The History of Love

I read The History of Love a few years ago, but too quickly, and was confused at the end. I suggested it for my book club and reread the book, taking my time, drawing a little family tree on the back page as if it were a novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (someone in book club actually compared it to Garcia Marquez).

Nicole Krauss's novel is quite beautiful; her writing style is elegant and her characters are richly developed. The History of Love has several narratives, and two stories that, I don't think I'll ruin it by telling you, become entwined. Here's a favorite passage:

I want to say somewhere: I've tried to be forgiving. And yet. There were time in my life, whole years, when anger got the better of me. Ugliness turned me inside out. There was a certain satisfaction in bitterness. I courted it. It was standing outside, and I invited it in. I scowled at the world. And the world scowled back. We were locked in a state of mutual disgust. I used to let the door slam in people's faces. I farted where I wanted to fart. I accused cashiers of cheating me out of a penny, while holding the penny in my hand. And then one day I realized I was on my way to being the sort of schmuck who poisons pigeons. People crossed the street to avoid me. I was a human cancer. And to be honest: I wasn't really angry. Not anymore. I had left my anger somewhere long ago. Put it down on a park bench and walked away. And yet. It had been so long, I didn't know any other way of being. One day I woke up and said to myself: It's not to late.

Krauss does some interesting things with text which I just love. She really reminds you that you're reading a story, on paper - she somehow make the act of turning the page very exciting. It feels very inclusive and personal to read such a book.

A lot of this hot crop of young writers have a similar style, most notably Krauss's husband, one Jonathan Safran Foer, who, if you've read his books, you'll assume the two sat side by side at their computers, sharing the same outline*. But, others are doing marvelous things too: Dave Eggers, Marisha Pessl & Joe Meno. I spend a fair amount of time bitterly wishing *I* were hobnobbing a various writers' wooded retreats and publishing multiple novels before reaching the age of 35. Anywho, they basically drive me insane with envy. But I do think these folks (don't forget Bender, Freudenberger, Z. Smith...) are making major contributions to the literary cannon.

* Apparently they did not read each others novels before they were finished.

Give Aways!

I like that old adage: one person's trash is another person's treasure. Must be why I like thrift stores and garage sales so much!

So, these weren't my favorite books, but I ain't gonna judge you if you want to read them! If anyone wants All Is Vanity or Kiss My Tiara, leave your email address in comments - I'll get your real address and mail it to you!

No Fond Return of Love

No Fond Return of Love, by Barbara Pym, is something of an ensemble story. As the title implies, hardly anyone's love is fondly returned. There were some standout moments in this book, but overall it did not excite me the way Excellent Women did.

The main character, Dulcie Mainwaring, is similar to other Pym heroines - perpetually single, seemingly selfless, a good friend. But her character really frustrated me because she cast herself as an observer in her own life. Writes Pym:

It seemed - though she did not say this to Viola - so much safer and comfortable in the lives of other people - to observe their joys and sorrows with an air of detachment as if one were watching a film or play.

Although Dulcie's clearly fascinated by a man she meets, instead of acknowledging her feelings, she practically stalks him. She invites him and a few other folks and her young niece, Laurel, to dinner:

Laurel looked at the two women scornfully. If only they could realize how ridiculous and embarrassing they were! She began to clear away the soup plates rather noisily. There was something so depressing about the culture of middle-aged people.

Now, that's funny.

Now doubt Pym knew what she was doing - Dulcie's character exemplifies a type of person who waits for things to happen to her. She may seem "sweet" and "nice" - but I think Pym's (not so subtly) mocking her.

However, what's really interesting about Dulcie's character is how she doesn't match the typical stereotypes of the female heroine. What Dulcie lacks is any kind of eroticism - she doesn't seem to desire love, and people find it vaguely impossible that she could be a romantic person. In the midst of this "romantic" novel Dulcie is the one who never seems to long for that fond return of love. I love how Pym balks at the traditional by turning the novel on it's head - now I've read three of her books in the last few months and each one in unconventional. Read this conversation between Dulcie and her cleaning woman:

"You could make so much more of yourself, Miss Mainwaring," said Miss Lord almost on a despairing note, "if only you would."

"What should I do?" Dulcie asked.

"Well, you could have your hair restyled by one of those Italian hairdressers - in the bouffant style, they call it - it would add fullness to your face, make your head look bigger."

