American Wife fictionalizes Laura Bush's life, from childhood through the lame-duck years of her husband's presidency. Laura and George Bush are called Alice and Charlie Blackwell here, though they are quite recognizably the former president and first lady, both through mannerisms and circumstance, especially so in the last quarter of the book, which deals with Alice's experiences as First Lady.
The novel is by far best in the first half, as we follow Alice through a mid-west upbringing and adolescence in the fifties and sixties; her years as a single, independent young woman with a job she enjoys; and her initial romance with Charlie. Alice is extremely compelling in this half of the book--she's intelligent and confident, but with a tendency to keep herself to herself, a fear of exposing herself, of being wholly who she is in front of others. There's nothing doormattish about her, and she doesn't let these insecurities get in her way, but, still, there's that reining in, that holding back. I imagine a lot of smart, capable women who would rather sit at home and read than go to a party would see a lot of themselves in Alice, and Sittenfeld portrays these seemingly contradictory aspects of Alice's personality with a deft and subtle touch.
But then Alice marries boisterous, wealthy, laddish, ambitious-but-aimless Charlie and the life just drops out of the book. Alice becomes a house-wife, though an upper-class one who will never fade away under the drudgery of housework. She still seems pretty content, it's clear that she loves her husband, and she becomes a good mother it their only child--but gone is the strong sense of her as an intellectual, gone is the job she enjoys. We see some marital problems involving Charlie and drink, and Alice has enough backbone to quietly force Charlie to choose between his substance abuse and his family, but even then Alice seems curiously passive, curiously toothless. Charlie gets religion, the aimlessness falls away, and, in a somewhat odd jump forward in the narrative of some twenty years, he becomes president.
The "First Lady Years" section of the book is the least compelling--and the least well-written. Alice tells us much about the difficulties of being in the public eye, of how strange it is to be part of the public face of an administration with which she rarely agrees, of how exasperating it is to hear over and over of the puzzlement of those who don't understand how smart, bookish, liberal Alice Blackwell could possibly love conservative, war-mongering, rights-trampling President Charlie Blackwell. This section ought to be the thematic center of the novel--this ought to be the part where the book becomes whole, where the reason for writing a novel about a still-living real person becomes clear. By the end, we ought to understand more fully Laura Bush or the office of the first lady or even just wifehood (the book's title, lacking an article as it does, seems to be reaching for some claim to a universal statement about American wives).
And the thing is, we don't. Alice stands up for herself again in the end, separating herself briefly from her husband and from her role as First Lady to be just Alice Blackwell, but the moment is just as passive and toothless as her stand against Charlie's drinking is earlier on. Alice--smart, capable, happy Alice--is still subsumed under boisterous, laddish, ambitious Charlie. What have we learned? That people love who they love, and that intellectual or political compatibility doesn't necessarily come into it? No kidding. That smart, independent women often lose part of themselves through their genuine love of louder, more ambitious men? You don't say. Illustrating these facts beautifully and startlingly or giving Alice a convincing, true moment of reclamation of some of her younger independence of self--either of these would have made American Wife into something really satisfying. But instead the novel just wilts when Alice marries Charlie and becomes more and more lifeless and rambling as it goes on.
This review origianlly appeared on my LibraryThing account.
Monday, June 3, 2013
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Movie Review: Star Trek: Into Darkness
Below all those asterisks down there, I'm going to be spoiler-rich, to the point of ruining the movie for anyone who hasn't yet seen it. So here's my one-sentence, spoiler-free assessment for those who wonder if they should drop $10+ on a ticket: Into Darkness is not without flaws and doesn't quite rise to the level of distilled awesome that the 2009 Reboot accomplished, but its engaging plot, heaps of witty dialogue, lovely special effects, nice helping of memorable moments, and near-perfect characterizations of Kirk and Spock make it a worthy sequel, an excellent addition to the Trek franchise, and a must-see in the theater. Go see this movie. (I will mention here that I saw the movie in 2D and so can't comment on whether the 3D is used to good effect or is worth extra monies. I still can't bring myself to pay extra to watch something in 3D, which I have never liked and which gives me a headache. I know, I know. "It's better now." I just can't.)
Okay. Saying it again. The following is rife with spoilers--it's more of a fan-happy analysis than a traditional "Ought I See This?" review. If you haven't seen Into Darkness yet and have any intention of doing so, go away and come back after you've caught the film. Spoilers start after the starfield. You have been warned.
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I was wary of Into Darkness. I loved the 2009 Reboot. Loved. It. I loved the horrible-wonderful opening sequence which wrecked me thoroughly ten minutes in. I loved the casting. I loved the story. I loved the new-but-the-same, slightly edgy characterizations of my beloved Enterprise crew. I loved the dialogue, I loved the banter, I loved the ridiculous humor. I loved the shiny ship interiors and the brewery-like engineering deck. I even loved the stupid lens flares. From the moment the credits rolled, I wanted more-more-more.
But then I started thinking about more. Could they do this again? How much of what was so awesome about the Reboot was its rebooty-ness, was the fact that we were getting to see these characters afresh for the first time ever, was the fun of seeing the Trek universe re-imagined? Would that translate to a sequel? And what of the rumor that started flying that the villain in the sequel would be Khan? Surely that would wreck it, I thought. You can't retell that story with a young cast. The Wrath of Khan is so much a story of middle-age, of reckoning up with your past decisions, of personal obsessive revenge born of past intimate conflict. You can't do that with a twenty-seven-year-old Kirk.
Well, the villain in Into Darkness is Khan (played to psychotic perfection by CumberKhan Smauglock, I mean, Benedict Cumberbatch, who, as far as I can see, can do no wrong), and it works, mostly. It works because they haven't tried to remake The Wrath of Khan--they've simply snipped out Khan's basic situation (scary-ass superhuman cyrogenically frozen and rocketed into space who is super-pissed at how he and his found-family have been treated) and built a whole new story around it. It only mostly works because the ins-and-outs of the plot's backstory are a little murky, but that is not a problem that stems from the inclusion of Khan himself. I leave final judgement on the plot construction until I've seen the movie at least one more time, but after one viewing I've got some questions.
