I posted a few days back about the giant mound of unread books in my posession. I decided, after The Partly Cloudy Patriot, to tackle a book that's been shaming me for over three years now. College students know what I mean. You get assigned this great book, during the absolute worst week of the semester. You have choices to make. Even when you decide to forego personal hygiene, household cleanliness, and sleep, something always happens to fuck you over. You don't get it all done. You leave the book unread, you go to the class, and everyone's talking about how great it was. You vow to read it now that you have more time and you're through the worst of it. Except now, all you want to do is sleep.
I crashed so hard at the end of that semester that I found Simpsons re-runs too intellectual for weeks afterward. Then the next semester started. So I never read John Demos' classic study of Plymouth Colony, A Little Commonwealth. It sat there taunting me ever since: "You claim you're interested in this stuff, Library Diva, you pretend you care enough to make it your life's work, and here I sit, all 176 pages of me, and you haven't even picked me up since you put me on this fancy shelf!" So I started it, to stop the taunting once and for all.
Except, I still had the heavy lifting problem. Especially last night. I was just tired and wanted to have fun and it was 1AM, and I just couldn't read about the types of furnishings found in early homes (that's the part I'm at). So I started the most fun-looking book in my stack, Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani.
Coincidentally, I had a job interview today for the position of curator at the home of a Famous American Woman Writer (FAWW). It went well, and they've invited me to do an on-site interview next week. I have never read any of FAWW's work, and want to make sure I don't despise it, preferably before the interview, so I will be reading (or at least starting) her best-known work this weekend.
Finally, someone is writing a novel set at the museum where I work now. She's been in touch with me many times over the past six months, and told me today that apparently there already was a novel based on events that happened there. She asked if I'd take a look at it for her, since she's worried that it might unconsciously influence her own work. I really like this woman. I like her premise, and frankly, I feel as though she has a shot at succeeding where I've failed in bringing the history to life. So I'm going to do it. So I'll have four books going at once. If my reviews are a little strange over the next week, you will know why!
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Monday, January 15, 2007
Forecast: Partly Cloudy
Who are your heroes? It's a question most of us don't ponder much once those college essays are firmly in our rearview mirrors. Even then, on the cusp of adulthood, it was a tough question. We all have people we admire. Some of them, like Oksana Baiul (women's gold medalist, figure skating, 1994) and JK Rowling, we admire in ways that aren't connected at all to own lives, because they do things that we can't. Others, we admire in a more down-to-earth way, like my professional mentor K. I like the approach she's taken to her career and try to treat my own volunteers and interns the way she treats hers...but at the same time, I know her too well to call her a "hero." Then, there are those that we admire in a superficial way we don't want to admit to, like that girl who lives down the hall from me and looks perfectly put together even when she's washing sheets in the basement. Yet, I wouldn't call any of these people "heroes".
What I like about Sarah Vowell is that she does have heroes, and they're the same heroes many of us would have cited unashamedly in 4th grade, like Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson. In her book, The Partly Cloudy Patriot, she discusses Lincoln Worship, and (as the title suggests) the issues around the 2000 election and September 11th. But she also touches on personal topics: what it means to be a twin sister, her first year hosting the family Thanksgiving dinner, why she likes to play mini-basketball at the arcade with her friends. In foreshadowing of her next book, Assassination Vacation, she travels to Salem, MA and to Gettysburg, and considers Lincoln worship, and the bizarre commercialization of a 200-year-old hysteria. Her essay on the weirdness of Tom Cruise is an interesting read when viewed through the lens of the actor's antics over the past two years.
If you pick up this one looking for a theme along the lines of her better-known Assassination Vacation, you will be confused. This book reads like a collection of her columns, which it probably is (I gave it back to my mother, so I can't check). But it is an enjoyable read. If you have read AV and liked it, you'll probably like this one. If you read AV and hated it, steer clear of The Partly Cloudy Patriot, for it's more of the same. And, if you haven't read anything by Sarah Vowell yet, I do recommend AV over this one. It's a better showcase of her talents and her unique voice, and she also visits the institution where I work and interviews a dear friend of mine. And I swear, that does not bias me at all!
What I like about Sarah Vowell is that she does have heroes, and they're the same heroes many of us would have cited unashamedly in 4th grade, like Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson. In her book, The Partly Cloudy Patriot, she discusses Lincoln Worship, and (as the title suggests) the issues around the 2000 election and September 11th. But she also touches on personal topics: what it means to be a twin sister, her first year hosting the family Thanksgiving dinner, why she likes to play mini-basketball at the arcade with her friends. In foreshadowing of her next book, Assassination Vacation, she travels to Salem, MA and to Gettysburg, and considers Lincoln worship, and the bizarre commercialization of a 200-year-old hysteria. Her essay on the weirdness of Tom Cruise is an interesting read when viewed through the lens of the actor's antics over the past two years.
If you pick up this one looking for a theme along the lines of her better-known Assassination Vacation, you will be confused. This book reads like a collection of her columns, which it probably is (I gave it back to my mother, so I can't check). But it is an enjoyable read. If you have read AV and liked it, you'll probably like this one. If you read AV and hated it, steer clear of The Partly Cloudy Patriot, for it's more of the same. And, if you haven't read anything by Sarah Vowell yet, I do recommend AV over this one. It's a better showcase of her talents and her unique voice, and she also visits the institution where I work and interviews a dear friend of mine. And I swear, that does not bias me at all!
Friday, January 12, 2007
The Good Earth
Well, I've wound up with a new book despite myself. When I dropped in to return Kavalier and Clay today, Bonnie (yes, I am on a first name basis with the librarians!) told me that the book club will be reading The Good Earth for their next meeting, on February 7th. So I've got that one now, in addition to all of my others.
I was going to start The Partly Cloudy Patriot last night, in the hopes that it would be a quick read and I could return it this weekend, when I head home. But I was feeling more than "partly cloudy" myself last night. My shitty job, my shitty town, and the fact that if I want to see someone who cares about me I have to drive for two hours, just got to me. I wanted something as miserable as I felt, and that book sounded too damn cheerful for me. So I turned to the New Yorker's winter fiction issue.
Is it me, or is short fiction frequently depressing as hell? I still remember one from over a year ago, called "Early Music" by Jeffery Eugenides. It was about a man who had (along with his wife) dropped out of a PhD program in musicology. Now, he was a records clerk at an HMO, and his wife was trying to get a small business off the ground, making and selling scented fabric mice that you could put in the microwave to release their scent ("Mice N Warm"). They had twin girls and lived in an apartment without much money, but the guy had this clavichord. The down payment on it was a birthday gift, but he still owed on it and at the end of the story, they repossesed his clavichord. I still get tears in my eyes just thinking about it. I unfortunately read that right before an orchestra rehearsal last fall. During rests, or when our conductor was talking to us, I kept looking down at my viola and being thankful that my parents had bought it for me outright when I was 15, that whatever happens, no one can actually take it from me (well, except a robber, but you know what I mean).
Last night's story was by Louise Erdich, called "Demolition." It was about a boy who falls in love with a much-older woman and stays in town, tending the cemetery, to be near her, even though she marries someone else. He stays there for years and years, never quite giving up (and carrying on an affair with her the whole time). Like anything by her, it was very good and very moving. It matched my mood perfectly last night.
The weird thing is, when I fell asleep, I had such a great dream that when I woke up, my bad mood from last night was gone. Always nice when that happens, especially since it's not like things got substantially better between bedtime and my alarm going off.
I was going to start The Partly Cloudy Patriot last night, in the hopes that it would be a quick read and I could return it this weekend, when I head home. But I was feeling more than "partly cloudy" myself last night. My shitty job, my shitty town, and the fact that if I want to see someone who cares about me I have to drive for two hours, just got to me. I wanted something as miserable as I felt, and that book sounded too damn cheerful for me. So I turned to the New Yorker's winter fiction issue.
Is it me, or is short fiction frequently depressing as hell? I still remember one from over a year ago, called "Early Music" by Jeffery Eugenides. It was about a man who had (along with his wife) dropped out of a PhD program in musicology. Now, he was a records clerk at an HMO, and his wife was trying to get a small business off the ground, making and selling scented fabric mice that you could put in the microwave to release their scent ("Mice N Warm"). They had twin girls and lived in an apartment without much money, but the guy had this clavichord. The down payment on it was a birthday gift, but he still owed on it and at the end of the story, they repossesed his clavichord. I still get tears in my eyes just thinking about it. I unfortunately read that right before an orchestra rehearsal last fall. During rests, or when our conductor was talking to us, I kept looking down at my viola and being thankful that my parents had bought it for me outright when I was 15, that whatever happens, no one can actually take it from me (well, except a robber, but you know what I mean).
