Luxe

In Luxe, 19th century teenagers dress up and pout, try to get laid while maintaining an air of respectability. It's a YA book by Anna Godbersen (Nom de plume? I'm too lazy to find out...) billed as a 19th century Gossip Girl. I read Gossip Girl, or tried to. It is essentially unreadable. At first I thought Luxe was merely painfully readable, but I'm now ready to downgrade that to unfinishable.

I do have to give Godbersen (if that is her real name) props (or snaps) for utilizing a rich vocabulary - I wouldn't be surprised if the average teenager reader had to make frequent trips to the dictionary. It's the plot that killing me, and my own lack of interest in vapidness. But, to each his own!

I grew up on the Sweet Valley High series and find it interesting how influential those books continue to be. If the authors of these new "bad girl" books were not directly influenced by Francine Pascal, her work has just sunk that deep into today's consciousness. For example:

Now, observing her family's ballroom from the mezzanine, her torso cinched beneath her flamenco dancer's red flounces to a perfect eighteen inches, she felt supremely confident that he would come. It was the evening of the Richmond Hayeses' ball, the evening when they reached their apotheosis as a top-drawer family - there was simply no place else to be. She was certain he would arrive shortly. Well, almost certain.

This is a spoiler, probably. I'm not going to finish it but it's pretty obvious that the "good" sister, Elizabeth (He-Llo?!?) is going to fake her own death and move to California with her coachman boyfriend, thus allowing her younger, more daring sister Jessica, I mean, Diana, to marry her wealthy, roguish fiance and save the family from financial ruin because those two are in love anyway.

If I am incorrect, please let me know! Anyone ready any great YA books lately? I would love to know!

When God Was a Rabbit

My review of When God Was a Rabbit, by Sarah Winman on NewCity Lit.

Divergent

I read this great book called Divergent by Veronica Roth. Roth is a recent college graduate, which is infuriating, if you're like me and get infuriated by the success of youth. (grrr! Why aren't I successful? Plus, even if I do get successful, I won't be youthful anymore!)

Anyway, I won't say much because I don't want to spoil it, but it takes place in the futuristic burnt-out Chicago, where the Lake is actually a Marsh, and society is split into different factions. When you're 16, you choose your faction, and that's your faction For Life. And, if you get expelled from your faction or whatever you're "factionless" and that's like Worse Than DEATH. Because you have to clean up garbage and stuff.

The main character is born into Abnegation, which is a selfless faction that tries to be really empathetic and helpful, but she decides to go into this other faction called Dauntless, which is all about bravery and strength. If they ever go somewhere, they run. If they get on a train, they only jump on or off (I never quite figured out what they would do if the train happened to be stopped when they arrived, but, they'd probably just hang back and then jump on when it started moving.)

It's quite similar to the Hunger Games because once you choose a faction, you have to go through an initiation to prove yourself and, if you don't make it... FACTIONLESS. (Plus a strong female character, feats of strength, love interest in unlikely character...)

I think Chicagoans are going to straight up LOVE it - I really enjoyed the parts that had to do with The City. And, fans of the Hunger Games are likely to be on board too. The only bummer is, I discovered HG right at the end, when all the books were already published, but the next two in this 3 part series haven't been published yet. *frowny face*

Maybe Dauntless was formed with good intentions, with the right ideals and the right goals. But it has strayed far from them. And the same is true of Erudite, I realize. A long time ago, Erudite pursued knowledge and ingenuity for the sake of doing good. Now they pursue knowledge and ingenuity with greedy hearts. I wonder if the other factions suffer from the same problem. I have not thought about it before.

Despite the depravity I see in Dauntless, though, I could not leave it. It isn't only because the thought of living factionless, in complete isolation, sounds like a fate worse than death. It is because, in the brief moments that I have loved it here, I saw a faction worth saving. Maybe we can become brave and honorable again.

The Mutation of Fortune

My review of The Mutation of Fortune by Erica Adams - up at Newcity Lit!

Learning to Read

I loved this article in the New Yorker by Salvatore Scibona, How I Learned to Read. He writes about how he went to a unique college in New Mexico, St. John’s College where they focus on the classics. (Anybody heard of this place?)

Got me thinking about where I learned to read... I read a lot when I was a kid and just about anything I could get my hands on. I wasn't really a critical reader 'til about grad school, though (hence my love of Ayn Rand in high school*).

From How I Learned to Read:

By senior year at St. John’s, we were reading Einstein in math, Darwin in lab, Baudelaire in French tutorial, Hegel in seminar. Seminar met twice a week for four years: eight o’clock to ten at night or later, all students addressed by surname. On weekends, I hung out with my friends. The surprise, the wild luck: I had friends. One sat in my room with a beer and “The Phenomenology of Spirit,” reading out a sentence at a time and stopping to ask, “All right, what did that mean?” The gravity of the whole thing would have been laughable if it hadn’t been so much fun, and if it hadn’t been such a gift to find my tribe.

In retrospect, I was a sad little boy and a standard-issue, shiftless, egotistical, dejected teen-ager. Everything was going to hell, and then these strangers let me come to their school and showed me how to read. All things considered, every year since has been a more intense and enigmatic joy.

Lovely.

*BOOM!

Emerald City, Jennifer Egan

I am, of course, I big Jennifer Egan fan and loved her collection of stories in Emerald City. All of the stories were terrific but there were definitely a few that stood out. This collection seemed to have a focus on far-flung travel, which was kind of interesting. The first story, Why China?, is about a family on vacation in China who run into a man the dad knew and distrusted in America. I also really loved a story called They Stylist, about a group of people shooting a young model (from Rockford, IL - shades of Look at Me) in some beach location.

Egan's made a bit of a kerfuffle recently, not just for winning the Pulitzer but making some perhaps ill-thought-out remarks about fellow writers, for which she has apologized. I find it interesting that there a quite a few celebrity apologizes floating around right now - like Lars von Trier and his ridiculous Nazi comments at Cannes. Seems like a lot of people are all, Let's forgive Lars von Trier already, but I rather respect France's (collective?) decision to say, Lars von Trier, you're out of our lives. Jennifer Egan, on the other hand, is very forgivable.

