are what makes the book engaging, and makes it stay with you after you're done. This is one I don't get tired of.
Although the main character is a straight man, the title refers to comedy, not sexuality. And the book is pretty funny. It chronicles an unusual week in the life of Hank Devereaux, an English professor at a state school in Western Pennsylvania, and a man to whom, by his own admission, things seldom happen. They sure do this week, though. Hank is the interim chair of the most divided group of people you could imagine (one of them injures his nose in a committee meeting: having had it with his sarcastic comments, she smacks him in the face with a spiral notebook that had a loose wire. On the way home, another practically runs him off the road, just to make him get out of the car so he could take a picture.) He also has some issues in his personal life: his youngest daughter's marriage is on the rocks, and his father (a distinguished academic who walked out of his life when he was 10) is coming home to stay with his mother.
I've read all of Richard Russo's books and find him to be a somewhat uneven writer. Mohawk and The Risk Pool were not terribly good, nor was his book of short stories. Nobody's Fool and Empire Falls, by contrast, were TERRIBLY good, so good that you carried the mood of them around for days. I put off reading Straight Man for a long time, because I suspected it would be one of the bad ones. I was very pleasantly surprised.
The characters are delectable. He has a young colleague nicknamed Orshee because he's so opposed to sexism that whenever anyone uses the male pronoun generically, he pipes up with "or she". Another colleague is an alcoholic who is struggling to put his ten kids through college, and often calls up, drunk, to berate him in tirades that always start "You Judas Peckerwood..." A workshop student named Leo writes very bad, very violent and misogynistic short stories and can't be dissuaded from his belief that he's the next Hemingway. There's his mother's landlord and would-be suitor, Mr. Purty, who collects and sells junk and is given to malapropisms. There's the cynical CEO of the college, and the chief of security, who's just dying for the opportunity to call in the National Guard to quell a student rebellion.
But above it all, there's Hank. Hank is in the throes of some pretty serious stuff: aside from all the family and work stuff, there's an internal crisis there. Once, he published a novel. He hasn't written anything since, and is facing the question of who he is and what his life will ultimately mean. He's getting old and time's ticking. These issues, and the humor with which he approaches them, are what makes the book engaging, and makes it stay with you after you're done. This is one I don't get tired of.
Monday, April 30, 2007
The Poisonwood Bible
Last week was such a stressful week. Although I had the book club book plus a couple of 14-day loans, I wanted comfort, not yet another mountain to climb after a long day. The size and subject matter of The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver might make it seem like an odd choice under the circumstances, but not to me. I really love that book, and have read it repeatedly over the years. I recommend it to anyone who will listen. Tonight, that includes you.
To simply say that it's about an American family who travel to the Congo as missionaries and witness the end of colonial rule, the murder of the newly elected prime minister, and the installation of a ruthless and venal dictator is to strip all the meat off the bones of the book. Although that is its basic outline, it is not an "issue" novel, not set to cram lessons down your throat but to expose the facts in the intimately intertwined histories of the Price family and the Congo, and let readers decide for themselves where to lay their sympathies and blame.
The Price family has six members, and each, except for Nathan, gets the chance to tell their side. Nathan is the family's driving force, a hellfire-and-brimstone preacher determined to deliver salvation to the heathen Congolese through Jesus. His wife, Orleanna, married him at a young age, and is just trying to cope the best she can. Rachel is the eldest daughter and is what we called back in the fourth grade a "girly-girl": she frequently locked horns with her father on topics like nail polish, dating and skirt length. She is just shy of her 16th birthday at the opening of the book and her attempts to cope in the Congo, where they don't even have indoor plumbing, add levity to the more serious moments of the book.
Next in line at only 18 months younger than Rachel are twin girls, Leah and Adah. Both are extremely bright and academically oriented. Leah is outgoing and tomboyish, worshipful of her father, and religious. Adah suffers from hemiplegia. Her chapters are the most intriguing, for her affliction has freed her mind at the same time it's crippled her body. She can read and write backwards and forwards, and enjoys making up palindromes to suit the situation at hand. The book is her sole confidant; although she can speak, she elects not to, for the most part, and will write when she has something to say. Ruth May is the youngest of all, only five when the book opens, and views the world with a typical young child's perspective. As things go from bad to worse for the Price family and the Congo, she becomes a poignant symbol of sacrifice and loss of innocence.
And things do indeed, go from bad to worse. Epidemics of disease, plagues of driver ants, draught, famine and flood ravage the village of Kilanga where the Price family has set up housekeeping. Nathan is poorly suited to the work of witnessing to a foreign culture: he is a poor listener and a loud talker, and manages to alienate most everyone of influence within the village. This makes him angrier and more stubborn, harder on his family, and more determined to save every soul in Kilanga. Although most of the missionaries leave shortly after Independence, Nathan refuses to, despite the pleas of his family, even after tragedy strikes both the Prices and the new Republic of Congo, shattering the Price family and scattering them across two continents, never to reunite.