"Do I want my head to look bigger?" Dulcie fingered her fine, smooth hair. "Would it be an advantage? Anyway, I don't think my hair would go like that."

"You could have a perm - to give it body," said Miss Lord eagerly. "They use rollers to set it, you know. And you could use more eye make-up. It would make your eyes look bigger."

Dulcie laughed. "Goodness! Head bigger and eyes bigger - then what?
...
"You read too much, that's your trouble," said Miss Lord, seeing Dulcie settling down at the table with a book. "They [men] don't like it."

"No, I don't think they do," said Dulcie, but absently now, as the world of the book began to seem the real one.

Finally, my favorite passage - from the perspective of the object of Dulcie's fascination:

He read the notice on the front door - "JUMBLE SALE - IN AID OF THE ORGAN FUND". This was really too much! The things women did to men! Had anybody ever really made a serious study of the subject, of the innumerable pinpricks and humiliations endured by men at the hands of women? How could he enter the house with flowers for his wronged wife when the place was crowded with women buying and selling jumble in aid of the organ fund!

Yes, well, it's all for the best that Dulcie never got to know him...

Payback

I just finished Margaret Atwood's Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth for book club. I'm a big fan of Atwood, I love her short stories, her poems, her novels, I've even read a kid's book she wrote. This is the first non-fiction book of hers I've read (I was sort of shocked to see all the non-fiction she's written - I thought I had read all her work) and I really (surprise!) loved it.

What Atwood's written is a lecture - an argument - about debt. How it came to be (shortly followed by the invention of language, to keep track of transactions), how money and debt are conceptual and theoretical (a point not unclear to those of us who are watching the financial crisis playing out right now.), what it means to carry debt (throughout time). Atwood is thorough - she writes: humans have debt... now, what is a human? The only reason debt is possible is because we have an innate sense of fairness. And then she'll list half a dozen examples of how children (and monkeys!) seek fairness.

She does a rather in-depth analysis of The Mill on the Floss, which I just read last year. I thought her reading of the book in relation to debt was spot on. I was less enraptured by her frequent returns to the story of Scrooge - I'm not a big Dickens fan.

It was exciting to talk about the book with some folks who haven't read Atwood before and I hope that we've hooked a few more fans!

Kiss My Tiara

I wish I'd read Kiss My Tiara: How to Rule the World as a Smartmouth Goddess, by Susan Jane Gilman 10 or even 20 years ago. Although, since it was just published in 2001, I guess that isn't possible. But, for my 34 year old self didn't learn very much, while by 24 and definitely 14 year-old self could have really stood to read this. Kiss My Tiara, a "guide for intelligent women" reviews many of the various ways women are discriminated against or culturally disadvantaged and has some smartass ways to deal with them, and urges us to drastically overhaul our thinking on some issues.

Alas, basic things like supporting other women and not beating ourselves up about the shape of our bodies are the sort of things that bear repeating. Also this prize piece of wisdom, which nobody told me until I turned 30: The twenties basically suck. Dang it! I wish someone had told me that so I didn't spend a whole decade wondering why I wasn't having the time of my life and feeling bad because I wasn't.

One thing I didn't like about this book was how Gilman casts the snide remark around about our feminist foremothers. Take this paragraph from her introduction:

For in certain ways traditional feminism just isn't cutting it with us. For women today, feminism is often perceived as dreary. As elitist, academic, Victorian, whiny and passé. And to some extent- Goddess forgive me for saying this - it's true. I'm not knocking the women's movement of the past years. I'm a huge advocate and beneficiary of choice, workplace-protection laws and domestic-violence legislation. But...

Eek. "I'm a feminist, but"??? I'm proud to call myself a feminist, but it's pretty clear Gilman isn't, because she skirts around it all through the book. For one thing, there's no such thing as "traditional" feminism - there's not a feminist handbook out there that says Feminists hate men; Feminists don't shave their legs; Feminists burned their bras (they didn't) - much as so many people think. So what, exactly, isn't cutting it for Gilman? For a woman who uses the term "Goddess" over and over, and apparently without irony, I can't understand why she can't proudly proclaim she's a feminist when she so clearly is. This is a semantic issue, but I'm a feminist who plays close attention to language - it is, after all, male-centered. (Did you notice, for example, how I wrote she "skirts" the issue? Why are skirts such a great example of avoiding and passively ignoring?) A book that does a great job at explaining the roots of feminism and it's future among young women is Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future by Jennifer Baumgardner. That was the book that helped me understand the women's movement better than anything I'd read before. I'd recommend it to persons young and old who are interested in a more intellectual approach to women's issues, and I can't imagine finishing that book and not being proud to label yourself a feminist.

