A New Frontier in the War on Terror

You might expect many things from a novel about a teddy bear that is alive and is on trial for terrorism. You might think it'd be funny, satirical and biting (like the book jacket wants you to think). You might think it'd be over-the-top and ultimately unfunny. You might be concerned that it'd be shrill and humorless. And depending on your ideological viewpoint, you might absolutely hate the whole idea and want to call Homeland Security on the author, the bookstore, and anyone who blurbed it.

You probably wouldn't expect it to move you to tears, though. But Winky, by Clifford Chase, actually did make me cry, several times. Because, imagine your life as a teddy bear. You belong to someone, but you are just one of many of that person's things. You're aware of your surroundings, so you know what you're missing by not being human. You have a person that you love deeply, and for a while your love is reciprocated. Then, the person you love forgets about you, but not before a bunch of ugly, even violent, transitional scenes.

If you've seen Toy Story 2, you understand the part about the abandonment. Winky hammers home the part about the lack of freedom. For years, Winky couldn't move, nor did he have any other semi-living toy for company. The plight Winky finds himself in as the novel unfolds is especially poignant, for he was granted a brief period of freedom only to have it snatched away. He searched all his life for love and acceptance, for another like him, and so acute was his longing that simple validation was deeply satisfying.

Does this remind you of anything? Maybe the ugly tales that continue to emerge of innocent, peaceful people who've escaped from totalitarian regimes in the Middle East undergoing indignities from harassment to detention? Or maybe the last part reminds you of what it was like not all that long ago for gay people, and what it continues to be like from gay people in ultraconservative environments? The beauty of this book is that it works as both a literal reading and a metaphor. Even if you put your best English-professor goggles on while reading this book, I dare you to never have the urge to put down the book for a minute to phone your parents and ask whatever became of that stuffed rabbit/bear/cat/whathaveyou that you never used to leave home without.

This book is engaging, absorbing, and an excellent example of a fresh take on a tried-and-true idea. The Velveteen Rabbit is a classic children's book. I also liked one called Behind the Attic Wall about dolls that were alive, and there was apparently a whole genre of doll autobiographies around the turn of the twentieth century. Toy Story and Toy Story 2 were the biggest movies I can think of about living toys, but I'm sure there have been many others. Yet, Clifford Chase took this idea and did something new with it. I give this one a very high recommendation, and am glad I bought it instead of just borrowing it.

Missing the Point

Sometimes I do that. In graduate school, we read an excellent book titled Slave in a Box, about the history of Aunt Jemima. I knew the book was about racism, not pancakes, but it gave me such terrible cravings for pancakes that I drove 30 miles to get some, racism and exploitation be damned.

I've been reading a fascinating article in the most recent New Yorker titled "The Postmodern Murder," about a murder case in Poland that was solved when a novel came out featuring a murder with the same M.O. The article talks about the writer/killer Krystian Bala and his philosophical beliefs and literary influences, and it's not supposed to make you want to go out and read all the same books, but it had that effect on me anyway. One of his favorites was Crime and Punishment, and now I want to test it out. Most of the books I got on this most recent, most dismal haul were new. Next time, I'll go with something tried and true. I know that the fact that it's been around for a century doesn't automatically make it a great book (Edith Wharton, anyone?) but it can't suck any worse than Gay Blades, and I'm guessing it won't be completely forgettable, like whatchamacalit and whatsitsface were.

Unprepared

Over the weekend, I started and finished The Second Assistant: A Tale from the Bottom of the Hollywood Ladder by Clare Naylor and Mimi Hare. Central has a "staff picks" section, and I saw it featured there like a brightly colored piece of candy. As I picked it up, I fantasized that I was actually helping someone, that the powers that be would notice someone had checked it out and would promote the girl (oh, and I'm sure it was a girl). But really, I just wanted to read it.

About the book itself, I have little to say. I hated it when it was called Citizen Girl and thought it was all right when it was called The Devil Wears Prada, but still liked it the best when it was called Girl Cook. What makes me wonder is the seeming explosion of these books, and the bumbling female lead they all feature. In all cases, the protagonist is a recent college graduate (Layla of Girl Cook was the oldest and most experienced at the approximate age of 27). The protagonist was special, all right. All her life, people expected great things from her. She was a principled intellectual with big, if undefined, plans (Layla is again the exception -- she was a disinherited debutante who was forced to reinvent herself, but whatever).

