Hiatusing

Well, I'm enjoying this break. I'm limping along through three or four books right now, and, while I wouldn't call it blissful, it's definitely fun.

Let's see. I'm reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I'm on page 150. Another book would be winding up right now, and he hasn't even gotten to school yet. He just got off the hook at his hearing. A lot of people in Harry Potter's world seem to act like idiots mostly because if they didn't, there wouldn't be enough conflict. This is just one of the many ways in which His Dark Materials is superior to Harry Potter, with apologies to the Potter fans out there. And wouldn't you rather have a daemon than an owl?

Another way Pullman is better than Rowling is one of the chief things I notice, for good or ill, in fantasy novels: do I really belive and feel deep down that this world you're building runs smoothly when you're not there to manipulate it? Harry Potter isn't as bad as a lot of other books--some Neil Gaiman, for example (I'm looking in your direction, Neverwhere), is bad like that. But the way that the muggle world and the wizard world overlap, sometimes clashing and sometimes slipping by each other, seems a little inconsistant. Everything has a clever name, but not because they're charmed by clever names; rather, because Rowling is making them up. You can't actually image a factory that produces the crazy candies, or an artisan brewing butterbeer. What are really the rules and limitations of the portraits that move? I guess you could just plant all that under the label of Too Fantastic. But angels and witches and armored bears are fantastic. And I believed that those witches and bears lived in the arctic and flew on cloud pine branches (the witches) and hunted seals and fought Tartars (the bears).

Also, it's fun to say panserbjorn.

That's all I have to say about that.

It turns out The Kalahari Typing School for Men could arguably be the place where the Mma Ramotswe books jump the shark. The repetition of things you know from the rest of the series is getting boring. The respect paid to the polite and methodical mannerisms of the characters is wearing thin (they refer to Mma Makutsi's score at Botswana Secretarial College as her "97 percent or whatever it was." Where's the respect?) . The financial hardships seem a bit feigned, and it's taking longer with each book to get into the plot. The first three books were wonderful, though, and I highly recommend them.

Still reading Girl Meets God, and starting to enjoy it in between bouts of loathing. There's a real vibe of "look at me and my delightful HUMILITY," and I just don't like or respect the writer or (and here's the key problem) her faith. I guess there's something about writing a book about your faith that is innately braggardly, but I didn't feel this way about Ann Lamott.

There are two others that deserve their own entries, so a teaser: A Brief History of the Dead (on audiobook) by Kevin Brockmeier, and Uglies by Scott Westerfield.

TTFN!

I Cried and Cried

I'm setting myself free. I'm still reading Girl Meets God, though I've taken a few days off. It's so painful. I'm finishing The Amber Spyglass, and it's so good, and I haven't cried yet, but that's only because I can only read three pages at a time before the T stops, or there's a staircase to climb, and it breaks the flow of my inevitable weeping.

So while I'm muddling my way to the end of G vs. G, I've decided not to challenge myself much for the next month or so. This means: the two Harry Potters that I'm behind on, The Kalahari Typing School for Men, Uglies (hopefully before it's due on Monday), maybe a reread of Shining Through. There's a weird chance that this list might include a book I've been avoiding, The Kiss, which I expect to be bizarre, but which I've had on and off my list so many times I just want to get it over with. Oh, and also The Remains of the Day. And, if you want to count comics, rereading the Hellboy I'll get back from my brother this weekend, plus Barry Ween Boy Genius. I think I might need to wait a while before I can get into From Hell, though I might try.

By the way, for the record: we're back at a count of 57, and that in no way includes the books Ruth's about to lend me, or a number of other upcoming possibilities.

Pukey

I'm not not not enjoying this book, but I expected that. I'm reading it for the express purpose of commiserating with someone who read it and hated it and needed to complain.