Best of 2008

Just did a little inventory of my reading in 2008. It was a good year for books - I started a book club, which gives me no end of satisfaction - there's a great crew of people and we have really terrific conversations.

I read:
21 Fiction books
9 Non-fiction (that's a lot, for me)
20 books by women and
10 by men

Hmm... that list seems pretty small to me. You know what's funny? I either ride my bike to work or take a quick ride in the car in bad weather, so I no longer have a reading commute. Also, sometimes at night I listen to a short story podcast rather than read with my eyes. Usually when I think about retiring, the thing I get most excited about is having all the time I want to read!

My top five for 2008 are:
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz;
Fun Home (A Family Tragicomic), by Alison Bechdel;
Excellent Women, by Barbara Pym;
Murder in the Dark, by Maraget Atwood;
The Gathering, by Anne Enright

An Academic Question

I fell head-over-heels in love with Barbara Pym after reading Excellent Women, professing to read everything she ever wrote. It turns out the book I somewhat randomly pulled off the library shelf turns out to be "not her best". Oh well. It was quite good, but wouldn't have turned me into a Pym fan.

This one is called An Academic Question, and was published posthumously from several drafts. Uh-oh. It lacks the wittiness of Excellent Women, as well as the positivity of the main character, who is so charming, intelligent and strong. An Academic Question centers around a wife who's husband, an academic, puts her in a very awkward position. The book does have some interesting aspects, such as the very straightforward way she writes about the main character's gay friend, or her sister's abortion:

"...What is Coco exactly?-- I mean, sexually."

"Well, nothing, really," I said, embarrassed.

"But he must be something," A note of irritation had now come into Iris's voice--irritation and impatience at my ignorant stupidity.

"You mean hetero or homosexual?"

"Of course that's what I mean," she mocked. "Surely you must know."

"We've never talked about it. In any case, are people to be classified as simply as that? Some people just love themselves."

It's a perfectly fine book, but it just didn't make me laugh the way her other book did. Next up for me is her No Fond Return of Love - review to come soon!

All is Vanity

I didn't finish All is Vanity, by Christina Schwarz. I'm sure many an author has written about a character who is an author and dealing with a massive dose of writer's block, but it's pretty uninteresting to read about, isn't it? Reading about how this character distracted herself from writing (and admitting she had nothing to write about) was just too depressing. The implication that she will soon start stealing her friend's words was laid on pretty thick, but she hadn't started doing it at least by the time I gave up.

Water for Elephants

There are just too many books in the world to read one for which the highest recommendation is a reticent Meh. Why it is that practically everyone I know has read this book, and all shrugged their shoulders and said Meh at me when I asked them if they liked it, and I nevertheless tried to read the damn thing? Never again, my friend. Never again.

Perhaps it was it's title and mildly appealing cover art, reminding me for Like Water for Chocolate (I frequently referred to it as Like Water for Elephants).
I had also heard that this Sara Gruen book started out as a Nanowrimo book. These things drew me in, but make no mistake, this book is rotten, and rotten to the core.

Do not be swayed by old-timey circuses, titles vaguely familiar to good books or that misleading "prize": #1 New York Times Bestseller.

Now, there is a captivating short story about there about an old-timey circus elephant who was hanged (based on a true story!) in McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales (ed. Michael Chabon) called "The Tears of Squonk, and What Happened Thereafter" by Glen David Gold. That whole anthology would be a nice alternative to anyone looking for pulpy stories of bygone days.

Presents!

I got some lovely books for Christmas that I just can't WAIT to start reading:


From me ma: A Garden of Roman Verse, which she picked up at the Getty Villa in LA (I love a book with provenance). It contains original latin verse and the translation, like so:

I hate and love, woudst thou the reason know?
I know not, but I burn, and feel it so.

Odi et amo. Quare id faciam. Fortasse Requiris.
Nescio. Sed Fieri sentio et excrucior.

My sister gave me a nice stack of books: The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World by Lewis Hyde. It comes highly reviewed by a lot of authors I really admire like Zadie Smith and Margaret Atwood. Ooh - it has pictures!