Flavorwire, my new favorite website, claims Egan and Jennifer Weiner had a "feud" - I wouldn't go that far, but Weiner did groan (appropriately) at Egan's comments. The same story recalled a(n actual) feud between Colson Whitehead and Richard Ford. Apparently Whitehead said amusing things about Ford and Ford actually SPIT on him at some event. Now I'm really paranoid when I write a critical review for my new gig at Newcity that someone's going to spit on me.

That wouldn't happen, right?

The Hunting of the Snark

My review is on Newcity Lit! It's my first (and last?) review in rhyme!

Girl with Curious Hair

It is time to admit some things. 1. I do not like David Foster Wallace's writing, I just don't. (There, I said it.) 2. I don't like reading about animal abuse. Which is why I stopped reading Girl with Curious Hair abruptly around page 60.

All this D.F.W. talk, re: the posthumous Pale King etc. made me think I should give his work another try, and I read an interesting review of Girl with Curious Hair (1989).

I've been having a hard time finding something great to read - if you can suggest something...?

Rereading Women, by Sandra Gilbert

My review of Rereading Women, by Sandra Gilbert on Newcity!

The Uncoupling

My review of The Uncoupling is up on Newcity Lit!

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Ugh, I wrote this review and then it got lost in some Blogger shenanigans and I don't feel like re-writing it. Anyway, I really liked it. Next up: Sexing the Cherry!

Ewwww

Apparently not too long ago it was not considered ookee to send a lock of your hair to a lover or acquaintance. The New York Public Library has quite a collection of authors' hair! This, it will not surprise you to hear, is Walt Whitman's!

via Flavorwire

This Is A Book, Demitri Martin

My review of This Is A Book is up on Newcity!

Plastic

My review of Plastic: A Toxic Love Story, is on Newcity Lit!

Started Early, Took My Dog

I've read everything Kate Atkinson's written ever since I fell in love with Behind the Scenes at the Museum about 10 years ago. With the exception of one book, everything is terrific.

Her last three books are serials, based around a private detective named Jackson Brodie. They all have a ridiculous number of characters and, if you're like me, you might find them hard to keep straight, although I have resisted, so far, creating complex trees and graphs on the back page, like I do with Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Salmon Rushdie.

What's really interesting about these three books is that they read sort of like (if you'll pardon my innate snobbery) middle-brow action novels along the lines of say, Clancey or Cornwell. Her earlier work, if you ask me, is much more academically literary. However, even though in terms of tone and pacing they have this more "pedestrian" (not that there's anything wrong with that) impression; thematically they are extremely sophisticated. I suspect that this is purposeful, and she's making a very specific choice to write in this way.

Atkinson leans heavily on her literary sources, this book has frequent references to Emily Dickenson and a traditional British poem that begins "For want of a nail the shoe was lost..." as well as the Latin phrase Et In Arcadia Ego (made popular in a 17th century painting by Nicolas Poussin). These themes (of death, the influence of the minuscule) repeat across the large cast of characters and what draws them together is not only their coincidental experiences but their sort of ... paradigmatic realities.

Atkinson refers again and again to violence toward women and allows this popular novel (heavily contrasted to Steig Larsson, who gets unjustly credited with exposing violence toward women in his work, if you ask me) to illustrate the extreme and subtle ways in which women face violence every day. For example, one character is a policewoman whose male colleagues over and over again refer to prostitutes as "working girls". Each time, she mutters how she is also a "working woman" -- a statement so lost on her coworkers they never respond to her.

Many characters are responding to current events out of regret for how they handled a similar event in their pasts. An elderly actress suffering from early dementia relives almost simultaneously an affair and pregnancy from her youth. Her chapters are poetic:

She had that funny feeling of darkness again, of the curtain of Northern Lights before her eyes. She was on a ship plowing through the dark waters. All about her was desperation. The spars breaking, the mainmast cracking, the sails hanging in rags. The figure-head of the ship was a naked baby howling in the wind. There were babies everywhere, hanging on to the rigging for dear life, clinging to the sides of the ship as it began to sink into the icy, oily sea. Tilly must save them, she must save them all, but she can't, she is going down with the ship. Mercy on us! We split, we split!

That last bit coming from The Tempest, naturally. You see what I mean?


Read an excerpt.

The Paperbark Shoe

My review of The Paperbark Shoe is on Newcity. It's a gorgeous book!

Moonwalking with Einstein

My review of Moonwalking with Einstein is up at New City!

It's a great book, I really recommend it. I became absolutely obsessed with this book - and, it does have some great tips for memorizing. I can memorize long lists of words now using the technique in the book.

Strong Poison

I found Strong Poison in this fabulous bookstore in Milwaukee a few weeks ago - I'd probably put that bookstore on my list of top five bookstores, which, off the top of my head are:

1. The Strand, NYC
2. Powells, Portland Oregon
3. Women and Children First, Chicago
4. I can't remember the name, Mendocino, CA
5. City Lights, San Francisco

OK, well, it's definitely in my top ten.

I've been meaning to mark the provenance of all my books, but I always forget. But, I digress... Strong Poison is by Dorothy Sayers, and, by all rights, I should have read it before Gaudy Night (and so should you!)

In it, we're immediately thrown into the trail of one Harriet Vane, a mystery writer herself, who's been accused of murdering her ex. Our hero, Peter Whimsey, watching the trial, decides that Harriet is NOT guilty and also that he would like to marry her.

Despite the sexist overtones of er, our hero, Sayers's book has charming early feminist tones as well - she addresses sexism in the workplace, domestic service and the difficulty of detecting whilst female. A woman finds herself at a loss when, hot on the trail, she doesn't have a conceivable excuse, as a woman, to linger on the street, aside from gazing longingly in shop windows for a certain amount of time. She imagines all the ways a man or a boy could lurk indefinitely.

Vane and her ex-beau (fictional) were part of the (actual) Bloomsbury crowd. The Bloomsburies are a fascinating group of artists who, in this book come off as slightly wacky almost-hippies. In a way, I suppose they were - they were experimenting not just with different ways of creating art, but non-normative social structures and ways of living. These interactions with the aristocratic but easy-going Whimsey are awfully funny.