What, exactly, was Admiral Marcus up to? Was he simply trying to start a war with the Klingons? Why? What have the Klingon's done to anyone? We get a little speech from Marcus about how they've been menacing about, but we haven't actually seen any of that. Wouldn't the Romulans have been a better choice for that, given the events of the Reboot? It would be unfair, since Nero was not acting on behalf of the Romulans and was from the future anyway, but the movie trys to set Marcus up as the dude who over-responds to acts of terroism and loses sight of his own values in the process. Wouldn't that work better if we had direct knowledge of the things he was reacting to? And what part were Khan and company meant to play in his plot against the Klingons? At one point I thought when Kirk shot the torpedoes carrying Khan's people at Kronos Marcus meant for the Khanites to wreck so much havoc on the Klingons that the Klingons would no longer be a threat. But later it appeared that he just meant it to be a provoking act that could not be traced to Starfleet and that would force the Klingons to react, thus sparking the war Marcus wanted while making it look like the Klingons actually started it. This seems the most likely, but I still don't have the grasp on what Marcus wanted and why he wanted it that I think we need for the plot to sit square with the audience. There was very little sense, either, of the rest of Starfleet (and Federation?) leadership dragging its feet about responding to the Klingon threat and of Marcus reacting to that. Surely his little temper tantrum wasn't happening in a political vacuum?
And about that temper tantrum. It takes the form of a massive base on Jupiter where he's building a gigantic, purely militaristic vessel (in violation of Starfleet's stated mission--exploration and peacekeeping). Are we supposed to understand that this is a secret? Or that people know about it but don't know what it really is? I don't buy that you can hide a massive secret base in the Sol System in Trek-universe--there's too much coming and going (and sensors). So, is there wide-spread corruption in Starfleet? If not, how is Marcus accomplishing the building of this base and this ship? Who are all those other people on his ship? Where are the repercussions when Kirk and company get back to Earth? Where are the questions, the inquiries, the paranoia? "Thanks for ferreting out that rogue admiral, his giant secret base, hugenormous warship, and network of lackeys, Jimmy. No wuckies here, so take our flagship and disappear into deep space for five years while we just cross our fingers there aren't more wackadoodles with big ol' ships who might try to start a war." Really? And Kirk just takes his coveted five-year mission and gets the hell out without stopping to try to tie up the Marcus loose ends or sort out if Section 31 is real, what it's about, or if it's a threat? Again, I need to see the movie again--perhaps these things are more clear than they appear on the first viewing, but this is the kind of stuff that makes me say the movie isn't quite as good as the Reboot was, or as good as it could have been.
But, for the most part, I really didn't care that much about those plot wobbles--they certainly didn't detract from my enjoyment of the movie as it was unfolding--because it turns out they can do it again. The fun of the Reboot, the witty dialogue, the humor, and the spot-on characterizations--it's all here again in Into Darkness and is every bit as good. I will quibble that Bones was muttering around the edges of Kirk and Spock's tight-knit command structure and friendship a bit more than he ought to be, but the character arcs here were all Kirk-and-Spock, so I'll be forgiving on that one, especially since Bones did have some great lines despite not being as much a part of the classic triumvirate dynamic as he was in The Original Series. I'll further quibble that some characters (Uhura, Chekov) were given things to do for the sake of setting up humorous situations or moments of character interactions rather than because there was any internal logic suggesting they ought to take on those roles. (The Chief Engineer quits so you put your teenaged navigator into his role? What, there aren't, like, forty guys down in engineering who have seniority, higher rank, and more experience than Chekov, even if he is a genius and has been shadowing Scotty? Come on.) While these moments did kind of irritate me in the moment, they also didn't really detract from my overall enjoyment of the film. When you get the humor, the banter, and the characters as right as they did, I'm willing to forgive a lot of these kinds of little infelicities.
And now for the bit that made the movie for me: Kirk and Spock and their friendship. J.J. Abrams et al. get Spock and they get Kirk-and-Spock. Spock's story is about his struggle to be true to both his Vulcan and his Human sides, and that struggle almost always plays out in his interactions with his friends. How do you be a friend to a human, for whom friendship inherently entails emotional availability, while remaining true to unemotional Vulcan ways? If you are not just one or the other but both is it right to allow one half to take over? Or is the denial of the other half an unhealthy betrayal of who you really are? The exploration of this struggle in TOS was always about Spock's relationship with Kirk (though other characters--Bones, for one--played a large part in it as well), and I love (love) how they have made this struggle part of the story arc for Into Darkness and kept it about Kirk and Spock even while keeping Uhura in the mix as Spock's girlfriend. Spock's failure truly to understand why Kirk saved his life at the volcano even though it violated their most important rule, his failure to understand why it's important to feel even negative emotions, and his subsequent epiphany about friendship and what it means were brilliantly portrayed and are classic, classic Trek themes. All the points ever for making this emotional discovery a major part of the story arc for Into Darkness and all the more points for the astonishing, surprising, brilliant, magnificent reversal of the unforgettable, quintessential Wrath of Khan scene where Spock declares his friendship for Kirk in his last moments after sacrificing himself to save the ship. All my hats off to everyone involved in the crafting of this movie for figuring out not only how to get an homage to this moment that everybody knows into this movie but also how to make it a the-same-but-different emotional climax of this movie on its own terms. Spock admitting that he's completely failing to keep himself from feeling as Jim dies? I can't even. Just. *flails* (As an aside here: it's very interesting to me that Spock gets to this moment so much earlier in this rebooted universe than he did in the original universe. Remember all the times Spock wasn't as good a friend as he should have been in TOS? ("The City on the Edge of Forever," anyone?) Or kind of stumbled around trying something that maybe wasn't the best move? ("Requiem for Methuselah" comes to mind.) What is it going to mean for Spock that he's had this moment so much earlier and as an epiphany rather than through a slow realization over many years? Will he be happier? Will he never get to a point where he wants to try Kohlinar? Will he springboard off this moment into a relationship with Uhura that really, really works? Will they have a passel of little Spuhuras? Is Kirk going to have a little David with Carol Marcus and name Spock godfather? Oh, the possibilites are endless. More films, please. Or a TV show with this cast? A girl can dream.)