She also gave me: Kiss My Tiara: How to Rule the World as a Smartass Goddess (nuff said) by Susan Jane Gilman. It looks like it has some good advice for a whippersnapper smartass like myself.


and Where the Girls Are: Growing up Female with the Mass Media, by Susan Douglas. I loves me some feminist theory, yo.


A certain husband gave me the new J.K. Rowling, The Tales of Beedle the Bard. I'm looking forward to reading it with him.

I also got a big pile of Christmas miracle. Over on my little-read book club blog, where I keep track of what we've read and are about to read, a woman posted in comments and asked me to write to her. She was from the publisher of our January selection, the latest Margaret Atwood, Payback, and offered to send us all copies. They just got here yesterday! Isn't the internets a marvelous place?

Dead Until Dark

So, I got my hair done about a week or so ago, and my colorist really likes Twilight, and then she was like, OMG, do you love Sookie Stackhouse? And I'm like, What's that? and she's like It's this series by Charlaine Harris who has a dirty, filthy mind, and the books that those True Blood shows are based on? And I'm like, Oh yeah, like these Southern vampires? Yeah, she says, they're like, mainstream, kind of, and "true blood" is this fake blood created by the Japanese that they can drink.

I'm in, I said.

She says, You don't have to wait until the 4th book, ifyouknowwhatImean.

You had me at filthy dirty. I told her.

So, the first one is called Dead Until Dark, and the main character is Sookie Stackhouse, who's psychic. She can read everyone's thoughts except for this one vampire, who she falls in love with right away. And, yes, vampires are "out" although they're mostly discriminated against.

What I found quite interesting, in comparison to other vampire stuff I'm been reading/watching lately, is what this book has in common with (particularly) the Twilight series and how it deviates.

An icky thing that the books have in common is that the vampire dudes, who are, of course, ridic-strong, are always picking up (literally) our fair heroine and carrying her around and holding her on their laps. WTF? Is that like, a thing I'm not aware of?

Aside from a little lap-sitting, Sookie's much more of a liberated woman then the teenager in Twilight - in fact, it's mainly Sookie who does the savin' in this book. Also there's like, lots and lots of sex. And fluid exchange:

Someone was stretched out beside me; it was the vampire. I could see his glow. I could feel his tongue moving on my head. He was licking my head wound.

Whhhhhaaaat?

This is by no means high literature, but it sure was a lot of fun and the perfect thing to read on a recent plane ride. It actually had a pretty good murder mystery that I didn't solve but wasn't too far fetched, and I like the universe she's created. I guess they're technically sci-fi, although I don't really like labeling things like that. I'd definitely suggest this to anyone as a better alternative to Twilight if one wanted to jump on the vampire bandwagon.

Excellent Women

I can't remember where I first heard Barbara Pym's name, but I wish I could so I could thank them! Picked up a copy of her Excellent Women and now want to read everything she's ever written and also press a few of my like-minded friends to do the same. How did I never read her before now????

Excellent Women is set in post-war England, and the main character is an unmarried woman who has a full-life and lots of friends. Because she's unmarried, people make a lot of assumptions about her, and are always trying (to use the modern parlance) to hook her up with someone. Others can't imagine that she could be satisfied with her life. "'What do women do if they don't marry,' she mused, as if she had no idea what it could be, having been married once herself and about to be married again."

I like to consider myself quite sympathetic to the single person - as a person who doesn't intend to have children, I gots to stand by the person who makes another non-traditional choice and doesn't intend (or isn't planning) to get married. We're like cousins, see? Poor cousins that the rest of the family thinks is really sad.

Pym is a very funny writer - so witty, clever, and subtle! I often laughed out loud. Read how one character explains her hatred of birds:

"... I was sitting in the window this afternoon and as it was a fine day I had it open at the bottom, when I felt something drop into my lap. And do you know what it was?" She turned and peered at me intently.

I said that I had no idea.

"Unpleasantness," she said, almost triumphantly so that I was reminded of William Caldicote. Then lowering her voice she explained, "From a bird, you see. It had done something when I was actually sitting in my own drawing-room."

I don't think I'll ruin it for you if I mention that the term "excellent women" is used frequently. Generally an excellent woman is a selfless women who toils for others - in exchange they call her excellent. In one amazing passage, Pym spells out her definition:

   'Ester Clovis is certainly a very capable person," he said doubtfully. "An excellent woman altogether."
   "You could consider marrying an excellent woman?" I asked in amazement. "But they are not for marrying."
   "You're surely not suggesting that they are for the other things?" he said, smiling.
   That had certainly not occurred to me and I was annoyed to find myself embarrassed.
   "They are for being unmarried," I said, "And by that I mean a positive rather than a negative state."
   "Poor things, aren't they allowed to have the normal feelings, then?"
   "Oh, yes, but nothing can be done about them."