This is going to be one of those reviews that make me hope the author doesn't google herself very often. The book is called Girl Meets God and the author is named Lauren F. Winner. It's about a girl who was raised Jewish, converted to Orthodox Judaism early in college, and then converted to Christianity, I think, at the beginning of grad school. This sounds interesting. This is a promising book.

I almost can't believe how non-spiritual this book feels. There's a great deal of detail about how one celebrates Judaism and what it feels like to be "courted by a very determined carpenter from Nazareth." There's a lot about learning, reading, converting, praying, choosing a house of worship--both for Judaism and for Christianity. The girl is clearly an overachiever. She spent high school reading about Judaism--all the time. She converted. When she felt Jesus in her heart, she got rid of everything relating to Judaism that she'd ever owned, like breaking up with a high school boyfriend. But there's no feeling there--there are the details of doing, but there's no feeling. There's no sense that having this religion changes the way she interacts with the world, except to talk to others about religion. Or to decide how they fit with her, or to, at least subtly, judge them. There's nothing about her personal relationship with God and the world, except that she believes in Christ.

She reminds me of Wendy Shalit--VERY much. Remember Wendy? She "came out" as a conservative during Coming Out Week in college. She believes in Modesty and Women Empowered through Subordination. I hear Wendy in Lauren. It's exhausting.

Also, she got an Anne of Green Gables reference wrong, referring to "Gilbert and Annie." It might be a typo, but dude, you just don't go there.

There's more, but it's so bad you almost can't wrestle with it. It's self-righteous, superficial, and intensely NOT touching.

And I'm still reading! I LOVE to whine.

My Own Personal Life Coach

On the topic of Finding Your Own North Star by Martha Beck, I can say many things. I could wonder over the idea that everyone will be rich if they find what they were meant to do (the way I figure it, in her ideal world there are a lot of people who get real personal satisfaction and pleasure from janitorial work), but I'll move beyond that.

I'll point out the most interesting bit, which is the last five chapters, where she describes the process of going through a major life change. It starts with a catalytic event, good or bad, possibly something that happens to you (e.g. your spouse dies) or something you do (like deciding to move for a year to a foriegn country). This destroys your sense of identity, on some level, and you begin to proceed through her little diagram. Square one: mourning the old you and making through one day at a time. Square two: dreaming and idealizing whatever your new life is going to look like. Square three: the long hard climb of turning your new circumstances into a life--learning to do and be what you need in your new life. And finally Square four: your new and happy life is settled and yours to live. What I like about this is not that it's profound, but that it allows you to look at those feelings and realize that they're normal--when you have big dreams that don't materialize into anything, that's because you're in stage 2, which is not the right place for that.

Before you think I've gone all self-helpy, I'd like to point out that the whole reason for the preceding thumbs-up type analysis is because I'm about to get to the Crazy, and I don't want you to think this was an awful book. It was amusingly written and had some useful bits. It wasn't for me, because it really wasn't for someone whose only problem in reaching her goals is laziness and/or procrastination. But I know people this book is written for.

Except, of course, for the Crazy. Martha Beck is a Believer. She's not Christian (anymore--try Leaving the Saints for accounts of her being Touched by an Angel and falling out with the Mormons), but she Belives in a Higher Power that Speaks to her through her Intuition and also Fortuitous Circumstances. She belives, for example, that generosity is important in a happy life, and that good things come to people who are generous. I agree with this. I believe that generosity connects you to the world around you in positive ways, and that those connections are likely to yield good things. But what Martha Beck believes goes along with her list of anecdotes: after giving money to a good cause, a large and unexpected check will ARRIVE IN YOUR MAIL. Seriously. A paycheck for a job you don't remember doing. An inheritance from someone you don't know and won't miss. A lottery you didn't know you entered. Something.

I can't go on. Just, be aware that this book is not terribly practical. It's very much for people who don't feel happy feeling happy, or who can't get in touch with their feelings. I am very much in touch with my inner child. She spent a lot of time trying to convince me to be more open about my emotions. I think I speak for all my coworkers when I say: that would be a very, very bad idea.