In addition to loving the hell out of the character development there, Into Darkness gets bonus points from me for three reasons. First, letting Uhura be badass. She's still not as badass as the dudes running around the Enterprise (she's not jumping into volcanoes or sacrificing herself for the ship), but she stands up for herself, calls Kirk out for underutilizing her skills as an officer, and faces down a band of angry Klingons on her onesies--and she can do all this because she's smart and capable, not because she's pretty or because she's in a relationship with the first officer or because she's friends with the captain. Smart and capable. And as much as I can't get fully behind sending her down into the fray when Spock was fighting Khan (because tactically she is not the best choice), it's still another chance to see her take on a traditionally male action (unflinching, repeated violence in a military setting) without any quibbling about whether she can do it. And that is cool. Second, showing us men who embody traditional maleness (they are protective, aggressive, good leaders, skilled fighters, and demonstrate (apparent) sexual prowess) and who also weep unabashedly, unashamedly, and without comment. The scene where Pike died was especially brilliant--Kirk doesn't just grit his teeth, clench his fists, and go off hell-bent on revenge. He weeps. And it is not a failing, not a moment where he just couldn't keep it together, not an excusable lapse because the cause was sufficient. It's just a natural reaction to his loss. More of this kind of portrayal of masculinity, please. Thank you. Third, for being an action movie whose kickass action hero (Spock) is played by an openly gay actor. We need to see this just as we need to see openly gay male athletes in major sports. Slowly, slowly, we may be inching toward the vision of inclusion, equality, and respect Roddenberry tried to show us. Carry on, Trek. Carry on.
Okay. Saying it again. The following is rife with spoilers--it's more of a fan-happy analysis than a traditional "Ought I See This?" review. If you haven't seen Into Darkness yet and have any intention of doing so, go away and come back after you've caught the film. Spoilers start after the starfield. You have been warned.
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I was wary of Into Darkness. I loved the 2009 Reboot. Loved. It. I loved the horrible-wonderful opening sequence which wrecked me thoroughly ten minutes in. I loved the casting. I loved the story. I loved the new-but-the-same, slightly edgy characterizations of my beloved Enterprise crew. I loved the dialogue, I loved the banter, I loved the ridiculous humor. I loved the shiny ship interiors and the brewery-like engineering deck. I even loved the stupid lens flares. From the moment the credits rolled, I wanted more-more-more.
But then I started thinking about more. Could they do this again? How much of what was so awesome about the Reboot was its rebooty-ness, was the fact that we were getting to see these characters afresh for the first time ever, was the fun of seeing the Trek universe re-imagined? Would that translate to a sequel? And what of the rumor that started flying that the villain in the sequel would be Khan? Surely that would wreck it, I thought. You can't retell that story with a young cast. The Wrath of Khan is so much a story of middle-age, of reckoning up with your past decisions, of personal obsessive revenge born of past intimate conflict. You can't do that with a twenty-seven-year-old Kirk.
Well, the villain in Into Darkness is Khan (played to psychotic perfection by CumberKhan Smauglock, I mean, Benedict Cumberbatch, who, as far as I can see, can do no wrong), and it works, mostly. It works because they haven't tried to remake The Wrath of Khan--they've simply snipped out Khan's basic situation (scary-ass superhuman cyrogenically frozen and rocketed into space who is super-pissed at how he and his found-family have been treated) and built a whole new story around it. It only mostly works because the ins-and-outs of the plot's backstory are a little murky, but that is not a problem that stems from the inclusion of Khan himself. I leave final judgement on the plot construction until I've seen the movie at least one more time, but after one viewing I've got some questions.
What, exactly, was Admiral Marcus up to? Was he simply trying to start a war with the Klingons? Why? What have the Klingon's done to anyone? We get a little speech from Marcus about how they've been menacing about, but we haven't actually seen any of that. Wouldn't the Romulans have been a better choice for that, given the events of the Reboot? It would be unfair, since Nero was not acting on behalf of the Romulans and was from the future anyway, but the movie trys to set Marcus up as the dude who over-responds to acts of terroism and loses sight of his own values in the process. Wouldn't that work better if we had direct knowledge of the things he was reacting to? And what part were Khan and company meant to play in his plot against the Klingons? At one point I thought when Kirk shot the torpedoes carrying Khan's people at Kronos Marcus meant for the Khanites to wreck so much havoc on the Klingons that the Klingons would no longer be a threat. But later it appeared that he just meant it to be a provoking act that could not be traced to Starfleet and that would force the Klingons to react, thus sparking the war Marcus wanted while making it look like the Klingons actually started it. This seems the most likely, but I still don't have the grasp on what Marcus wanted and why he wanted it that I think we need for the plot to sit square with the audience. There was very little sense, either, of the rest of Starfleet (and Federation?) leadership dragging its feet about responding to the Klingon threat and of Marcus reacting to that. Surely his little temper tantrum wasn't happening in a political vacuum?
And about that temper tantrum. It takes the form of a massive base on Jupiter where he's building a gigantic, purely militaristic vessel (in violation of Starfleet's stated mission--exploration and peacekeeping). Are we supposed to understand that this is a secret? Or that people know about it but don't know what it really is? I don't buy that you can hide a massive secret base in the Sol System in Trek-universe--there's too much coming and going (and sensors). So, is there wide-spread corruption in Starfleet? If not, how is Marcus accomplishing the building of this base and this ship? Who are all those other people on his ship? Where are the repercussions when Kirk and company get back to Earth? Where are the questions, the inquiries, the paranoia? "Thanks for ferreting out that rogue admiral, his giant secret base, hugenormous warship, and network of lackeys, Jimmy. No wuckies here, so take our flagship and disappear into deep space for five years while we just cross our fingers there aren't more wackadoodles with big ol' ships who might try to start a war." Really? And Kirk just takes his coveted five-year mission and gets the hell out without stopping to try to tie up the Marcus loose ends or sort out if Section 31 is real, what it's about, or if it's a threat? Again, I need to see the movie again--perhaps these things are more clear than they appear on the first viewing, but this is the kind of stuff that makes me say the movie isn't quite as good as the Reboot was, or as good as it could have been.
But, for the most part, I really didn't care that much about those plot wobbles--they certainly didn't detract from my enjoyment of the movie as it was unfolding--because it turns out they can do it again. The fun of the Reboot, the witty dialogue, the humor, and the spot-on characterizations--it's all here again in Into Darkness and is every bit as good. I will quibble that Bones was muttering around the edges of Kirk and Spock's tight-knit command structure and friendship a bit more than he ought to be, but the character arcs here were all Kirk-and-Spock, so I'll be forgiving on that one, especially since Bones did have some great lines despite not being as much a part of the classic triumvirate dynamic as he was in The Original Series. I'll further quibble that some characters (Uhura, Chekov) were given things to do for the sake of setting up humorous situations or moments of character interactions rather than because there was any internal logic suggesting they ought to take on those roles. (The Chief Engineer quits so you put your teenaged navigator into his role? What, there aren't, like, forty guys down in engineering who have seniority, higher rank, and more experience than Chekov, even if he is a genius and has been shadowing Scotty? Come on.) While these moments did kind of irritate me in the moment, they also didn't really detract from my overall enjoyment of the film. When you get the humor, the banter, and the characters as right as they did, I'm willing to forgive a lot of these kinds of little infelicities.
And now for the bit that made the movie for me: Kirk and Spock and their friendship. J.J. Abrams et al. get Spock and they get Kirk-and-Spock. Spock's story is about his struggle to be true to both his Vulcan and his Human sides, and that struggle almost always plays out in his interactions with his friends. How do you be a friend to a human, for whom friendship inherently entails emotional availability, while remaining true to unemotional Vulcan ways? If you are not just one or the other but both is it right to allow one half to take over? Or is the denial of the other half an unhealthy betrayal of who you really are? The exploration of this struggle in TOS was always about Spock's relationship with Kirk (though other characters--Bones, for one--played a large part in it as well), and I love (love) how they have made this struggle part of the story arc for Into Darkness and kept it about Kirk and Spock even while keeping Uhura in the mix as Spock's girlfriend. Spock's failure truly to understand why Kirk saved his life at the volcano even though it violated their most important rule, his failure to understand why it's important to feel even negative emotions, and his subsequent epiphany about friendship and what it means were brilliantly portrayed and are classic, classic Trek themes. All the points ever for making this emotional discovery a major part of the story arc for Into Darkness and all the more points for the astonishing, surprising, brilliant, magnificent reversal of the unforgettable, quintessential Wrath of Khan scene where Spock declares his friendship for Kirk in his last moments after sacrificing himself to save the ship. All my hats off to everyone involved in the crafting of this movie for figuring out not only how to get an homage to this moment that everybody knows into this movie but also how to make it a the-same-but-different emotional climax of this movie on its own terms. Spock admitting that he's completely failing to keep himself from feeling as Jim dies? I can't even. Just. *flails* (As an aside here: it's very interesting to me that Spock gets to this moment so much earlier in this rebooted universe than he did in the original universe. Remember all the times Spock wasn't as good a friend as he should have been in TOS? ("The City on the Edge of Forever," anyone?) Or kind of stumbled around trying something that maybe wasn't the best move? ("Requiem for Methuselah" comes to mind.) What is it going to mean for Spock that he's had this moment so much earlier and as an epiphany rather than through a slow realization over many years? Will he be happier? Will he never get to a point where he wants to try Kohlinar? Will he springboard off this moment into a relationship with Uhura that really, really works? Will they have a passel of little Spuhuras? Is Kirk going to have a little David with Carol Marcus and name Spock godfather? Oh, the possibilites are endless. More films, please. Or a TV show with this cast? A girl can dream.)
In addition to loving the hell out of the character development there, Into Darkness gets bonus points from me for three reasons. First, letting Uhura be badass. She's still not as badass as the dudes running around the Enterprise (she's not jumping into volcanoes or sacrificing herself for the ship), but she stands up for herself, calls Kirk out for underutilizing her skills as an officer, and faces down a band of angry Klingons on her onesies--and she can do all this because she's smart and capable, not because she's pretty or because she's in a relationship with the first officer or because she's friends with the captain. Smart and capable. And as much as I can't get fully behind sending her down into the fray when Spock was fighting Khan (because tactically she is not the best choice), it's still another chance to see her take on a traditionally male action (unflinching, repeated violence in a military setting) without any quibbling about whether she can do it. And that is cool. Second, showing us men who embody traditional maleness (they are protective, aggressive, good leaders, skilled fighters, and demonstrate (apparent) sexual prowess) and who also weep unabashedly, unashamedly, and without comment. The scene where Pike died was especially brilliant--Kirk doesn't just grit his teeth, clench his fists, and go off hell-bent on revenge. He weeps. And it is not a failing, not a moment where he just couldn't keep it together, not an excusable lapse because the cause was sufficient. It's just a natural reaction to his loss. More of this kind of portrayal of masculinity, please. Thank you. Third, for being an action movie whose kickass action hero (Spock) is played by an openly gay actor. We need to see this just as we need to see openly gay male athletes in major sports. Slowly, slowly, we may be inching toward the vision of inclusion, equality, and respect Roddenberry tried to show us. Carry on, Trek. Carry on.
