Have you ever come across a St. Maureen?

Last weekend, my boyfriend was in a generous mood, and also bought me the DVD of "Millions", directed by Danny Boyle. It's a very uplifting movie, if you haven't seen it. It's about two little boys who find a lot of money, and the effect the money has on them, and their family. Saints are a major element of the story, and the main little boy, Damian, encounters several saints during the movie. His mother just died, so he asks them all if they've ever come across a St. Maureen.

Although I'm not religious, I do like the saints. I'm not really sure why. I think their lives are interesting, as is the whole concept of saints. Perhaps it's the idea of ordinary individuals achieving extraordinary things. Perhaps it's just that they're easier to relate to than a divine being. I don't know. I first saw this movie over the summer and got a saints book for my birthday, entitled Lives of the Saints by Richard P. McBrien. I don't think it's the sort of thing you read cover-to-cover, but I'm going to try for a little each day, since it's organized by day. Starting today.

Today is the feast day of Frances of Rome. She lived from 1384-1440 and devoted her life to the service of the poor, especially in hospitals. She had a number of visions during her life, became a nun, and is the patron saint of motorists and of widows. Also, of Dominic Savio, who died of tuberculosis when he was only 15, and is the patron saint of young boys and choirboys. Just thought you might like to know.

All chick, no lit?

I've been meaning to post about this column by Maureen Dowd (linked to The Unknown Candidate's blog because only NYT subscribers can access columns on their webpage). I like chick lit as much as the next chick, but I agree with her that the stuff has become the literary equivalent of bamboo, choking everything else off the shelves. I mentioned last night that my boyfriend bought me a copy of Traveling Pants this weekend. What I didn't chronicle was that the original idea was just to buy me any book of my choosing (awww...he's so sweet) but that Barnes and Noble didn't have any of the books I wanted. I was going to get the new George Saunders, or maybe a book of short stories by Steven Millhauser (I liked the movie The Illusionist, and I like some of his other short stories, like "The Knife Thrower" and "The Barnum Museum"). It was just a sea of pink books with shoes on them in there!

Chick lit is an enjoyable distraction, and lots of fun. And there is definitely a range of quality out there. I myself enjoy Jennifer Weiner, Candace Bushnell, and the Stephanie Plum mysteries by Janet Evanovich. But then there are others, like Plum Sykes and Lauren Weisberger (The Devil Wears Prada), which will probably age as well as that 200-page book on how to surf the internet that I saw in the computer section of our local library.

But it would be a shame if chick lit choked out everything else. Novels can be so much more than an escape. They can give you a new perspective on your life, give you a window into places and cultures that you'd never experience otherwise, or even teach you stuff. I actually learned a lot about economics and finance from Sabin Willett's Present Value, for example. Yesterday, I went to the library to stock up on books to take to Florida with me next week. I wanted a serious novel and a trashy biography. It seemed weird to me to find them flipped: there were plenty of biographies of upstanding Americans who'd led inspirational lives (I wanted to read about a slutty, drug-addled star who turned up mysteriously murdered at the age of 30). And on the fiction side, it seemed to be all chick lit, or "dude lit" (new term, referring to books by authors like Tom Clancy and John Grisham). I wonder if this trend might help to save the independent bookstore. I haven't visited one just to visit it in a while now (I'm always looking for gifts for others). Maybe they, too, have succumbed.

Forever

Over the weekend, my boyfriend bought me the new Traveling Pants book. I finished reading it two nights ago. This more than likely marks the end of the series, because the Pants get destroyed at the end of the book (you learn this on the first page, so I am not giving much away).

It's hard to say too much about this book without making constant reference to the rest of the series, or without ruining it for those who haven't yet read the book. And since the book was released within the past six weeks, I'm sure there are some of you out there.

I think that if you liked the rest of the series, you will like this one too. It was a good, and realistic, ending to what has been, overall, a good and realistic series. I've written before about how Bridget, Tibby, Lena and Carmen appear as real people, not archetypes. But there's also a consistency of character there. Despite changes in their lives, you see them grow as people and experience ups and downs. When the book opens, we see (much to our surprise) that of the four, it's the emotional, outgoing Carmen who has not adjusted well to university life, whereas the two less outgoing girls of the group (Tibby and Lena) both successfully carved out niches for themselves.

At some points, the book dragged. And there were a few parts that felt less than realistic. We know from the other books that the girls grew up in Maryland, in the DC-Metro area. Tibby spent this summer taking classes at NYU, yet several of the characters repeatedly and spontaneously make the journey up there, only to talk to her for a half hour. There were a few times when I was practically screaming "Come on! That's a 600 mile round trip!"