Then comes the Big Chill. Stunningly, the White House is not looking for a 24-year-old Chief of Staff whose previous managerial experience consists of secretary of the student government. Similarly, the editors of the New Yorker are also looking for a little more experience when adding to their ranks. These intellectual, principled women find themselves making coffee, answering phones and photocopying shit for bosses who (they seem to feel) are not fit to wipe their asses.

The most depressing thing about this scenario? Except (again) for Layla, they generally suck at it. They're always in hot water at work for things like making half-caff when it was supposed to be decaf or forgetting to give their bosses messages. While most of them have ambition, they don't have the ability to focus it. They're so invested in hating their bosses that they don't bother to look at how their bosses got to be where they are. They all yearn for better jobs where they can use their brains, but generally don't show us how they'd use them if given the opportunity.

The same thing goes for romance. All four heroines (except for the one in Devil, who was still with her college boyfriend) bumble about in their private lives, too. They develop the kinds of crushes that real women outgrow once they hit 9th grade...the kind where they have a random and generic encounter with some dude, then think about him every second of every day and make asses out of themselves whenever they run across the guy in the future. The joyless G didn't get any throughout the course of the entire book, although she did have something going with a man who didn't respect women enough (just like everyone else, according to G). Layla and Elizabeth were both juggling two guys who were clearly assholes, yet lived "happily ever after" with the least offensive one in the final pages of their respective novels.

And that gets at what I find the most insidious aspect of these books: everything works out perfectly, but only through luck. None of the women succeed by actually being talented. Throughout the books, dumb luck and inertia keep them employed. Prince Charming rescues Layla and Elizabeth, magically swooping down to fix their careers as well as their personal lives. Layla fucks up big-time on national television, but rather than firing her, they decide she's funny enough to get her own show. Elizabeth and G both benefit from deus-ex-machina shakeups at their respective jobs. The Devil girl, after being fired, bonds with a successful fellow survivor of the Devil Herself, who pities more than admires her.

The very popularity of these books concerns me. Clearly, they're resonating with huge numbers of women. Without really trying, I've encountered four such books in the last year, and I'm sure there are plenty more. It makes one wonder why. I saw an interesting story about narcissism linked on the Rate Your Students blog today, that was on the CBS website. According to the story, narcissism has skyrocketed in recent years, with children being raised to believe they're special and unique and poised to do great things.

The four women in these novels seem to have bought into it on some levels, but at the same time, are also lacking in poise and self-confidence. They want to succeed and feel they deserve success, but have no idea how to get there or what a successful person looks like. They admire no one. They idealize the men in their lives to the exclusion of any other interests. All any of them are about is work and romance. Friends, hobbies, intellectual pursuits, family: all of that takes a backseat. Yet, they're horrible at both work and romance, and deeply dissatisfied with their lives. They have little ability to affect positive change in them, either. Of the four, Layla was the only one who could stand up for herself and make real changes. Finally, when things work out, it's not because of anything any one of them actually did, but because of what others do to them. I liked Layla the best of the four, but even she was just a pawn of fate.

So what's the message of these books? "You think you're so smart and special, but you're really just like a million other girls. You don't matter in the scheme of things. There's nothing you can do about your life, so just lay back and let it happen, and it'll all resolve itself?" Really? What about going out there and making it happen? Why do guys have to be the be-all and end-all? Why does being an adult mean nothing more to these women than getting a job and a man? It's depressing, what society is doing to young women.

Another Depresing Take on Modern Life

Last Friday, while my sister met with her graduate advisor, I waited in the monastic, Hogwartsesque hub of her campus and read. The meeting took much longer than she expected, so I started and finished Tom Perrotta's Election while I waited.

I mentioned before that I really liked Little Children but didn't much care for Joe College. I was looking for Election to provide the judgement on whether or not I am a Tom Perrotta fan. I'm still not sure.

I'd seen the movie, with Reese Witherspoon, before I was even aware it was a book. Having read the book, I wonder why they made some of the major changes that they did. Basically, this is a book about a history teacher who decides to throw the election for class president. Tracy Flick (Witherspoon) is what "Rate Your Students" would call a "super-keener": all ruthless ambition and perkiness, every teacher's pet, Miss Extra-Curricular, you get it. The history teacher in question (this was a week and a half ago, we're just going to call him "John") is a believer in democracy and American history, popular among the students for his discussion-style classes, but also facing somewhat of a crisis in his marriage at home.