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Packing for a Reading Retreat: Round-Up
I realized as I was doing the latest "Packing for Reading Retreat" that I've been doing these posts for a year. I thought it would be fun to do a round-up post listing all of the books mentioned in "Packing" over the last twelve months and, since I don't always review the ones I've read here at the blog, to provide links to reviews of the ones I have read. Onwards!
New to Me
The Mirage--Read, Review
The Flight of Gemma Hardy--Read, Review
Buddenbrooks
The Song of Achilles--Read, Mini Review
The Cove
Widdershins
Cloud Atlas--Read, Review
Canda--Abandoned, Tiny Review
The Time In Between
tiny, beautiful things--Read, Mini Review
Seraphina
Les Misérables
On the Map
Old Favorites
The Lord of the Rings--Reread Fellowship, Previous Review
The Sound of Summer Voices
Rebecca
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Jane Eyre
The Little House on the Praire books--Reread first three, Review Big Woods, Prairie, Plum Creek
Just in Case
Pride and Prejudice--Reread, Mini Review
The Mists of Avalon
Kidnapped
Editions of Packing for a Reading Retreat
Volume V
Volume IV
Volume III
Volume II
Volume I
New to Me
The Mirage--Read, Review
The Flight of Gemma Hardy--Read, Review
Buddenbrooks
The Song of Achilles--Read, Mini Review
The Cove
Widdershins
Cloud Atlas--Read, Review
Canda--Abandoned, Tiny Review
The Time In Between
tiny, beautiful things--Read, Mini Review
Seraphina
Les Misérables
On the Map
Old Favorites
The Lord of the Rings--Reread Fellowship, Previous Review
The Sound of Summer Voices
Rebecca
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Jane Eyre
The Little House on the Praire books--Reread first three, Review Big Woods, Prairie, Plum Creek
Just in Case
Pride and Prejudice--Reread, Mini Review
The Mists of Avalon
Kidnapped
Editions of Packing for a Reading Retreat
Volume V
Volume IV
Volume III
Volume II
Volume I
Packing for a Reading Retreat: Volume V
It's time for a new edition of "Packing for a Reading Retreat," where I
imagine which books I would take with me if I were heading to a reading
retreat, where there would be no distractions and I would be free to do
nothing but read for a week. I might imagine packing two kinds of books:
those that are "New to Me" (books I've never read before) and "Old Favorites" (past
reads I'd like to revisit).
New to Me
The Bone People, Keri Hulme
The Bone People is not exactly new to me. I read about two-thirds of it during a Spring Break during PhD school about five years ago. And I loved every sentence of this Booker-winning novel from New Zealand. The novel begins with Kerewin Holmes, a New Zealander of part Maori and part European descent, who lives a life of content isolation until a strangely silent child and his foster father wander into her life. What follows is a sometimes dark, sometimes funny character study of these three and their interactions. The novel was a casualty of graduate school--a not-for-school book which I was enjoying but eventually abandoned because of the demands of school--and I've been meaning to return to it ever since, to start at the beginning, love every sentence all over again, and finally get to the end.
How to Cook a Wolf, MFK Fisher
MFK Fisher writes these nifty little essays which appear to be about food and recipes but which are really about life. (Well. And the food.) They are some of the best examples of what the essay--the writing form which attempts--can do, where it can go, and what it can discover in the process of its unfolding. How to Cook a Wolf was written during World War II, and was meant to encourage people during the shortages. I recently read Fisher's Consider the Oyster, and I'm excited to carry on to Wolf.
Tin Toys Trilogy, Ursula Holden
Tin Toys Trilogy takes place in Ireland in the 30s and 40s and follows three sisters as they grow up and deal with various tragedies of life. The trilogy is being reprinted by Virago Modern Classics, and is said to be an excellent exploration of childhood. I'd never heard of Holden before I came across the news that Virago was reprinting her, and there seems to be a general opinion that her work should be more well-known and may be on the verge of a renaissance.
The Birth of Venus, Sarah Dunant
I often find myself itching for some good historical fiction, set in pre-1800s Europe with a female central character. No, really. I do. And I can never seem to find something that will scratch that itch and be written well enough that I won't stick a pencil in my eye and be historically accurate. I have a notion that there's more of this out there than I know about, but those that come to my attention generally seem to fail at either not-pencil-in-the eye writing or accuracy. I have high hopes that Dunant's work will fit the bill, and scurried home with three of hers from yesterday's local Library Book Sale.
Previous Editions of Packing for a Reading Retreat
Volume IV
Volume III
Volume II
Volume I
New to Me
The Bone People, Keri Hulme
The Bone People is not exactly new to me. I read about two-thirds of it during a Spring Break during PhD school about five years ago. And I loved every sentence of this Booker-winning novel from New Zealand. The novel begins with Kerewin Holmes, a New Zealander of part Maori and part European descent, who lives a life of content isolation until a strangely silent child and his foster father wander into her life. What follows is a sometimes dark, sometimes funny character study of these three and their interactions. The novel was a casualty of graduate school--a not-for-school book which I was enjoying but eventually abandoned because of the demands of school--and I've been meaning to return to it ever since, to start at the beginning, love every sentence all over again, and finally get to the end.
How to Cook a Wolf, MFK Fisher
MFK Fisher writes these nifty little essays which appear to be about food and recipes but which are really about life. (Well. And the food.) They are some of the best examples of what the essay--the writing form which attempts--can do, where it can go, and what it can discover in the process of its unfolding. How to Cook a Wolf was written during World War II, and was meant to encourage people during the shortages. I recently read Fisher's Consider the Oyster, and I'm excited to carry on to Wolf.
Tin Toys Trilogy, Ursula Holden
Tin Toys Trilogy takes place in Ireland in the 30s and 40s and follows three sisters as they grow up and deal with various tragedies of life. The trilogy is being reprinted by Virago Modern Classics, and is said to be an excellent exploration of childhood. I'd never heard of Holden before I came across the news that Virago was reprinting her, and there seems to be a general opinion that her work should be more well-known and may be on the verge of a renaissance.
