Another one of my pet peeves: YA books in which I need to suspend my disbelief by a noose from the chandelier to understand why, exactly, the world requires a twelve-year-old to save it.
This is done well in such book as His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman (fate, coincidence). It's not done at all in books like the Blossom Culp series by Richard Peck (oh, do read these, really), in which the drama is not about saving the world. It's done pretty poorly in the book I'm reading now, The People of Sparks, by Jean DePrau. This is a sequel to The City of Ember, which had a similar flaw, though somehow not as troubling.
Really, though, a village of 300 is inundated with 400 refugees, neither group has any adult who takes even an informal leadership role. Instead, one kid starts fomenting rebellion and another couple of kids try to stop him. The adults are sheep--not in an unconvincing way, but there isn't even ONE adult who'll step up?
A Series of Unfortunate Events is the worst offender here. After the fourth time the kids foil the evil Count Olaf and expose him to their trustee Mr. Poe, you'd think the fifth time he'd believe them, or even listen to the end of their sentence, when they explain that the tall skinny guy with one eyebrow IS in fact Count Olaf again.
Harry Potter is interesting here. The first three books bothered me a bit in this regard. Why don't the adults see anything? Why don't they listen to him? He's powerless, and under attack, and it seems to fly under everyone's radar.
It's gotten much better as it moved along, though. As the stakes go up, everyone IS fighting, as hard as they can. But they can't fully protect him, which I think is a complicated and touching conflict. Trouble is finally thrust upon Harry by fate and life, instead of just by J.K. Rowling.
It's kind of sad about The People of Sparks, because the setup is interesting, and the high points are pretty exciting. But the lack of coherent adult behavior is a huge flaw, and affects the book in a lot of ways that are kind of dragging down my experience. Sorry to say.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Further Conjunctions
First: I had always known the word "decimate" to mean "destroy utterly; to wipe out." Well, what it actually refers to is the Roman practice (if that's the word I want) for the destruction of one tenth of your men. Apparently it was a punishment that was laid against the army for failure or cowardice--the men were required to kill one in ten of their own comrades. Good GOD, are you kidding me?
The source of this is Dreaming the Bull, which is one of the Boudica books (she's the Warrior Queen, you know). There's a little too much Rome and not enough British Islanders, if you ask my opinion, but it'll do for a sweeping historical saga.
Also, TWO conjunctions on the same day. Both stemming from the same book, in fact--the interminable Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy Sayers. Weakest Wimsey mystery I've read yet, mostly due to its prolonged examination of the romance of the newlywed protagonists. (The subtitle is "A love story with detective interruptions," and well-named.) But I found a reference to a Gordian knot on page 123, coincidentally not half an hour after I learned what a Gordian knot was while reading The Wide Window by Lemony Snicket. And neither five pages nor ten minutes later, Lord Peter mentions that, unlike Dickens, he wouldn't hang Fagin for being a pickpocket. This not one week after reading John Sutherland's complaint in one of his "literary puzzles" books that there was really no reason to execute Fagin, except that he's the villain of the novel and we hate him. Legally, they hadn't a leg to stand on.
This post kind of sucks, but Blogger's being a pain, so I'm going to post and go see if I can fix my interface. Wish me luck.
The source of this is Dreaming the Bull, which is one of the Boudica books (she's the Warrior Queen, you know). There's a little too much Rome and not enough British Islanders, if you ask my opinion, but it'll do for a sweeping historical saga.
Also, TWO conjunctions on the same day. Both stemming from the same book, in fact--the interminable Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy Sayers. Weakest Wimsey mystery I've read yet, mostly due to its prolonged examination of the romance of the newlywed protagonists. (The subtitle is "A love story with detective interruptions," and well-named.) But I found a reference to a Gordian knot on page 123, coincidentally not half an hour after I learned what a Gordian knot was while reading The Wide Window by Lemony Snicket. And neither five pages nor ten minutes later, Lord Peter mentions that, unlike Dickens, he wouldn't hang Fagin for being a pickpocket. This not one week after reading John Sutherland's complaint in one of his "literary puzzles" books that there was really no reason to execute Fagin, except that he's the villain of the novel and we hate him. Legally, they hadn't a leg to stand on.
This post kind of sucks, but Blogger's being a pain, so I'm going to post and go see if I can fix my interface. Wish me luck.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Choirs of Angels
Yesterday was a red letter day in my personal history. It was the day, will forever be known as the day, on which I discovered the nun aisle in the Boston Public Library.
A moment of silence, please.
I picked up Unveiled, The Habit, and (this is SO exciting, you think I'm exaggerating but I'm totally sincere here) The Rule of St. Benedict. The latter is the handbook by which Benedictine monks and nuns live. It's about both how to be a religious, and establishes a lot of rules and ideas about how to live in a community, how to turn a group of people into a community.
In honor of this red letter day, here's a rundown of my top five nun books.
1) The Nun's Story, Kathryn Hulme. I've probably gone on about this before. It was a movie with Audrey Hepburn, which I saw on A&E many years ago, which led me to nun books in general. It's a perfect explanation of why and how a person would choose this life--not as a default or an escape, but as an ambition.
2) In This House of Brede, Rumer Godden. This is one of those books that observes the seasons turning and the small dramas of life--will Sister Agnes ever finish her book? How will we pay for the new sculpture Mother Superior ordered before she died? Will the Japanese novices learn our ways? It's just such a warm and comforting story.
3) Lying Awake, Mark Saltzman. A sister in a small convent in California is having visions, which have revived her faith and her passion for her calling. But when she finds out that they're caused by a medical condition, the book examines the question of how science and faith fit together and conflict with each other. But it does this with a practical simplicity, not a philisophical tirade.
4) Cloister Walk, Kathleen Norris. I still count this as a nun book, even though it's really not. It's the journal of a woman who spends time as an oblate in a monestary. It's a mixed-gender community, many of whose members are oblates (sort of like an extended retreat--temporary vows). The book talks about the things that a "typical" person who has a full life (and husband) in the World might find for herself in a place like that.
5) Confessions of a Pagan Nun, Kate Horsley. This is a strange but intriguing novel, set up as the diary of an Irish pagan who joins the church. Mostly it's about how strange and foreign the Christianity of the 4th or 5th century is to us. I don't love it, actually, but I learned a great deal from it that I'm glad to know.
Bonus: Nun TV. Brides of Christ, an Australian series (or miniseries) about the lives of one convent in the 60s. With special appearances by a very young Naomi Watts and Russell Crowe!
Now, what's this I've heard about nun blogs?
A moment of silence, please.
I picked up Unveiled, The Habit, and (this is SO exciting, you think I'm exaggerating but I'm totally sincere here) The Rule of St. Benedict. The latter is the handbook by which Benedictine monks and nuns live. It's about both how to be a religious, and establishes a lot of rules and ideas about how to live in a community, how to turn a group of people into a community.
In honor of this red letter day, here's a rundown of my top five nun books.
1) The Nun's Story, Kathryn Hulme. I've probably gone on about this before. It was a movie with Audrey Hepburn, which I saw on A&E many years ago, which led me to nun books in general. It's a perfect explanation of why and how a person would choose this life--not as a default or an escape, but as an ambition.
