It used to be that every book was like a fabulous vacation, the kind that offered not only new scenery but new perspectives, new ways of thinking of things. Yet lately, most of the books I've been reading have been less like trips to the Alps and more like the camping trips where it rained all the time. You dragged your soggy, sand-logged butt home after a few days having gained nothing except a deeper appreciation for the miracles of dry socks and sand-free blankets, and trying not to think about the things you lost, whether it was a couple of hundred dollars or the opportunity to do something better.
I almost thought there were no more trips left. I thought maybe I couldn't be moved by literature anymore, that I'd turned into the exact kind of boring adult that I swore I never would. And worse, I was almost ready to embrace my fate, on the verge of tearing up my library card and redoubling my efforts to take a sincere interest in mortgage-refinance and window treatments. But then, something wonderful happened. I picked up Goats by Mark Jude Poirier. I started it Friday night and stayed up with it later than I should have. I spent as much time with it as I could yesterday, thinking about it constantly when I wasn't reading, and I finished it this morning. I'm back, baby!
Poirier was one of the authors from my western fiction collection from a couple of months back. In my earlier post, I said that I was a little unsure as to why his story was selected, as it didn't strike me as being terribly tied to the west, but that I loved it nonetheless. So on my next trip, I hunted up books by some of my favorites from that anthology, and they had Goats.
This book, as it features a 14-year-old protagonist, is destined to be pegged as a coming-of-age tale. Poirier makes it hard to be that simplistic though: at 14, Ellis already has adult bad habits and adult responsibilities. His biological father, Fucker Frank, is long gone. He lives with his mother, Wendy, who is blessed with a wealthy stepfather and cursed with serious emotional problems that have made it impossible for her to hold on to a job (although we don't get the sense she tried) or a relationship. Ellis spent most of his time with Goat Man, who lives in their pool house, takes care of the grounds and raises goats and weed. He's been smoking Goat Man's weed since he was 11 and taking care of Wendy's bills even longer.
So, does Ellis "come of age" in this story? I would argue that he simply makes some choices about where his life is headed. It could've happened to Ellis at 30, or it could have never happened at all. Ellis starts to question the basic assumption that resides in Fucker Frank's moniker. He also makes a break from the unconventional homestead, to attend a prep school in the east (Wendy and Goat Man live near Tuscon). He excels at school, befriends his dorky roommate, joins crew, and develops a crush on a server. The story continues on the home front, too: Wendy falls in love with weaselly Bennett, and moves him in to her house, who disturbs the peaceful micro-world of the house. Goat Man senses a change deep inside himself, and begins swimming laps and shaves off his long hair.
The two tales come together during Ellis's breaks from school, first his Christmas break, then his spring break. During his spring break, he and Goat Man make a trek to Mexico together and discover that they've changed and have to learn to relate to one another differently.
I highly recommend this one, and judging by his Amazon sales, so do many others: all of his titles are nearly out of stock and well-reviewed.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Friday, October 5, 2007
Panda-monium!
In between all of my other activities (most of them less pleasureable), I've been reading Vicki Constance Croke's The Lady and the Panda, the incredible tale of larger-than-life Ruth Harkness, the first Westerner to capture a panda alive!
Harkness's tale makes an amazing arc, and proves my theory that among us, some people just have a destiny. She was born in 1900 and was a flapper, dress designer and all-around and wild woman. She met her husband, an adventurer and all-around wild man, in New York City. He was the one who was attempting to capture a panda, an animal so obscure at the time that Ruth originally thought they were mispronouncing the word "panther". Sadly, he died in China in his quest. Ruth made a bold decision: rather than live frugally on the money he had left (a fairly substantial sum, but not enough to support her in the style in which she was accustomed), she would travel to China and fulfill his quest.
Amazingly, and against all odds, she did. In the process, she took an epic journey to parts of China that even most Chinese did not venture to. She fell in love again, she made friends and enemies, she became the toast of several cities worldwide, she gained a deep understanding of an alien culture, she got to see sights unseen by Western eyes and most Chinese eyes. In the process, it both changes her, and makes her more herself. Her story is gripping, and the lesson she draws from her final journey, and the decision she makes as a result, actually brought tears to my eyes.