I think this is a book about the thin veneers of most people's lives. Tracy, on the surface, doesn't have any demons, yet something led her to seek out a father figure/lover in John's best friend and now former colleague. Along the same lines, John seems like a happy person, but is miserable with the way his marriage seems to have deteriorated into the quest for a baby. The alternate candidate that John recruits for the presidency seems aimless and accepting, affable and brainless, a likeable guy because he's nice to everyone and does exactly what they want him to, yet he makes a big rebellion within his family dynamic and a small stand in the privacy of the voting booth that turns out to affect the whole election. His sister Tammy, to most people, is probably just a willfully angsty teen, but her angst actually has a very real source that (sadly) probably won't work itself out until she goes to college, if then.

I called this post "Another Depressing Take on Modern Life," mostly thinking of the panicy, trapped misery of Little Children and the amoral landscape inhabited by Joe College. But compared with those two, this one is actually pretty cheerful. It ends on a more hopeful note. While none of the characters can exactly be called happy, they've at least made a start, and learned from the experiences, not in a cheesy, Oprah-like way, but in a real way.

Something? and what kind of stars?

The curse of the most recent library haul has continued. You know, I really thought I'd chosen well, as I was leaving the library that day. A decent number of books, but I'd stopped before I had too many. A mix of some I'd been meaning to get to, and new ones I'd never heard of. An eclectic combination of meaningful fiction and fun, charming flufffy stuff. NOT SO.

I waited a week before posting on Moon Pies and Movie Stars. I finished it during my first night in Pittsburgh. I can say that it was more captivating than Saints and Sinners, and definitely less poorly written than Gay Blades. Other than that, though, I don't have a whole lot to say about it.

The book was pretty derivative. The tale starts in a bowling alley in Texas, owned by the main character (whose name I've forgotten already...we'll call her MC). MC is holding a big party in her bowling alley for all her female friends, to celebrate the wedding of two characters on their favorite soap opera. To MC's shock, however, a face from the past appears on the screen: her adult daughter Violet, who ran off four years ago, leaving MC to raise her two children and contend with her monster-in-law. Violet is now starring in a commercial. MC's slutty, fun-loving sister, Loralva, is all for traveling to Hollywood to find her, and to try to get on The Price is Right. The monster-in-law also wants to go, as her son is no longer abandoned by a tramp, but married to a genuine movie star. The monster-in-law also has a Winnebago, so the group (including the children) set out on an absolutely mapcap, whirlwind tour of the southwest, meeting bikers and country-western singers and learning valuable lessons about life, love, friendship, blah blah blah bullshit bullshit bullshit.

I can't put my finger on why this book was so flaccid, but it really just limped along. It didn't succeed at being plot or character-driven. You don't learn much more about the three principals after you first meet them. Loralva is introduced to you as an easy, fun-loving woman, and turns out that's exactly what she is. The monster-in-law is introduced to you as an overbearing, bitchy pain-in-the-ass, and turns out that's exactly what she is. MC is introduced to you as a woman who's been abandoned by everyone she loves (she's also a widow) and is doing the best with what she can...and that's exactly what she is. So, it's not character-driven, which leaves us with the plot.

The plot was a long, slow build to not much of a payoff. There was little tension to keep the book moving, and the characters were so two-dimensional that it was hard to care about them. Looking back, I'm surprised that I stuck with this one.

Booking Through Thursday

The question before the panel this week:

But, enough about books… February 7, 2008
Filed under: Wordpress — --Deb @ 1:09 am



Okay, even I can’t read ALL the time, so I’m guessing that you folks might voluntarily shut the covers from time to time as well… What else do you do with your leisure to pass the time? Walk the dog? Knit? Run marathons? Construct grandfather clocks? Collect eggshells?

It may make all of you think less of me, but what the hell, I'll be honest. I play World of Warcraft. That's right! That's my main alternate hobby these days, as the temperatures drop below freezing and the sun starts to set around 5:30. If any of you out there play, you should know:

I play on the Horde side.
I am on the Trollbane server.
My name is Benihime and I'm a level 38 blood elf mage (fire).