2) In This House of Brede, Rumer Godden. This is one of those books that observes the seasons turning and the small dramas of life--will Sister Agnes ever finish her book? How will we pay for the new sculpture Mother Superior ordered before she died? Will the Japanese novices learn our ways? It's just such a warm and comforting story.
3) Lying Awake, Mark Saltzman. A sister in a small convent in California is having visions, which have revived her faith and her passion for her calling. But when she finds out that they're caused by a medical condition, the book examines the question of how science and faith fit together and conflict with each other. But it does this with a practical simplicity, not a philisophical tirade.
4) Cloister Walk, Kathleen Norris. I still count this as a nun book, even though it's really not. It's the journal of a woman who spends time as an oblate in a monestary. It's a mixed-gender community, many of whose members are oblates (sort of like an extended retreat--temporary vows). The book talks about the things that a "typical" person who has a full life (and husband) in the World might find for herself in a place like that.
5) Confessions of a Pagan Nun, Kate Horsley. This is a strange but intriguing novel, set up as the diary of an Irish pagan who joins the church. Mostly it's about how strange and foreign the Christianity of the 4th or 5th century is to us. I don't love it, actually, but I learned a great deal from it that I'm glad to know.
Bonus: Nun TV. Brides of Christ, an Australian series (or miniseries) about the lives of one convent in the 60s. With special appearances by a very young Naomi Watts and Russell Crowe!
Now, what's this I've heard about nun blogs?
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Too Much Of Nothing
Have you heard my rant yet about books in which nothing happens? It's a classic problem with literary fiction. Sometimes it's so bad that even when things are happening it feels like nothing happens. A lot of these books are about young people coming of age or marriages slowly falling to pieces. It's a lot of carefully observed everday moments strung in a row for me to find "meaning" in.
Now, I'm the first to admit that I'm kind of an idiot. I watched the movie The Hours and didn't realize it was about depression until someone pointed it out to me. (In my defense, I blame Meryl Streep for blinding me with her forced cheerfulness.) I'm not the first one to catch onto subtle themes. I need things pointed out to me--it doesn't have to be heavy-handed, but it has to be there.
This book, though, The Memory Keeper's Daughter, is the absolute worst of both worlds. The setup, the idea, is so promising in terms of things happening. A doctor delivers his own children on a stormy night. The girl has Down's Syndrome. It's the 60s, people are ignorant, chances are she'll have health problems. He asks the nurse to take her to an institution, then tells his wife (when she wakes from the anasthesia) that they have a son but their daughter dies. The nurse, instead of sending the kid away, leaves town with her and rears the girl as her own.
Wow! Ripe with possibility! First of all, there's the single mother bringing up a disabled child in the sixties. That's got to be tough--lots of interesting things to learn there. There's the idea of being someone on the run, that there might be someone looking for you. There's the doctor keeping a secret from his family. Maybe searching for them. Conflict and high passion.
What a dull, flat book. The whole book is about the doctor keeping the secret from his wife, and how it makes him emotionally unavailable. Really, the whole movie is about a couple in a marriage where the husband is emotionally unavailable. That's all I'll grant the damned thing credit for even TRYING to do. Phoebe, the daughter, appears so far in about three scenes (though her mother has lots of scenes, mostly about being haunted by the memory and idea of this doctor). This is a book about a marriage falling apart. It's a book about people who don't talk to each other. It's a book full of painful silences.
Unfortunately, it is exactly what it's trying to be: a successful "literary" novel.
Now, I'm the first to admit that I'm kind of an idiot. I watched the movie The Hours and didn't realize it was about depression until someone pointed it out to me. (In my defense, I blame Meryl Streep for blinding me with her forced cheerfulness.) I'm not the first one to catch onto subtle themes. I need things pointed out to me--it doesn't have to be heavy-handed, but it has to be there.
This book, though, The Memory Keeper's Daughter, is the absolute worst of both worlds. The setup, the idea, is so promising in terms of things happening. A doctor delivers his own children on a stormy night. The girl has Down's Syndrome. It's the 60s, people are ignorant, chances are she'll have health problems. He asks the nurse to take her to an institution, then tells his wife (when she wakes from the anasthesia) that they have a son but their daughter dies. The nurse, instead of sending the kid away, leaves town with her and rears the girl as her own.
Wow! Ripe with possibility! First of all, there's the single mother bringing up a disabled child in the sixties. That's got to be tough--lots of interesting things to learn there. There's the idea of being someone on the run, that there might be someone looking for you. There's the doctor keeping a secret from his family. Maybe searching for them. Conflict and high passion.
What a dull, flat book. The whole book is about the doctor keeping the secret from his wife, and how it makes him emotionally unavailable. Really, the whole movie is about a couple in a marriage where the husband is emotionally unavailable. That's all I'll grant the damned thing credit for even TRYING to do. Phoebe, the daughter, appears so far in about three scenes (though her mother has lots of scenes, mostly about being haunted by the memory and idea of this doctor). This is a book about a marriage falling apart. It's a book about people who don't talk to each other. It's a book full of painful silences.
Unfortunately, it is exactly what it's trying to be: a successful "literary" novel.
Monday, November 20, 2006
More of the Same
I say things like this so often that I'm starting to wonder if this just happens to everyone all the time, or maybe it's just a factor of how many books I read. But it happened again! Twice in the same hour, I learned the same esoteric factoid from two different books.
In A Short History of Nearly Everything, during a short discussion on the history of magnifying lenses, I was informed that Vermeer is reputed to have used a camera obscura to capture the quality of light and detail that he did. Apparently he had a good friend who produced some of the most amazing detailed drawing of highly magnified specimens know at the time. This friend, whose name I don't remember, was very secretive about his methods, and it is suspected that he introduced Vermeer to the camera obscura.
When I got on the T, I turned off my mp3 player and opened my book, The Memory Keeper's Daughter. The book is only okay--slow, standard examination of a marriage falling apart. Kind of boring, kind of overblown. But on this day, on the first page I read (178, maybe), one of the main characters, an amateur photographer, explains to a guest how Vermeer used a camera obscura to create some of the best effects in his paintings.
The mind reels.
In A Short History of Nearly Everything, during a short discussion on the history of magnifying lenses, I was informed that Vermeer is reputed to have used a camera obscura to capture the quality of light and detail that he did. Apparently he had a good friend who produced some of the most amazing detailed drawing of highly magnified specimens know at the time. This friend, whose name I don't remember, was very secretive about his methods, and it is suspected that he introduced Vermeer to the camera obscura.
When I got on the T, I turned off my mp3 player and opened my book, The Memory Keeper's Daughter. The book is only okay--slow, standard examination of a marriage falling apart. Kind of boring, kind of overblown. But on this day, on the first page I read (178, maybe), one of the main characters, an amateur photographer, explains to a guest how Vermeer used a camera obscura to create some of the best effects in his paintings.
The mind reels.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
The Night of the Hunter
By Davis Grubb. I can't say enough about this book. I think I can pretty much recommend it to you, whoever you are, sight unseen.
The movie was amazing--I'm not usually one to go on about artistry in a film, but this one was both stylized and natural. It does thing with shadows that are startling and create such an atmosphere. It has an amazing performance by a nine-year-old boy, and another by Robert Mitchum. (We won't go into the little girl who plays Pearl--you can't blame a kid that young for being stiff.)
But the truly amazing part is that all of these things--even some of the visual devices--are directly from the book. It's such a faithful adaptation, I'm truly amazed that both pieces--book and movie--are so great.
If you can't stand Kids In Danger movies (my father is like that), then this is definitely not the story for you. But anyone else--what a fine experience. I'm so glad I read that. It's one of those moments when I don't regret the fact that every book I ever so much as hear about makes it onto my list. Because otherwise, when would I ever have read this?
The movie was amazing--I'm not usually one to go on about artistry in a film, but this one was both stylized and natural. It does thing with shadows that are startling and create such an atmosphere. It has an amazing performance by a nine-year-old boy, and another by Robert Mitchum. (We won't go into the little girl who plays Pearl--you can't blame a kid that young for being stiff.)
But the truly amazing part is that all of these things--even some of the visual devices--are directly from the book. It's such a faithful adaptation, I'm truly amazed that both pieces--book and movie--are so great.
If you can't stand Kids In Danger movies (my father is like that), then this is definitely not the story for you. But anyone else--what a fine experience. I'm so glad I read that. It's one of those moments when I don't regret the fact that every book I ever so much as hear about makes it onto my list. Because otherwise, when would I ever have read this?
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Things I'm Learning
What did Bill Bryson teach me today, you ask? Maybe I'm fascinated by unlikely things, but I have to say, this thrilled me. Do you know what a lichen is? And why they can grow on rock outcroppings in places like the Arctic where there is no other life? Well, I know now and I'll tell you.
It turns out that a lichen is actually a symbiotic arrangment of an algae and a fungus. The fungus dissolves the rock into a substance that the algae can then digest into nutrition for both of them to consume. How symmetrical is that? How neato? Of course, it's not much of a life--the only living thing for thousands of miles around, sitting on a rock for a long, long time (it can take 50 to 100 years to reach the size of a quarter). But how clever of them to team up like that!
I'm feeling pretty proud of myself for surrendering. In the past week, I've decided not to read three books that had been on my list and that I even had out of the library already. It was in my hands, I opened it up and started reading, I didn't find it interesting, so I put it down. Apparently I wasn't as interested in the life of St. Theresa of Lisieux as I thought I was. Or I Am the Messanger, by Markus Zusak. Just didn't catch me, after ten pages or so. Couldn't do it. I'm not even going to book club this month--the book doesn't interest me.
Just doesn't interest me! So proud! I feel liberated.
Oh, and Night of the Hunter? Awesome, amazing book. It helps that it's an amazing movie, and it's almost exactly the same. But it's just so sweet and scary and stylish, and yet still old-fashioned and charming. Oh, and in case you never noticed that a switchblade is phallic--well, it is.
It turns out that a lichen is actually a symbiotic arrangment of an algae and a fungus. The fungus dissolves the rock into a substance that the algae can then digest into nutrition for both of them to consume. How symmetrical is that? How neato? Of course, it's not much of a life--the only living thing for thousands of miles around, sitting on a rock for a long, long time (it can take 50 to 100 years to reach the size of a quarter). But how clever of them to team up like that!
I'm feeling pretty proud of myself for surrendering. In the past week, I've decided not to read three books that had been on my list and that I even had out of the library already. It was in my hands, I opened it up and started reading, I didn't find it interesting, so I put it down. Apparently I wasn't as interested in the life of St. Theresa of Lisieux as I thought I was. Or I Am the Messanger, by Markus Zusak. Just didn't catch me, after ten pages or so. Couldn't do it. I'm not even going to book club this month--the book doesn't interest me.
Just doesn't interest me! So proud! I feel liberated.
Oh, and Night of the Hunter? Awesome, amazing book. It helps that it's an amazing movie, and it's almost exactly the same. But it's just so sweet and scary and stylish, and yet still old-fashioned and charming. Oh, and in case you never noticed that a switchblade is phallic--well, it is.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Props
Big shout-out to Mike for finishing The Sound and the Fury, which I'm sure I couldn't have done. Just looking at a page of that book was a challenge beyond me. I have never felt an urge toward Faulkner, and everyone who tells me about it solidifies that non-urge.
So kudos to Mike for climbing that particular mountain!
Personal update: Night of the Hunter on the train, Groucho and Me next to the bed, and dabbling in something called Can Jane Eyre Be Happy? in the living room. The latter is a collection of essays exploring "inconsistencies" or unanswered questions in classical literature. Pretty entertaining, in spite of a tendencyto go way out of its way to find a convoluted answer after dismissing an intuitive one as "unlikely." (Example: In Mansfield Park, Fanny's aunt has a pug when Fanny is little and still has it 11 years later. This book dismisses the idea that the first one died and she got another one as "unlikely" and proceeds to calculate the dog's age and breedability. It's like reading Young Earth science--nonsense, but the level of mental gymnastics these folks went to is astonishing!)
Anyway, that's my brief update.
So kudos to Mike for climbing that particular mountain!
Personal update: Night of the Hunter on the train, Groucho and Me next to the bed, and dabbling in something called Can Jane Eyre Be Happy? in the living room. The latter is a collection of essays exploring "inconsistencies" or unanswered questions in classical literature. Pretty entertaining, in spite of a tendencyto go way out of its way to find a convoluted answer after dismissing an intuitive one as "unlikely." (Example: In Mansfield Park, Fanny's aunt has a pug when Fanny is little and still has it 11 years later. This book dismisses the idea that the first one died and she got another one as "unlikely" and proceeds to calculate the dog's age and breedability. It's like reading Young Earth science--nonsense, but the level of mental gymnastics these folks went to is astonishing!)
Anyway, that's my brief update.
Monday, October 30, 2006
Public Service Announcement
Oh, you SO don't want to read this book. It tricked me, see, by being mostly just blah and okay and amateurish, so that by the time I realized that these things can add up to a really overwhelming badness, I was more than halfway through, a point at which I have no choice but to finish the entire thing.
The book is a memoir about the author's life as a waitress. You know how sometimes you read an industry expose, like Kitchen Confidential by Tony Bourdain, where you learn all sorts of juicy insider things? Yeah, this isn't like that. Or you read a book like My Posse Don't Do Homework by LouAnne Johnson--you remember, it was made into that movie, Dangerous Minds--in which someone with an ordinary job that you think you understand gives you the inside scoop, and tells you about extraordinary circumstances? Nope, not that either. Maybe we'll just go with one of many, many literary novels, in which someone whose life is not particularly interesting drifts through the world and has profound observations expressed to us in a lyrical prose style? Mmm.....nope.
Instead, you get Waiting: True Confessions of a Waitress, by Debra Ginsberg. It reads like a high-schooler's report for English class about her after-school job. A solid B+/A- student, but not someone in the AP class. And the teacher grading this composition would FILL these margins with "show don't tell" scrawled in red ink. Generalizations instead of stories. Repeatedly informing us after every job that she learned a lot of about human psychology there. Withholding what might be juicy bits (personal romance, near-nervous breakdowns) with brief phrases like "my latest relationship had recently ended with a lot of bad feelings on both sides," and "I was feeling burned-out."
Imagine a memoir in which every anecdote, EVERY one, was preceded by a phrase like "allow me to illustrate," or "let me give you an example," mostly because there's only about one per chapter, used to follow up pages and pages of generalizations. Imagine an author who doesn't even seem to understand that she's using cliches. Seriously--I've read books in which familiar phrases are recast, and you can tell the writer chose those tried and true words carefully, but I've never read any published book intended for adults that used phrases like "striking in their similarities," "sneak a peek," and "the appointed hour." Seriously, if she's said "peek" instead of "sneak a peek" on that line (page 287), I wouldn't even have noticed it. But no, she reached for the tritest phrase she could find. Oh, oh, and also, I don't think there's a passive verb in this book. It's like she ran a search and replace on the word "is" and excised it from the book entirely.
Whew. I'm glad I got that off my chest. Books that are straight-up, up-front bad from page one I can just put down or rant about righteously. But this book was insidious, creeping up in its badness, its amateur style and total lack of profundity, until I actually began to believe that the world the boring, meaningless place that this writer painted. I'm out from under that now; thank you.
ps. She always wanted to be a writer. She was always "really" a writer, and waiting was just to make ends meet. But when she talks about people who don't think waiting tables is a "real" job, she lambasts them. Also, her list of movies about waitresses and how they're all looking for love and therefore crap is awesome, as it follows the chapter about how all restaurant employees are feverishly looking for love. And ignores the fact that all movie characters are looking for love. I could go on and on and on and on....but I'll stop.
The book is a memoir about the author's life as a waitress. You know how sometimes you read an industry expose, like Kitchen Confidential by Tony Bourdain, where you learn all sorts of juicy insider things? Yeah, this isn't like that. Or you read a book like My Posse Don't Do Homework by LouAnne Johnson--you remember, it was made into that movie, Dangerous Minds--in which someone with an ordinary job that you think you understand gives you the inside scoop, and tells you about extraordinary circumstances? Nope, not that either. Maybe we'll just go with one of many, many literary novels, in which someone whose life is not particularly interesting drifts through the world and has profound observations expressed to us in a lyrical prose style? Mmm.....nope.
Instead, you get Waiting: True Confessions of a Waitress, by Debra Ginsberg. It reads like a high-schooler's report for English class about her after-school job. A solid B+/A- student, but not someone in the AP class. And the teacher grading this composition would FILL these margins with "show don't tell" scrawled in red ink. Generalizations instead of stories. Repeatedly informing us after every job that she learned a lot of about human psychology there. Withholding what might be juicy bits (personal romance, near-nervous breakdowns) with brief phrases like "my latest relationship had recently ended with a lot of bad feelings on both sides," and "I was feeling burned-out."
Imagine a memoir in which every anecdote, EVERY one, was preceded by a phrase like "allow me to illustrate," or "let me give you an example," mostly because there's only about one per chapter, used to follow up pages and pages of generalizations. Imagine an author who doesn't even seem to understand that she's using cliches. Seriously--I've read books in which familiar phrases are recast, and you can tell the writer chose those tried and true words carefully, but I've never read any published book intended for adults that used phrases like "striking in their similarities," "sneak a peek," and "the appointed hour." Seriously, if she's said "peek" instead of "sneak a peek" on that line (page 287), I wouldn't even have noticed it. But no, she reached for the tritest phrase she could find. Oh, oh, and also, I don't think there's a passive verb in this book. It's like she ran a search and replace on the word "is" and excised it from the book entirely.
Whew. I'm glad I got that off my chest. Books that are straight-up, up-front bad from page one I can just put down or rant about righteously. But this book was insidious, creeping up in its badness, its amateur style and total lack of profundity, until I actually began to believe that the world the boring, meaningless place that this writer painted. I'm out from under that now; thank you.
ps. She always wanted to be a writer. She was always "really" a writer, and waiting was just to make ends meet. But when she talks about people who don't think waiting tables is a "real" job, she lambasts them. Also, her list of movies about waitresses and how they're all looking for love and therefore crap is awesome, as it follows the chapter about how all restaurant employees are feverishly looking for love. And ignores the fact that all movie characters are looking for love. I could go on and on and on and on....but I'll stop.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Tidbit
What kind of a person dedicates his true crime novel about a murderer of widows and small children to his mother?
Davis Grubb, author of Night of the Hunter, that's who.
I haven't read it yet, so I can't say if it's a good book, but it's an amazing movie, really amazing, and you should see it.
Davis Grubb, author of Night of the Hunter, that's who.
I haven't read it yet, so I can't say if it's a good book, but it's an amazing movie, really amazing, and you should see it.
Monday, October 23, 2006
Audio Epiphany
Okay, this is turning into "You Learn Something New Every Day" every day. Did you know that Yellowstone National Park--the ENTIRE park--is one giant volcano? I can't believe this is not public information. The last time it blew, 75,000 years ago, it covered 16 states (almost everything west of the Missississippi) with four inches of ash. WHY WAS I NOT INFORMED? It doesn't look like a volcano for two reasons--1) it's a caldera instead of a cone, meaning it's sunken instead of a peak (different ways of forming), and 2) it's so incredibly BIG that there's nowhere on the ground from which you can observe its shape.
I'm finding this book fascinating. It's called A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson, and I don't think I would have liked it at all if I'd picked it up in print. I saw it in the bookstore the other day--it's long, and if you flip open to a page, you'll often find the author describing someone's quest for some esoteric piece of scientific knowledge. I think it would not hold my attention as a print book.
But as an audio book, it's delightful. The narrator's British accent is kind of swoony, to start with. Also, the narrator clearly sees a lot of humor in facts that I might not necessarily have found funny. I think Bill Bryson's intent is, in part, the same as Sarah Vowell's--where she rummages through history for the juicy, human, funny bits, he does the same with the history of science. At the same time, though, he's giving you an overall science lesson, plus fascinating tidbits like this week's You Learn Something New fact.
So what makes a good audiobook? It's tricky. I tried to listen to The Time Traveller's Wife a few weeks ago. I've heard it's a marvellous book, and I believe it, but I ended up buying it, because I couldn't bear to listen. This is because it started, early on, with a pretty randy sex scene between the two main characters on their first date. Now, at that point the narrator has let you know that they're going to end up married, but this early in my acquaintance with the characters, the sex squicked me out a little. But I feel confident that won't happen in the book.
Why? Because in print, the reader as a voyeur is tucked away in a corner, quiet, unobtrusive, unobserved. I'm watching these people live their lives, but they are alone together. The voice of the narrator adds another person to this equation (even though, in this case, the narrator is one of the characters). It's me and this guy watching these people have sex, and that's weird. Alternatively, it's this guy telling me about having sex with his wife. Again, weird. Reading is solitary; listening to a book on tape is slightly less so.
Also, it's harder to zip back and forth in an audio file than on paper. If your mind wanders, you can't stop reading--the machine is running. You can't slow down to savor, or rush to find out what happens (though in the latter case, I love the suspense). So I feel that a good choice in an audiobook is a story less densely packed than others. It's a little loose, with enough room for you to miss a sentence or two during the slow parts and not lose track of what's going on, or miss out on sumptuous prose that you'll regret for the rest of your life.
Narrator is a HUGE deal. Never get an audiobook you haven't heard a sample of. I really want to listen to Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, but the guy who reads the unabridged version available on Audible is just so EXCITED to be reading it, I couldn't stand it. You want someone who can do different people's voices without sounding like he's faking--someone who uses rhythms of speech and gentle cadance instead of falsetto and lisping to capture different characters. I sometimes find it a little distracting when they have multiple narrators for different characters, but when well executed, that can be the perfect solution. Memoirs can be great, if read by a good author.
Audiobooks I've enjoyed: Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman. My Sister's Keeper, by Jodi Picoult. Self-Made Man, by Norah Vincent.
So, there's my buyer's guide, for whatever it's worth.
I'm finding this book fascinating. It's called A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson, and I don't think I would have liked it at all if I'd picked it up in print. I saw it in the bookstore the other day--it's long, and if you flip open to a page, you'll often find the author describing someone's quest for some esoteric piece of scientific knowledge. I think it would not hold my attention as a print book.
But as an audio book, it's delightful. The narrator's British accent is kind of swoony, to start with. Also, the narrator clearly sees a lot of humor in facts that I might not necessarily have found funny. I think Bill Bryson's intent is, in part, the same as Sarah Vowell's--where she rummages through history for the juicy, human, funny bits, he does the same with the history of science. At the same time, though, he's giving you an overall science lesson, plus fascinating tidbits like this week's You Learn Something New fact.
So what makes a good audiobook? It's tricky. I tried to listen to The Time Traveller's Wife a few weeks ago. I've heard it's a marvellous book, and I believe it, but I ended up buying it, because I couldn't bear to listen. This is because it started, early on, with a pretty randy sex scene between the two main characters on their first date. Now, at that point the narrator has let you know that they're going to end up married, but this early in my acquaintance with the characters, the sex squicked me out a little. But I feel confident that won't happen in the book.
Why? Because in print, the reader as a voyeur is tucked away in a corner, quiet, unobtrusive, unobserved. I'm watching these people live their lives, but they are alone together. The voice of the narrator adds another person to this equation (even though, in this case, the narrator is one of the characters). It's me and this guy watching these people have sex, and that's weird. Alternatively, it's this guy telling me about having sex with his wife. Again, weird. Reading is solitary; listening to a book on tape is slightly less so.
Also, it's harder to zip back and forth in an audio file than on paper. If your mind wanders, you can't stop reading--the machine is running. You can't slow down to savor, or rush to find out what happens (though in the latter case, I love the suspense). So I feel that a good choice in an audiobook is a story less densely packed than others. It's a little loose, with enough room for you to miss a sentence or two during the slow parts and not lose track of what's going on, or miss out on sumptuous prose that you'll regret for the rest of your life.
Narrator is a HUGE deal. Never get an audiobook you haven't heard a sample of. I really want to listen to Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, but the guy who reads the unabridged version available on Audible is just so EXCITED to be reading it, I couldn't stand it. You want someone who can do different people's voices without sounding like he's faking--someone who uses rhythms of speech and gentle cadance instead of falsetto and lisping to capture different characters. I sometimes find it a little distracting when they have multiple narrators for different characters, but when well executed, that can be the perfect solution. Memoirs can be great, if read by a good author.
Audiobooks I've enjoyed: Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman. My Sister's Keeper, by Jodi Picoult. Self-Made Man, by Norah Vincent.
So, there's my buyer's guide, for whatever it's worth.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Concurrence Redux
Again with the coincidence that two books I'm reading fall together. It's like the universe is a grand tapestry revealing itself to me through books. How spiritual, how kabbalah.
Anyway. I was reading a book about recovered memory, Suggestions of Abuse, by a Dr. Yapko (Richard, maybe? With a last name like that, I've forgotten his first name). I reserved this ages ago, after listening to an episode of This American Life about recovered memory syndrome.
Simultaneously and unexpectedly, Michelle thrust Vanishing Acts upon me. I have been barrelling through the work of Jodi Picoult--too fast, in my own opinion.
To end my anecdote anticlimacticly, I don't want to give away the book. Suffice to say that the topic of what a person might accurately remember from when they are 4 years old is quite relevant to both volumes.
Speaking of Jodi Picoult, I'm going to have to take a break from her, just because so many of her books are so very similar. They're all family dramas based around a court case. I think the structure of the legal system is a useful one in narrative--it allows information to be parcelled out in certain ways, and for people to tell their stories and argue about different angles on the same factual information. But I think she overuses it in some ways. The lawyer is always a player in the case, even in cases where it's a very bad idea, even when they're acting extremely unprofessionally as a lawyer.
It's a strength that there's always a certain amount of obscurity to what's going on--either the facts of the case are obscure, or (as in My Sister's Keeper, her strongest), there really is no right or wrong answer--everyone is right, and everyone suffers for it. But there's the added obscurity of people who withhold information--not just key information for good reasons, or painful information for emotionally understandable if not "good" reasons, but useful information for NO reason. Seriously. It really seemed like the lawyer didn't interview the father at all in Vanishing Acts, and the father kept saying things that summed everything up instead of explaining "I had to take her because her mother was a drunk. Ask anyone." It took like four interviews to get to that.
Okay, I'm done about Jodi. It's really a good book--if I hadn't just finished The Pact a week ago, I would have liked it even more than I did. Next up: well, I haven't decided yet. I'll let you know.
Anyway. I was reading a book about recovered memory, Suggestions of Abuse, by a Dr. Yapko (Richard, maybe? With a last name like that, I've forgotten his first name). I reserved this ages ago, after listening to an episode of This American Life about recovered memory syndrome.
Simultaneously and unexpectedly, Michelle thrust Vanishing Acts upon me. I have been barrelling through the work of Jodi Picoult--too fast, in my own opinion.
To end my anecdote anticlimacticly, I don't want to give away the book. Suffice to say that the topic of what a person might accurately remember from when they are 4 years old is quite relevant to both volumes.
Speaking of Jodi Picoult, I'm going to have to take a break from her, just because so many of her books are so very similar. They're all family dramas based around a court case. I think the structure of the legal system is a useful one in narrative--it allows information to be parcelled out in certain ways, and for people to tell their stories and argue about different angles on the same factual information. But I think she overuses it in some ways. The lawyer is always a player in the case, even in cases where it's a very bad idea, even when they're acting extremely unprofessionally as a lawyer.
It's a strength that there's always a certain amount of obscurity to what's going on--either the facts of the case are obscure, or (as in My Sister's Keeper, her strongest), there really is no right or wrong answer--everyone is right, and everyone suffers for it. But there's the added obscurity of people who withhold information--not just key information for good reasons, or painful information for emotionally understandable if not "good" reasons, but useful information for NO reason. Seriously. It really seemed like the lawyer didn't interview the father at all in Vanishing Acts, and the father kept saying things that summed everything up instead of explaining "I had to take her because her mother was a drunk. Ask anyone." It took like four interviews to get to that.
Okay, I'm done about Jodi. It's really a good book--if I hadn't just finished The Pact a week ago, I would have liked it even more than I did. Next up: well, I haven't decided yet. I'll let you know.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Bookend: You Learn Something New Every Day
So much to relate of my vacation reading, my library trip once back home, the conclusion of this PLR. But to get myself started, to prevent the enormity of the task from overwhelming me, I present you with the tidbits I've gleaned so far today from Nine Parts of Desire, by Geraldine Brooks. This book about the lives of Islamic women does not appear to be related with the play of the same name, except to the extent that they address the same topic and share a title drawn from Islamic texts.
