No Kids

I remember when Corinne Maier's book, No Kid: Quarante Raisons de ne pas Avoir d'Enfant, was published in France a few years ago, there was something of an outcry in the states, even though it was in French and wasn't even available here.  I also remember thinking: I wish my French was a LOT better.  


As someone who does not intend to have children, I found (the English translation of) No Kids: 40 Good Reasons not to have Children absolutely delightful.  Maier is an instigator, and a lot of the time she's just digging for a fight, but, it's true that this world  is made for rewarding people with kids, while families without kids are viewed as bizarre anomalies, something to be either pitied or looked at askance.  If you don't believe me, I would be happy to regale you with hilarious stories of moronic things people have said to me over the years, viv as vis my childlessness.  (I prefer childfree, and was mildly disappointed to see the same term in Maier's book - I thought I had invented the term!  But, see, that's just how rare we, the childfree, are.)

Each short chapter expands on her good reasons not to have kids, like "You keep your friends" and  "Kids are the death knell of the couple" and "Don't revert to childhood" and "Motherhood is a trap for Women."  What's kind of interesting is that Maier actually HAS kids, so she offers a unique perspective on the topic - that rare person that's actually willing to admit that having kids is not as much fun as it's cracked up to be, and that she often actually regrets having kids (I've NEVER heard an American say that!)  Shocking as it may be to hear someone disparage their own children in print, I think it's worth keeping a level head and remembering that while her thesis is meaningful, some of her methods are clearly satirical.

I love cultural tidbits, so one of my favorite parts was about the term "Merdeuf", a mash up of mère de famille, which means mother of the family.  Of course, merdeuf sounds like "shit" and "egg" (merde and oeuf), so its slangily loose translation is "egg shitter"... a bit more bite than Soccer Mom, n'est-ce pas?

It's not entirely clear who Maier is writing this book for.  Partly it seems to stick it to parents ("Having a child is the best possible way to avoid asking what the meaning of life is, as everything revolves around that child, who is a marvelous substitute for the existential quest.")  Partly it's for people like me ("The famous glass ceiling stops women from getting the top jobs, and those jobs do have one great advantage: the higher you rise, the fewer idiots there are above you.  It is not astonishing that biographies of successful women never fail to note the number of children they've had: those are the obstacles they've had to overcome in order to make something interesting out of their lives.") But, for the most part, I think she's really an anti-capitalist.  What she returns to again and again is how children are a strain on resources, and are seemingly preconditioned to desire things.  She writes about how much pressure there is on parents to buy endless cycles of plastic shit for their kids. Like me, she fears a world with increasing population, fewer and fewer natural resources, a fairly horrifying unemployment rate, and an increasingly grim outlook for the next generation.


I wouldn't really recommend this book to any one who already has kids, in my experience most people find it necessary to defend their choice to have children when others merely state their choice not to.  They'd spend the whole book saying, "That's not true, I had fun just the other day!"  If you don't intend to have kids, or are thinking about the subject, like me, you might be gratified to see some of your feelings expressed in print for once, and at the very least have a really good laugh.

Ideal Bookshelf

A cool art project by Jane Mount, who paints people's "ideal bookshelves" (gouache & ink).  Speaking of drawings and books, I've been thinking of revitalizing my erstwhile idea to draw pictures from scenes in books I read.  Despite the fact that I am, in fact, a pretty terrible artist.  Last night I did a drawing/watercolor from Crossed, but it's so ugly I now consider it a "draft" and will try another version.

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Matched & Crossed

I listened to Matched "on tape" and recently read the second book in the trilogy, Crossed, on M's Kindle.  I merely mention it because those are slightly non-conventional reading methods and did have an influence on how I perceived the books.

They're YA books by Allie Condy, about a young girl (15? 16?) in the not-so-distant future who lives in a very controlled world where The Society keeps a close eye on everyone, regulates what they eat, drink, even regulates  dreams and decides when people die (on their 80th birthdays).  They choose marriage partners, and Cassia gets "matched" with her friend, Xander.  But then, like, somehow she's really matched with this other guy, Ky (to tell the truth I forget how that all worked... it's been a while) and, anyway, she sort of starts falling for Ky.

In the second book, Crossed, (Spoilers re: Matched here), Ky's been outcast to this other place so Cassia sort of outcasts herself to go find him.  A lot of the book takes place in the wilderness, which is a major change for these folks who've been basically eating nothing but TV dinners their whole lives.  The wilderness bits had an inevitable Hunger Games feel to them (which I rather liked) and I've been semi-developing a theory about young characters and the rejection of the structured environment.  But more on that some other day.