It took me quite a while to read this one, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it. I did! Vicki Constance Croke is an excellent writer, and makes much out of an already-lively tale. The book helped me gain a greater understanding of the current predicament of the pandas, too. Their species has such a specific niche that they'd be very vulnerable. I think I'd heard this before, but reading the descriptions of Harkness trying to reach that particular, remote corner of China really brought it home. This book is a must-read for anyone who's interested in pandas, China, animal collection, or spiritual journeys. I am going to try to get Constance-Croke's other book, The Ark, about the history of the zoo. If this is any indication, it should be a good read.
Harkness's tale makes an amazing arc, and proves my theory that among us, some people just have a destiny. She was born in 1900 and was a flapper, dress designer and all-around and wild woman. She met her husband, an adventurer and all-around wild man, in New York City. He was the one who was attempting to capture a panda, an animal so obscure at the time that Ruth originally thought they were mispronouncing the word "panther". Sadly, he died in China in his quest. Ruth made a bold decision: rather than live frugally on the money he had left (a fairly substantial sum, but not enough to support her in the style in which she was accustomed), she would travel to China and fulfill his quest.
Amazingly, and against all odds, she did. In the process, she took an epic journey to parts of China that even most Chinese did not venture to. She fell in love again, she made friends and enemies, she became the toast of several cities worldwide, she gained a deep understanding of an alien culture, she got to see sights unseen by Western eyes and most Chinese eyes. In the process, it both changes her, and makes her more herself. Her story is gripping, and the lesson she draws from her final journey, and the decision she makes as a result, actually brought tears to my eyes.
It took me quite a while to read this one, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it. I did! Vicki Constance Croke is an excellent writer, and makes much out of an already-lively tale. The book helped me gain a greater understanding of the current predicament of the pandas, too. Their species has such a specific niche that they'd be very vulnerable. I think I'd heard this before, but reading the descriptions of Harkness trying to reach that particular, remote corner of China really brought it home. This book is a must-read for anyone who's interested in pandas, China, animal collection, or spiritual journeys. I am going to try to get Constance-Croke's other book, The Ark, about the history of the zoo. If this is any indication, it should be a good read.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Visit a Museum Near You Tomorrow
Tomorrow is the third annual Smithsonian Magazine's National Museum Day. Designed to promote awareness of historical and cultural institutions nationwide and to encourage people to be tourists in their own backyard, the day has several hundred participating institutions nationwide. If you're American, there's bound to be one near you! On this day, Smithsonian members get in free to participating museums. And if you're bitterly regretting not returning that subscription card, you can go online and print out an admission card (clicking on the post title will take you there) that will get you and a friend in for free.
My own august institution is participating. I can speak only for it, of course, but we've definitely ramped it up a little. We're having a book signing with a local author who writes about topics relevant to our museum, a talk about everyday preservation with a curator from another museum (who is a friend and mentor of mine), a storybook character in the morning for the kids, and chips, pop and hot dogs for sale all day long (what can I say, it's an excellent money spinner!). So if any of you will be sitting around bored tomorrow, don't be. Get out there and visit a museum!
My own august institution is participating. I can speak only for it, of course, but we've definitely ramped it up a little. We're having a book signing with a local author who writes about topics relevant to our museum, a talk about everyday preservation with a curator from another museum (who is a friend and mentor of mine), a storybook character in the morning for the kids, and chips, pop and hot dogs for sale all day long (what can I say, it's an excellent money spinner!). So if any of you will be sitting around bored tomorrow, don't be. Get out there and visit a museum!
Monday, September 17, 2007
Sigh....Maybe it's me
Maybe all the varied stresses of the past three months have finally caught up with me, sapping my brain of the ability to make sense of fiction. Or maybe I really have just been reading some pointless stuff lately. I'm a little sad to report that I finished another collection of Alice Munro's short fiction, The Love of a Good Woman, and didn't find it up to her usual standard.