First, and on a pleasingly practical basis, I finally learned the basic difference between Sunnis and Shiites. I still don't know what I should about what the two groups are doing right now in Iraq, but I know that that Sunni is from a word meaning "tradition," and after Muhammad's death they advocated the traditional method of the elders electing a new leader, while Shiite comes from the word for partisans, for the partisans of Ali, Muhammad's son-in-law, and the idea of a blood lineage. Shiites like revolution and fighting the power, historically. Whaddaya know?
But the best thing I've learned already from the beginning of this book is that Islam looks remarkably and eerily like Mormonism when you look at the history. Muhammad was married to a slightly older and very successful businesswoman for many years. After her death, he started having revelations that men shoudl take many wives. As his wives, being young and caught up in his power, began exciting scandal, he started having revelations about cloistering women. When he desired the wife of his adopted son, but couldn't have her (even after said son divorced her out of respect for his adopted father) due to previous revelations categorizing this as incest, he had new revelations declaring all adoptions invalid, so that he could marry this woman.
It looks JUST LIKE MORMONISM. It's like when Joseph Smith had a revelation that directed his wife by name to stick by her husband and stop complaining about the other marriages he kept having.
Creepy old men have really messed the world up, huh?
Welcome back from vacation.
First, and on a pleasingly practical basis, I finally learned the basic difference between Sunnis and Shiites. I still don't know what I should about what the two groups are doing right now in Iraq, but I know that that Sunni is from a word meaning "tradition," and after Muhammad's death they advocated the traditional method of the elders electing a new leader, while Shiite comes from the word for partisans, for the partisans of Ali, Muhammad's son-in-law, and the idea of a blood lineage. Shiites like revolution and fighting the power, historically. Whaddaya know?
But the best thing I've learned already from the beginning of this book is that Islam looks remarkably and eerily like Mormonism when you look at the history. Muhammad was married to a slightly older and very successful businesswoman for many years. After her death, he started having revelations that men shoudl take many wives. As his wives, being young and caught up in his power, began exciting scandal, he started having revelations about cloistering women. When he desired the wife of his adopted son, but couldn't have her (even after said son divorced her out of respect for his adopted father) due to previous revelations categorizing this as incest, he had new revelations declaring all adoptions invalid, so that he could marry this woman.
It looks JUST LIKE MORMONISM. It's like when Joseph Smith had a revelation that directed his wife by name to stick by her husband and stop complaining about the other marriages he kept having.
Creepy old men have really messed the world up, huh?
Welcome back from vacation.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Hiatus Entry
Okay, I won't be around for a little bit, due to various obligations that pretty much everyone reading this will already know about and have gotten drunk at and/or be expecting to see photos of.
But before I go, let me tell you something I learned last week, just because don't we all love to learn?
It is this: Sherpa is not a job description. It's a cultural and racial affiliation. There are about 20,000 Sherpas living in Asia, and about 75% of them live in the Himalayas. So, though a lot of them climb mountains for a living, you can be a Sherpa who's never been above, say 10,000 feet above sea level.
They say you learn something new every day. I know I do, but I started out pretty ignorant.
But before I go, let me tell you something I learned last week, just because don't we all love to learn?
It is this: Sherpa is not a job description. It's a cultural and racial affiliation. There are about 20,000 Sherpas living in Asia, and about 75% of them live in the Himalayas. So, though a lot of them climb mountains for a living, you can be a Sherpa who's never been above, say 10,000 feet above sea level.
They say you learn something new every day. I know I do, but I started out pretty ignorant.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Sweetness and innocence
I'm all syrupy. Tammy and the Bachelor, starring Debbie Reynolds and (in my favorite Hollywood WTH moment) Leslie Nielsen as the romantic lead, is one of my most beloved and heartwarming movies. If you've seen the movie, you know the book. It's pretty much exactly the same--sweet and all about the wisdom of the naive. Tammy Out of Time, it's called, by Cid Ricketts Sumner. Ricketts! Cid Ricketts! I love it!
The Blue Castle, by L.M. Montgomery. You all know her Anne of Green Gables, of course. This isn't an Anne book, but it's so good. The main character, Valancy, has been ordered around by her stuffy mother and relatives all her life. When she learns that she has only a year to live, she suddenly starts living life the way she wants to. And the book has all the visceral satisfaction that you'd expect in that synopsis. And I don't think I'll really be surprising anyone or giving anything mysterious away when I say that in the end, she's not really dying and she lives happily, ever so happily ever after, in her rustic cabin with the reclusive millionaire love of her life.
When it comes to books to read in the week leading up to your wedding, both of these are much more uplifting than The Year of Magical Thinking, which I finished last week. That book, while beautifully written and moving, had my trying to love Mike less so I won't miss him so much when he passes away many, many decades from now. Eventually I came to my senses and realized that we'll all die anyway, and it's a waste not to love passionately until then. Still, it was tough for a while there.
So this might be my hiatus announcement. I read 11 books last month, and 2 so far this month. This month will also include the honeymoon, so I hope to have a high count then. God, I'm shallow. Wish me luck!
The Blue Castle, by L.M. Montgomery. You all know her Anne of Green Gables, of course. This isn't an Anne book, but it's so good. The main character, Valancy, has been ordered around by her stuffy mother and relatives all her life. When she learns that she has only a year to live, she suddenly starts living life the way she wants to. And the book has all the visceral satisfaction that you'd expect in that synopsis. And I don't think I'll really be surprising anyone or giving anything mysterious away when I say that in the end, she's not really dying and she lives happily, ever so happily ever after, in her rustic cabin with the reclusive millionaire love of her life.
When it comes to books to read in the week leading up to your wedding, both of these are much more uplifting than The Year of Magical Thinking, which I finished last week. That book, while beautifully written and moving, had my trying to love Mike less so I won't miss him so much when he passes away many, many decades from now. Eventually I came to my senses and realized that we'll all die anyway, and it's a waste not to love passionately until then. Still, it was tough for a while there.
So this might be my hiatus announcement. I read 11 books last month, and 2 so far this month. This month will also include the honeymoon, so I hope to have a high count then. God, I'm shallow. Wish me luck!
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Why China is Communist
From chapter 77 of Lao Tsu:
The Tao of heaven is to take from those who have too much and give to those who do not have enough.
Man's way is different.
He takes from those who do not have enough to give to those who already have too much.
What man has more thanenough and gives it to the world?
Only the man of the Tao.
Robin Hood was a Taoist!
I formally don't get it. I read the words, and some make sense and some don't, but I don't think I have any kind of impression of what the Way actually is. When I head over to Confucius, I think I'm going to read an analysis, instead of just a translation.
The Tao of heaven is to take from those who have too much and give to those who do not have enough.
Man's way is different.
He takes from those who do not have enough to give to those who already have too much.
What man has more thanenough and gives it to the world?
Only the man of the Tao.
Robin Hood was a Taoist!