There's also a hilarious bit having to do with "Spiritualism" - another popular idea of the time, that you could communicate easily with departed souls and whatnot.

Sayers is a very witty writer and her language is just a pleasure to read - Strong Poison is a great example of her work, although, I do have one small complaint, and I'm about to drop a major spoiler, so stop reading if you intend to read it unless you have a really bad memory like I do. OK, seriously. Look away! I'm going to start a new paragraph and then I'm going to drop the spoiler.


...


...


Alright, you're with me? So, what happens is, her ex is poisoned, right? And, it turns out, his last meal was eaten entirely with someone else, and then he had tea with Harriet. But, the someone else didn't get sick, and, it turns out, that person had built up a fuckin' immunity to the poison. Come on! That's annoying. You could never figure that out. So, that was really lame, but, otherwise I couldn't put the book down, it was really great.

When the Killing's Done

Oh boy, my review of When the Killing's Done is up on Newcity Lit. And both my reviews are in the print copy if you happen to see it on the street in Chicago!

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is Aimee Bender's latest. It's really typical of her work - beautifully written, full of pathos, very girly (did you write this book just for me, A.B.?) and has an element of magic.

Magic isn't the right word but there's something about her work that's fantastical. It might even be unique. (Gasp!) Like, in Willful Creatures, she tells a story about a woman who has these little potato children, and it's not like it's a metaphor or anything, she just has. potatoes. for. children.

In this book, the young protagonist, Rose, can taste people's emotions in the food they prepare. Mainly she's eating food prepared by her mother (interestingly, she never eats food prepared by her father), whose sadness and other emotions nearly destroy her. She tastes rage, tiredness, guilt, etc., but not just from the cook, but from the farmer or the ground itself. She eventually can tell what state or which factory her food was processed in. She takes to pushing her food around and eating junk food. One of the perks (?) of the state of the food industry is that Rose can rather easily find food that no human has created - that machines mix, process, assemble and package. She saves her money for machine-made food like other children save money for toys.

The bread distributor, the bread factory, the wheat, the farmer. The butter, which had a dreary tang to it. When I checked the package, I read that it came from a big farm in Wisconsin. The cream held a thinness, a kind of metallic bumper aftertaste. The milk - weary. All of those parts distant, crowded, like the far-off sound of an airplane, or a car parking, all hovering in the background, foregrounded by the state of the maker of the food.

This book was almost painful to read because I, like just about every American woman, have my particular food issues (x 1000) and reading about this much emotionality wrapped up around food was a bit overwhelming.

Bender's book isn't a one-trick pony, however nifty that trick might be. The story about Rose's family would have been pretty interesting without her interpretive powers. The first (and only) taste of a sandwich made by her brother reveals a horrifying emptiness, the autistic-like sibling is a mystery. (Here's a hint: Quantum Physics are involved!)

Here's one of my favorite lines:

Several of the girls at the party had had sex, something which sounded appealing but only if it could happen with blindfolds in a time warp plus amnesia.

Brilliant! Just like the rest of the book!

A Visit from the Goon Squad

I'm a big fan of Jennifer Egan and have read all of her novels. Look at Me is absolutely brilliant, The Keep is great, and The Invisible Circus... isn't bad either!

Welcome to the Good Squad is her latest, and it's at least as good as my favorite (Look at Me). The main thing I love about Egan is she's soooo theoretical. When I was studying Art History, Look at Me really hit the spot because it's about visual images and definitions. At this point in my life, it turns out, I'm vaguely into quantum physics (in a theoretical, non-mathematical kind of way...) and, you won't believe what theme slips in to A Visit... Ok, I'll tell you: Quantum physics!

I'm working on a theory that we're in a period of Quantum Mechanical Angst right now, like, as a society, so it's no small surprise (according to my working theory) that this idea is popping up lately in art, literature, and theater.*

Egan's quanta explorations have mainly to do with Time. A number of characters slip forward and backward in time as she chooses parts of their stories that create who they are. At one point, one of the characters comes out and nearly quotes this book on quantum physics that I read recently:

Here was the bottom line: if we human beings are information processing machines, reading X's and O's and translating that information into what people oh so breathlessly call "experience," and if I had access to that same information via cable TV and any number of magazines that I browsed through at Hudson news for four- and five-hour stretches on my free days (my record was eight hours, including the half hour I spent manning the register during the lunch break of one of the younger employees, who thought I worked there) -- If I had not only the information but the artistry to shape that information using the computer inside my brain (real computers scared me; if you can find Them, then They can find you, and I didn't want to be found), then, technically speaking, was I not having all the same experiences those other people were having?

Egan employees various story-telling techniques, like a chapter in the form of an article written by a slightly disturbed hipster about a movie star and (guess what?) Quantum Mechanics! Another chapter is famously in the form of a power point presentation - it's surprisingly moving. Like so many authors today, Egan includes some txting language. I think it's interesting how so many artists today are starting to explore this evolution (for better or worse) in language.

Another theme she tackles is music today - its inspiration, creation and distribution. One of the characters, a producer, laments how so much music today is so cleaned up you can't hear its soul any more. I whole-heartedly agree. Egan's fittingly created a playlist on 8Track that's meant to accompany the novel.

Welcome to the Goon Squad incorporates some short stories from over the years - I remember one very clearly from the New Yorker about a publicist who goes to a unnamed country to improve the image of an unnamed dictator. I just stumbled upon another one if you're interested...

There's truly so much to process that I would like to read it again soon. I hope you'll become a Jennifer Egan fan if you're not one already - she's such a terrific writer and she requires an engaged reader.


* And math, for all I know.

Quantum Physics for Poets

My review of Quantum Physics for Poets is up at Newcity Lit!

I was inspired...

I was inspired to DRAW (which I'm not very good at, as you can see!) by Super Sad True Love Story. One of the characters was described as wearing a green jumpsuit that read SUK DIK on the front. He's playing with his äppärät.

XVI - my review!

My review of XVI, a YA novel by Julia Karr, is over on Newcity Lit. They have TONS of book reviews - check it out!