I love how her main character insists that the "excellent woman" is in a "positive state" and is also not a sexless person.

I've read several reports that Pym is like the natural extension of Austin - at least in terms of the continuation of the British social critic - I thought Excellent Woman was an amazing non-traditional story.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

I got hooked on Junot Díaz after hearing him read How to Date a Brown Girl (Black girl, White Girl, or Halfie) on The New Yorker Fiction podcast (which is, by the way, a must-have 'cast). His latest novel, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao won the Pulitzer this year, and I nominated it for my book club.

I don't want to give much of the plot away, so I won't write too much about the specifics, because you (by which I mean everyone) really should read it. I thought it was nothing short of remarkable, especially in how Díaz narrates the story. The narrative voice changes several times throughout the novel, and, I have to tell you, Diaz is just an absolute genius at this. I mean, he's a total rockstar when it comes to language. Here's a passage near the beginning that hooked me but good:

It was so hard to believe what was happening that Oscar really couldn't take it seriously. The whole time the movie--Manhunter--was on, he kept expecting niggers to jump out with cameras and scream, Surprise! Boy, he said, trying to remain on her map, this is some movie. Ana nodded; she smelled of some perfume he could not name, and when she pressed close the heat off her body was vertiginous.

The narrative voice, the voice of a "ghetto" teenager full of slang and delicious wit and sexuality uses the word "vertiginous" and then puts it in italics just to let you know he's used it? Mamí, that guy can write a fuckin' book!

Díaz also integrates a lot of Spanish words and phrases. That was fun for me, because I've studied Spanish, and I could easily translate most of it myself. But, there's also a lot of slang, and idioms aren't really something you learn in school. Especially swear words and variations on "fuck". So, it wasn't just a challenge for me but quite a challenge for my usual translation tools as well. I've heard read a little bit of criticism of the mixture of Spanish and English, but I love nothing better than coming across a word I've never read before. It's like, just when you think you've eaten everything - you go to a restaurant and there's something on the menu you've never had before! Who wouldn't want that?

However, if you don't feel like translating the text, it's not really necessary - Diaz writes in such a way that, contextually, you know what's being said. Take this sentence, for example, about Oscar's abusive mother: She would hit us anywhere, in front of anyone, always free with the chanclas and the correa, but now with her cancer there's not much she can do anymore. You don't have to know that chanclas are a type of shoe or a correa is a belt; she's just hitting them with something.

I heard a terrific interview with Díaz on Fresh Air in which he explains that the challenges of the book (the language, the various extremely nerdy references) parallel the experience of learning to read, which (I'm paraphrasing) is a group experience. When you're learning to read, all the time you come across a word you don't know - you go to your mom, you go to your teacher, and together you figure out what it means. And, it's so true about this book - quite a few times I had to check with a certain husband about a comic book or LOtR reference; I called up on one of my Spanish-speaking friends to check on my translation (Yes, it means 'fuck'. What are you reading, you dirty girl?).

In this way, the reader not only reads about the immigrant experience, but actually experiences it! By being placed in a position of interpreting so many things you will be (let me assure you) unfamiliar with, you'll get a glimpse of what it's like to be an immigrant, dealing with linguistic and cultural elements outside your realm of experience, at the same time, the experience of learning to read (which for me, and I'm sure all book lovers, was an incredible, empowering discovery!) is mirrored.

Friend D also pointed out at the book club meeting that Díaz's method of writing about abuse and torture is done in such a way that the reader's sympathies are naturally on the side of the victim, rather than from the perspective of the perpetrator, which I thought was a rather brilliant observation. He also said something about Lacan, but I seem to have forgotten due to several glasses of wine and the general uproar at the mention of "Lacanian" anything. (Perhaps he will enlighten in comments?)

I'll be reading this book again very soon and then sending it to the west coast for my sister's book club. I'm sure they'll love it. I'd recommend it to just about anyone, but especially to folks who love reading about the immigrant experience.

Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began

I read Maus about a month ago - it ends rather abruptly, just as Vladek is taken prisoner and sent to Auschwitz. I had to read the second one. The artist and author, Art Spiegelman, has brilliantly composed the books, drawing the Jews as mice, the Germans as cats, Americans as dogs and so on. As in the first book, Art has many painful conversations with his father to learn about his experiences during the war, not just because of the content, but compounded by their rocky relationship.

Vladek's experiences are, as you might imagine, horrible. Spiegelman adds to the documentation of Holocaust survivors with his father's story, and in the end, makes the story even more real by including a copy of an actual photo of his father. I must have stared at that page for ten minutes - it was so startling to see that photo suddenly in the midst of all those drawings. And the photo is so strange - he said he found a shop that had new, clean uniform from the camps, so he had a picture of himself taken in the uniform for his wife. He smiles, looking handsome, healthy, and so ironic. Another bit that really moved me was a conversation with his therapist that Spiegelman recounts - despite his success, Spiegelman feels guilty and small (he literally draws himself as a child). He says, "No matter what I accomplish, it doesn't seem like much compaired to surviving Auschwitz." His therapist asks him if he admires his father for surviving - of course he does. Then he says, "Then you think it's admirable to survive. Does that mean it's NOT admirable to NOT survive?... But it wasn't the BEST people who survived, nor did the best ones die. It was RANDOM!" They get down to the purposefulness/uselessness of telling any story. After all, it's fairly common to hear phrases like Never Forget regarding events like the Holocaust - a mantra, as if remembering will help us avoid repeating. And yet, horrible events occur every day. More unspeakable atrocities are occurring right now. Spiegelman quotes Samuel Beckett, "Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness." He and his therapist sit in silence for a moment. "On the other hand, he SAID it," he says. Spiegelman's voice is a powerful tool, he shows us his concerns, and proceeds with the story.

Homage to Catalonia

Homage to Catalonia is George Orwell's tale of his experience fighting in the Spanish Civil war. The book was first published in 1938, shortly after the 2 year war ended.

I read this book for my book club, and honestly otherwise wouldn't have picked it up, not being a huge reader of non-fiction and particularly war-based non-fiction. To tell the truth, I really didn't know a thing about the Spanish Civil War. I'm happy to learn new things, but it was a very challenging book for me to read. Something that became immediately apparent is that there's a lot of confusing information about the Spanish Civil War, and my efforts to do a little outside research were quickly abandoned because I just didn't have the time to become a expert on it. Turns out, all that conflicting information is one of the major reasons Orwell wrote the book, as he continually states throughout that it's his first-person account and attempt to set the record straight. Because there was so much propaganda floating around, especially about his (losing) side, he has a clear goal to make his truthful perspective known. I kept thinking about that old phrase, "History is written by the winners" while reading Homage to Catalonia, particularly when comparing it to some of the information I found about the war.

I found the book very readable, although quite a few in our club disagreed with me. To me, it read like a novel. Orwell's experience follows (or at least is written in) a fairly neat (by which I mean tidy) narrative arch, from his joining of the militia to getting shot and finally fleeing Spain altogether. Orwell's description of getting shot in the (goddamn!) neck is really something, as is his description of Barcelona for the brief period in which it was a completely communist city. It's fairly easy to see (or at least infer) how such events inspired Orwell to later write 1984. So many of his real-life experiences in the war were completely absurd, like being on the front lines without, essentially, a weapon, like being so close to the enemy and not fighting them. His describes a society with forced ideals (rather than slowly evolved over time), with all the strained ideology and (I think inherent) hypocrisy, that really couldn't sustain itself. It's as if you can draw a clear line from that description write to the society he creates in 1984 (although I have a bad habit of trying to draw straight lines when we all know they're more often circuitous).

A word on editions: my copy was published in 1952; a friend's copy from the 80's was quite different. In her book, several chapters had become appendices, supposedly at the request of Orwell, who thought those chapters disrupted the flow. The 1952 edition contains a ridiculous forward by Lionel Trilling that begins, "This book is one of the important documents of our time." which almost caused me to stop reading the thing right there! I thought it was a really fascinating book, and a great book for our club to read. There are also some parallels to Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls (also about the Spanish Civil War), as you might imagine. And, it also got me interested in some other aspects, like propoganda posters and the role of women in the war.

Flora Segunda

I read this book (or, half of it, anyway), Flora Segunda, by Ysabeau Wilce, because I read a brief review in Salon that stated, "Weird in the best possible way, Wilce's novels are what girl readers graduating from the Harry Potter books ought to be reading instead of the insipid "Twilight" series."