I formally don't get it. I read the words, and some make sense and some don't, but I don't think I have any kind of impression of what the Way actually is. When I head over to Confucius, I think I'm going to read an analysis, instead of just a translation.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Lao Tsu Was a Crazy Person
What is up, I ask you, with the Tao Te Ching? Have you ever read this stuff? I understand the generic idea of Taoism, which is going with the flow, not resisting the nature of things. Like Pooh. But as you delve into it with the guy who invented it, you realize that maybe he was a little bit on crack.
First, look at the little introductory blurb. This explains that Lao Tsu was the imperial archivist in the time of Confucius (they were contemporaries, but Lao Tsu was older). He was a teacher all his life. The book, though, was written because "as he was riding off into the desert to die--sick at heart at the ways of men--he was persuaded bya gatekeeper in northwestern China to write down his teaching for posterity."
Now, I don't know how he was planning to die in the wilderness--wild boar, maybe, or just good old fashioned exposure--but that makes this book pretty much a suicide note. Which kind of explains some of this stuff. Like "Everyone else is busy,/ But I alone am aimless and depressed," in chapter 20. Or, more universal, "Give up learning, and put an end to your troubles."
Really, the whole book is full of stuff that makes sense as philosophy but is lousy advice. Like, "Is there a difference between yes and no?" Um, yeah. I can see the argument that saying yes to one thing is saying no to another, and it's good philosophy. But as advice for living in the real world, where you're trying to get things done, it's kind of tricky. Do I have leprosy? There's a difference between yes and no, my friend. A big one.
I also think he has a weird relationship with the word "wisdom." This could be a translation thing, I'm not sure. In chapter 19 he says "Give up sainthood, renounce wisdom,/ And it will be a hundred times better for everyone." Here, wisdom seems to mean learning, the idea being that the accumulation of knowledge gives the illusion of wisdom, which gets in the way of attaining an understanding of the holistic nature of the Tao. But then in chapter 22, we learn that "wise men embrace the one/And set an example to all," followed by a long list of good, Taoist things that wise men do. So is wisdom the opposite of good Tao, or the key to it? Hm?
I'm only in chapter 30 right now (there are 80, I think), so there's a way to go. Only just now, though, in chapter 30, has he dealt with the fact that most of life consists of bending the world to your needs. If everyone was a Taoist, nothing would get done. It seemed for the first 29 chapters that the Taoists survive because they're fed by the people who, instead of taking the world as it comes, plough up the field and plant something to eat there. But here in chapter 30, we are repeatedly instructed to "achieve results." We must not "glory in them," "boast," or "be proud," but we should definitely "achieve results,/ because this is the natural way."
I don't know, maybe it's starting to come together. Maybe Lao Tsu, Nut, will do for me & Taoism what C.S. Lewis, apologist, couldn't do for me & Jesus.
Speaking of Jesus, I'm so glad this guy is handling the Bible for me, so I don't have to read it. At least these 80 chapters are each one page long.
First, look at the little introductory blurb. This explains that Lao Tsu was the imperial archivist in the time of Confucius (they were contemporaries, but Lao Tsu was older). He was a teacher all his life. The book, though, was written because "as he was riding off into the desert to die--sick at heart at the ways of men--he was persuaded bya gatekeeper in northwestern China to write down his teaching for posterity."
Now, I don't know how he was planning to die in the wilderness--wild boar, maybe, or just good old fashioned exposure--but that makes this book pretty much a suicide note. Which kind of explains some of this stuff. Like "Everyone else is busy,/ But I alone am aimless and depressed," in chapter 20. Or, more universal, "Give up learning, and put an end to your troubles."
Really, the whole book is full of stuff that makes sense as philosophy but is lousy advice. Like, "Is there a difference between yes and no?" Um, yeah. I can see the argument that saying yes to one thing is saying no to another, and it's good philosophy. But as advice for living in the real world, where you're trying to get things done, it's kind of tricky. Do I have leprosy? There's a difference between yes and no, my friend. A big one.
I also think he has a weird relationship with the word "wisdom." This could be a translation thing, I'm not sure. In chapter 19 he says "Give up sainthood, renounce wisdom,/ And it will be a hundred times better for everyone." Here, wisdom seems to mean learning, the idea being that the accumulation of knowledge gives the illusion of wisdom, which gets in the way of attaining an understanding of the holistic nature of the Tao. But then in chapter 22, we learn that "wise men embrace the one/And set an example to all," followed by a long list of good, Taoist things that wise men do. So is wisdom the opposite of good Tao, or the key to it? Hm?
I'm only in chapter 30 right now (there are 80, I think), so there's a way to go. Only just now, though, in chapter 30, has he dealt with the fact that most of life consists of bending the world to your needs. If everyone was a Taoist, nothing would get done. It seemed for the first 29 chapters that the Taoists survive because they're fed by the people who, instead of taking the world as it comes, plough up the field and plant something to eat there. But here in chapter 30, we are repeatedly instructed to "achieve results." We must not "glory in them," "boast," or "be proud," but we should definitely "achieve results,/ because this is the natural way."
I don't know, maybe it's starting to come together. Maybe Lao Tsu, Nut, will do for me & Taoism what C.S. Lewis, apologist, couldn't do for me & Jesus.
Speaking of Jesus, I'm so glad this guy is handling the Bible for me, so I don't have to read it. At least these 80 chapters are each one page long.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Driving Home
I'm working hard at a lot of books right now. The Vagabond, by Colette, for book club. It's not a hard read, actually--it's very good, though I wouldn't have picked it up. It's slim, and poses a lot of interesting questions, though I don't know that it answers them very well. What's the difference between love and lust? How does a truly broken heart affect later love? What does "lasting love" look like, and what is the price of tying yourself to one person? Would being rich and having no responsibility really make you happy? As someone who's getting married soon, a lot of these questions touch quite close to home (maybe not the last one). And the book gives you a lot of room to think about them, without really answering them, which makes for very interesting thinking, but also makes me somewhat dissatisfied with the author. And then you get to filter it through the fact that it was written about 50 years ago--are the answers to these questions different now?
Envy, by Kathryn Harrison. Ugh. This is such a study in psychoanalysis. This is an author reading about analysis (not just "therapy," but analysis--constant, overbearing overanalysis). This book is the friend who won't break up with her boyfriend but really kind of hates him and can't figure out why he's such a jerk and yet is surprised every time he does something jerky. Almost nothing even happens for the first 200 of the total 300 pages. The main character is an analyst. His son died a couple of years ago. He and his twin brother are estranged. He may have fathered a child when he was in college. He's recently become overwhelmed by his sexual fantasies. And for 200 pages he thinks about sex, and his brother, and then thinks about why he's thinking about them and tries to figure out why his wife is so low key, and talks to his analyst. And he's clearly pretty wrong about his brother, and his wife is supposed to be cool and annoyed with his hyperanalysis, but I'm just frustrated with both of them that they can't have a conversation that involves one person saying "I'm upset" and then trying to fix the problem. It's just a hot mess, this book. And I have a great deal of respect for the woman who wrote Poison. Read that book. Please don't read this one; my only reward for finishing it will be sparing you the trouble.