Last night's story was by Louise Erdich, called "Demolition." It was about a boy who falls in love with a much-older woman and stays in town, tending the cemetery, to be near her, even though she marries someone else. He stays there for years and years, never quite giving up (and carrying on an affair with her the whole time). Like anything by her, it was very good and very moving. It matched my mood perfectly last night.
The weird thing is, when I fell asleep, I had such a great dream that when I woke up, my bad mood from last night was gone. Always nice when that happens, especially since it's not like things got substantially better between bedtime and my alarm going off.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
A lead on some good Houdini books
Did I mention that Josef Kavalier had ambitions of becoming a magician/escape artist and idolized Houdini? Michael Chabon included a bibliography at the end of the book. Houdini books were:
The Secrets of Houdini by J.C. Cannell
Houdini on Magic by The Man Himself
Houdini: The Man Who Walked Through Walls by William Lindsay Gresham
Houdini!!! by Kenneth Silverman
There is also a Houdini tribute websitethat he looked at.
These will go on my list of things to read after I read through some of the books I have here!
The Secrets of Houdini by J.C. Cannell
Houdini on Magic by The Man Himself
Houdini: The Man Who Walked Through Walls by William Lindsay Gresham
Houdini!!! by Kenneth Silverman
There is also a Houdini tribute websitethat he looked at.
These will go on my list of things to read after I read through some of the books I have here!
Just finished Kavalier and Clay
Work has been so slow that I actually took it in to read today. It made the day go by faster.
The entire time I've been reading this book, I've been thinking about what to say about it on here. One thing that's struck me the most is that Michael Chabon easily could've made this an academic book rather than a work of fiction. The story deals with comic books during WWII: how the storylines and heroes changed as America debated about whether or not to become involved with the war in Europe, then changed again after the Pearl Harbor attack settled the question; sexuality in comic books, both homo and hetero; questions of audience; artistic and historic influences; outsider metaphors. Instead, Chabon created the partnership of Josef Kavalier, a Jew who escaped from Prague in the coffin of a golem with the help of his onetime magic teacher, and Sammy Klayman, his wildly creative Brooklyn cousin. The two find an instant bond in artwork and comics, and form a partnership that succeeds beyond their wildest dreams.
My favorite parts of the book were seen through the eyes of their superheroes. Chabon shows the pair at work, drawing inspiration from events in their own lives. The character Luna Moth is inspired by a girl Josef fell in love with, and The Saboteur's real-life cognate was an anti-Semite whose office Josef broke into and trashed. Chabon has a wonderful character in Josef: artistic and vibrant, yet tortured by guilt over his family who remained trapped in Prague. Sammy is a little flatter. From the moment Sammy comes across, and is disturbed by, the sight of two men kissing at a party, you know exactly why and can predict what will happen next. The story does take a surprising turn at the bombing of Pearl Harbor. I'm not going to spoil it for you, dear readers, for this book is well worth a read. I'm glad I spent the additional forty cents in late fines to finish it without rushing.
The entire time I've been reading this book, I've been thinking about what to say about it on here. One thing that's struck me the most is that Michael Chabon easily could've made this an academic book rather than a work of fiction. The story deals with comic books during WWII: how the storylines and heroes changed as America debated about whether or not to become involved with the war in Europe, then changed again after the Pearl Harbor attack settled the question; sexuality in comic books, both homo and hetero; questions of audience; artistic and historic influences; outsider metaphors. Instead, Chabon created the partnership of Josef Kavalier, a Jew who escaped from Prague in the coffin of a golem with the help of his onetime magic teacher, and Sammy Klayman, his wildly creative Brooklyn cousin. The two find an instant bond in artwork and comics, and form a partnership that succeeds beyond their wildest dreams.