I love Alice Munro. I love how she manages to make each of her stories so distinct, whereas many other writers just seem to be writing about themselves over and over. I love how some of her stories smell like the inside of a country general store, like barrels of grain and wood smoke from the stove and old penny candy and the wood of the floorboards and the dirt of the road outside, a scent and feeling so far in the past it doesn't even conjure up nostalgia anymore. Others are about thoroughly modern types, artists and writers and communists. Some are set in the present, some in the past, some it doesn't even matter. She writes about childhood friendships, adult sexual relationships, the bond between parents and children, first person, third person, she can do it all. Sometimes she twists the story at the end, most notably in one of her larger anthologies in which the narrator rambles on about the aunts on her mother's side and her father's side, neither set of which ever married, but one set was educated, independent and fun-loving, while the other was timid and never left the ancestral home. She goes on and on about what she knew of both halves of her family history, her memories of visits from both and how they affected her. Then at the end of the story, she says something like: "Everyone is dead now, and the life buried here is one you have to think twice about regretting." And it just took your breath away.
So, I tend to go into one of her books with high expectations, which may have been the problem here. The title story hung together for me only on retrospect: the manner of telling it was so confused and roundabout, and thoroughly buried the lead. "Jakarta" is the next story in the book, and this one totally escaped me. It only hinted at the point, never stated it outright.
"Cortes Island" was more what I think of as a real Alice Munro story, probably my favorite in the book. Its plot is so simple as to barely qualify as "plot": it's about a newlywed woman who takes a job watching her landlady's husband, who's suffered a stroke, and how the landlady kind of goes nuts after the woman quits to take a more permanent job. But in this simple tale, the narrator's hopes, dreams, and fears are blatant and vivid. To me, that's what Munro does best.
"The Children Stay" didn't gel for me until the concluding few pages. Munro takes a look from the inside at a woman who has left her husband and children to be with another man, and attempts to answer the question "How could she do that?" by showing how little choice the woman felt she had, how once she made the first decision, the rest fell as inevitable as dominoes. It was very poignant and sad.
I also liked "Before the Change", but I'm afraid to say too much about it without giving away the major plot points. Like many of Munro's stories, you have to be a bit patient with this one, but it will pay off. The most I feel I can really say is that it's told by a woman who's returned to her father's home to regroup after her life fell apart, and the secret her father's been hiding.
"My Mother's Dream" is something different for Munro. She's written from the perspective of both genders at all ages, but I'd wager that this is the first she's written from the point of view of a baby. The baby's mother was a violinist and a young war widow, whose sisters-in-law brought her to the family home to have her child. The story is about the mother struggling to accept the burden of motherhood, and about the sisters' (both unmarried) varied and revealing reactions to having a baby in their midst. This one, too, is very good.
I have glossed over "Rich as Stink" and "Save the Reaper" until now. These are two that I really didn't understand. I'm hard-pressed to even talk about them. "Rich as Stink" is one of those that does a full reverse on you, but I was never sure what it was reversing from. It's told from the point of view of a child, who doesn't live with her mother full-time. Her mother is an editor who lives in a trailer in the woods, and almost seems to be part of a triad with a married couple who lives up the road. She's editing the husband's book. When the child arrives for the summer, the threesome (if that's what it even is) has broken up, and the girl keeps having these oddly emotional reactions to seemingly ordinary conversations. It was as if there was some subtext there that I just didn't get.
"Save the Reaper" was a little along the same lines. I don't really even know how to describe this one and don't have the energy to try, so I'll stop here. Ultimately, this wasn't a bad book, just very uneven. And I am open to the possibility that it is me, that I'm just too tired and distracted to properly understand and enjoy anything more complex than a shoelace. So, for my next project, I will read something that is fairly straightforward. I have already started The Lady and the Panda, about the first American to capture a panda alive. They made a limited-release IMAX movie out of it, and I liked that, and my sister says the book is much better, so I'm looking forward to it.
