kellementology

life according to me

Tag: Books

  • Good Fiction, Calcium, and Strong Bones

    I have been doing a fairly good job of reading books that have some degree of literary merit. It’s funny though, because I don’t find myself discussing them with anyone. The only gauge I have about whether what I’m reading has left an impact is that I find myself mentioning aspects of the books to the MoH. He’s just a sounding board, though, because he doesn’t read. Well, he reads numbers. Mmmm….numbers.

    I can’t imagine not reading. Not being interested in reading. Not wanting to read. Being able to live one’s life each day without knowing that when it’s late, and it’s time for bed, there’s a book just waiting to be opened. If anything can take my mind off of my own pettiness and worth in this world, it’s a book.

    The biggest difference between the books I read that I describe as having literary merit, is that I might be able to actually discuss them. You know, while standing in the line at the grocery store, or with the guy who comes around to check on the landscaping in the complex. “So, how do you feel about the dry wit of the storyteller in Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress and its juxtapositioning with the “re-education of the “young intellectuals” in China by Chairman Mao?” I could ask of one of those innocent victims. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie If I actually did bring up something I’ve read (and no, not at the grocery store), the mention would only go so far as to sound as if I’m in the know with regard to said book. The next person would launch into her query,” Yes, but have you read…,” or perhaps, “I’m reading….” and there wouldn’t really be a discussion about any of the books mentioned. Or should I say titles mentioned. The idea of starting a bookgroup has come up, but that’s all. We do a lot of that.

    So reading is yet another semi-private part of who I am. Who I am, not what I do. When I read books of a finer quality, it is the writing that fascinates me more than the story. I don’t know that the story would intrigue me without the writing. It seems ridiculous to separate the two, because how could one exist without the other? A good example would be to consider a less than literary book — one that is packed full or intrigue, or tear-jerking drama. Evocative desires and feckless females. Men with big pectorals. When I read books like this, it is the steamy sex and diabolical schemes of the evil antagonist story that keeps my attention, and I race through them. Although many are enjoyable — especially when I just don’t feel like doing the laundry, weeding the planters on the patio, or cooking dinner reading about the pain of all human suffering — I have difficulty remembering most of them for any length of time after I’m finished with them. And it’s not because my memory is going to crap. They all blend together. I remember the author’s name most of the time, but rarely the title. Yes, some of the writers are better than others with the best being those whose dialogue, or characters don’t interfere with racing through to the finish. But many aren’t. It must not matter, because they certainly can sell books. And they probably make quite a bit more money than most of those who publish “literature.”

    Lately, I’ve been pressing ahead with choosing books for their writers first, and the story second. This has slowed my reading down quite a bit, but it has also kept me engrossed in the craft of writing. That has been very worthwhile. The History of Love

    For example:

    “When they write my obituary. Tomorrow. Or the next day. It will say, LEO GURSKY IS SURVIVED BY AN APARTMENT FULL OF SHIT.”

    — From The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

    How could I not want to read this book? The character and everything that I came to know about him is completely wrapped up in that very first passage. The voice chosen. The phrasing. The language. How does Krauss switch from Leo’s perspective, to that of fourteen-year-old Alma, the daughter of a woman who writes translations of books, and who is lonely after the death of her husband. Alma’s “chapters” not only sound different than those of Leo, they look very different.

    25. MY BROTHER, THE MESSIAH

    That night while I was reading, Bird came into my room and climbed into bed with me. At eleven and a half, he was small for his age. He pressed his little cold feet into my leg. “Tell me something about Dad, ” he whispered. “You forgot to cut your toenails,” I said. He kneaded the balls of his feet into my calf. “Please?” he begged. I tried to think, and because I couldn’t remember anything I hadn’t already told him a hundred times, I made up something.”

    This is a book that I will pick up, turn to a page and reread a passage just for the way it sounds. The writing makes the story, a remarkable one, unlike anything I’ve read. The History of Love will not be a book that is forgotten, and I want to read more of Krauss.

    I’ve been on an interesting train of reading translations or about translators. It hasn’t been by design, but it certainly adds to the thinking I do about what I read. A few months ago, I finally read the Carol Brown Janeway translation of Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader. I’ve had the book for at least five years, successfully moving past it on my shelf each time I searched for something new to read. No wonder. I wouldn’t have been able to contain my emotions had I read it earlier. I had trouble as it was. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

    Sometimes when the beauty of a phrase or the uniqueness of an idea expressed stands out, I turn down the page. I know. You hate that. They’re my books, I paid for them, and they’re trade paperbacks, not hardbacks, and certainly not first editions. Someday they’ll end up in a used bookstore, someone else will notice the creases in the lower corners and wonder what it was about that page that caught another reader’s eye. So yes, I turn down the page. Or in this case, turn up the corner. It would be a bit strange if i whipped out my yellow highlighter, don’t you think?

    Fourteen of the 218 pages are turned down in The Reader. Going back to read some of the passages overwhelms me and I want to read each one again, and more. How does a translator capture the essence of a writer’s words, his characters, their thoughts? It makes me want to be able to read in another language to see for myself instead of wondering about it.

    “But there was so much energy in me, such belief that one day I’d be handsome and clever and superior and admired, such anticipation when I met new people and new situations. Is that what makes me sad? The eagerness and belief that filled me then and exacted a pledge from life that life could never fulfill? Sometimes I see the same eagerness and belief in the faces of children and teenagers and the sight brings back the same sadness I fell in remembering myself. Is this what sadness is all about? Is it what comes over us when beautiful memories shatter in hindsight because the remembered happiness fed not just on actual circumstances but on a promise that was not kept?”