If you don't play, of course, you're probably still laughing at all that as being unspeakably dorky. And I guess it is, but it's fun too. It costs about 50 cents a day to play, and I definitely get my money's worth.

When the weather doesn't suck, I also like to take photographs. I had a photography blog for a while, but it got boring and cumbersome to come up with some kind of rough theme, hunt through my computer to find enough pictures to fit the theme, then paste them all in, plus, no one went there anyway. I like to walk. I play viola, and used to play in an orchestra before I moved, but haven't picked it back up again. Sometimes I go to museums, but that's an awful lot like work, and there are also a limited number of them around here. I have two cats that I like to play with and pet, but I can often do that while I read.

I like going to see movies as well, and have such a wide range of tastes that I count both the Trois Couleurs trilogy and Armageddon in my list of favorites. (Someday, someone will produce a beautiful-looking, thought-provoking film where lots of shit blows up, and I will go see it every day until it leaves the theaters...yes, yes). I am an "armchair preservation activist", which basically means that I write lots of emails that read "Please don't tear down X building because it's lovely". The one other thing I like to do is make cards for people using scrapbooking stuff.

What about you?

The Total Environment

Some libraries just feel like magic when you walk inside. It's a rare feeling these days, as more and more libraries forsake their original buildings for newer (generally drab international-style) abodes. In my hometown, the original library was international-style. It also looked exactly like a Pizza Hut, and one year the senior prank was to spray-paint "Pizza Hut" on the top of it. I heard an apocryphal story that there was also a restaurant down the street called "The Pizza Hut" long before the chain existed, and that the developer stole the name from them and the architecture from our library. Anyway. Even that library has moved on now, to a newer, larger building.

Small-town libraries conjure up a range of emotions in me. Around the corner from where I used to live, there was a library that was open three days a week and housed in an old carriage house. They never had a single book I was looking for, and for the first time, I understood how it was possible to have read all of a library's books. The librarians, surprisingly enough, were these grunge-looking young dudes, with long hair, tats and piercings. They oversaw the dust and decay and the comings and goings of the Barbara Cartland and Agatha Christie novels. It made me sad, yet it also made me hopeful: here was a town that could barely afford to have a library, and yet they did anyway.

My all-time favorite library will always be Buffalo's Central branch, despite its outer International-style hideousness. This is Book Heaven, bigger than a Wal-Mart, with two entrances and guards at the doors. It has everything. There's an entire local history room that's the size of a lot of libraries. There's a cafe with a flat-screen TV. There's an escalator, a huge children's collection, a special collections room, a super-special collections room, large banks of computers, self-checkout machines that give you Wendy's coupons, and of course, all of the novels, non-fiction books and DVDs and CDs you could ever want. There's exhibit space and really pretty glass benches that are illuminated from within. Going there is almost overstimulating. I've mentioned my tendency to take as much as I can carry out every time I go to the library, the strange desparate feeling that it'll all be gone the next time I go. It's really bad there -- I want to read every book they have and persist in the delusion that I can get through ten of them in three weeks.



I also went to a really interesting small-town library recently. I met most of their staff and got to see their building, although I didn't have much time to spend with their collections (nor do I have borrowing privileges). The Swan Library in Albion is just pure magic. It's housed in an 1850s mansion with a lot of the original architectural details intact. They have books in the drawing room and the dining room. The upstairs has been renovated to house more books, the offices, the computers and a meeting room. The building's been used as a library for over 100 years. Walk in, and you feel the generations of readers who've gone before you. If there really was a book like Jumanji, if there actually exists a president's book like in the most recent National Treasure movie, it'd have to be housed somewhere like here.





One staff member told me that they've got a serious space crunch, though, and are looking at solutions. At least one scenario involves abandoning this space, and possibly turning it into a museum. I understand the need for it, but at the same time, it'd be a shame. Without naming names, I've visited libraries that are utterly soulless, and I don't think that's the way it should be. What a strange glitch they are in our capitalist, anti-intellectual society, after all. We have a government that's unwilling to provide free health care to poor kids, and a populace that's encouraged seven seasons of Big Brother and made a celebrity out of Paris Hilton, yet in any sizeable town, there is a building where anyone can go and get as many books as they can carry, all free, just as long as they bring them back. They are magic, and they should feel like it.