I love Alice Munro. I love how she manages to make each of her stories so distinct, whereas many other writers just seem to be writing about themselves over and over. I love how some of her stories smell like the inside of a country general store, like barrels of grain and wood smoke from the stove and old penny candy and the wood of the floorboards and the dirt of the road outside, a scent and feeling so far in the past it doesn't even conjure up nostalgia anymore. Others are about thoroughly modern types, artists and writers and communists. Some are set in the present, some in the past, some it doesn't even matter. She writes about childhood friendships, adult sexual relationships, the bond between parents and children, first person, third person, she can do it all. Sometimes she twists the story at the end, most notably in one of her larger anthologies in which the narrator rambles on about the aunts on her mother's side and her father's side, neither set of which ever married, but one set was educated, independent and fun-loving, while the other was timid and never left the ancestral home. She goes on and on about what she knew of both halves of her family history, her memories of visits from both and how they affected her. Then at the end of the story, she says something like: "Everyone is dead now, and the life buried here is one you have to think twice about regretting." And it just took your breath away.
So, I tend to go into one of her books with high expectations, which may have been the problem here. The title story hung together for me only on retrospect: the manner of telling it was so confused and roundabout, and thoroughly buried the lead. "Jakarta" is the next story in the book, and this one totally escaped me. It only hinted at the point, never stated it outright.
"Cortes Island" was more what I think of as a real Alice Munro story, probably my favorite in the book. Its plot is so simple as to barely qualify as "plot": it's about a newlywed woman who takes a job watching her landlady's husband, who's suffered a stroke, and how the landlady kind of goes nuts after the woman quits to take a more permanent job. But in this simple tale, the narrator's hopes, dreams, and fears are blatant and vivid. To me, that's what Munro does best.
"The Children Stay" didn't gel for me until the concluding few pages. Munro takes a look from the inside at a woman who has left her husband and children to be with another man, and attempts to answer the question "How could she do that?" by showing how little choice the woman felt she had, how once she made the first decision, the rest fell as inevitable as dominoes. It was very poignant and sad.
I also liked "Before the Change", but I'm afraid to say too much about it without giving away the major plot points. Like many of Munro's stories, you have to be a bit patient with this one, but it will pay off. The most I feel I can really say is that it's told by a woman who's returned to her father's home to regroup after her life fell apart, and the secret her father's been hiding.
"My Mother's Dream" is something different for Munro. She's written from the perspective of both genders at all ages, but I'd wager that this is the first she's written from the point of view of a baby. The baby's mother was a violinist and a young war widow, whose sisters-in-law brought her to the family home to have her child. The story is about the mother struggling to accept the burden of motherhood, and about the sisters' (both unmarried) varied and revealing reactions to having a baby in their midst. This one, too, is very good.
I have glossed over "Rich as Stink" and "Save the Reaper" until now. These are two that I really didn't understand. I'm hard-pressed to even talk about them. "Rich as Stink" is one of those that does a full reverse on you, but I was never sure what it was reversing from. It's told from the point of view of a child, who doesn't live with her mother full-time. Her mother is an editor who lives in a trailer in the woods, and almost seems to be part of a triad with a married couple who lives up the road. She's editing the husband's book. When the child arrives for the summer, the threesome (if that's what it even is) has broken up, and the girl keeps having these oddly emotional reactions to seemingly ordinary conversations. It was as if there was some subtext there that I just didn't get.
"Save the Reaper" was a little along the same lines. I don't really even know how to describe this one and don't have the energy to try, so I'll stop here. Ultimately, this wasn't a bad book, just very uneven. And I am open to the possibility that it is me, that I'm just too tired and distracted to properly understand and enjoy anything more complex than a shoelace. So, for my next project, I will read something that is fairly straightforward. I have already started The Lady and the Panda, about the first American to capture a panda alive. They made a limited-release IMAX movie out of it, and I liked that, and my sister says the book is much better, so I'm looking forward to it.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Green with Envy! (His Dark Materials spoilers within)
Breaking news: my sister, who is getting a PhD in children's literature, has been invited by one of her professional connections to an upcoming exclusive cocktail party, and the guest of honor will be the one, the only...
Phillip Pullman!