My favorite parts of the book were seen through the eyes of their superheroes. Chabon shows the pair at work, drawing inspiration from events in their own lives. The character Luna Moth is inspired by a girl Josef fell in love with, and The Saboteur's real-life cognate was an anti-Semite whose office Josef broke into and trashed. Chabon has a wonderful character in Josef: artistic and vibrant, yet tortured by guilt over his family who remained trapped in Prague. Sammy is a little flatter. From the moment Sammy comes across, and is disturbed by, the sight of two men kissing at a party, you know exactly why and can predict what will happen next. The story does take a surprising turn at the bombing of Pearl Harbor. I'm not going to spoil it for you, dear readers, for this book is well worth a read. I'm glad I spent the additional forty cents in late fines to finish it without rushing.
Monday, January 8, 2007
Cutting up my library card
I know it seems a strange thing to do so soon after starting a blog about books, but I'm taking a self-imposed break from the library after I finish Kavalier and Clay (good so far, btw). But in looking around here, I have no fewer than 24 unread books kicking around!!! Titles:
Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Vol. 1, Diana Wynne Jones (sorry Kerry)
Lady Chatterly's Lover, DH Lawrence
Big Stone Gap, Adriana Trigani
Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier
Four Souls, Lousie Erdrich
Dante's Inferno, Pinsky translation (I got this one as a gift when I graduated undergrad!)
Good Wives, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov (Kerry, this is where your copy went to)
Imitation of Life, Fannie Hurst
The Rape of Nanking, Iris Chang (sorry Pete)
Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
A Little Commonweath, John Demos (please don't take back my A in this class, Dr. Falk!)
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
Failure is Not an Option, Gene Krantz
The Greek Treasure, Irving Stone
The Book of Changes, stories by Tim Wynne-Jones (I got this at a conference years ago)
The Partly Cloudy Patriot, Sarah Vowell (I will give this book soon, Mom!)
The Age of Homespun, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
What's My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the US, Dave Zirin
Lives of the Saints, Richard McBrien
The Black Dahlia, James Ellroy
The Amulet of Samarkand, Johnathan Stroud
City of Masks, Mary Hoffman
Eragon, Christopher Paolini
Any opinions on which I should read first? I know that morally speaking, I should read either the Sarah Vowell book or The Master and Margarita first, since they're not mine. At the same time, I've had them both for over a year now...will another week matter? I'm kind of leaning towards Eragon since I saw the movie last week. I liked the movie a great deal, and I heard it sucked compared to the book, so I ought to LOVE the book. At the same time, I've been in a historical mood lately, so maybe one of the Laurel Thatcher Ulrichs? I just can't decide...but I am going to get these books read! It's my New Year's Resolution!
Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Vol. 1, Diana Wynne Jones (sorry Kerry)
Lady Chatterly's Lover, DH Lawrence
Big Stone Gap, Adriana Trigani
Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier
Four Souls, Lousie Erdrich
Dante's Inferno, Pinsky translation (I got this one as a gift when I graduated undergrad!)
Good Wives, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov (Kerry, this is where your copy went to)
Imitation of Life, Fannie Hurst
The Rape of Nanking, Iris Chang (sorry Pete)
Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
A Little Commonweath, John Demos (please don't take back my A in this class, Dr. Falk!)
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
Failure is Not an Option, Gene Krantz
The Greek Treasure, Irving Stone
The Book of Changes, stories by Tim Wynne-Jones (I got this at a conference years ago)
The Partly Cloudy Patriot, Sarah Vowell (I will give this book soon, Mom!)
The Age of Homespun, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
What's My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the US, Dave Zirin
Lives of the Saints, Richard McBrien
The Black Dahlia, James Ellroy
The Amulet of Samarkand, Johnathan Stroud
City of Masks, Mary Hoffman
Eragon, Christopher Paolini
Any opinions on which I should read first? I know that morally speaking, I should read either the Sarah Vowell book or The Master and Margarita first, since they're not mine. At the same time, I've had them both for over a year now...will another week matter? I'm kind of leaning towards Eragon since I saw the movie last week. I liked the movie a great deal, and I heard it sucked compared to the book, so I ought to LOVE the book. At the same time, I've been in a historical mood lately, so maybe one of the Laurel Thatcher Ulrichs? I just can't decide...but I am going to get these books read! It's my New Year's Resolution!