Having been sucked unwittingly into the Twilight series myself, and a big fan of YA fiction (as the faithful reader knows), I was a sucker for just such a recommendation.

For the 50 or 60 pages, I was riveted. Flora Segunda is young woman who lives in some kind of magical universe where, like Harry Potter, some people practice magic, some people are not quite human, and often our silly little laws of physics don't apply. I was most fascinated by Flora's house, which Wilce is always describing - a decrepit house so large Flora doesn't know the half of it; a house that changes, where you might get lost of a week if the elevator takes you to an unknown area.

Because Flora's mother (the general of the army [shout out for the ladies!]) travels, Flora essentially lives alone, with the exception of a drunken father-type that she calls by his first name and who mostly stays in his room. The house does have a butler, however, who would normally keep this falling-apart mansion glittering, but he's been locked away for many years. The butler convinces Flora to breathe life back into him, literally by pressing her lips to his and blowing into his mouth.

Wilce's universe is like a bizarro San Francisco - Flora lives in "Califa" and folks like me that lived or live in SF will get a little thrill by local landmarks with a twist. Wilce also uses creative language, digging deep into her wing-dings to create words that made me pause and wonder how they might be pronounced.

For some reason the book got a little boring for me around page 200 hundred, and there I've stopped. I might come back to it later on. Possibly it's just me - I can think of a couple of friends who would probably love this book. And, I should think it's absolutely terrific for teens and pre-teens that have just finished Harry Potter.

Vacation Reading

Part of being self-aware is knowing what kind of book is perfect for a vacation. Many a conversation have I had with friends about this very subject. "I'm going to a beach house for a week, what should I take?" That's easy - Bridget Jones' Diary, or The Nanny Diaries, or something else with "Diary" in the title. I like Carl Hiaasen for a week in Cancun, lying on the beach. Something complex for a night in the woods: Wallace Stegner or Carol Shields.

So, for our trip to Florence, I needed something special - not too gripping that I wouldn't want to leave it and go look at Donatello's Magdalene in the Museo Dell'Opera Del Duomo, not something about Florence, like A Room with a View, which would have been silly (plus Forster bores me to tears), not something I've been dying to read, which would be forever tainted by the memory of reading it on a plane. Not something chancy, because what if I hated it and then - horror - found myself with nothing to read at all?

Long did I stare at my (embarrassingly large) to-read pile, trying to figure out what to take. And then! Ah Ha! The Best American Short Stories of 1999, edited by Amy Tan. Perfect - a nice thick volume, short stories by Junot Diaz, Chitra Divakaruni, Pam Houston, Jhumpa Lahiri, Lorrie Moore, Annie Proulx, Alice Munro (and more)! And, if I ran into something I didn't like, who cares? I'd just skip over it.

Turns out it was the perfect book to take - the ones I expected to love, I did love, and yes, I did run into a couple of stinkers but just a few, and I found a couple of wonderful stories by writers I've never heard of that really captured my imagination - like The Rest of Her Life, by Steve Yarbrough, which was so amazing even now I think about it, and have created a whole movie about it in my mind.

The only lame thing is that about 5 of the short stories came from the New Yorker, which I suppose would have been kind of a drag if you had a subscription to the New Yorker in 1999 and then bought this book. Even though they may very well have comprised 1/5 of The Best short stories that year, I wish Tan had gone outside the New Yorker box. I mean, everyone knows that you're going to find a great short in the New Yorker - it would have been more fun to see something unexpected.

What do you like to read on vacation?

Breaking Dawn

Despite claims that I would never read another Stephanie Meyer book again, I couldn't resist reading Breaking Dawn. A couple of good friends informed me that it was the worse one yet (and therefore the best). I wasn't going to read it unless it met two criteria: 1. That she finally gets turned into a vampire and 2. They have sex.

(Spoiler Alert) Both those things happen, but not in that order. If you're not familiar with the Twilight series, I'll tell you. It's about a girl who falls in love with a vampire, and, for really no reason, he also falls in love with her. For various reasons, they struggle, and other vampires try to kill them. They persevere. The first book is ridiculous but readable, the second book is beyond ridiculous and really boring, I didn't read the 3rd book, and the forth book is, once again, beyond ridiculous and almost unreadable.