I am incredibly jealous, also proud of her to be able to garner such an invitation whilst still in school. It raised an interesting question: if it was me, what would I want to ask him? I want to know whether you turn into Dust when you die (as is my hypothesis, based on the ending of The Amber Spyglass) and would want him to explain to me the connection between amber/electrum and anbaric power/electricity, and how it relates (if it does) to the Amber Spyglass used by Mary Malone in the final book. My sister wants to know if Will and Lyra ever do get back together.
He posts regularly to a listserv my sister participates in and once explained the deal with the daemons, that who you are and what you want drives the shape your daemon ultimately assumes, not the other way around. In other words, no one is forced into being a servant against their will even though their daemon takes the shape of a dog, and if you hate the sea, odds are your daemon won't settle as a dolphin. I was pleased to hear that, since that's how I'd always interpreted it.
You can go to goldencompassmovie.com to take a 20-question quiz which will give you your daemon. Mine was a male jackal named Zotius, one of 16,782 jackals of 265,634 people who've sought out their daemons with the quiz. Because I am spontaneous, modest, outgoing, humble and flexible. That sounds good to me, although I don't know how true it is. The site is fun, actually. It reminds me of the official Lord of the Rings site (which makes sense, as the trilogy will also be produced by New Line Cinema) in that it's not just a glorified commercial for the movie, but that there's all kinds of fun stuff to do on there. You can take the daemon quiz, ask the alethiometer shit, and explore Lyra's world. It's a very nice site, I think.
My sister says that Mr. Pullman is pleased with the film, so it should be worth looking forward to. At her request, I can't post more details about the party or about how she got the invitation, but I will post a report after it's all over, maybe even get her to be a Guest Blogger (if you're reading this, sis, consider this your invitation, if you have time!)
Phillip Pullman!
I am incredibly jealous, also proud of her to be able to garner such an invitation whilst still in school. It raised an interesting question: if it was me, what would I want to ask him? I want to know whether you turn into Dust when you die (as is my hypothesis, based on the ending of The Amber Spyglass) and would want him to explain to me the connection between amber/electrum and anbaric power/electricity, and how it relates (if it does) to the Amber Spyglass used by Mary Malone in the final book. My sister wants to know if Will and Lyra ever do get back together.
He posts regularly to a listserv my sister participates in and once explained the deal with the daemons, that who you are and what you want drives the shape your daemon ultimately assumes, not the other way around. In other words, no one is forced into being a servant against their will even though their daemon takes the shape of a dog, and if you hate the sea, odds are your daemon won't settle as a dolphin. I was pleased to hear that, since that's how I'd always interpreted it.
You can go to goldencompassmovie.com to take a 20-question quiz which will give you your daemon. Mine was a male jackal named Zotius, one of 16,782 jackals of 265,634 people who've sought out their daemons with the quiz. Because I am spontaneous, modest, outgoing, humble and flexible. That sounds good to me, although I don't know how true it is. The site is fun, actually. It reminds me of the official Lord of the Rings site (which makes sense, as the trilogy will also be produced by New Line Cinema) in that it's not just a glorified commercial for the movie, but that there's all kinds of fun stuff to do on there. You can take the daemon quiz, ask the alethiometer shit, and explore Lyra's world. It's a very nice site, I think.
My sister says that Mr. Pullman is pleased with the film, so it should be worth looking forward to. At her request, I can't post more details about the party or about how she got the invitation, but I will post a report after it's all over, maybe even get her to be a Guest Blogger (if you're reading this, sis, consider this your invitation, if you have time!)
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Will Tom Perrotta make my favorite authors list?
I'm still not sure. While I really loved Little Children, I'm still not sure how I felt about Joe College, which I finished last night.
I remember seeing this book around a lot several years ago. It was one of those that I'd always look at and think "maybe". Our library doesn't have Election, though, so I settled for this. It tells the tale of Jersey boy and Yale junior Danny, who spends his spring break driving his father's lunch truck ("The Roach Coach") and sorting out his complex love life. He has been working on this artsy Yale girl named Polly all semester long, when his summer girlfriend Cindy shows up at the most inopportune moment with a bombshell (you can probably guess of what nature). Most of the story is told in flashbacks, and a cast of other characters swirl around him, like they swirl around everyone at that age: his suitemates at Yale, his friends from the lit magazine, his friends from his dining hall job, his old friends from high school, his parents, the two girls. Perhaps because of this, the characters aren't quite as vivid as in Little Children. I had a hard time keeping his suitemates straight and clocking the various cautionary tales and reminiscences Danny shares with us (this book is written in first person).