The Birth of Venus, Sarah Dunant
I often find myself itching for some good historical fiction, set in pre-1800s Europe with a female central character. No, really. I do. And I can never seem to find something that will scratch that itch and be written well enough that I won't stick a pencil in my eye and be historically accurate. I have a notion that there's more of this out there than I know about, but those that come to my attention generally seem to fail at either not-pencil-in-the eye writing or accuracy. I have high hopes that Dunant's work will fit the bill, and scurried home with three of hers from yesterday's local Library Book Sale.
Previous Editions of Packing for a Reading Retreat
Volume IV
Volume III
Volume II
Volume I
Friday, January 11, 2013
Packing for a Reading Retreat: Volume IV
It's time for a new edition of "Packing for a Reading Retreat," where I
imagine which books I would take with me if I were heading to a reading
retreat, where there would be no distractions and I would be free to do
nothing but read for a week. My imagined packing can fall into one of three categories:
"New to Me," for books I've never read before; "Old Favorites," for past
reads I'd like to revisit; and "Just in Case," for one book that can
always be counted on to save me if one of the other selections turns out
to be a dud. As the volumes of "Packing" pile up, I may share more "New to Me" choices and allow "Old Favorites" and "Just in Case" to appear only when a book which fits either category leaps out at me and demands to be recognized.
New to Me
tiny beautiful things: Advice on love and life from Dear Sugar, Cheryl Strayed
If you don't know about Dear Sugar and The Rumpus, you ought. The Rumpus is an online magazine with reviews, essays, interviews and so on--often about and by people you want to hear from and likely won't anywhere else. And Dear Sugar is their advice column. And tiny beautiful things is a collection of those columns. This ain't Dear Abby I'm talking about with one or two paragraphs of advice anyone with a brain and more than a decade or two of living behind them could give you (not that Dear Abby isn't usually right on the money); Sugar's responses are full-blown personal essays in response to her reader's questions, which themselves are often longer than an entire typical newspaper advice column and and are frequently heartrending. Dear Sugar is less advice about what to do about something and more an invitation to contemplate what it means to be human and to discover how to be better at it. This one is at the very top of my "to-read" pile.
Seraphina, Rachel Hartman
Dragons! Seraphina is a young adult novel about human/dragon conflict wherein the dragons are sentient and eminently rational. Hartman cited Vulcans and a desire really to explore what a society based on individual rationality above all else would look like as part of her inspiration. She also reportedly listened to Italian polyphony and Breton bagpipe rock while she was writing. If she can put together a sentence, this basically cannot fail to be awesome, right?
Les Misérables, Victor Hugo
Doorstop-reads don't scare me off, exactly, but I'm often not in the mood to read them--usually because I have so many things I want to read now, now, now that I have a hard time committing so much reading time to one thing. But lately I find myself aspiring to a lot of chunkster reads all at once. Anna Karenina, The Forsyte Saga, War and Peace. And Les Mis calls to me more than any other. I'm not sure why (this notion predates the release of the recent movie, which I haven't seen. Actually, I've never seen any interpretation of the book.). Epic storytelling, tragic heroes, historical bits--all up my street. Or maybe it's just winter.
On the Map: A Mind-Expanding Exploration of the Way the World Looks, Simon Garfield
Oh, how I do love maps! World maps, fantasy maps, topography maps, ancient maps. I can just stare at a good one for yonks. So here's a book for me. On the Map talks history of maps and map-making, how maps shape our understanding of the world, maps in popular culture. I suspect this will be a book anyone with a map in her hall of the surrounding country "with all her favourite walks marked on it in red ink" will find fascinating.
Previous Editions of Packing for a Reading Retreat:
Volume III
Volume II
Volume I
New to Me
tiny beautiful things: Advice on love and life from Dear Sugar, Cheryl Strayed
If you don't know about Dear Sugar and The Rumpus, you ought. The Rumpus is an online magazine with reviews, essays, interviews and so on--often about and by people you want to hear from and likely won't anywhere else. And Dear Sugar is their advice column. And tiny beautiful things is a collection of those columns. This ain't Dear Abby I'm talking about with one or two paragraphs of advice anyone with a brain and more than a decade or two of living behind them could give you (not that Dear Abby isn't usually right on the money); Sugar's responses are full-blown personal essays in response to her reader's questions, which themselves are often longer than an entire typical newspaper advice column and and are frequently heartrending. Dear Sugar is less advice about what to do about something and more an invitation to contemplate what it means to be human and to discover how to be better at it. This one is at the very top of my "to-read" pile.
Seraphina, Rachel Hartman
Dragons! Seraphina is a young adult novel about human/dragon conflict wherein the dragons are sentient and eminently rational. Hartman cited Vulcans and a desire really to explore what a society based on individual rationality above all else would look like as part of her inspiration. She also reportedly listened to Italian polyphony and Breton bagpipe rock while she was writing. If she can put together a sentence, this basically cannot fail to be awesome, right?
Les Misérables, Victor Hugo
Doorstop-reads don't scare me off, exactly, but I'm often not in the mood to read them--usually because I have so many things I want to read now, now, now that I have a hard time committing so much reading time to one thing. But lately I find myself aspiring to a lot of chunkster reads all at once. Anna Karenina, The Forsyte Saga, War and Peace. And Les Mis calls to me more than any other. I'm not sure why (this notion predates the release of the recent movie, which I haven't seen. Actually, I've never seen any interpretation of the book.). Epic storytelling, tragic heroes, historical bits--all up my street. Or maybe it's just winter.
On the Map: A Mind-Expanding Exploration of the Way the World Looks, Simon Garfield
Oh, how I do love maps! World maps, fantasy maps, topography maps, ancient maps. I can just stare at a good one for yonks. So here's a book for me. On the Map talks history of maps and map-making, how maps shape our understanding of the world, maps in popular culture. I suspect this will be a book anyone with a map in her hall of the surrounding country "with all her favourite walks marked on it in red ink" will find fascinating.