Super Sad True Love Story

We read Super Sad True Love Story, by Gary Shteyngart, for book club. I really enjoyed it and encourage everyone to read it - it was really hilarious and such a novel of our times (even though it's futuristic!)

It's written fromt he perspective of Lenny Abramov's diary and the electronic correspondence of Eunice Park. They live in the (not-so-distant) future, when everyone wears an äppärät (a device worn around the neck that makes an iphones look like an Apple II) which most people live their lives through - shopping, communicating, and assessing the vital stats - credit and "fuckability" - of everyone else.

Lenny works for Post-Human services, which helps HNWI (high net worth individuals) extend their lives indefinitely. Terrified of death, he's drawn to the young, lithe, Eunice and practically worships her into being his girlfriend. I was a bit leary that this was going to be one of those old-man-resurrected-by-youthful-tail tales, almost always completely unbelievable and largely if not exclusively written by aging old men, but Eunice is such an unlikable character she hardly resurrects anyone.

Shteyngart's novel is less sci-fi and more of a dead-on satire of today's culture. Consumerism, corporations infecting politics, hyper-sexualized people (he writes about "Juicy-Pussy for Men" and Onionskin pants - clear pants!), youth obsession - all are examined to hilarious (and terrifying!) extremes:

At least your Lenny lvoes you so much he'll never ever cheat on you. I can't understand why you're feeling so insecure about him. So he's brain-smart. Who cares??? It's not like he's some superstar Media guy or VP and LandOLakes. So he REALLY, REALLY READS instead of scans. Big whoop. Maybe you guys can read to each other in bed or something. And then you can sew your own clothes. HA HA HA. Anyway, looking good is the new smart, and I don't think you should have kids with him because you'll have really ugly children.

This book reminded a lot of us in book club of Feed - in which "book smart" intelligence is not only undervalued but ridiculed. What's coming across is a real sense of anxiety from some writers about the future of, I think, not just reading (physical) books, but reading at all.

I loved the juxtiposition of Lenny's style with Eunice's, and their telling of the same events. Shteyngart's structure and plotting were really clever and I admired it so much. There's actually so much to discuss I can't really fit it into a blog post and I don't want to give away to much of the story except to say: You must read this!

One Amazing Thing

I've been a fan on Chitra Divakaruni for quite awhile. She often writes about Indian diaspora and sets most of her stories in San Francisco (where I used to live). I had the pleasure of seeing her read in San Francisco once and it really stuck with me - sometimes when I read her books, it's like she's reading to me. (It's not as creepy as it sounds...)

While One Amazing Thing ostensibly doesn't take place in SF (apparently Divakaruni now lives in Houston, of all places), to me it did - the fact that it's about a group of people stuck in an Indian consulate after a massive earthquake cements it for me.

What I really like about this quick read is that Divakaruni creates nine distinct characters, each of whom tell a story - one amazing thing - about their lives to their fellow captives to pass the time, and distract focus from their own terror, while they're trapped in an increasingly dangerous place. With that type of story, I think a lot of characters have a tendency to merge together and I have a hard time keeping them straight, but I never had that problem with this book.

It reminded me quite a bit of Douglas Coupland's Generation A, which I read last year. Both books are about how the stories of our lives, when shared, lead to a greater sense of community and understanding. This is a common theme in Divakaruni's books, in which characters from a wide variety of cultural and social backgrounds are forced to interact.

Here's one of my favorite parts:

"When had it happened? Looking back, I could not point to one special time and say, There! That's what is amazing. We can change completely and not recognize it. We think terrible events have made us into stone. But love slips in like a chisel - and suddenly it is an ax, breaking us into pieces from the inside."

Beautiful!

Tiger Mother

I haven't read this book, Tiger Mother, but it came on my radar when I was visiting my friend and her new baby. It's a book that's supposedly about Chinese parenting - or at least one Chinese-American's interpretation. The mother tells her children they're a big disappointment and not living up to her expectations of them. Huh, sounds a lot like Midwestern parenting!*

We practiced by telling the charming newborn what a failure and a disappointment she was and then laughing raucously (well, mostly just me and the dad, my friend could not even utter the words).

Judith Warner's review in NYT Magazine is worth reading, if only for the hilarious beginning paragraphs (even my baby wearing, co-sleeping friend agreed!):

There was bound to be some push back. All the years of nurturance overload simply got to be too much. The breast-feeding through toddlerhood, nonstop baby wearing, co-sleeping, “Baby Mozart” co-watching; the peer pressure for never-ending singsong-voiced Mommy niceness, the ever-maddening chant of “good job!”; compulsory school “involvement” (that is, teacher-delegated busywork packaged as a way to Show Your Child You Care), the rapt attendance at each and every school performance, presentation, sporting event — the whole mishmash of modern, attuned, connected, concerned, self-esteem-building parenting.

The reaction came in waves. There were expert warnings, with moralists claiming that all this loosey-goosey lovey-dovey-ness was destroying the hierarchical fiber of the American family, and psychologists writing that all that self-esteem building was leading to epidemic levels of pathological ninnyishness in kids. Then there was a sort of quasi-hedonist revolt, cries of rebellion like Christie Mellor’s “Three Martini Playdate,” mother-toddler happy hours (postpregnancy liberation from “What to Expect” sanctimony!) and take-the-kid-out-all-night hipster parenting. Then came “free range” parenting, an appellation with the added advantage of sounding both fresh and fancy, like a Whole Foods chicken; “simplicity parenting” (recession-era lack of cash dressed up as principled rejection of expensive lessons); and, eventually, a kind of edgy irritation with it all: a new stance of get-tough no-nonsense, frequently called — with no small amount of pride — being a “bad” mother.

read the article

*I kid, I kid. Sort of.

Freedom

I spent most of 2010 hearing about how great Jonathan Franzen's Freedom was, while stubbornly refusing to purchase the hardcover. Then I finally did buy it out of desperation for something excellent to read over the Christmas holiday and it turns out I didn't find it that excellent.