Also finished listening to The Code of the Woosters: Jeeves to the Rescue today, which involved ever so many delightful romantic misunderstandings, and also blackmail and a policeman's helmet. There's no point in talking about a Jeeves & Wooster book. Unless Bertie Wooster is actually speaking, there's no point in the thing at all.
I'm starting to focus on what to bring on the honeymoon. No library books--I don't want to risk losing them. Also, this is a great opportunity for a PLR. So: The Remains of the Day, which I've been saving for this occasion. A Wizard of Earthsea, which why haven't I read this book yet? March, because I bought it, didn't I? Into Thin Air, because I'm never going to sit down to it, otherwise.
This almost covers the range of lengths and tones I need to have with me. Maybe something else. What kind of reading do you bring on your honeymoon? It seems to trivial to bring light beachy fare, but I like to think I'm going to be concentrating on You Know Who more than on my books, so no tomes. What does that leave us? Picture books? It's a really complicated question.
Envy, by Kathryn Harrison. Ugh. This is such a study in psychoanalysis. This is an author reading about analysis (not just "therapy," but analysis--constant, overbearing overanalysis). This book is the friend who won't break up with her boyfriend but really kind of hates him and can't figure out why he's such a jerk and yet is surprised every time he does something jerky. Almost nothing even happens for the first 200 of the total 300 pages. The main character is an analyst. His son died a couple of years ago. He and his twin brother are estranged. He may have fathered a child when he was in college. He's recently become overwhelmed by his sexual fantasies. And for 200 pages he thinks about sex, and his brother, and then thinks about why he's thinking about them and tries to figure out why his wife is so low key, and talks to his analyst. And he's clearly pretty wrong about his brother, and his wife is supposed to be cool and annoyed with his hyperanalysis, but I'm just frustrated with both of them that they can't have a conversation that involves one person saying "I'm upset" and then trying to fix the problem. It's just a hot mess, this book. And I have a great deal of respect for the woman who wrote Poison. Read that book. Please don't read this one; my only reward for finishing it will be sparing you the trouble.
Also finished listening to The Code of the Woosters: Jeeves to the Rescue today, which involved ever so many delightful romantic misunderstandings, and also blackmail and a policeman's helmet. There's no point in talking about a Jeeves & Wooster book. Unless Bertie Wooster is actually speaking, there's no point in the thing at all.
I'm starting to focus on what to bring on the honeymoon. No library books--I don't want to risk losing them. Also, this is a great opportunity for a PLR. So: The Remains of the Day, which I've been saving for this occasion. A Wizard of Earthsea, which why haven't I read this book yet? March, because I bought it, didn't I? Into Thin Air, because I'm never going to sit down to it, otherwise.
This almost covers the range of lengths and tones I need to have with me. Maybe something else. What kind of reading do you bring on your honeymoon? It seems to trivial to bring light beachy fare, but I like to think I'm going to be concentrating on You Know Who more than on my books, so no tomes. What does that leave us? Picture books? It's a really complicated question.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Outing!
So we had to go to the doctor last night, and as a little recompense for the hour-long wait, we decided to stop off at the Malden Public Library. It was even Mike's idea, God bless'im.
Here's the thing; quite a few books on my list are only available at Malden. Nowhere else in the BPL system can you get a copy of Look a Lion in the Eye, by the author of The Nun's Story. I think it's the only copy available of Tammy Out of Time, which is the basis of the movie Tammy and the Bachelor, which , if you've never seen Leslie Neilsen of Naked Gun fame as a romantic leading man, you should watch this movie. Where else would I find The Blue Castle, by L.M. Montgomery of Anne of Green Gables fame?
Of course, I could order these things through the system. But it's also just a nice building, with the peaceful, open space of a nice library. It's busy but quiet, but not too quiet. They use the Dewey decimal system, for crying out loud. I love it. So we stopped by, so Mike could pick up his book (about fish that are partially evolved to live on land), and I could scour the place for some of my own books.
So, we walked away with the books I mentioned above. Plus the translation I wanted of the Tao Te Ching. Which is MESSED UP. Get this: "When the great Tao is forgotten, kindness and morality arise. When wisdom and intelligence are born, the great pretense begins." What does that mean? Anyone?
I now have an even dozen library books out. Two of them are Mike's. One I already finished. That's still....a lot of books. Yay!
Here's the thing; quite a few books on my list are only available at Malden. Nowhere else in the BPL system can you get a copy of Look a Lion in the Eye, by the author of The Nun's Story. I think it's the only copy available of Tammy Out of Time, which is the basis of the movie Tammy and the Bachelor, which , if you've never seen Leslie Neilsen of Naked Gun fame as a romantic leading man, you should watch this movie. Where else would I find The Blue Castle, by L.M. Montgomery of Anne of Green Gables fame?
Of course, I could order these things through the system. But it's also just a nice building, with the peaceful, open space of a nice library. It's busy but quiet, but not too quiet. They use the Dewey decimal system, for crying out loud. I love it. So we stopped by, so Mike could pick up his book (about fish that are partially evolved to live on land), and I could scour the place for some of my own books.
So, we walked away with the books I mentioned above. Plus the translation I wanted of the Tao Te Ching. Which is MESSED UP. Get this: "When the great Tao is forgotten, kindness and morality arise. When wisdom and intelligence are born, the great pretense begins." What does that mean? Anyone?
I now have an even dozen library books out. Two of them are Mike's. One I already finished. That's still....a lot of books. Yay!
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Duh
Okay, if I had started reading that book I mentioned in the last entry, I would seriously have notice that wow, this is nothing at all like a book that would be written by a novelist of any sort. Aside from being without style or grace, its grammar is quite damaged.
But my favorite recent piece of evidence is from the novel by the "real" Kathryn Harrison that I picked up today. As follows:
From the inside cover copy of Kathy Harrison's Another Place at the Table: A story of shattered childhoods redeemed by love: "Teaching a Head Start program for at-risk four-year-olds, Kathy Harrison became increasingly concerned about one student, Angie, who had been abandoned by a mother who would never be able to care for her. "Could we take her in?" Harrison and her husband asked themselves--a question that quickly changed to "How could we not?" After Angie came Madeline, and Gabrielle, and Tyrone, and all with horrifying pasts and needs as small and as large as a hot bath, clean sheets, and unconditional love."
From the inside cover copy of Kathryn Harrison's Envy: "Will has a good sex life--with the woman he married. So why then is he increasingly plagued by violent erotic fantasies..."
I don't really think I need to go on.
But my favorite recent piece of evidence is from the novel by the "real" Kathryn Harrison that I picked up today. As follows:
From the inside cover copy of Kathy Harrison's Another Place at the Table: A story of shattered childhoods redeemed by love: "Teaching a Head Start program for at-risk four-year-olds, Kathy Harrison became increasingly concerned about one student, Angie, who had been abandoned by a mother who would never be able to care for her. "Could we take her in?" Harrison and her husband asked themselves--a question that quickly changed to "How could we not?" After Angie came Madeline, and Gabrielle, and Tyrone, and all with horrifying pasts and needs as small and as large as a hot bath, clean sheets, and unconditional love."
From the inside cover copy of Kathryn Harrison's Envy: "Will has a good sex life--with the woman he married. So why then is he increasingly plagued by violent erotic fantasies..."
I don't really think I need to go on.
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