There are many, many things that are remarkable about this book. The characters are the main thing. They do pass the Maxwell Perkins test: if you were to meet Orleanna, Nathan, Leah, Adah, Rachel or Ruth May on the street, you would know them at once and know how you'd want to react. They are complex, they are "real people", defying easy judgement. You dismiss Rachel at first as merely the court jester, then condemn her as an opportunist, but ultimately come to understand her. Orleanna comes across at first as a stereotypical cowed, submissive housewife, but as her personal story unfolds, you admire her strength. Even tyrannical, cold Nathan, who hits has family and punishes his girls with The Verse (he gives them a Bible verse to start with and they have to copy that, and the next 100 verses, with the last one revealing their sin), becomes a more sympathetic figure when we learn that he was at Corregidor during World War II, and was the only man in his company to escape the Bataan Death March and to survive the war.
I also admire the technical achievements of this book. Kingsolver has done a staggering, wide-ranging amount of research into Congolese language, culture, history, and geography, and has been able to juxtapose it all with the Christian Bible. In Adah's chapters, it seems as though Kingsolver has trained several languages like you would a poodle: English, Kikongo, and French obligingly roll over, turn around backwards, shake hands and play dead in her able hands. To borrow a phrase from Rachel Price, it is a sheer tapestry of justice that Kingsolver didn't win the Pulitzer for this book. I give it my highest recommendation.
To simply say that it's about an American family who travel to the Congo as missionaries and witness the end of colonial rule, the murder of the newly elected prime minister, and the installation of a ruthless and venal dictator is to strip all the meat off the bones of the book. Although that is its basic outline, it is not an "issue" novel, not set to cram lessons down your throat but to expose the facts in the intimately intertwined histories of the Price family and the Congo, and let readers decide for themselves where to lay their sympathies and blame.
The Price family has six members, and each, except for Nathan, gets the chance to tell their side. Nathan is the family's driving force, a hellfire-and-brimstone preacher determined to deliver salvation to the heathen Congolese through Jesus. His wife, Orleanna, married him at a young age, and is just trying to cope the best she can. Rachel is the eldest daughter and is what we called back in the fourth grade a "girly-girl": she frequently locked horns with her father on topics like nail polish, dating and skirt length. She is just shy of her 16th birthday at the opening of the book and her attempts to cope in the Congo, where they don't even have indoor plumbing, add levity to the more serious moments of the book.
Next in line at only 18 months younger than Rachel are twin girls, Leah and Adah. Both are extremely bright and academically oriented. Leah is outgoing and tomboyish, worshipful of her father, and religious. Adah suffers from hemiplegia. Her chapters are the most intriguing, for her affliction has freed her mind at the same time it's crippled her body. She can read and write backwards and forwards, and enjoys making up palindromes to suit the situation at hand. The book is her sole confidant; although she can speak, she elects not to, for the most part, and will write when she has something to say. Ruth May is the youngest of all, only five when the book opens, and views the world with a typical young child's perspective. As things go from bad to worse for the Price family and the Congo, she becomes a poignant symbol of sacrifice and loss of innocence.
And things do indeed, go from bad to worse. Epidemics of disease, plagues of driver ants, draught, famine and flood ravage the village of Kilanga where the Price family has set up housekeeping. Nathan is poorly suited to the work of witnessing to a foreign culture: he is a poor listener and a loud talker, and manages to alienate most everyone of influence within the village. This makes him angrier and more stubborn, harder on his family, and more determined to save every soul in Kilanga. Although most of the missionaries leave shortly after Independence, Nathan refuses to, despite the pleas of his family, even after tragedy strikes both the Prices and the new Republic of Congo, shattering the Price family and scattering them across two continents, never to reunite.
There are many, many things that are remarkable about this book. The characters are the main thing. They do pass the Maxwell Perkins test: if you were to meet Orleanna, Nathan, Leah, Adah, Rachel or Ruth May on the street, you would know them at once and know how you'd want to react. They are complex, they are "real people", defying easy judgement. You dismiss Rachel at first as merely the court jester, then condemn her as an opportunist, but ultimately come to understand her. Orleanna comes across at first as a stereotypical cowed, submissive housewife, but as her personal story unfolds, you admire her strength. Even tyrannical, cold Nathan, who hits has family and punishes his girls with The Verse (he gives them a Bible verse to start with and they have to copy that, and the next 100 verses, with the last one revealing their sin), becomes a more sympathetic figure when we learn that he was at Corregidor during World War II, and was the only man in his company to escape the Bataan Death March and to survive the war.