It's a book about this midwestern family that has its fair share of problems and it follows them through their various foibles and silliness. It tackles a couple of pretty big themes like freedom and consumerism and conservation, but in the end, I never felt any connection to this family after spending 550 pages with them. I think that's because the entire book is written in the 3rd person and with a very dry and witty narration that makes the whole cast of characters look like a bunch of jackholes. It never moved me or touched me.

The third person really turned me off, particularly when the book was actually from the perspective of one of the characters who writes about herself in the third person. Ugh. I mean, honestly. This character, the mother (and I don't think I'm ruining it for you) writes about how she was raped as a teenager and that part read particularly untrue to me. Taking into account, naturally, that everyone's experiences are different and that a rape victim's reaction, whatever it might be, is not for anyone else to judge, not to mention that it's a work of fiction, but I just found it so untrue and it influenced the remainder of the book for me.

The indignity was that Ethan had considered her such a nothing that he could just rape her and then take her home. And she was not such a nothing. She was, among other things, already, as a junior, the all-time single-season record holder for assists at Horace Greeley High School. A record she would again demolish the following year! She was also first-team All State in a state that included Brooklyn and the Bronx. And yet a golfing boy she hardly even knew had thought it was OK to rape her.

I'm a big fan of The Corrections and would like to read it again. I find it curious that Franzen writes another book about a midwestern family that's sort of fucked up, in which the son goes to far-flung places for dubious business dealings, and everyone has sort of inappropriate sexual adventures. Meanwhile, Franzen gets credited with writing about EVERY family and continues to get such praise as the "masterpiece of American fiction", which I'm not sure it deserves. It's just such a classic that the man gets credited with capturing the human condition while a similar book, written by a woman, would be tucked in the "chick-lit" section. (Or, well ok, maybe it might win the Pulitzer.) There's a great article/story on NPR about feminist reaction to the praise that Franzen receives - check it out.

Freedom is quite funny, and there's a hilarious bit at the end about the father's dealings with his neighbors' cats. I also quite liked how he wrote about consumerism and over-population, but, I do regret buying the hardcover.

Huck Finn and the N word

What's the use you learning to do right, when it's troublesome to do right and ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?

There's an interesting debate going on right now about a new version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn which is about to be published, with the numerous instances of the "n" word replaced with the word "slave."^*

An educator and Twain scholar is behind the new edition, supposedly because he wanted it to be more easily taught and less offensive. More

I really love that book, despite the repetition of that noxious word. I agree that it's difficult to teach, because I foolheartedly tried to do so myself back when I was younger and slightly stupider and didn't think too far ahead. But, I disagree with re-writing history, especially when it's done to gloss over an unhappy part of our history. Facing up to our shameful past is difficult, but it can lead to greater understanding and compassion. It's really disappointing to me when I hear that educators censor, because they're passing up on such a perfect opportunity to have a thoughtful dialogue about the material. Luckily, I don't think I'm alone, because I've seen a number of articles condemning the new book, but, it looks like it will be published and will be available in schools.

I presume that the reason this is even possible is because the book is older than 100 years old, but I don't understand the copyright issues. I would assume that the Twain estate might have some control over the rights. Can anyone republish an edition of a book older than 100 years and change whatever they like?

Word of the Day: Bowdlerize

Here's an article with a pro-new addition slant.

^* Apparently also "Injun Joe" is changed to "Indian Joe" and "half-breed" to "half-blood."

Oops

Oops, I just realized my chart was wrong because I forgot to review a couple of books - Winter's Bone and the Satanic Verses.

Anyway, the numbers look like this, for posterity's sake:
43 Fiction books
7 Non-fiction books
25 books by women
25 books by men

For some reason, I'm having trouble processing the Satanic Verses, which is an amazing and challenging book to read. We read it for book club and everyone loved it although most agreed it totally kicked their ass.

Winter's Bone (by Daniel Woodrell) deserves a longer write-up too, which I'm not sure I'll be able to provide. It's a fine little book that can be quickly read but better off savored. It's about a young woman who is searching for her meth-cook father in order to save their family shack, which is, nevertheless, the only thing they have. It's language and imagery is brutal - she's described as someone who looks like she had been "smacked and smacked again." There was an amazing part where she sleeps in a cave during a snow storm. She builds a fire and takes off her wet clothes and survives the night like a wild animal (or a resourceful pre-historic woman, perhaps). That part reminded me very much of an early novel by Margaret Atwood book called Surfacing where the protagonist goes into the woods to live. From Winter's Bone:

She stood in sunlight and stretched, a great long body pale and twisting at the brink of a cave. She walked to water dripping from the rock above the cave mouth, cupped her hands to the trickle and drank and drank deeply of the falling new water.

Here's my updated graph:

2010: Books in Review

I continue my analysis of yearly reading. In 2010, I read:
41 Fiction books
7 Non-fiction books
25 books by women
23 books by men

Favorites:
It was a great year for terrific YA Fiction, I greatly enjoyed the entire The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins and Feed by M.T. Anderson. I was also impacted and effected by a couple of non-fiction books, How To Suppress Women's Writing by Joanna Russ and Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh. I re-read everything by J.D. Salinger this year - he'll always a favorite of mine.

I have a few Reading/Writing resolutions for 2011, which are to read new books in hard-cover even though I don't really like reading hardcover books (just because they're heavy and a pain in the ass, but I really want to read newer material) and to do some writing of my own.

Here's a comparison chart to previous years:


2008 in review
2009 in review

The Passage

I read something vaguely promising about The Passage somewhere so when I saw it in a used book store, I snatched it up. Perhaps not the wisest purchase because I got it in one of those books-by- the- pound places and it's 750 pages. Also it blows and I'm not going to finish it. It's this dumb book by Justin Cronin about a secret virus thing they give to convicts that turns them into vampires. And then the vampires break out of this secret bunker place and start destroying the whole world. And meanwhile, this one guy is watching a little girl who also has the virus but she doesn't try to kill anyone, she's just really sensitive to light, see? But the guy is really dimwitted and he's like, huh, I wonder what this weird virus is that turns people into raving blood thirsty super-strength lunatics? Oh well, I'm just going to keep taking care of this light-sensitive kid.

There is just nothing in the world more boring than a book about kids, amirite?