Take a Memo

To: Stephen King
Re: Cell, etc.

Action items:
1) Get editor. During action scenes, the multitude of tiny details that you insert for the purpose of verisimillitude are more problematic than anything else. Case in point: during zombie-driven riots, a man runs past our hero carrying "a brown cardboard carton with the word "Panasonic" stencilled in blue on the side." It's exhausting.

2) I know your life was changed by your first book sale, Stevie, but it's not quite the same for comic book writers. I am not knowledgeable about this subject, but I can tell you this. First of all, you don't generally sell "your first graphic novel." Most comics are serialized. And if you did sell a graphic novel instead of a concept for serialization, it would probably not be for a life-changing amount of money. Neil Gaimon is rich, your hero is not.

3) I'm never READ The Dark Tower, and even I can tell that your hero's great masterpiece is based very closely on The Dark Tower. Dude, it's not cute when you pay homage to yourself, it's just weird.

I whine because I love. Seriously, you're like the Steven Spielberg of horror--even when I know what you're doing, you can make me feel exactly what you want me to. (Your fantasy, on the other hand, is generally craptastic.) Still, please use your powers for good, not for pointing out DURING A ZOMBIE-DRIVEN BUS CRASH that the Red Sox toured Boston in duckboats after they won the World Series. You're weakening your own case. I'm losin' the love, I really am.

We'll discuss these points at the status meeting. Thanks!

A Perfect Storm of Zombies

I don't know what possessed me to pick Stephen King's Cell for my audiobook this month, and then to start it two days after The Worst Zombie Dream Ever. I'm not really afraid of zombies during the daylight, when I'm an adult and I know there's no such thing. But it has been my fear since childhood that while I'm sleeping everyone in the world but me will turn into a dangerous beast (before zombies it was dobermans) while I sleep and I'll have no one to turn to.

So I'm walking across the Public Garden listening to the opening paragraph of the book, which takes place in Boston. And the main character is walking down Boyleston Street. Hey, I'm almost right there! And he's carrying a bag from the store Small Treasures. Hey, that's probably based on Small Pleasures, where I got my engagement ring! Cool, even a little spooky. And the gift in his bag is for Sharon.

I stopped the book. It was just too much--the zombie dream, the imaginary guy right up the block from me with a gift for me from a store that I shop at ONLY THERE WILL BE ZOMBIES!!! This is really very not cool.

I'll listen to it. I'm a grown-up. But oh, I'll be really scared.

Self Help Makes Me Proud

Among other things, I've been reading a self-help book called Finding Your Own North Star: Reclaiming the Life You Were Meant to Live. The author, Martha Beck, is the same woman who wrote Leaving the Saints and Expecting Adam, both of which were very interesting and really engaging. They also wreaked a little havok on whatever passes as my spirituality. So I'm reading about how to find what my Essential Self really wants to do in life.

Seemed like a good idea. I have a good job, but I wouldn't call it a calling. I don't know that I have a calling, though I think it might just be to hang out with Mike, have a bunch of fun friends, and rear some cool kids. The book does not seem to help me; it's really meant for tense workaholics who can't listen to their inner child and stop to smell the roses. The idea is that you'll be more successful and happy doing something you love, even if it's not the world's definition of "success." By that definition of success, I'm doing pretty well. Mostly (according to these quizzes) I'm a pretty happy person.

Also still reading Postville, which is interesting but too long and too personal. His research is really interesting and he recounts a lot of great experiences and meeting interesting people. But he doesn't really clarify "the connection" he seems to want to draw between the Iowans in this tiny town and the Hasidic Jews who have moved in and opened a successful kosher butchery. It's really more about the author's relationship with his Jewish heritage. And even that is mostly a lament about how he's not really Jewish enough if he lives in Iowa.

And I'm almost done with Self Made Man, as well. I think one of the flaws of the book is that a lot of her observations are snide observations of an elite liberal-arts educated New Yorker hanging out with people who take their bowling league seriously, or people who sell coupon booklets door-to-door. She learns more about being working class than she does about being male, through most of the book, and even then, there's a lot more pity than you'd see from someone who really learned something. But she sort of redeems herself by having a nervous breakdown after the whole experiment. And there are some really interesting observations about dating--I think that chapter was by far the strongest, at least in part because she was interacting with other New Yorkers (or at least urbanites) in that chapter.

Upcoming: Girl Meets God (after which a hiatus on religious books, but someone I know from a message board wants someone to argue with about it, so I offered to give it a shot), Mission to America (okay, after THAT a religion hiatus, but at least it's a novel), and, after Easter, a couple of Harry Potters. Stay tuned!

Surrender

Well, it's been the literary equivalent of a cloudy, drizzly, cold and damp week or so. Not a dry spell--that's different. This has just been the kind of stretch that makes you think God has a head cold and is taking it out on you. Metaphorically.

First, I have to admit that I gave in to an inexplicable urge to read a book by a woman named Lurlene. Perhaps I shouldn't judge, but that doesn't seem to be stopping me. In a search for fiction about Amish people, I wound up with a young adult romance novel called Angels Watching Over Me, by Lurlene McDaniel. I did not realize how awful it would be; I would have stopped reading it but the whole thing took about two hours, so by the time I realized how bad it was, it was too late to stop. Embarassingly, I realized when I read the blurbs in the back of the book, she also wrote a number of books I recall fondly from my youth, including Too Young to Die, I Want to Live, and Six Months to Live. Do we see a common theme?

For my future Amish literature needs, instead of reading the rest of this trilogy (Lifted Up by Angels and Until Angels Close My Eyes, and aren't you glad I read these books so you don't have to?), I'm going to go with Jodi Picoult's Plain Truth. I think that'll fill my Amish needs.

In other sadly abortive attempts at bettering myself, I had to surrender The Diary of a Country Priest, as well. With this one, I can't be fully sure it wasn't that I just wasn't in the mood to work that hard. It's a sad book, first of all, about a priest who finds his small country parish to be uninspiring, and who doesn't manage money well and seems a little less than admirable himself. But the problem with the book, really, was the long, uninterrupted paragraphs of description and characters with long monologues about the nature of the priesthood, etc.

It's hard for me, but I think I might as well just let it go. I have to remember that if I die not having read every book that ever crossed my path, it will not be the end of the world. It's all about mortality, you know?

And finally, I also gave up on The Last Report of the Miracles at Little No-Horse. This book might have been good, actually, but it was really very much not up my alley. I'm always suspicious of a book with a geneology chart in the front. And long paragraphs rhapsodizing about music don't usually win me either. It doesn't actually have any magical realism in it (not in the first 36 pages, which was the 10% test I gave it), but it came very close--they removed the wall of the house to get the piano in, and the woman plays the piano nude in the middle of the night, with the whole world flowing around her. Then there's a flood and she dresses as a man and becomes a priest.

I don't know. I feel like maybe I should try--the story had promising things in it. It was very much my kind of book in many ways. But I just wasn't enjoying it.

Well, what're you gonna do? I'm reading other books now, and enjoying them. I went to the library and have 12 items checked out now (according to my account). There will be others.

In Absentia

Where have I been? What have I been doing? Don't I know how you worry? Don't I care that you've been pacing the floor wondering if I'm okay, or if I'm dead in a ditch? You don't think I care at all about your feelings.

Well, I'm very sorry. I was away for a weekend, and then I was pushing a major course live, which I'm proud to say was pulled off by various magical tricks and diverting slight of hand techniques.

So there's what I've been reading, and my (for me) exciting upcoming experience. Regarding the first, I'll just say that I've been testing a number of books only to discover that I don't actually want to take them on. More on this later, and possibly a little cosmetic update to the klog (as Mike calls it--for booklog).