I also admire the technical achievements of this book. Kingsolver has done a staggering, wide-ranging amount of research into Congolese language, culture, history, and geography, and has been able to juxtapose it all with the Christian Bible. In Adah's chapters, it seems as though Kingsolver has trained several languages like you would a poodle: English, Kikongo, and French obligingly roll over, turn around backwards, shake hands and play dead in her able hands. To borrow a phrase from Rachel Price, it is a sheer tapestry of justice that Kingsolver didn't win the Pulitzer for this book. I give it my highest recommendation.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Old Friends
Lately, I have not been reading anything new...which accounts for the shortage of posts. The source of this is actually the fact that someone else loaned me a book. I've been trying to get into it, but I haven't been able to. It's an interesting enough book -- The Road To Coorain by Jill Ker Conway, maybe some of you have read it. I guess I'm just not in the mood for it right now. But I feel an obligation to finish it fast, since it's not mine. And I don't want to give it back and admit to not reading it, nor do I want to give it back and lie about having read it. And I'm trying not to start anything else until I've finished it.
So I've been cheating. I dug out a couple of old friends, books I've read over and over, books that I know so well, I almost don't need the book to read them again. It's been a few years since I've done that type of reading. Sometimes I would in grad school, but mostly I read books for school. But then afterwards, I was so excited not to have to read schoolbooks, that I made up for lost time, big time.
I bought Buster Midnight's Cafe by Sandra Dallas at one of those "Book Sale" places that will set up shop in an empty storefront for a few weeks and sell remaindered books. I believe I was around 15, and bought it to read when I went on a cross-country driving trip with my family. Sandra Dallas has since gone on to write historical fiction novels with strong feminist themes (often with quilting mixed in there too). There's a particular image from one of her books that will be seared into my brain forever, of a woman (a neighbor of the main character) beaten by her husband, then tied to a post until she froze solid.Buster Midnight's Cafe is different from the rest of her books. The narrator Effa Commander, now in her 80s, recalls growing up in Butte, Montana in the 1930s and 1940s with her friends. Effa was part of a clique called the "Unholy Three", one of whom, May Anna, grew up to become a movie star. May Anna's boyfriend growing up, Buster, became a famous boxer.
The book kind of chronicles the dark side of these dreams, however. An incident of murder at May Anna's house in Hollywood, for which Buster is blamed, tanks his career while allowing hers to soar to new heights, but costing her Buster's love and making her distant from her friends. May Anna's story will have a familiar ring to anyone who's watched shows like VH1 Behind the Music or the E! Hollywood True Story. But by telling it through her friend Effa Commander's eyes, it makes it seem fresh. Effa (and the other member of the Unholy Three, Whippy Bird) remain in Butte except for a few visits, so the viewpoint is basically that of a privileged outsider. Effa is also leading a life of her own, which she shares with us. It's an entertaining read and has long been a favorite.
My other old favorite that I've dusted off is She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb. I think this was probably one of the most widely read novels of the late 90s, so I won't say too much about it except that it's still good, and that it still impresses me how well he managed to write from a woman's viewpoint. I remember checking the author's bio after I read it just to make sure that Wally was, indeed, a man's name.
What are some of your old favorites?
So I've been cheating. I dug out a couple of old friends, books I've read over and over, books that I know so well, I almost don't need the book to read them again. It's been a few years since I've done that type of reading. Sometimes I would in grad school, but mostly I read books for school. But then afterwards, I was so excited not to have to read schoolbooks, that I made up for lost time, big time.
I bought Buster Midnight's Cafe by Sandra Dallas at one of those "Book Sale" places that will set up shop in an empty storefront for a few weeks and sell remaindered books. I believe I was around 15, and bought it to read when I went on a cross-country driving trip with my family. Sandra Dallas has since gone on to write historical fiction novels with strong feminist themes (often with quilting mixed in there too). There's a particular image from one of her books that will be seared into my brain forever, of a woman (a neighbor of the main character) beaten by her husband, then tied to a post until she froze solid.Buster Midnight's Cafe is different from the rest of her books. The narrator Effa Commander, now in her 80s, recalls growing up in Butte, Montana in the 1930s and 1940s with her friends. Effa was part of a clique called the "Unholy Three", one of whom, May Anna, grew up to become a movie star. May Anna's boyfriend growing up, Buster, became a famous boxer.
The book kind of chronicles the dark side of these dreams, however. An incident of murder at May Anna's house in Hollywood, for which Buster is blamed, tanks his career while allowing hers to soar to new heights, but costing her Buster's love and making her distant from her friends. May Anna's story will have a familiar ring to anyone who's watched shows like VH1 Behind the Music or the E! Hollywood True Story. But by telling it through her friend Effa Commander's eyes, it makes it seem fresh. Effa (and the other member of the Unholy Three, Whippy Bird) remain in Butte except for a few visits, so the viewpoint is basically that of a privileged outsider. Effa is also leading a life of her own, which she shares with us. It's an entertaining read and has long been a favorite.
My other old favorite that I've dusted off is She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb. I think this was probably one of the most widely read novels of the late 90s, so I won't say too much about it except that it's still good, and that it still impresses me how well he managed to write from a woman's viewpoint. I remember checking the author's bio after I read it just to make sure that Wally was, indeed, a man's name.
What are some of your old favorites?
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