I thought it would be a sort of perfect vampire- related brainless novel, perfect for laying around my parents house during the holidays, but it's way too brainless. It reads kind of like a cross between Dan Brown and Michael Creighton. So, I popped out to the bookstore and got another 550 page book - Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen. This is making a lot of Best of 2010 book lists (I'll write mine soon) so perhaps I'll finish it before the new year and add it to mine too. So far, it's about 10,000 x's better than The Passage.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

My first review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was more of a rant about English and American versions of the books and avoided all spoilers. After the movie came out, I read it again, and, assuming you've read the book by now if you're going to, this will be rife with spoilers.

This book dives right into the Harry universe without so much as a gentle recap of the storyline, which I appreciate. I thought the bit with Harry finally saying goodbye to the Dursleys, and the Dursley's complete inability to look him in the eye, with the exception of a changed Duddly, was some fine foreshadowing that this book was not going to have a fairy tale ending, and that it's not exactly a children's book anymore. I sped through the first half, where Harry, Hermione and Ron are wandering around the countryside looking for horcruxes. I loved what Rowling did with Hermione's beaded bag and all the things she packed in there. I enjoyed reading the back-story of Kreacher, the Black's house elf. (BTW, I though the movie was excellent!)

The second part, the break into and out of Gringotts, the war at Hogwarts, was really exciting. I could barely put the book down when I got to the end. When they jump on that dragon in Gringotts and break out of there... oooo! And, when they get to Hogwarts and the other students are in the Room of Requirement, just waiting for such an opportunity to fight, I thought their bravery, such an, honestly, rather unusual quality these days, read as true. My favorite bits were McGonnagal chasing Snape and fighting.

"My word," puffed, pale and sweaty, his walrus moustache aquiver. "What a to-do! I'm not at all sure whether this is wise, Minerva. he is bound to find a way in, you know, and anyone who has tried to delay him will be in more grievous peril -"

"I shall expect you and the Slytherins in the Great Hall in twenty minutes, also," said Professor McGonagall. "If you wish to leave with your students, we shall not stop you. But if any of you attempt to sabotage our resistance, or take up arms against us within this castle, then, Horace, we duel to kill."

"Minerva!" he said, aghast.

And, I thought Rowling pulled an interesting little literary conceit at the end when we're not quite sure what's going to happen to Harry where he goes through a long series of Snape's memories (although it borders slightly on the Matrix construct), and finally found out that Snape actually WAS a good guy and working for Dumbledore this WHOLE time! Good grief!

I've heard some folks say they didn't exactly love the wrap up 16 years later with Harry and Ginny, Ron and Hermione taking their kids to the train station, but I thought it was excellent. I did want to know that all those parties got together and that Neville became a professor and that even Draco make it out ok. These are characters I was invested in, and it pleased me to read that Harry continues to honor his heroes - Dumbledore, his parents, and Snape, "the bravest man [he] ever knew."

Zeitoun

Zeitoun is written by Dave Eggers about a man named Abdulrahman Zeitoun and his wife, Kathy. It's sort of the same idea as Eggers brilliant and beautiful What is the What. Zeitoun and Kathy lived in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina and chronicles what happened to their family. Zeitoun wouldn't evacuate the city with his wife and children because he owned a construction company and several rental properties and wanted to make sure they were in order, and, like many others, he had no idea how bad the storm would be.

The first part is how they learned about the storm and deciding whether or not to leave town, the second is how Zeitoun lived in the flooded city and some of the things he did to help people and animals, while his wife tried to find a place for her and the kids to stay. This part is really fascinating because Zeitoun had a canoe, which he used to help a handful of people, and he slept on the roof of his garage in a tent (because it was too hot in the house) quite happily. He fed neighborhood dogs that were trapped in their houses.

The story of his wife's adventures are less action-packed, but the story of her life is really interesting - she's a southern woman who converted to Islam and married the Syrian immigrant, Zeitoun. Her own family is unsupportive of her choices and her former Christian mega-church mocked her honest exploration of the Muslim faith. Her experience as a Muslim woman in the south could have made a great book in its own right.

The third part of the book came as rather a shock to me because I had no idea it was coming - Zeitoun was unlawfully imprisoned by FEMA agents and kept in jail without sentencing or a phone call for over a month. He was abused, served pork products that he couldn't eat, isolated and kept like an animal in an outdoor cage without so much as a blanket or a bed. He was arrested with one of his tenants and two companions on his own property. His companions had it even worse than him - they spent 5, 6 and 8 months in jail and lost all their possessions and savings. The book is a really horrifying tale of human rights abuses, not merely those related to how Zeitoun was treated but also how the swarms of military sent to New Orleans after the hurricane were not only ineffectual but caused more damage. Zeitoun, for example, paddling in his canoe was able to locate people who needed help because he could hear them. The military response rode giant boats that were loud and created dangerous waves. A "rescue" helicopter nearly killed him.

In summary, the Zeitouns seemed to be suffering from some fairly severe post-traumatic stress disorder - I hope they're doing better now. The betrayal of a government they trusted and the hatefulness of those in power destroyed some of their faith in humanity. It was very disturbing to read. Like many Eggers book, this one ends with pages of organizations to combat human rights violations and rebuild New Orleans, so if you finish with the desire to do more, you can.

Evermore

I don't recall where I happened across a review of Evermore, but, anywho, it got compared to Twilight, only slightly more racy. And I was like, Alright. I'm in.

There are some quite amusing reviews on Amazon arguing about whether it's better or worse than Twilight, but what's clear is this book is obviously heavily influenced by our friend Stephanie Meyer. It was as if the author, Alyson Noel, read Twilight and said, "I can do better than that." And then did mildly better than that.

Ever, the 16/17 year old protagonist, moves to California to live with her Aunt after her family is killed in a car accident. She quickly locks eyes with Damen and finds herself inextricably drawn to him. Turns out, Damen has a secret - seems like he's hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of years old, and to prove it, he does some creepy old-man tricks like pulling flowers from behind girl's ears. Sound familiar?