    — Michael of The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

    The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman And where do authors get their ideas? I know I have captured an interesting few myself over the years, but they’re just sitting in a notebook. Waiting. In The Ice Queen, by Alice Hoffman, the book I’m currently reading, a woman is stuck by lightning, causing her life to take a different course than one might expect it to after such an event.

    “You’re always so negative,” my grandmother said.

    “You got all the positive genes.” Amazing, considering her condition, considering the condition of the world.

    Toward the end of her illness, even my grandmother had to face sorow. She cried in her sleep. I couldn’t stand to hear her suffering. I left the cat I’d adopted to keep watch over her, curled up on the hospital bed I’d rented, and I went to stand outside, where I could breathe in the brackish air. It was spring and there was pine pollen everywhere; things had turned a sulfury yellow. That night I wished that my whole life had been different and that i could start all over again, in Paris, or London, in Italy, even across the river in New York City, where I’d gone to school. I was still young. I wished I could shed my skin, walk away, never look back. But starting a new life was not my expertise. Death was my talent; before I could stop myself, I wished my grandmother’s pain would end. I wished that this world would no longer have a hold on her.

    She died that night while I was sleeping on the couch.”

    The woman has a knack for her wishes coming true, and it is with a sense of being no one, and having no life, that she tells her story. What makes a writer think of telling a story about someone being struck by lightning? Of telling a story that puts the reader so perfectly inside the head of a seemingly dreary woman, but doesn’t give her a name. Does she not have a name because of her existence? I’ve looked back through the pages I’ve read, and I still can’t find her name. It’s strange, but intriguing, and I need to know what will happen to her. To find out what sense she’ll make of herself and others in her life –several of whom have also been struck by lightning. Hoffman’s writing is almost stream of consciousness at times. Raw and private, evoking surprising emotion as I read. And hope.

    In another day or so, I’ll start A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, a novel by Marina Lewycka. Of course, the title caught my attention, but so did the summary. It’s about two sisters who put aside their differences to save their father from a “voluptuous gold digger from the Ukraine.” It sounds hilarious, and better be, as I’ll be needing a break from the seriousness of what I’ve been reading. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian

    Okay, so I did read Goodbye, Jimmy Choo before The Ice Queen, but I can’t just read earth-shatteringly serious books one after the other. They make my head and heart heavy. But now that I think of it, Goodbye, Jimmy Choos — was built around the idea of taking things for granted and how seriously lives can change after an unexpected event occurs. Sometimes, covers can be deceiving. Goodbye, Jimmy Choo

    I did break down and buy a Nora Roberts novel at Target a couple of days ago, though. It seems ages since I’ve languished in one of her books, but it’s only been less than a year. Ahhh…it has bathtub and wine or staying up half the night with the light on while the MoH is trying to sleep written all over it. I can’t wait. I’ve read about 20 or 25 of her G.P. Putnam and Jove titles and am amazed at how she just churns them out. Think what you want. Look down your nose, say that what she writes is “easier” or takes less thought than someone who is recognized with the Pulitzer, the Booker, or the National Book Award. What it takes is discipline — something I seem to lack these days.

    Fat Girl by Judith MooreBut I have to wait to read my new Nora Roberts. I have to read Fat Girl first. It’s a true story (something I rarely read) by Judith Moore, who struggled with food issues her entire life. And I say “have” because it’s sort of like taking 3200 mg. of calcium each day.

    It’ll make my bones stronger.

    Because I have something to write about that could be “brilliant and angry and unsettling,” too.

    I just don’t know how to begin.

    (And just in case you’ve been paying attention, all but two of the books I’ve mentioned are new books, purchased AFTER I said I had to read all of the books I own before I purchase another…So many books, so little time…)

  • Headaches and Old Photographs

    The RT hasn’t been feeling great lately. I guess “sick” would be an accurate descriptor, and yet he’s trooped through what we’ve had going on. I think this is only the third time he’s ever been ill. Amazing, actually. He had that head-achy, eyeballs hurting when you look one way and then the other kind of sluggish don’t really care about much malaise.

    I have it now.

    What is it about being sick in the summer that makes it seems so much worse than just generally feeling like crap? It must be the warmth, and all that happy sunshine. You can’t exactly cozy up in a comforter, or languish in bed all day. It’s too warm.  So I’ve been up, but not as early as I would have liked since I could feel the drum pounding in my skull at what must have been two or three o’clock this morning with the idea of a cup of hot tea wafting through my delirium.

    The decadent chocolate fudge cake with cream and strawberries left over from the RT’s birthday get together yesterday perked me up a bit while I was reading the paper, but the idea of eating the rest of it just to keep myself perked up didn’t seem too logical. So here I am with you guys. I employed a new technique to claim my seat at the computer this morning by sitting in the chair in the corner of the office, casually looking at the Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Elements for Teens book I got the RT for his birthday. You do know that book is really for me, right? Sitting in the room while the RT was surfing only lasted about 10 minutes, and then he moseyed into another room, leaving me to think. Scary when my head feels like it’s filling up with something more dense than my brain today.  All those thoughts crashing into each other, making me wince each time I move my head.

    Montage It is a good day to think about all the family photographs my mother has been bringing to our house over the past several weeks with nudgings of, “Go through these when you get a chance and keep the ones you want. