Many Thanks to That Girl on the T

So I'm reading a book that is really amazing and that I really love. It's been on my list for a while, and I wasn't sure how heavy it was going to be. I was inspired to read it because, on the T one day about two years ago, a girl sitting next to me was reading a book in which two priests were having a serious conversation. I read about two sentences, and I thought I should maybe read it. Mostly because they were priests (or monks, it was unclear; now I know that one was a cardinal and one a monk), and priests, though not quite nuns, still make really good novels in my opinion.

So I caught a glance at the spine and went home to put the book on my list. And I never got around to reading it, because it's not like it came with high recommendations or anything. What would bump it to the top? I mean, the list is like 85 books long now.

But the author's name starts with W, and a couple of weeks ago, I was too lazy to run to another part of the library. So I went looking for it--Knowledge of Angels, by Jill Paton Walsh. It turns out it was in the P section, but by the time I realized that, I was on a mission, and I went and found it. And now I'm reading it.

And oh, thank you, thank you, random girl on the T. This book is basically a long, plotty exploration about the existence of God. Does that sound boring? It's not, not at all. On a small island whose prince is also a cardinal, the cardinal is forced to think for the first time about the reality and inevitability of his beliefs. An atheist, a girl raised by wolves, a brilliant monk, and a convent far from the world. This is a book full of good people trying to find truth and do right by man and God, while trying to figure out just what man and God need. This is (so far; I'm about 1/3 of the way through) a brilliant, beautifully written book. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, presumably in 1994 when it was published. You absolutely should read it.

I also want to put in a little plug for Castle Waiting, a sweet little comic by Linda Medley. It's a big fat book, fairy-tale in nature, that's sort of an assortment of "how I ended up here" stories about a motley crew of characters who live cheerfully in an abandoned castle. It doesn't have much of a plot, but it's just so happy and sweet.

I'm all sunshine and rainbows today. The truth is, I've always thought that books about good people doing the right thing, with nothing majorly bad happening to them, were inevitably boring. But I've had a good week of those, which puts me in a fabulous mood. So pick one of these books--seriously, worth it.

Charles Dickens: Enigma

Actually, the post title is shamelessly and unnecessarily sensational. I don't know much about Charles Dickens, but my understanding is that this is due only to my own willed ignorance, and not because history lacks information, if I were only to seek it out. I do know, for example, that he was sadly poor until he inherited some money that an unlikely distant relative had left him. Someone told me that, anyway.

But in school--twice--I was exposed to Great Expectations, and I have to say, I really didn't like it at all. Which is kind of funny, because I remember it as having a reasonably interesting plot and well-crafted characters. I think that part of the problem is that I didn't like anyone in the book--except perhaps for his elderly friend at work, the one who lived with his Aged Parent--what was his name? Anyway, everyone from Pip and Estella, through his initially upstanding roommate who becomes an indebted fool because of Pip, right down through the convict and of course Miss Whatsername in the wedding dress is, in one way or another, a bit of a creep. Oh, not Joe or their maid who (spoiler) Joe ends up marrying--Bessie, was it?--they're good folk and stay that way, which is nice. But my perception of them can't help but be tainted by Pip's disdain throughout most of the book, and I can't love them, by the end, as much as I did at the beginning, though I recognize that they haven't done anything to deserve that assessment.

All this to say that, until now, the above and The Christmas Carol were the only Dickens that I had read. And I'm not fond of him, though, as I said, he does tell a story, and his characters are well-wrought. Why? Well, they tell you he wrote by the word, and I do believe you can hear that in the slow and roundabout way in which every scene unfolds. I feel sometimes like you can see him squeezing extra words in for the money. Does the Establishment agree with me? My only evidence either way is the fact that every teacher who mentioned Dickens to me also mentioned that he was paid by the word--as though they knew that he had something to answer for, and that was the answer they were giving on his behalf.

And now (to the point), I'm listening to an excellent reading of A Tale of Two Cities. And from the beginning, I enjoyed it immensely. I'm still enjoying it, though I'm less certain of where it's going, since we seem to have taken a rather long digression into the affairs of the heart (which I have to say, I've never read convincingly in Dickens--I mean, who could love Estella?). So we have all these characters, and we've learned something about their history, and they're all in love with Miss Manette (audiobook; I don't know how to spell any of the names). But I'm less than halfway done, and I have no idea what's going to happen next. Oh, except the French Revolution. That's been pretty well telegraphed, albeit with historical accuracy. Seriously, how did the aristocracy not see that coming?

But here's my real question; the question that I came here to ask. Sydney Carton, the look-alike lawyer who's a dissolute alcoholic. What did he ever do wrong? He's kind of mopey and insolent, and, as I mentioned, a raging alcoholic. But in the scene I just heard, he proposed to Miss Manette, with no hope in his heart because he's not worthy of her. Now, all suitors in books like this proclaim themselves unworthy of their lady-loves. But both he and she really seem to believe it here. What I want to know is, what did he ever do? He clearly has a bit of a bad-boy attitude--is that enough to rule him out in that day and age? Or is there some hint of a dark secret in his past that I'm not seeing? Or is it a strength of character thing--his slacker mopeyness is enough to rule him out of the marriage pool entirely?

I guess they just had higher standards, but if there IS something he did wrong, and I'm missing it, somebody please let me know.

Seriously, though? This is the most fun I've ever had with Dickens. The reader is great, and, with audiobooks, you sort of half-ignore the slow parts. I'm really excited to be kicking it, Dickens-style, as the young folk say.

Too Much of Nothing

I was supposed to meet Lynne at the library at 5:30. I got there at 4:30. This is a recipe for disaster, and now I have 18 books to read. And it's not 20 only because I exercised a great deal of self-restraint.

Sigh.

It's All Art

In college, when postmodern was such a revelation and performance art entered our vocabularies, we used to look at the pizza boxes stacked in the branches of a tree or the postcards someone would write his dreams on and mail to random people from the phone book and say, philosophically, "It's all art."

I've been reading Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott, and I think the point she's trying to make with this book is, "It's all God."

Now, when you read a book with a subtitle like Thoughts on Faith, you expect that message, and I'm not at all bothered by the message. It's really one of the reasons I loved Traveling Mercies and Plan B so much; because she was talking about faith as something that gets you through the day.

But this book just doesn't live up to that. She's come to the point of being one of the reasons I'm skeptical of memoirs--they're too often just anecdotes about lives of people whose lives are really only marginally more interesting than mine, and really, mostly just grimmer. Her first two books painted her as a marginally neurotic recovering alcoholic who was working hard on herself and learning life lessons as she went. This book, though almost identical in structure and nature, takes that description and eliminates the word "marginally," her work doesn't seem to be getting anywhere (short temper, complete inability to handle minor setbacks), and her slice of life anecdotes are actually quite hard to find lessons in.

I got through it because it was a fast read. But I can't recommend it, I'm sorry. Though I have to say, I'm still looking forward to reading Operating Instructions, the memoir of her completely unprepared first year as a single parent.

Where Have I Been?

She cracks her knuckles and gets down to it: where have I been, dear reader? Well, some life changes have been going on in the old Hungry Homestead, as well as some vacationing and some packing, but I missed you. I'm also ashamed to admit that I've barely read 5 books this month--and that's if I don't even bother to count the Babysitter's Club books, which, well, I normally do. They only take an hour, but each one is such a perfect little miniature world that I can't wait to find out if Jessi wins the gold medal at the Stoneybrook Athletic Festival, or if Dawn has the courage to be friends with the girl with Down's Syndrome. (The answer to both questions, for the curious, is yes.)

But I'm really here today to talk about a book I'm not quite finished with: Intuition, by Allegra Goodman. I've been speedreading it this weekend (which is not to say skimming; rather, ignoring other important tasks in favor of reading this book), because I let it languish till it was due, and can't renew it because it's so popular. It's one of those hot young "now" books that's been reviewed six ways from Sunday, and is very popular. I have to say that I actually had more doubts than anticipation because of that.

No doubts necessary, the book is good. It's a very close-up look inside the politics of a research laboratory that's having some unprecedented success. The plot of the book get quite interesting--a search for truth, perhaps a fight against injustice, or perhaps selfishness driving people to do things they might not otherwise--but it really is intended as a character study.

It's interesting; working in any office, you know at least a little about politics, about working with tricky personalities, about charm and bitterness. There's a lot here that most people can relate to. But you're also definitely learning about a lab, where funding is tight, where the goal is glory, where people with expensive educations earn almost no money because they're trying to make it in their field, and the competition is fierce, but the group is family. This is most definitely their world. I recognize some emotions, some personalities, bits and pieces; it feels real. But I bet some researcher out there is reading this book and laughing in nervous recognition.

I could be wrong, of course; what do I know about research science and its politics and personalities. In fact, some of the characters seem so very....well, intense, maybe?....that they felt rather caricature-ish to me at first. But as the book goes on and things develop, I began to see them as those people who do seem caricature-ish when you meet them in real life. But I have to say, even if research science doesn't look anything like this, she totally convinced me. And really, isn't that the point?

Edited to Add: Please don't misjudge the book based on the cover in the sidebar link. It looks like chick-lit, but it's really, really not. The cover of my copy doesn't look like that. I don't know why they would use that cover; I'm going to write an irate letter or something.

Earth Kids Are Easy

So they got John Cusack, that underdog heartthrob, to play the dad in the movie adaptation of The Martian Child, by David Gerrold. I'm currently listening to the audiobook, and I'm actively restraining myself from going into a rant about terrible audiobook readers and how they ruin what should be a good experience. Okay, I'll grant myself a tiny, short little rant: you don't need to pause for two seconds after every single sentence! And not every single word is so incredibly important that it needs to be carefully emphasized. Okay, seriously, rant over.

But only to make room for a new rant: a book about adopting a kid with severe behavior issues is a) very surprising and b) possibly kind of irresponsible if it implies, as this one seems to, that true and deep love is all it takes to reach the little tykes and turn their lives around. First, it's disrespectful to all the other people who spent hours of months of their lives with him before this guy came along.

Second, it's irresponsible to all the other potential adopters out there. Seriously, it's NOT easy to take care of these kids. The closest he comes to acknowledging that the kid has problems so far is one sentence saying, in effect, "Sure it wasn't all a bed of roses--he lied and stole money from me and kept a knife in his room and got in fights with other kids. Still, we were blissfully happy and it was an unadulterated dream." If you didn't know how disruptive a behavior disordered kid can be, you could easily believe, from this account, that the instant you bring him home and give him his own room, he's going to be just dandy and fun to hang with.

So yeah, I'm having trouble picking apart the things I don't like about the narrator and the things I don't like about the reader and the things I don't like about the author. Look at that sentence; it's hard to even describe who all these people conspiring to trouble me are. I guess it's not awful; I'll finish it. But I have to admit, I'm not getting much out of it. Luckily, I'm reading two other books. I'm still getting my fix.

And I Feel Fine

I have a thing about end of the world books. I have a thing about the end of the world in general, actually, particularly when it comes about via environment-altering events (nuclear war, for example) that make even the basics of survival virtually impossible to manage, never mind surviving the collapse of civilization. Or zombies. Zombies I think are a close second in fear to environmental disasters, and they only really make it into second because I'm pretty sure they're fictional. I think zombies are scarier, but they're less likely than, say, nuclear war, or global warming, or the moon being knocked out of its orbit.

Speaking of which, I just finished an excellent book called Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer. It's YA, and not nearly as depressing as it could have been. William Goldman once said in one of his screenwriting books that audiences love a good how-to, and I find that's definitely true. Really well-written stories about the mundane details of something like this are just wonderfully engaging. It's about storing food and running out of it, chopping firewood, boarding up windows, swimming, running water, Christmas presents, snow, distant volcanoes, etc.

Really, I think the book's main flaw was what also made it tolerable--it was upbeat. Well, not downbeat, anyway. It's not the heartwarming family togetherness that bothered me--that actually made it quite palatable. It's the lack of violence or human danger. It's not about society collapsing so much as disappearing, as though the system that keeps our world running the way it does--which is really so artificial and tenuous--didn't just collapse into a shambles, but slowed down a great deal, almost to a stop. Civilization was still there, it was just operating at a very low efficiency level.

This isn't much of a review; I'm just processing this and thinking out loud. It stuck with me, though, and I really enjoyed this book. I just checked out another one, an end-of-the-world book called Z for Zachariah, I can't remember the author's name. I don't think this one will go over as well for me. It seems darker, just based on the blurb. Although I will say, as long as the environment is intact enough that, say, food will grow, I'm willing to fight off the zombie hoards from inside my walled fortress. That's just the kind of girl I am.

Punctuation Quiz!

Okay, it's you and W. Somerset Maugham in a head-to-head punctuation extravaganza! Let's see how you do!

What's missing from or wrong with each of the following sentences?

1) She admired the way in which amid the banter which was the staple of their conversation he insinuated every now and then a pretty, flattering speech.

2) She put away her fears, but for an instant unreasonably she regretted that her plans for the future were shattered.

3) Vaguely, as when you are studying a foreign language and read a page which at first you can make nothing of, till a word or a sentence gives you a clue; and on a sudden suspicion, as it were, of the sense flashes across your troubled wits, vaguely she gained an inkling into the workings of Walter's mind.

Bonus points if your answer to #3 is anything more than, "huh?"

I know it's unfair to give a quiz when each item is worth 33.3 points, but the problem is that I'm enjoying the book too much to keep stopping to mark the many, many pages on which I wish he'd added more commas. I mean, there are commas, but there are a lot of mid-sentence clauses that don't have them that end up bewildering me for a minute.

But the book is so enjoyable, so quickly paced and the characters so flawed but interesting, that I can't pause in the reading long enough to register complaints. Sorry folks! Excellent book.

A Hike in the Mountains

Bill Bryson is an interesting guy. I think I went on in a blissful and rhapsodic way about his A Short History of Nearly Everything, which I loved dearly. And now I'm listening to A Walk in the Woods, read by the author. It's abridged, and I don't know how much (not too much, I think, based on the length of the audiobook and the length of the print book). It's a fun, interesting read, full of historical facts and funny observations. I'm not a hiker, and he confirms that I never will be, but I'm glad to have this vicarious experience.

But when he starts in on his discussions of the National Park Service or the American attitude toward the wilderness, I'm bemused. Right now, for example, he's discussing how he doesn't understand why Americans are so interested in keeping wilderness wild, and how he'd much rather that there were some farms or hamlets along the trail. He's poo-pooing (if I may use the term) the much vaunted "protected corridor" through which a certain part of the trail runs, and comparing it to hiking in Luxembourg, where you pass through hamlets and past farms.

It seems so British to me. It reminds me of the scene in Arcadia by Tom Stoppard, in which one of the characters is talking about the landscaping on a big English estate and how they tore up the pastures to create a faux wilderness, but how the pastures were artificial, too, because that was just another generation of landscape architects trying to recreate the Italian countryside of the classic authors.

What kind of hamlet is he talking about? Every town he's walked through he's described as ugly, boring, nondescript. He wants cute, scenic little places, but authentic! Untouched by the modern era! And they shouldn't get any bigger, that would ruin the beauty of nature. No, we want charming signs of civilization of juuuuust the right size.

It also reminds me of my father's customers, who want him to stay the quaint, authentic, crusty figure that he is, in spite of the fact that this involves him never making any more money.

I don't mean to whine. I'm really enjoying it. But he's kind of demanding--I'd think of it as "full of dreams," except he's kind of insistent, even when he's not being very practical.

I Never Read Angela's Ashes

I have a suspicion that Frank McCourt has been selling his blurbs. I could be wrong--it could be that he and I just have similar taste in nonfiction. I wouldn't have suspected that, since I couldn't get past page 10 of Angela's Ashes, but then, I have noticed the fact that I often share a taste in literature with authors whose work I don't necessarily care for. So it's not impossible that he just likes these two rather obscure books that I plucked off the internet and checked out of the library.

One of these books is not even available through the BPL system--I had to go to Minuteman. (Minuteman officially has way more books, probably by virtue of having a lot of member libraries, each one building an independent collection. Unfortunately, their online catalog is very, very clunky.) One book I heard about on a This American Life story from about three years ago that I was listening recently. It's a memoir called The Man Who Outgrew his Prison Cell, by Joe Loya, a former bank robber who has, apparently, gone straight. Frank McCourt ("Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Angela's Ashes") believes I will "be taken with the energy and urgency of Loya's writing," among other things.

Frank McCourt also expresses his gratitude for the existence of Susan Jane Gilman, author of Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress. "Thank you, O Lord," he prays, "for sending us Susan Gilman's tales." He feels pretty passionate about this, clearly. I'd never heard of the book till someone on the internets pointed me at it. They read a lot of good books out there in cyberspace. Anyway, I don't know pretty much anything about this book at this point, except that Frank McCourt just loved it.

I'd say I should re-try Angela's Ashes, and I suspect that a large number of folks in the world would agree with that idea. But, I have to say, I don't suspect I will. Sorry.

Those Wacky Tudors

When I was in high school, I watched the movie Lady Jane, starring a very young Helena Bonham Carter and an equally young Carey Elwes (plus a bonus part for Patrick Stewart, before I knew who he was). Later, when Lady Jane Grey herself came up in my history class, I almost convulsively said out loud, "I saw that movie!" To which my teacher responded immediately, "Really? Because, that movie was just sex sex sex!" To which I wish I had responded, "How did you know?" which comeback is less sassy now that I think about it than it seemed when I thought of it five minutes after blushing and not responding to her well-meant teasing, or the class giggling at me.

You know how sometimes you come across something unusual, or maybe a word you've never heard before, and then all of a sudden it's everywhere? Well, apparently Alison Weir has written some five million books about British history, all very readable nonfiction, and I've only just come across her. I'm reading Innocent Traitor, which is about Jane Grey, who holds a special place in my heart because of the aforementioned anecdote (and the movie that spawned it--it really was all about sex, and I was 15). It's an enjoyable book, and well-written in its way. It doesn't have a lot of the qualities of a really literary novel, though the writing is very enjoyable and well-crafted. It's really a book by a non-fiction writer who's giving herself permission to create scenes. I really was giving her credit for doing something clever by using cliched phrases in a historical novel to give it a flavor of the past tied to the present, but when a newly married woman explained that she "had never felt such bliss," I realized she was just trying too hard.

The sudden existence of Alison Weir and all her knowledge of Tudor and Stuart England (as Miss Lavoie's class was called) reminds me of Philippa Gregory, and I'm again asking myself if I should try to read something else by her. I really kind of hated The Other Boleyn Girl, mostly because real history contained some rather un-novel-like facts--such as the fact that randy King Henry VIII was kept twitching on the end of a string for NINE YEARS. It's hard to drag out a novel of cat-and-mouse romance for nine years. You end up writing things like a one page chapter entitled "Spring, 1527," "Summer, 1527," and "Fall and Winter, 1527." It gets, in a word, boring.

But maybe I should read The Queen's Fool. It's about Elizabeth, who I find to be more interesting than most of the rest of them. I don't know why I'd give the woman another chance, but I want to. Part of me wants to. Mostly because I love pre-digested history--I love the stories with the boring or dragging parts taken out. I love the characters when they're revealed to me, instead of being told up front what their personalities are, the way actual books of history seem to. I love it when the craft of storytelling, as used in fiction, is brought to history. I love Sarah Vowell, who by the way is working on a new book about the Pilgrims and I'm so excited. She should write faster, in my opinion.

In sum: Alison Weir, good. Philippa Gregory, bad, but for some reason getting a second chance. Sarah Vowell, awesome.

Why am I reading this?

Really, if I can't answer that question, you could call it the biggest insult to a book, or the saddest state of things. But it's the hardest thing to read, I think.

Have you ever heard of Charlotte Sometimes? The answer could easily be no. Kids' book. It's so depressing, though, because it's such a good idea that's so poorly executed. I really don't know what Charlotte learned from her adventures in a body-switching, time-traveling situation. You don't know her at all before she wakes up in the wrong time, and she really never does anything or has any thoughts besides wanting to go home.

The book might be about identity--what, besides how you look, makes you recognizably you? But it never really answers these questions. And I think that, if I can't even figure out for sure what questions you're asking, or even trying to answer, then you've failed in a sad way. It wasn't even entertaining! I'll accept that as a reason to tell a story--it's a romp!

But no. You've got nothing for me. Sorry state of affairs.

Sex and Lies

Man, I'm some sort of glutton for punishment. I hated Girl Meets God so much that I ran out and got Lauren Winner's other book. Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity. Now I know a lot about how a good Christian practices chastity (as distinguished from celibacy). It was a different, less offensive kind of frustration from the last book, though. She's still kind of obnoxious in the way she "admits" her own flaws in the most self-righteous way I've ever heard. But the really bizarre thing is how many things I agree with her on. I agree that sex is important and shapes who we are as people, and therefore it's important to have an ethical code around our sexual behavior. Then she starts talking about St. Paul, and she loses me. I'm pretty sure Paul kind of hated women and resented our existence. I don't want to take my sexual ethics from him, thanks.

What else have we? The Penelopiad, by Margaret Atwood. Short and kind of easy to read, but a wry retelling of the story of Odysseus from the point of view of the waiting Penelope, and a chorus of her handmaidens, who were killed by Odysseus when he returned to Ithaca.

And I'm finally reading The Time Traveller's Wife. I'm really enjoying it; one of the main themes is about finding joy in the happy moments of a difficult life, which is something I struggle with myself. It's an intense book, about someone who lives an intense life, but is trying not to. I was turned off for a long time by an anecdote someone told me about a certain sex scene, but it was not really as troubling as I was expecting. I was slowed down again, though, when I tried it on audiobook first. One of the first scenes in the book is a sex scene, not particularly graphic, but somewhat intimate. Those are tricky on audiobook, and when the scene is at the beginning of the story, before you really know the characters, it feels awfully voyeuristic.

This time, though, I got past it, and it got all thrilling and tough and awesome. I'd say you should go read it, but I'm pretty sure at this point I'm the last person (woman, anyway) in the United States who hasn't read it yet. So you probably already have.

Near-Trauma Experience

It's hard to post about this, even a week later, because I'm going to sound like I'm joking or exaggerating my emotion, when I'm not. Or rather, I'm going to start to joke and use hyperbole when I don't mean to, because it's the easiest way to protect myself from how really close to home this hit. But I'm going to tell you the story.

Last week, (Tuesday morning, I think) the BPL website went down for about half an hour. This is not the end of the world. When it came back up, my list was gone. This was, to a certain extent, the end of the world for me.

At the time, the list was 62 books long. It's a list of the books I either intend to read or am interested enough in that I don't want to forget that they exist. I've been compiling this list for years--once I've read the book and it's been logged, either here or in my journal, I delete it from the list. Each individual book is not nearly as important to me as the list as a whole--it's almost like a record of my thought processes, and also a predictor of my future thought processes. There are young adult novels about post-apocalyptic survival (Z for Zachariah), nonfiction books about the religious right (Don't Think of an Elephant), all kinds of novels (The Historian, The Uses of Enchantment, The Time Traveller's Wife), history, politics, environmentalism--all kinds of things that I've thought about or planned to think about. It was like losing a diary, and it was really harsh.

That night (after checking for the 40th time in 12 hours, emailing and phoning the library, and being told there was no hope), I started recreating the list. I managed to pull almost 2/3 of it out of my brain. It still hurt, but I really felt a sense of relief that it was all in there. Sometimes I feel like things aren't real until I write them down, or tell someone--until they're recorded. I find it weirdly reassuring to find out that my brain can, indeed, retail information, much in the way it's designed to.

In the morning, like magic, the list reappeared. I issued Mike the huge apology and thank you that he was owed (I was not good company that evening), printed the list immediately, and went about my business. I have to say, I feel like I've discovered something about myself. I'm just not 100% sure if I discovered a new stability, or a new instability.

I have not been here lately

I'm back on the upswing, though, and there's more to come. There's been a lot going on in my life, and no one has seen much of me in months.

But before my next update about my VERY TRAUMATIC Tuesday, bookwise, let me post this for the indignation of my fellow readers:

George W. Bush claims he read 60 books between January and August of 2006.

Now, I'd love to have a conversation about this with him. I can't tell you off the top of my head how many books I read during that time, but I can tell you that, since it was 7 months, the number is probably about 50. I have a log, though, so I can go home and figure it out and get back to you.

You know me--or most of you do. I lead a quiet life, and reading is my main hobby. Not that I think the president is some sort of dynamo who never lays around doing nothing, but where did he find the time? I mean, he's in meetings all day! He doesn't even have a commute!

This is so outrageous I can't even deride it vigorously enough for my own satisfaction. Please join me in a silent moment of indignation.

New Direction

I have a lot going on these days, bookwise, though I'm in one of those zones where I'm in the middle of too many books to finish any. But I'm trying to phase over into reading some novels; lately I've been reading a lot of nonfiction, which is great, but not quite as relaxing as the novels.

I have The Double Bind, the new Chris Bohjalian from the library. I like a lot of his books, but some better than others, so I'm really curious about where this will come out. I've been meaning to read The Time Traveler's Wife, and I own it, so that's on the list. I just finished The Wife by Meg Worlizer. That book was really great, you should read it. It's a really fabulous, funny, poignant story, and that rare gem: a literary novel about a crumbling marriage that is well written, humorous, and totally engaging.

I checked out Howard's End, and I'm looking forward to rereading that. I remember enjoying it when I read it in college, but what you like in a school book is not always reliable to come back to later, so we'll see how that goes. I got a recommendation for Jasper Fforde, so I'll pick up one of those soon. Oh, and I'm back in the thick of my Jeeves and Wooster audiobook. I don't even remember which one it is--they're almost all the same--but it's still a great ride.

I took this class: Intro to the Novel, English 2o4. Great class. Here we go again.

Shame

I've been meaning to undergo a Personal Library Renaissance. I was going to come here and write about it. I got a bunch of great books for Christmas, and there's a list of books that Mike brought into this marriage that I'd like to read. There's plenty there, and a lot of it that I'm really excited about.

But here's the thing: I've been under a lot of stress at work. Like, the kind of stress that leaves me emotionally vulnerable. And when I'm at my desk, at my computer, and anxious, what brings me a momentary surge of happiness and temporary relief? What soothes me the way a cigarette soothes my sister? A hit of the BPL website. At http://catalog.mbln.org, I can log in and see what I have on reserve. And if there's nothing, if I'm not waiting for a book to arrive (on reserve! in transit!), there's nothing there for me.

So I've been ordering books and reading them as fast as I can. It's kept me going. The Wife, by Meg Wolitzer (such a great book; I'm just kind of let down by the last ten pages); The Double Bind, by Chris Bohjalian (love that guy; hope this one's as good); Through the Children's Gate by Adam Gopnick (I cannot tell you how guilty I feel that I really, really didn't like Lynne's favorite writer, but I just can't get behind a book that's all about how great and special New York is); Infidel, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (really interesting; I'm amazed at how much nonfiction about the Middle East I can read).

So there's been no renaissance. I have been reading some borrowed books, though--from friends I mean. I will give you only one tiny taste, and let you judge for yourself: "The psychologist probably scratched his head."

Did he really? You be the judge.

I won't apologize. I hope, though, that soon I'll be emotionally strong enough to read some books I own, rather than be so dependent on the BPL. I'm hooked, and I won't apologize. I've always been up front about it: I'm a cheap date.

Bunch of Savages

So I'm not a huge Dan Savage fan. He writes a funny column and I'm all for sexual openness, but he holds a certain number of opinions that I disagree with (I'm pretty sure that he was adamant for many years that bisexuality was a crock, which is LUDICROUS in my opinion). Now I'm reading The Kid, which is his memoir of adopting a son with his boyfriend. The observational parts are interesting--how the pre-adoption seminar talks a lot about overcoming the pain of infertility, how fights with his boyfriend work--but (how can I put this?) he doesn't seem to like straight people very much.

It feels really obnoxious to complain that Dan Savage is prejudiced against me, but that's how I feel. He makes a lot of generalizations about straight people that I disagree with. He says we like the term "partner" for longterm gay relationships because the term "boyfriend" makes us too aware of all the penises involved. Um, I just think that grown-ups who have been in a relationship for many years sound like high schoolers when they say boyfriend. Trust me, it doesn't make me think of penises. I actually like it for unmarried straight couples, too. I also don't think that every time I have sex it is innately centered around procreation, even if I'm taking precautions against that. I also don't really like how, in certain contexts, he uses only the term "lesbian," and seems to use it as distinct from "woman," as though a lesbian is somehow distinct from a woman.

Who am I to argue gay issues with Dan Savage? Isn't he a more experienced observer of the straight world, just because of the amount of thinking and social commentary he's done about it, as distinct from the gay world? And even if he's wrong, doesn't it seem dumb for me to complain about being judged by someone who has been so judged by society? I don't care. I do my damnedest not to judge him, and somehow he's shoved me into a yucky little box. Annoys me.