Previous Editions of Packing for a Reading Retreat:
Volume III
Volume II
Volume I
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
On Heirs and History
I am not yet tired of hearing about the pregnancy of the Duchess of Cambridge, but I am
tired of hearing people moan about how they don't want to hear about
it. It's been only two days, and I am already blisteringly weary of
dismissals of the news: "Who cares?" and "Just another celebrity
pregnancy media frenzy." Sorry. Tisn't.
I will grant that many are far too wrapped up in the lives of celebrities, and the hysteria some Brits show over the Royals can sometimes seem over-the-top and bewildering. I hope (probably in vain) that the Duke and Duchess can live out her pregnancy in some kind of normalcy (and in health--that the Duchess has been hospitalized for hyperemesis gravidarum is a cause for some concern), but there is no escaping the fact that she, her unborn child, and her husband are walking history. That is a future monarch she is carrying there, and questions of the wisdom and feasibility of the continuation of a monarchy in Great Britain aside (that's a topic for another time), the pending birth of a future monarch is a big deal.
Not as big a deal as it would have been four, or even one, hundred years ago, but a big deal still. Whatever one's opinion about the royal family, there is no denying that who they are and what they do is considered to be top news by millions: it is estimated that some 300 million people watched Prince William and Catherine Middleton's wedding in April 2011, 1.2 million people lined the royal pageant route on Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee and 14.7 million watched the Diamond Jubilee Concert in June 2012, and 10 million people a year in Britain alone have tuned into the Queen's annual Christmas Speech in recent years).* The members of the House of Windsor fascinate their subjects (even while they and the royal system which they embody may infuriate some of their subjects as well), and, if interviews with some of those who come out to line The Mall during celebrations such as Royal Weddings and Jubilees are any indication, their service to the Commonwealth engenders loyalty, admiration, and gratitude in many. That being the case, the birth of a child who will change the line of succession and thus change the future face of the British monarchy is certainly newsworthy.
But what is infinitely more compelling to me, what has me excited to hear about this pregnancy, is the sense of history that comes with this news. So much of Britain's history rests on who sat on the throne and who could or could not produce a legitimate successor, and while the political ramifications of not producing an heir are less dire now than they have been in Britain's past, the event of Prince William's marriage and Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge's, subsequent pregnancy connects us to that past. I have always thought that the British seem to be more aware of their history during their day-to day lives than we are--a result, perhaps, of having a national figure who is a living, breathing link to hundreds of years of royal and political history. The royal family we see today--Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, Prince William, and, of course, all the rest of the Queen's children and grandchildren--are a result and a reminder of hundreds of years of history. The current Queen's father gave a rousing speech at the start of WWII that helped unite a country under threat; her uncle was at the heart of a scandal that tested the relationship between the monarch and parliament; her grandfather ruled during WWI, her great-grandfather had a period named after him (Edwardian), her great-great grandmother, too (you might have heard of it). When we watch The King's Speech and get swept up in the story of that man's life and the history he lived, is it not marvelous to realize that the dignified woman we see celebrating sixty years on the throne is his daughter? Or to think, when we see that episode of Doctor Who with Queen Victoria that plays on the history of her family, that that story (in more realistic terms, perhaps) is still being told?
Millions of people the world over can do this, too, can trace their ancestry back hundreds of years, can point to the historical events their families influenced or were a part of. And history, after all, is made up not just of the names and deeds everyone knows but of the names and deeds no one knows. But the children of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will be the next step in a part of history that we can see, and that is just mind-bendingly brilliant. To think that these children will be the direct descendents of people who stare at us out of black and white plates in our history books; to realize that the past isn't dead, that, in fact, it walks about, living, breathing, falling in love, having children; to be reminded of this is simply grand.
And we Americans, who are so unfailingly interested in trying to pull the beliefs and attitudes of our founding fathers into the present, who are fascinated by the complex histories of our own important ruling familes (the Adamses, the Kennedys, the Bushes), and who have a history of the family Bible with its carefully filled out family tree at the center, should have no trouble at all understanding why the impending birth of the great-great-great-great-great grandchild of a figure of such national and international historical import would be breaking news.
*The population of Britain in 2010 was ~62 million, meaning about 16% of the population watched the Queen's Christmas Speech. By contrast, about 37.8 million people watched President Obama's 2011 State of the Union Speech, or about 12% of the US population. These comparisons are not strictly one-to-one (I don't mean to equate the President of the USA's State of the Union Address and the Queen's Christmas Speech; they do not serve the same function), but the point that people care about the royals is adequately made, I think.
**Also, a nod to Jane Murray's The Kings and Queens of England, which is always my go-to for sorting who-came-after-who and who-was-who's-father.
I will grant that many are far too wrapped up in the lives of celebrities, and the hysteria some Brits show over the Royals can sometimes seem over-the-top and bewildering. I hope (probably in vain) that the Duke and Duchess can live out her pregnancy in some kind of normalcy (and in health--that the Duchess has been hospitalized for hyperemesis gravidarum is a cause for some concern), but there is no escaping the fact that she, her unborn child, and her husband are walking history. That is a future monarch she is carrying there, and questions of the wisdom and feasibility of the continuation of a monarchy in Great Britain aside (that's a topic for another time), the pending birth of a future monarch is a big deal.
Not as big a deal as it would have been four, or even one, hundred years ago, but a big deal still. Whatever one's opinion about the royal family, there is no denying that who they are and what they do is considered to be top news by millions: it is estimated that some 300 million people watched Prince William and Catherine Middleton's wedding in April 2011, 1.2 million people lined the royal pageant route on Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee and 14.7 million watched the Diamond Jubilee Concert in June 2012, and 10 million people a year in Britain alone have tuned into the Queen's annual Christmas Speech in recent years).* The members of the House of Windsor fascinate their subjects (even while they and the royal system which they embody may infuriate some of their subjects as well), and, if interviews with some of those who come out to line The Mall during celebrations such as Royal Weddings and Jubilees are any indication, their service to the Commonwealth engenders loyalty, admiration, and gratitude in many. That being the case, the birth of a child who will change the line of succession and thus change the future face of the British monarchy is certainly newsworthy.