But overall, the takeaway lessons of the series are positive: be true to your friends. Rely on yourself, but don't forget the people who care about you, either. It's OK to fuck up -- everyone does it occasionally. Things don't always work out for the best, but every situation you'll be in will ultimately resolve itself one way or another, and there's nothing so bad you can't move past it. Don't be afraid to take chances. And above all, as the series shows, have fun while you're doing your thing! This series, for all of its morals, was a lot of fun. I will be interested to see what's next for Ann Brashares.

"Men's genitalia have no place in quality literature!"

So says a librarian who is seeking to keep this year's Newbery Medal winner, The Power of Lucky by Susan Patron, off her shelves. Apparently, there is a passage in the book where the main character overhears someone talking about how a rattlesnake bit their dog "on the scrotum." Unlike the thematic concerns with the Harry Potter books or Catcher in the Rye, the firestorm over this particular book seems to center around this one word.

In reading this article, I find it striking that several of the librarians who aren't stocking the book are doing so over fear of parental backlash, not because of their personal objections. While there may be some parental backlash, I don't think it's right to deny all the kids in the school a chance to read the book. The book is aimed at children aged 9-12, so it seems age-appropriate to me. Kids are learning about sex and reproduction at that age, and they probably already know several slang expressions for "scrotum". What's wrong with teaching them the real word?

There are also creative ways to teach it without going into graphic detail. When I was in college, I was staffing the table for the Center for Womyn's Concerns. We had brochures, buttons, stickers and free condoms. For some reason, there was a 10-year-old boy on campus and he was looking at amy stuff and asked me what the condoms were. I told him that people who didn't want a baby used them to make sure they didn't get one. And you know what? He was satisfied with that. I didn't have to launch into a lengthy explanation about what sex was and how the condom was used. And if I, as a 20-year-old who hadn't been around kids that age since they were my age peers, could come up with that, shouldn't someone who spends all day with kids and holds a master's degree in teaching them be able to do just as well?

I would be interested to hear from anyone who has actually read this book, or has a differing opinion as to whether or not it belongs in schools.

A new entry in the troubled young girl genre

The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath, defined this genre. Ever since, there has been a new one for each generation. I never Promised You a Rose Garden was popular in the 1970s.Girl, Interrupted and Prozac Nation were popular during the 90s. Abigail Vona's book, Bad Girl, intrigued me during a cruise of the Barnes and Noble discount section. I just finished it.

Vona's book differs significantly from the others because she was not mentally ill by anyone's standards. Rather than facing institutionalization, she was sent to a behavior modification camp, often called "boot camps" in the media. Vona was an out-of-control teen, but a typical one: she snuck out, she occasionally smoked pot and drank, and she fooled around (but never had sex with) boys. She got sent to this boot camp by her father and found herself among girls with serious issues. One girl was an anorexic and bulimic and a self-injurer, and talked about putting broken glass in her water at dinner when she lived at home. Another girl beat up her parents. A third molested her sister.

The first few chapters of the book are hard to take. Vona had believed she was going to summer camp and was immediately put in a situation where she had to follow thousands of rules that she was totally ignorant of. Not surprisingly, she had a very difficult time. As time wore on, she began to work on herself and her family issues, and she ultimately leaves a more functional person.

The opening chapters of the book are written the way you'd expect a teenager like Vona to speak: lots of slang, lots of swear words. As she learns to live by and respect the rules at The Village (her boot camp), the amount of cursing diminishes and she's more honest with readers about what she feels. Since she works the Twelve Steps, the first chapter is -12 and continues to count down to zero, then back up to 12. As Susanna Kaysen does in Girl, Interrupted, Vona contrasts her experiences with the clinical notes. Sometimes it will make your blood boil ("Patient appears selfish and needy" when Vona reports having done nothing in particular that day), sometimes it will reflect the day's events with a dark humor (after witnessing a takedown gone so wrong that she had to run for help and wound up staying awake until 2AM, the night staff notes "Patient slept soundly.") Other times you're unsure how her report of the day is supposed to work with the clinical notes. But given the fact that Vona has some serious learning disabilities, the book itself is a remarkable achievement.

After finishing the book, I was left with some larger questions. Why do books like this continue to be popular? How come they are rarely, if ever, written by men? The Bell Jar was released in 1963; although treatment for mental illness has advanced since then, has it come as far as we like to believe? And what do we do with those who just don't fit in, who, like Vona, defy labeling? These questions have been with us for along time. Perhaps stories like Vona's have staying power because they encourage us to work towards better answers.

Dragon FEVER

I just finished a two-week long project, Eragon, by Christopher Paolini.

The title character of Eragon is a young farm boy who finds a strange stone in the woods while hunting. He tries, unsuccessfully, to sell or trade it. Then, it hatches into a dragon (which he names Saphira). Eragon and his fellow townsmen live under the rule of a totalitarian leader, Galbatorix, and his henchmen come in search of him, and torch his house, killing his uncle and forcing Eragon and Saphira to depart on an epic journey, along with the town storyteller, Brom, who soon reveals himself to be more than what Eragon had guessed. Eragon learns that he is the first of a new generation of Riders, and will be a key player in the struggle between the Empire of Galbatorix and the free people who oppose him, the Varden.

At 450 pages long, this book is rather slow-moving. It took me a very long time to get into it. I'd seen the movie first. When my boyfriend and I returned from seeing it, a friend of his who had read all three books said that he thought the movie sucked and that they'd cut so much from it, he didn't see how they could make a second movie. Naturally, they'd have to make some cuts, but they did leave out some key scenes.

The book is populated with wonderful characters: Brom, the storyteller; Angela the herbalist and her werecat Solembum; Murtagh, with a dark heritage; Ajihad, leader of the Varden; and of course Saphira herself, who is no dumb animal, but a highly intelligent creature with as much of a consciousness as person. Yet, Eragon himself is not among the wonderful characters. Eragon is bland, defined only by external events. Perhaps Paolini did this deliberately, to allow young readers to project whatever they wanted onto Eragon. If so, it was unneccesary -- Harry Potter is a pretty defined character and that series hasn't suffered in popularity because of that.

The book was also rather geeky. If you've ever drawn a map of Middle Earth or attempted to hold a conversation in Elvish, you'd love that aspect of these books. In fact, many of the ideas are borrowed from Tolkien: the dwarves in this book are mostly miners and metalworkers, the elves are respected for their intelligence and knowledge of magic, there's an ancient language, there's a race of fighters which much resembles Orcs Paolini calls them "Urgals").

But it wasn't terrible. The book picks up towards the end, and often the first book in a trilogy is the weakest because of all the exposition. I will probably give the rest of the series a chance.

Book Club Tonite!!!

I went to the bimonthly (meaning every other, not 2x per) book club meeting at my local library tonight, having completed the assigned read, The Good Earth, Pearl Buck's classic novel. I read this one three weeks ago, when I was interviewing for a job at her home (I didn't get it, though I made it to the top two, so I guess I can tell y'all where the interview was now). It was a happy coincidence that the interview and the book club selection coincided.

The room was filled, as always, with women over 50. I always feel really out of place at these book clubs. I continue to go because it's virtually the only thing to do around here and because the librarians are so earnest and sincere about their book club that I can't help but want to support it. It's been hit-and-miss. There are times when I've gone and it's been great, and times when I've gone and it just pissed me off (like when they all hated Life of Pi -- too much fish-killing, they said. WTF?) Tonight was one of the good ones.

I did enjoy this book. It wasn't quite what I expected, but I liked how Buck kept us off balance. In the early parts of the book, you're rooting hard for Wang Lung and O-lan to make it. You're pleased when they succeed. Yet, slowly, you turn against Wang Lung. He seems to get selfish and arrogant, and he does some things that are a little creepy. Getting his aunt and uncle hooked on opium. Taking Lotus as a second wife, and basically forgetting O-lan, then forgetting Lotus too, and keeping her locked up in that court while she gets fat and old.

O-lan is harder to get a fix on. People tonight posited that she had just been so abused that her emotions shut down, or never even had a chance to develop, or that she was brainwashed by society. There's that hard practicality there, and not much else in some ways. Still, she got a horribly raw deal, and the part where Wang Lung takes her pearls to give to his second wife is just heartbreaking. We talked about this extensively tonight, since our group was all-female. I thought it was interesting that none of us (including myself) were sympathetic to Lotus, the second wife, although she too was sold into slavery (prostitution) at a young age, and probably abused as well.

Buck has a weird style in this book. I haven't read anything else by her, although I might now, so I don't know if it's always how she writes. But to me, it almost sounds a bit like the Bible. Each sentence sounds like a pronouncement. At this moment, I'm bitterly regretting returning my copy so I can't quote anything. But those who've read this book know what I'm talking about. It had the interesting effect of making the story seem as though it had implications far beyond the tale of Wang Lung, and that you, the reader, were supposed to go off and think about what each sentence means.

I'm a little surprised that this book is read widely in junior high and high schools. I'm curious to know how it's taught, and what kids think of it. Are there any teachers, or students, out there who can answer this for me?