Word a Day

Don't you think we should all try to use the exclamation "Welladay!" sometime today? I've decided to find somewhere to work it in--something vaguely surprising always happens, right?--but I wonder if I'm going to have any luck. See if you can do it, and let me know.

On a Good Stuff Streak, with an Aside

Did I tell you how much I liked Carter Beats the Devil? Because I did. It's by Glen David Gold (interestingly, husband of Alice Sebold, also a great writer, but of a very different type of book. It reminds me of how Nicole Krauss's The History of Love is thematically as well as stylistically very similar to Jonathan Safran Foer's work--interesting how different sets of literary spouses are so different).

Anyway, what a fun book. I have a thing about stories about magicians, and about the idea of the importance of magic (speaking here of the vaudeville type of magic, not necessarily of just the idea of magic in the human psyche). My thing is, I think, that I kind of don't get it. I mean, the magician knows it's a trick. I know it's a trick. While I'm impressed by the tricks, what I'm really impressed by is showmanship and their ability to trick me, as opposed to really thinking there's anything fabulous going on.

This is similar to my issue about people who talk about the importance of Storytelling. You would think that as a voracious reader and consumer of fantasy (both in the High Fantasy tradition, and in the Made Up Things genre), I would really be someone who felt that Storytelling Is What Binds People Together, and Society is Defined by Its Stories (see Neil Gaiman--anything by Neil Gaiman). But I don't really get it. I think because there is no part of my mind that is not suffused in stories--there is no way for me to picture a story-less world and therefore to see how stories act on the real world. It's like picturing true nothingness, like before the universe. You can't imagine it, because there's nothing there to imagine.

Okay, that was way off-topic. Anyway, Carter Beats the Devil does some amazing things: it combines someone's life story (ie. a chronic story) with an immediate "now" of action (ie. the acute story), without boring me with the first or rushing me with the latter. (As much as I loved Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, the first half was acute, the second half chronic, and they did not fit together in the least). It was neither all sunshine and roses, nor was it about how the human condition is tragic and we may as well just grin and bear this veil of tears. It was such a hopeful story. I really recommend it. If, that is, you have a few weeks--it's almost 500 pages long, and, though fast moving and fun, not really challenging, it is so rich that it took me a while to read.

Totally different book: The Dogs of Bedlam Farm, by Jon Katz. I just finished A Good Dog: The Story of Orson, Who Changed My Life, by the same author. It's interesting, because they cover a lot of the same ground--Bedlam Farm was written first, about his first year living on a farm with his dogs, and A Good Dog was written later, covering earlier and later material, too. These books are flawed but charming. As memoirs, I accept that they jump around a little in time, because they're arranged thematically instead of chronologically, but it often gets confusing--if you got that chicken more than a year after you got there, why did you mention him in the first chapter? If you said goodbye to that dog so early, why do you describe your life on the farm as your life with him? Things like this.

The stories were nice--it was interesting to see someone who was eager for farm life, then, it turns out, pretty unprepared for it, and finally, it turns out, thrilled by it, though it was harder than he expected. I love that he's blunt about the difficulties, and gets his hands dirty with things like that. I don't always love the author/narrator, but I liked the stories he told. I felt sometimes like he would acknowledge and own his faults, but with such a sense of distance (or maybe it was a sense of his own virtue in acknowledging them?) that it didn't really make me feel close to him.

And finally, now I'm reading The Pirates! In an adventure with Scientists, which is a silly, Monty Python sketch of a novel starring Charles Darwin and the Pirate Captain. If it wasn't so fluffy it would probably drag, but it IS so fluffy, and it's glorious. I'll be done in a day.

Once again I overcommitted at the library--just after promising myself another Personal Library Renaissance!--but it'll have to wait till I finish all these glorious reads! I have a Tamora Pierce YA fantasy, another of Louisa May Alcott's grown-up books, and a book of short stories, from which the plot for the movie Secretary was (I gather) culled. I have two books by Jo Walton--the one I'm reading now is a true Victorian novel, only all the characters are dragons. It's interesting, because it has all the ponderousness of a Victorian novel, plus lots of raw meat and gold. It's not funny, or really fantasy--it's Victorian. The other is an alternate history thing about an England that made peace with the Nazis.

I'm so on a roll. It's about time!