(One of) the weird things about Twilight is that Edward and Bella are really crazy about each other even though neither one has anything to be crazy about. They're both boring, unlikable characters with little personality outside chuckling and clumsiness. In Evermore, the main characters are only slightly more interesting, but at least Ever has some talents of her own - she can read minds and see auras, and, she also sees her sister - a ghost who died in that car crash.

Yes, but how racy is it, you ask? Well, not very. Anyone looking for the broken beds and bruises (ick) of Breaking Dawn will be disappointed. Ever and Damen kisss and she dribbles off those bobby brooks, but panics when he goes for her undies. Then this happens:

And when it's clear he has no plans to continue I say, "You know, it would really be nice if you'd stop talking in code, finish a sentence, and tell me what the heck is going on. Because all I know is that Evangeline is dead, Haven's wrist is a red oozing mess, you ditched me at the beach because I wouldn't go all the way, and now you're breaking up with me."

That was the first of two passages that made me laugh, although I'm pretty sure it wasn't intentional.

Here's the other one... Eventually Damen explains that he's an "immortal" and so is Ever, sort of. Also, she's been reincarnated a bunch of times and they always fall in love. He even explains how he pulls all those flowers out of mid-air:

He smiles. "Manifesting. Same way you made the elephant, and this beach. It's simple quantum physics."

Ah, yes! Quantum physics!

I picked up the second book in the series, Blue Moon, but I don't think I'll read it. Well. Skim it. Maybe.

Curse of the Wolf Girl

When we were on vacation in France, I read Curse of the Wolf Girl while husband read the first two Hunger Games books. Not surprisingly, we both finished pretty quickly, then were tortured by all those fabulous French book stores and book stalls along the river full of French books we can't read.

Curse of the Wolf Girl is the anxiously awaited follow-up to Lonely Werewolf Girl by Martin Millar. A bit too long awaited, for me and my bad memory, because I had no recollection of how that book ended.

This second novel continues the story of Kalix and her family, as well as her rag-tag group of well-meaning, goofy, goth roommates (including the nearly-adopted niece of Malveria the Fire Queen, my favorite character.) It was really funny and caused me to laugh out loud frequently and entertain an ungrateful husband to whom I like to read against his will. It's also packed-full of adventure and fights which I don't ever recall enjoying reading before. Is this a new dawn, I thought, of enjoying "action" books? I asked husband. "What do you mean, action? You never read action books before?"

"Not like this," I said, as I read aloud the following:

Malveria smiled. She took a step forward to address the Fire Elementals who remained at her side. All around were the bodies of fallen comrades. "Gentlemen." She raised her voice over the sound of the thunderous fire. "We are fortunate. It is rare that the opportunity presents itself to perform great deeds of valor that will be talked about in ages to come. We will advance, dispatch the enemy, and return in triumph to let the bards sing songs about us. If any of you would rather not participate in this glorious victory, please feel free to withdraw."

God help me if I didn't pick up the first to Evermore books from the library that I heard are like the new Twilight. Well, sort of - there are some rather hilarious reviews on Amazon that greatly debate whether it's better or worse. Ie. "This series is just as good as Twilight saga!!!!!" and "Evermore is basically Twilight, only much more poorly written, with a dash of "quantum physics", a pinch of a glossed-over theory of reincarnation, and a dollop of The Secret for good measure." Oooo - burrrrrnnn. Well, I'll let you know soon. Right now I'm deep in the throes of the Satanic Verses so I think it will be just the thing to cleanse my palate when I'm done.

The Diary of a Disappointed Book

The Diary of a Disappointed Book from Studiocanoe on Vimeo.

Peace is Every Step

I have been experiencing a teensy bit of stress lately and asked a friend that seems to have it together to recommend a good source for chilling out. She recommended two books - Peace is Every Step, by Thich Nhat Hanh and Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living by Pema Chodron.

Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk and apparently very well respected in the Buddhist community, as far as I could tell from the approving comments of my few Buddhist friends. Peace is Every Step was very helpful in reducing my stress level. Nhat Hanh's all about breathing deeply and repeating meditative phrases to stay in the moment, like:

Breathing in, I know that I am breathing in. Breathing out, I know that I am breathing out.

and, if you're more stressed out or angry, you might say:

Breathing in, I know that anger is here.
Breathing out, I know that the anger is me.
Breathing in, I know that anger is unpleasant.
Breathing out, I know this feeling will pass.
Breathing in, I am calm.
Breathing out, I am strong enough to take care of this anger.

That became frequently helpful, alas to say, many times recently. Repeatedly.

There are some Buddhist practices that I really identify with, and others I wish I could identify with more (but it doesn't seem to be in my nature!) Nhat Hanh, for example, encourages readers to try to understand why "people that cause suffering" might be suffering themselves. I think that's all well and good to a certain point, but I think I'm not a big enough person to do that consistently. He compares anger to a compost pile out of which beautiful things might grow: "When anger is born in us, we can be aware that anger is an energy in us, and we can accept that energy in order to transform it into another kind of energy." OK, but how about cursing and crying and slamming doors and watching tv until all our troubles seem to disappear?

I kid. Sort of. Actually, this book really inspired me (to be a better person!) and I think I should read it a few times more. Although, the jerk in me thinks it's very nice for a monk to propose these things because he's surrounded by a bunch of other monks who are super nice and always practicing mindfulness and whatnot, while the rest of us are mostly surrounded by complete A-holes. Amirite?

I most mention, however, when this book helped me deal with something that was really upsetting me - I had just gone to a funeral of a beloved family friend, and someone in that family had also just had a baby. Grieving and celebrating, welcoming life and saying goodbye all at once was causing me some overload. I couldn't process my emotions. Then, on the way home, I was reading this book and he ends with a poem called Call Me by My True Names, which goes, in part:

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all
walks of life.
My pain is like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.

Innocent Blood

Lately I've developed a affection for British crime novels written by the ladies (Sayers, James) and picked up Innocent Blood somewhere, probably for a quarter or free... I think I need to officially declare that Sayers shall heretofore be my go-to-lady-British-crime-novelist because James has done me wrong too many times.