As everyone knows, when one is reading a book like this, one is constantly comparing it to that Standard Bearer of all Dystopian Novels - you know what I'm talking about - The Handmaid's Tale, by the great Margaret Atwood.  So, how does Condy compare to Atwood?  Not too bad...  She creates a really rich and engaging landscape for the characters.  I also really like how she uses poetry as subversion - Dylan Thomas's Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night and a few things by Emily Dickinson that I'm too lazy to look up.  The citizens of this place carry around pills that the society tells them to take at various points - that's very effective because they're a bit of a mystery, and the more Cassia questions the society, the more the reader questions those sneaky pills!

As far as YA books go, what I really loved about Crossed was how brave Cassia is.  She's a great role model for young women: question authority, use your head, trust your instincts.  Another nice aspect is that she's not getting saved by the male hero; she's a clear heroine in this story, not a helpless princess.  Here's Ky thinking about Xander:  "This isn't a game. He's not my opponent and Cassia's not a prize."  Hell yeah she isn't!  Eat it, Stephanie Meyer!  

Sometimes Condy's prose goes a bit blue, but I have a very high tolerance for that sort of thing - this is the only bit of alliteration abundance (see what I did there?) that made me roll my eyes: "Seeing the wind wave the water and brush the branches reminds me that, before I returned to the Society, I crossed over rivers and canyons."

The third book comes out this fall, and I'm looking forward to finding out how it ends!

The Count!

An organization called VIDA: Women In Literary Arts has an amazing project where they count up articles in popular press written by and about women artists.  They make some simple pie charts, like this one

that express their findings.  Here's a spoiler:  they all look like that, or have even less blue pie pieces than that one.  I had heard some pretty damning numbers like those a few years ago, and, it's one of the reasons I almost exclusively review books by women for the weekly magazine I write for.  Plus I just really like women writers.   Check out the rest of their graphs - it's pretty shocking!


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The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

We read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, for book club.  I'd heard of Alexie through Selected Shorts - a podcast I adore - they're big fans of his.  It's a YA book about a young Spokane Indian boy who lives on a reservation in Washington State.  Arnold Spirit describes himself as an awkward, pimply teenager, who gets beat up on a regular basis by other kids and even adults on the Reservation.  A teacher encourages him to go to a school outside the reservation, at which point he starts to feel more hope for the future.  He faces almost unbelievable challenges like lack of food, an alcoholic father, his disabilities (he was born with Hydrocephalus), lack of transportation (our book club was shocked that the character claimed to often walk 22 miles from school when his dad was too drunk to pick him up or there wasn't enough money for gas).  He becomes a "part-time" Indian - at home, on the Reservation, he's a full-Indian - at school, he identifies with his most-white classmates - unable to completely fit in either world, he finds it necessary to navigate between these very different cultures and societal groups.

Arnold loves to draw, and the book is illustrated with cartoons that he created (artwork is by Ellen Forney).  The cartoonish drawings lend a graphic-novel aspect to the book, causing it at once to fly by quicker, but also to allow those interested in the images to linger over the little details.

What was most interesting was learning about life and culture on the Reservation  - a little-known way of life for many Americans, despite the fact that it's such an important part of our collective histories.  For me, this book was a little too boy-focused, and I got a bit bored in the more basketball-y parts - but I would highly recommend this book to any young reader (old enough to deal with the themes of death and alcoholism.  Side note: this book is frequently challenged in schools and libraries apparently because of a masturbation reference!)

Overnight, I became a good player.
I suppose it had something to do with confidence. I mean, I'd always been the lowest Indian on the reservation tomtem pole - I wasn't expected to be good so I wasn't. But in Reardan, my coach and the other players wanted me to be good. They needed me to be good. They expected me to be good. And so I became good.
I wanted to live up to expectations.
I guess that's what it comes down to.
The power of expectations.

What really emerged in our book club was how little we know about American Indians today, and what a shame it is that Indian history is not a part of our national dialogue - I think this book is a really valuable contribution to literature and society (no less!) for the insight it provides.

Stargazing Dog

My review of Stargazing Dog on Newcity Lit!

Phone booth library

cool project in NYC to convert old phone booths into lending libraries. Reminds me of the cool converted magazine box in Logan Square.  Books for the people!  

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