Sunday, January 7, 2007
One you'll want to "escape" from
When I saw Houdini's Box: The Art of Escape by Adam Phillips during my last visit to the library, I had to pick it up. Houdini's such an interesting figure, and one I know little about. I'd been looking for a good Houdini book for a long time without realizing it. I am still looking.
In fairness to the author, I did not read the jacket closely and didn't really know what I was getting. The book is not just about Houdini, but about the psychology of escape. The jacket promises that the author will examine Houdini, Emily Dickinson, and two patients: one, a middle-aged man who realizes he enjoys escaping from women more than developing relationships with them, and the other, a young girl who invites the author to play hide-and-seek but always "hides" in plain sight. That's not quite what Phillips does: he opens with the little girl, closes with Emily Dickinson, and alternates between Houdini and the middle-aged man for the rest of this truly terrible book.
The main problem with the book is that Phillips' framework does not work. Houdini and the middle-aged man are an ineffective juxtaposition. They lived and worked over 100 years apart, and whereas Phillips is intimately familiar with his patient's background and motivations, he can only guess at Houdini's. He provides background information on Houdini's life and career, but it is still not enough for the reader. Throughout the book, you're waiting for more on the little girl with the strange behavior, and by the time Emily Dickinson makes her appearance, you don't really care.
It's also horribly precious: for example, he notes that Houdini's first stage name was "Ehrich, Prince of the Air," and then goes on to explain to readers that the last syllable of that name is "rich" and the first syllable of his better-known stage name is "who". In another, equally horrifying passage, he quotes his middle-aged man describing the vagina of a woman as a "glistening bank", notes randomly that the first letter of the man's last name is "g", then half a page later, states that this patient sees him as a "listening bank." Yes, really!
If Phillips had a cohesive thesis in all this, I sure couldn't find it. The book is only 176 pages long, and I'm not sure if that was part of his problem or not. He may have done better with more space to develop these theories (I strongly suspect that this book is based on his dissertation or master's thesis), but as it is, the book has little to offer the historian, the pop psychologist, the fancier of Dickinson or Houdini, or anyone else for that matter. There are many more things wrong with this book, but the most scathing thing of all that I can say about it is that it is the only book I've ever given up on with less than 10 pages until the end.
In fairness to the author, I did not read the jacket closely and didn't really know what I was getting. The book is not just about Houdini, but about the psychology of escape. The jacket promises that the author will examine Houdini, Emily Dickinson, and two patients: one, a middle-aged man who realizes he enjoys escaping from women more than developing relationships with them, and the other, a young girl who invites the author to play hide-and-seek but always "hides" in plain sight. That's not quite what Phillips does: he opens with the little girl, closes with Emily Dickinson, and alternates between Houdini and the middle-aged man for the rest of this truly terrible book.
The main problem with the book is that Phillips' framework does not work. Houdini and the middle-aged man are an ineffective juxtaposition. They lived and worked over 100 years apart, and whereas Phillips is intimately familiar with his patient's background and motivations, he can only guess at Houdini's. He provides background information on Houdini's life and career, but it is still not enough for the reader. Throughout the book, you're waiting for more on the little girl with the strange behavior, and by the time Emily Dickinson makes her appearance, you don't really care.
It's also horribly precious: for example, he notes that Houdini's first stage name was "Ehrich, Prince of the Air," and then goes on to explain to readers that the last syllable of that name is "rich" and the first syllable of his better-known stage name is "who". In another, equally horrifying passage, he quotes his middle-aged man describing the vagina of a woman as a "glistening bank", notes randomly that the first letter of the man's last name is "g", then half a page later, states that this patient sees him as a "listening bank." Yes, really!
If Phillips had a cohesive thesis in all this, I sure couldn't find it. The book is only 176 pages long, and I'm not sure if that was part of his problem or not. He may have done better with more space to develop these theories (I strongly suspect that this book is based on his dissertation or master's thesis), but as it is, the book has little to offer the historian, the pop psychologist, the fancier of Dickinson or Houdini, or anyone else for that matter. There are many more things wrong with this book, but the most scathing thing of all that I can say about it is that it is the only book I've ever given up on with less than 10 pages until the end.
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