But the upcoming event--never let it be said that you haven't seen karma in action--I'm going to the Public Library Association National Conference at the Hynes this week! Though I have rather given up on my little dream of being a librarian (seriously, I've not even organized enough to be a project manager--if I'm going to jump careers, I'll really need to do something LESS rigorous, not more), I'm so thrilled to get to wander their exhibition halls and see what happens. I understand there are a lot of publishers there with books--and maybe swag! I'm all tingly.

And this wonderful thing came into my life because I volunteered to do a favor for an internet stranger. I almost didn't, either, because it seemed presumptuous to answer a request for help that was tossed out into the blogosphere intended for actual librarians. But I live in Boston and have a car, so I'm delivering boxes for Bill Barnes of Overdue Media, creators of the excellent webcomic Unshelved. I understand I'm going to walk away with a T-shirt, and I hope, a really great glimpse inside the world that brings me all the things I treasure--BPL, Minuteman Library Network, my beloved Malden Public Library, etc.

On, to glory!

Done and Done

So what have I finished? I reread Ender's Game last week--excellent stuff. Orson Scott Card may be a bigot and a crackpot fundamentalist and may have a really hard time figuring out how to end a book, but darn if he isn't a gifted storyteller. Like his super-genius characters, the secret to his gift is great empathy. You know the character as he knows himself, and therefore can love and despise him all at once.

Our Man in Panama, by Graham Greene (or was it The Tailor of Havana? No, I remember--Our Man in Havana, an Entertainment. But I've said too much already). Seriously, John Le Carre totally stole from Green, but Greene is better. Well, I've never read Le Carre....but Greene is so funny! I like the subtitle, too: An Entertainment. A comedy of errors, really.

My Sister's Keeper, Jodi Picoult. The romatic subplot was thin (you really need a better reason than that to keep people apart for 15 years), and the reader of Julia's character being horrible didn't help. (You know how on SNL you can tell they're reading off cue cards? Like that, only in audiobook form. LONG pauses at weird moments.) The core conflict and story, the family's story, were good. There were parts where I wanted more meat, but I will say formally that I enjoyed this book a lot and would recommend it.

Am I going to get into trouble if I admit that I just finished Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay, which is designed to help you decide whether to break up with your significant other? I'm not considering anything like that, as I warned Mike. But how does the book tell you what to do? Turns out, with a series of "diagnostic questions." And it was an interesting view into the mind of someone who's staying in a miserable relationship, or who thinks of leaving every time a problem comes up. I think I would recommend it to someone who was looking for advice on this subject. But again (DISCLAIMER), this is not me.

So now I'm reading Crossin Over: One Woman's Exodus from Amish Life. First of all, it's accurate in that it's really just the one woman's story--it's barely about the Amish, it's barely about anything except this twenty year old girl falling in love with a fifty year old, thrice divorced man with gout. Also, I'll tell you--she hates the Amish. Loves her family, hates Amishness. Sounds like her dad was verbally abusive. I don't know if you can blame all the Amish for that, but you can barely tell from this amateurish book.

I'll finish it though. It's shorter than this blog entry.

WTF!!!???!!!

What. The. Heck??? I can't go into this without spoilers, but I will try by not telling you what book. But WHY did you end the book like that? Why? Why did I read about all those things, all these people, why did they go through all these specific trials and torments to end up like that? Unlikely! Even perverse fate is not so perverse.

Did you ever see City of Angels? At least when they used that ending, it made a certain thematic sense. That movie was requesting that I think about certain things, and that ending made me think about those things in a different way, more complex. The issues this book was asking me to consider were THROWN OUT THE WINDOW with this ending.

If you know what I'm talking about and have read this book (hint: I've mentioned it here before), and you get why it ended like this, please let me know.

I've actually finished a bunch of books in the past few days, but that will come later, so I don't give away what book makes me want shake the author.