Innocent Blood is kind of ridiculous. It's about a young woman, Philippa, who's adopted, and she finds out that her birth mother is in prison for murder. But, for various reasons, this doesn't really bother her, even though her birth mother and father were convicted of raping and murdering a child. So, when her mom gets out of prison, they rent a flat together and get to know each other, vaguely. Meanwhile, the father of the murdered child is trying to find the birth mother and kill her.

I found the whole thing unbelievable and the characters really under-developed. In the end (here come some spoilers...), it turns out the birth mother was greatly abused as a child herself (not surprisingly) and what James seems to be half-heartedly pursuing was the idea that violence and disregard for others is a result of nature. In the end, I mean, like the last two pages, Philippa ends up having sex with her adopted dad, which I just thought was a punch in the face after reading the damn thing and I was quite furious:

What, she wondered, had it meant exactly, that gentle, tender, surprisingly uncomplicated coupling; an affirmation, a curiosity satisfied, a test successfully passed, an obstacle ceremoniously moved out of the way so that they could again take up their roles of father and daughter, the excitement of incest without its legal prohibition.

See? That's exactly what I mean about unbelievable characters - nobody has sex with their adopted dad and calls it uncomplicated.

Mockingjay - Spoilers!

I almost walked over to my friend's house and broke in to steal something in the middle of the night. That item? Her copy of Mockingjay. I'd just finished Catching Fire, and I needed that book. I couldn't think about anything else.

Like the other two books in the trilogy, I read the final installment in less than 2 days and really couldn't be distracted to do anything else until I was done. It's a really phenomenal series and absolutely gripping! I'm actually relieved I didn't discover them until they were all out, or I would have been in agony waiting for them to be released!

I'm going to get into specifics, so stop now if you intend to read this in the future...

As you may recall, at the end of Catching Fire, Kitness has just been snatched out of the arena and discovered that Peeta is in the hands of the Capital. At the beginning of Mockingjay, we learn that the revolution is in full swing and Katniss, her mom and sister, Gale and many others are living in District 13, underground. The rebels want Katniss to be the symbol of the revolution, The Mockingjay. She finally consents, after making some conditions. She does inspire the districts with her bravado and hatred for the Capital's practices. I think that bit of the books is interesting because (although I often forget) these are YA books with a largely un-confident female protagonist, who has to prove to herself, or have others point out, that she really is a remarkable and inspiring person. While she may otherwise have little in common with teenage girl readers of the books, it's quite likely that they'll have lack-of-confidence in common.

I enjoyed reading about the underground caverns that make up district 13. How they got their daily schedule temporarily tattooed on their arms, what they ate, what they wore, what their rooms were like. The rebels understood as well as the Capital how important the message of the revolution is - Katniss is instructed to make propos (propoganda messages) to be aired across the districts, while President Snow creates his own propos, using an ever-beaten down Peeta as his tool.

Because Katniss is so overwhelmed by the thought that Peeta is being tortured to effect her, the Rebels free him and others from the Capital, but Peeta's been "hijacked" to believe that she's the enemy and tries to kill her. I thought that was a really clever plot devise even though I found it kind of devastating because I was so wrapped up in the story.

This inspires Katniss and others to topple the Capital, so she, Gale, Finnick and some others (followed by a camera crew) go off to fight. They discover that the Capital has been rigged, much like the Games, with all kinds of crazy traps, and lots of folks on their team get killed. Isn't it interesting when you love someone in a book and when they get killed or die, you've got to recover a little? This book reminded me a lot of the last Harry Potter book (also about a war, also were beloved characters are killed) but Suzanne Collins' book struck a more universal note with me. Ultimately Katniss becomes the sort of moral barometer of the war. She feels the weight of each person she's killed, has caused to be killed, or even sees die. Her friend Gale is the opposite - he looks at the war strategically and logistically and it ultimately drives a wedge between them.

I love how the book ends with Katniss and Peeta creating a book together of everyone who died in their lives, the games, and the revolution:

The page begins with the person's picture. A photo if we can find it. If not, a sketch or painting by Peeta. Then in my most careful handwriting, come all the details it would be a crime to forget. Lady licking Prim's cheek. My father's laugh. Peeta's father with the cookies. The color of Finnick's eyes. What Cinna could do with a length of silk. Boggs reprogramming the Holo. Rue poised on her toes, arms slightly extended, like a bird about to take flight. On and on. We seal the pages with salt water and promises to live well to make their deaths count.

In Mockingjay, Collins illustrates the futility of war, while complicating the fact with the need for revolution. I think it's a really thought-provoking series that leads the reader to contemplate the complicity and responsibility of citizens relationships to their governments. I'm going to enjoy rereading these books many times.

Catching Fire - Spoilers!

I do not like buying hardcover books, but I was drawn to the bookstore mere moments after finishing The Hunger Games where I stood holding and cursing an obnoxiously priced Catching Fire. $18.95? Really?

But, I had to have it. I was addicted, but good. And, for the next 48 hrs or so, I did little else but read it.

In this book, Katniss and Peeta are forced to go on a victory tour through the districts, where they uphold the appearance of their faux romance. Which is sort of real. And Katniss is so confused! And Peeta sleeps in her train compartment! But I don't think they have sex or anything! Anyway, they refuse to play into the Capital's hand and are gracious to the families of the dead tributes in District 2 and get themselves into trouble. They cause so many problems that another Hunger Games is declared and former winners have to play in it! OMG! That was very upsetting. For me and for Katniss.

I got so wrapped up in these books and characters that it was really pretty sad for me when people died or got hurt. I haven't felt real sadness for a dead fictional character since Charlotte's Web. When Cinna got beat up in front of Katniss just before she went into the arena... oh! That was brutal! And some of the new characters are just so fun - the saucy Finnick with a heart of gold, the abrasive Johanna who says, "They can't hurt me. I'm not like the rest of you. There's no one left I love."

My only complain about the plot contrivances is that a lot of Katniss's confusion (how does Peeta really feel about her, why are all the other tributes sacrificing themselves in the arena) could easily be solved by a little chat, but... she's a teenager, I get it. But, these books are so addictive, and not in a bad Twilight-way, a great Harry-Potter-kind-of-way. I think you know what happened after I finished this one...