Part of the problem is maybe that I didn't like Danny very much, nor did I really dislike him. Danny seems often to be surprised at his own behavior and motivations. He was shocked by the fact that he was just using Cindy, surprised to find himself happy in his dining hall job, amazed when he accidentally stood up to the Mob-backed lunch truck rivals The Lunch Monsters. He confesses his selfishness often when things work out his way to the detriment of others, which didn't make me like him any more. Yet things don't really turn out well for Danny, although all of his immediate problems resolve themselves. I don't want to get too specific and wreck the book for anyone, but he does wind up essentially alone, and seemingly repeating his earlier mistake with Cindy.
Most of the time when I finish a book, I know how I feel about it right away, and look forward to blogging my reaction. I spent much of my downtime during my Florida vacation thinking about how to express how much Citizen Girl sucked, and I couldn't wait to tell you all about the delights of some of the better ones I've read since January, including Feeling Sorry For Celia just last week. But I still don't know about Joe College. I did enjoy it, I guess, but it wasn't quite what I hoped. I can't even decide whether I recommend it or not. I'd be interested (as always) in hearing from anyone who's read this, and their opinions as to how they felt about it, and maybe what it was all supposed to be about.
I remember seeing this book around a lot several years ago. It was one of those that I'd always look at and think "maybe". Our library doesn't have Election, though, so I settled for this. It tells the tale of Jersey boy and Yale junior Danny, who spends his spring break driving his father's lunch truck ("The Roach Coach") and sorting out his complex love life. He has been working on this artsy Yale girl named Polly all semester long, when his summer girlfriend Cindy shows up at the most inopportune moment with a bombshell (you can probably guess of what nature). Most of the story is told in flashbacks, and a cast of other characters swirl around him, like they swirl around everyone at that age: his suitemates at Yale, his friends from the lit magazine, his friends from his dining hall job, his old friends from high school, his parents, the two girls. Perhaps because of this, the characters aren't quite as vivid as in Little Children. I had a hard time keeping his suitemates straight and clocking the various cautionary tales and reminiscences Danny shares with us (this book is written in first person).
Part of the problem is maybe that I didn't like Danny very much, nor did I really dislike him. Danny seems often to be surprised at his own behavior and motivations. He was shocked by the fact that he was just using Cindy, surprised to find himself happy in his dining hall job, amazed when he accidentally stood up to the Mob-backed lunch truck rivals The Lunch Monsters. He confesses his selfishness often when things work out his way to the detriment of others, which didn't make me like him any more. Yet things don't really turn out well for Danny, although all of his immediate problems resolve themselves. I don't want to get too specific and wreck the book for anyone, but he does wind up essentially alone, and seemingly repeating his earlier mistake with Cindy.
Most of the time when I finish a book, I know how I feel about it right away, and look forward to blogging my reaction. I spent much of my downtime during my Florida vacation thinking about how to express how much Citizen Girl sucked, and I couldn't wait to tell you all about the delights of some of the better ones I've read since January, including Feeling Sorry For Celia just last week. But I still don't know about Joe College. I did enjoy it, I guess, but it wasn't quite what I hoped. I can't even decide whether I recommend it or not. I'd be interested (as always) in hearing from anyone who's read this, and their opinions as to how they felt about it, and maybe what it was all supposed to be about.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
This Sucks
A couple of nights ago, I was talking on the phone with a good friend and we were talking about books. I was trying to tell her about some series I'd seen, that was chick lit but was also about vampires. Each one had a punny title like "Undead or Alive" or "Love Sucks" or whatever. I haven't actually read them, but they always looked like they'd be good fun. M had never even heard of them. Is there anyone out there who can supply either a title, an author or the generic name of this series?
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