Edited to add: You know what it's like? It's like on TV whenever someone gets pregnant and they're thinking about getting an abortion, and then before they can go to the clinic they have a miscarriage. So you don't have to deal with the fallout of a real, difficult choice with no easy right answer. It's a cop out, I tell you. Grr.

Them Wacky Amish

I'm not worried about insulting the Amish in my post, because they don't use the internet or read blogs.

I'm on about page 2 (literally it's page 10, but the text started one page ago) of Crossing Over: One Woman's Exodus from Amish Life, and I can tell that this is not a book about someone who loves the Amish. I don't know what else I would expect from these leaving religion books that I'm getting into now, but I was a little surprised.

But what I've learned already! Apparently the Amish were founded in 1693 by someone who left the Mennonite church because he felt they "did not carry shunning far enough." Hear that Amish? Be more shunny!

But the best part is that this guy who founded the Amish later excommunicated himself from the Amish.

This is already fun.

ps. Can one woman have an exodus? In a related grammatical nitpick, can you really have a "mass exodus," or is that redundant, like (nod to Becky) "very unique?"

Drunken Librarying

At the work party on Wednesday, I did a little too much open barring, if you know what I mean. I always assume wine isn't going to do anything, but it hits me much harder than I expect. Anyway, after the party, I went to the library to return some stuff. Then...I went a little nutty. I was clutching the bannister to keep from spinning down the stairs. But the wonderful thing about being drunk at the BPL--you're never the only one. There's always a hobo.

So when I go to the library but am not in complete control of my faculties, it turns out (surprise, surprise) that I check out a buttload of books. Like ALL the books. And the really horrible part is that, counting them in the sober light of day, even after ready all 8 of the book I checked out, I won't bring my list below 50. I used to have a goal of staying below 30. I am really not being good with goals this year.

I went nutty on the "religious subculture" books--several on the Amish and the Hisidic Jews. Also, a relationship book that has nothing to do with my life but that I was really curious about (it's called Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay). Not because I have that question, but because I see people online recommending it all the time, and I'm curious--how does a pop psych writer answer that question? So far, she's said that you should leave if you've been physically assualted more than once or if you can't ever remember a time when your relationship was good. And the funny thing is, I can imagine people who need that advice, and I'm glad this lady is there to give it.

Also: rereading Ender's Game. Closing in on the end of My Sister's Keeper (I find the lawyer/guardian ad litem (sp?) romance subplot to be a) poorly read and b) totally useless; otherwise, a very lovely and emotionally thoughtful book). Setting aside The Subtle Knife for a couple of days anyway, because you want to spread those things out. And Our Man in Havana is desperate and hilarious.

I keep myself busy. And tipsy. Good combo!

Error in Judgement

Yeah, so I finished Morality for Beautiful Girls (Alexander McCall Smith, another Mma Ramotswe novel, excellent) and started Our Man in Havana, by Graham Greene. First of all, he's very sly and brilliant and jaded, this Graham Greene person. "Isn't it lovely how you always get what you pray for?" I had to read that sentence twice before I spotted the "r," and then I laughed out loud on the train.

But I did make a mistake that screwed up my initial understanding of the book. When Wormold tells his friend that they're going out to buy a bottle to celebrate Milly's 17th birthday, I was a little grossed out that his wife was so young. It didn't really surprise me that much, though. But then he starts talking about her at the age of 13, and I'm so skeeved out! Yes, skeeved! And then he tells the guy she's his daughter so he doesn't look like the gross old letch he is...

No wait. I flip back through the first 23 pages of the book. Nowhere does it say he's married to Milly. She is his daughter. That's why he's known her since she was 4 (and, presumably, before). So when he refers to her mother, it's not about him buying her off some poor woman when she was 12, it's that he was married to her mother, and fathered a child with her.

I am DISGUSTING.

Giving Up My Indie Cred

I just don't like David Sedaris.