It's a well known fact that readers of these books are either teenage girls or pervy 30-somethings like myself. Two demographics that appreciate a good sex scene - but, I was a bit disappointed. And, slightly creeped out. Instead of the filthy details, what Meyer delivers is something like this:

Edward kissed her and they fell onto the bed... [NEXT CHAPTER]
"Oh, good morning. What happened to the headboard?"
"I broke it."
"Really? I didn't notice."
"You were preoccupied."
"Yes I was. With the sex. That we had. Huh. I'm covered in bruises."
"What? No! I nearly killed you with my vampiric strength! I shall never forgive myself!"
"Don't worry. I liked it."

What's such a shame about these books is that they're so old fashioned. I wish that the (supposedly) most popular book young women were reading wasn't about some dopey teenager who requires saving all the time by her strong, wise boyfriend. And (here comes another big time spoiler) what happens but she gets preggo practically the first time they have sex?!? Her vampire husband (who wanted to wait until they got married to consummate the ol' union) tries to convince her to have a vampire-baby abortion, but, papa, she's keeping the baby (even if it is a blood-sucking monster that will be the death of everyone they know. Was Sarah Palin involved in this?)

I really don't know what's worse, though - the post-feminist story or the pre-brain writing. Meyer writes with all the grace of a sledgehammer. What (I believe) is meant to pass for witty dialogue sounds like two idiots yakking. She's less subtle than even Dan Brown. At one point, I am not making this up, she wrote, "A tear the size of a baseball rolled into the russet fur beneath his eye." There's 754 pages of this nonsense!

Naturally, I did not read it all. After about 50 pages, I started skipping about 10 pages per turn of the page, and then passed on the last 100. It's good for a laugh, but might just be the downfall of our entire society.

When Will There be Good News?

I'm a big fan of Kate Atkinson - especially her "early" work, which is really gothic and beautiful. Behind the Scenes at the Museum (1995, and won the Whitbread Book of the Year) is really terrific, as are Emotionally Weird and her book of short stories, Not the End of the World.

When Will There be Good News is sort of a continuation of her previous book, Case Histories, vaguely centered around a character named Jackson Brodie, a former-police detective. I think both of those books are good, but, they almost border on having too many characters. I find it difficult to keep them straight - although that might be purposeful. Most of the characters, particularly in this latest book, all have something in common, which is that, for them, it's just one damn thing after another. Unfortunately I've had a couple of periods like that myself, so I could really relate. The title made perfect sense to me, the minute I saw it - it's that sentiment that (JESUS CHRIST) WHEN will something GOOD happen?!?

I think Atkinson is a wonderful writer, and she's also a very British writer. When Will There Be Good News is full of snippets of old English poetry and songs. I really like her sensibility, she's clearly a feminist, and a lot of her books address violence toward women... women who find strength. She also writes a good mystery - surprises me every time.

I do hope that she leaves behind the whole Jackson Brodie business for her next book, for some reason this kind of seriality gets old for me. It's not, by the way, necessary to read Case Histories before this one. I was very fuzzy on the details myself, but it doesn't matter.

There's an excerpt of the first chapter (you'll be hooked!) on her website.

Maus

Maus is a rather famous graphic novel by Art Spiegelman. It won a Pulitzer Prize "Special Award", and Alan Moore said of Spiegelman, "I have been convinced that Art Spiegelman is perhaps the single most important comic creator working within the field and in my opinion Maus represents his most accomplished work to date…"

It's biographical, and tells the tale of a graphic novelist son who is listening to his father tell his story of living through the Holocaust. The story is beautifully and wonderfully told, and I loved the juxtaposition the two stories. In one, the son, who does not have a good relationship with his father, pulls the story from his father, trying to force him into a linear narrative. The other is his father's story, a Polish Jew with an incredible tale. The son (Arty) struggles with the writing of the story, because it's not really the story he wants to tell. He wishes he had his mother's side, to "give the book some balance." Spiegelman does something very interesting with the art, by drawing the Jews as mice (hence the title), nazis as cats, Polish people as pigs, Americans as dogs and so on. I'm sure many a dissertation has already been written about the animalian depictions! Something I thought was very sophisticated was how sometimes the characters wear masks to blend in. Spiegelman's use of the mask is really quite amazing on so many levels - I think he exemplifies how thin are the barriers between us - how fluid identity and culture are. .Well, now I understand why everyone lists Maus as THE comic to read.