But what is infinitely more compelling to me, what has me excited to hear about this pregnancy, is the sense of history that comes with this news. So much of Britain's history rests on who sat on the throne and who could or could not produce a legitimate successor, and while the political ramifications of not producing an heir are less dire now than they have been in Britain's past, the event of Prince William's marriage and Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge's, subsequent pregnancy connects us to that past. I have always thought that the British seem to be more aware of their history during their day-to day lives than we are--a result, perhaps, of having a national figure who is a living, breathing link to hundreds of years of royal and political history. The royal family we see today--Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, Prince William, and, of course, all the rest of the Queen's children and grandchildren--are a result and a reminder of hundreds of years of history. The current Queen's father gave a rousing speech at the start of WWII that helped unite a country under threat; her uncle was at the heart of a scandal that tested the relationship between the monarch and parliament; her grandfather ruled during WWI, her great-grandfather had a period named after him (Edwardian), her great-great grandmother, too (you might have heard of it). When we watch The King's Speech and get swept up in the story of that man's life and the history he lived, is it not marvelous to realize that the dignified woman we see celebrating sixty years on the throne is his daughter? Or to think, when we see that episode of Doctor Who with Queen Victoria that plays on the history of her family, that that story (in more realistic terms, perhaps) is still being told?
Millions of people the world over can do this, too, can trace their ancestry back hundreds of years, can point to the historical events their families influenced or were a part of. And history, after all, is made up not just of the names and deeds everyone knows but of the names and deeds no one knows. But the children of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will be the next step in a part of history that we can see, and that is just mind-bendingly brilliant. To think that these children will be the direct descendents of people who stare at us out of black and white plates in our history books; to realize that the past isn't dead, that, in fact, it walks about, living, breathing, falling in love, having children; to be reminded of this is simply grand.
And we Americans, who are so unfailingly interested in trying to pull the beliefs and attitudes of our founding fathers into the present, who are fascinated by the complex histories of our own important ruling familes (the Adamses, the Kennedys, the Bushes), and who have a history of the family Bible with its carefully filled out family tree at the center, should have no trouble at all understanding why the impending birth of the great-great-great-great-great grandchild of a figure of such national and international historical import would be breaking news.
*The population of Britain in 2010 was ~62 million, meaning about 16% of the population watched the Queen's Christmas Speech. By contrast, about 37.8 million people watched President Obama's 2011 State of the Union Speech, or about 12% of the US population. These comparisons are not strictly one-to-one (I don't mean to equate the President of the USA's State of the Union Address and the Queen's Christmas Speech; they do not serve the same function), but the point that people care about the royals is adequately made, I think.
**Also, a nod to Jane Murray's The Kings and Queens of England, which is always my go-to for sorting who-came-after-who and who-was-who's-father.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Book Review: Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
A fascinating novel, mostly made so by its intriguing structure and deft handling of many writing styles. Cloud Atlas
consists of six different narratives, each taking place at a different
time in history (and some in the future), dealing with different
characters, and employing different styles and methods of narration. The
novel begins with the narrative furthest back in time (call it
Narrative A), continues with the next narrative in chronological
succession (Narrative B), and keeps going through its several narratives
until it arrives at Narrative F, then works back in time through each
narrative once again. So the structure looks something like this:
ABCDEFEDCBA. Eventually it becomes apparent that there are connections
among these seemingly separate narratives, and Mitchell's skill in
handling this structure becomes increasingly clear as he works his way
back down his narrative ladder (on the EDCBA side, if you will). Working
the hints of connections into the first half of the novel strikes me as
something not overly difficult; backing out through the second half of
the narrative and picking up all those disparate threads to make the
whole create sense and answer questions seems like it must have been
mind-bogglingly difficult. For manipulation of this structure, for
making it work, I give Mitchell all the credit in the world. His
skill at working so well within so many different styles is also
remarkable. He succeeds, as well, in making the reader care about each
of his narratives, about all of his characters, despite wrenching her
away from each narrative just as it is getting really good and asking
her to invest in yet another scenario.
I came away from Cloud Atlas impressed by Mitchell's writing and his ability to reel one into a story and wowed by his handle on structure. But in the end I was never sure what all of that structural whizzbang was for (beyond being an incredible feat in and of itself). I'm not entirely sure what the novel means to say about the interconnectedness of people and events or about our ability (or inability?) to recognize those connections. Without that understanding I was left a bit befuddled. Which is not to say that I think this isn't a book worth reading. I think it is. There's enough here that is satisfying to outweigh that discontent in the end. And the novel avoids feeling like an experiment which succeeds technically but fails to tap into the emotional life of the reader. The novel is an amazing achievement, if not a wholly satisfying one. But absolutely worth the read, even if only to marvel at how Mitchell works that ABCDEFEDCBA structure. Seriously.
This review originally appeared on my LibraryThing account.
I came away from Cloud Atlas impressed by Mitchell's writing and his ability to reel one into a story and wowed by his handle on structure. But in the end I was never sure what all of that structural whizzbang was for (beyond being an incredible feat in and of itself). I'm not entirely sure what the novel means to say about the interconnectedness of people and events or about our ability (or inability?) to recognize those connections. Without that understanding I was left a bit befuddled. Which is not to say that I think this isn't a book worth reading. I think it is. There's enough here that is satisfying to outweigh that discontent in the end. And the novel avoids feeling like an experiment which succeeds technically but fails to tap into the emotional life of the reader. The novel is an amazing achievement, if not a wholly satisfying one. But absolutely worth the read, even if only to marvel at how Mitchell works that ABCDEFEDCBA structure. Seriously.
This review originally appeared on my LibraryThing account.
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