Admittedly, this is more based on his readings on the radio, and he does have the most annoying voice in the world, so there's that. But I think it's less his voice than his tone--irony drips from every word, there's just no sincerity whatsoever in there, no emotion that he isn't mocking even as he claims it. And as we all know, I'm a huge proponent of the New Sincerity.

This brings me to the book I finished this weekend, The Age of Innocence. That is sincerity taken to the most poignant, rending conclusions possible. To give up your life, your chances of joy in life, for the sake of "what people would think." It's so hard for me to imagine how it would feel to be constrained by everyone around you from something that might seem innocuous.

And the insanity is that, after being denied the ability to make the reasonable change--breaking off an engagment--he's almost driven to something that even today would be tragic--running away and leaving all his life behind for his true love.

An excellent, sad, poignant book.

Ode to Book Club

You know, despite my mezze mezze feelings about book club, I have to admit, I've been introduced to some good writers through it. Richard Yates and Graham Greene come to mind as two people I would never have read (in the case of Richard Yates, possibly never even heard of) if they hadn't been book club picks. And now I've got one of each on my Borrowed shelf.

So thank you, book club. You done good.

Mixed Blessings

Well, it's always very sad when this happens, but it also makes my life a little easier. I just started to read Bookends, by Jane Green, which I selected because a friend likes the author. I have to say, I just can't get into it. There's a weakness to the storytelling--I keep losing track of how much time has passed--that I just can't get past. I'm sorry, Tracy. I do love trash, you know that. I guess this just isn't for me.

Let me give an example, though, because, well, because I critiquing fiction last night and I'm in the zone. So, the main character is at work and on the phone with her best friend, Simon. She says she has an appointment and needs to go, so they hang up. Then the book segues into her thinking about her friends and introducing them to me. So far so good--I don't need to go with her to her business meeting. But when it segues back into the "now," to what's going on around her, it's because the phone rings and it's her friend Simon who wants to tell her about something. So there's no indication at all of whether her appointment already happened or if he's calling her back five minutes later. They have a leisurely conversation. I read the passage twice trying to figure it out. If it was Joyce, or Toni Morrison, even, it would be compelling to be drawn back to reread and figure out what's going on. Not what I was looking for though. (Again, Tracy, I'm so sorry!)

But, I do get to cross it off my list, bringing that down to 54 again. And I think I might have discovered a useful new standard. When I realized I wasn't getting into it right away, I checked how many pages in the book (350) and decided to read 35 pages before giving up. Ten percent; that seems fair, right?

So: one down, 54 to go.

Brokenest of Hearts

Sorry for the long delay in posting--Blogger's been a pain this week, and work has been (gasp!) busy. But let me tell you of yesterday's tragedy.

A few weeks ago, I bought a boxed set of His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. I've been so excited to start it, but busy. Finally, for the past week, I've made it my before bed book. Such fun! And Saturday morning, just at the part where Lyra has been caught in Bolvangar and is going to be severed from Pantalaimon, I discover...missing pages!

Yes, the signature containing chapters 15 and 16 appears twice, while the sig containing chapters 17 and 18 is entirely missing.

Do you UNDERSTAND my AGONY???

Tomorrow I'm going to head back to Barnes and Nobel to see if I can get a replacement that doesn't have the problem. I hope! Thank heaven we live in our own filth, and I hadn't thrown away the bag with the receipt in it.

In other news, I finished listening to Drowning Ruth by Christina Schwarz. It wasn't bad, but I don't think I'd recommend it. The shape of the story was just kind of strange. I wouldn't say I'd have liked it better if I'd been reading it (Blair Brown's reading was excellent), but I think that not knowing how far along in the story I was really affected my understanding of what was going to happen. There was a chunk in the middle where I thought I was approaching the end, but was actually approaching the halfway point. I guess the middle lags, is the problem. The crisis/semi-mystery is set up at the beginning, and then the middle is spent establishing a life for these people. The events of that life come to a head fifteen years later, but going from Ruth's five-year-old life to her eighteen-year-old life is a little choppy. At the point where her father ceases to be useful, he conveniently becomes a merchant marine. Well handled, but, again, convenient.

I think it was a middle-of-the road, reasonably good book.

The Age of Innocence is quite good. I'm curious about a lot of the euphemisms and generalizations that Newland uses--what "life experiences" is he missing, what "dangerous knowledge" is kept from his naive fiancee? I'm not even sure he knows. But I think that if I were to actually see the society he lives in, I would be startled by the restraint and boredom. I think Wharton does an excellent job, in his character, of examining his world as both an insider and an outsider. He loves it, but can see its flaws, and feels constrained by it and supported by it at the same time.

I need a copy of The Golden Compass right now!

Moving On

Why do they close at 5 today? Why? I was going to go at lunch but I got distracted and then was working and then it's too late and when I get out of work the library will be closed and I can't go to the library. It makes me so sad.

I finished The Tiger in the Well, which I really enjoyed by the end, but I have to say, Philip Pullman has ruined it for himself with His Dark Materials. He can't top that. What's he going to do? His only choice is to go on hiatus for ten years and then have his next novel come out in fifteen. By then everyone will be salivating and no one will care if it's good.

I'm reading The Age of Innocense now, which I might have to set aside for more pressing tasks and unpublished works, but which will carry me through the commute nicely. I'm really enjoying it--Wharton is very funny, and she does a good job of critiquing the upper class and their propriety subtly while writing from the point of view of someone who completely buys the whole worldview completely, and yet without being derisive. I think it might run into trouble with a modern reader, though, because her aloof criticism, mild as it is, might not seem scathing enough for a modern reader.

I remember reading Emma with Book Club Incarnation 1. It was one of the first ones we read. A lot of people didn't like it--not because of the old fashioned writing, but because of the ideas about class. The idea that there is someone who is beneath someone else--that Emma's friend (I can't remember the names in the real book, so we'll use Clueless)--that Ty acutally isn't good enough for Josh. It's funny, and I should have brought this up at book club, darn it!--because when you translate it into modern times, you see that Ty isn't clever enough or deep enough for Josh--even though she's a lovely person. They don't have common interests. That's exactly how it was back then, only they had this shorthand called class. And yes, that would have been used to keep a clever Ty down, but face it, that girl (Harriet, I think was her name) was not clever.

I think it's interesting how hard it can be to read a novel from another era through the lens of that era, and combine that with your own views, and still enjoy it on all levels. That's what makes classics "classic" I guess.

NOT GOING TO THE LIBRARY

But it's so hard.

Martha Beck, who wrote Expecting Adam and Leaving the Saints, two books that I enjoyed very much and which really affected me, wrote another book called Finding Your Own North Star. She's what she calls a Life Coach, and I'd really like to look at what she has to say about finding your calling and your place in life. From her column in O, I suspect that she's kind of touchy-feely and much more about giving you permission to feel things you're resistant to than she is constructive in suggesting a life-goal to a mediocre project manager, but I want to hear what she has to say.

But. When have I ever checked out one book? Mhm. You see? So if I did that, I'd end up getting the Hasidic exiles book, and the next Mma Ramotswe book, and that Groucho Marx autobiography, and, and, and.

I resist. I'm reading The Tiger in the Well, which, I'm terribly sorry Katie, is no His Dark Materials. (If he knows all those details about Sally's life, of COURSE he'll recognize her assistant when she comes to spy on him.) I'm rereading The Lark and the Wren, which I might quit in a chapter or two because the last third has little to do with the very enjoyable first third. It's good, but a different book. I'm going to read The Age of Innocense before anything next. Plus Erin's novel for writer's group, and soon Katie's novel...and...and....

If someone would pay me for all this, I could live a long, happy, wealthy life.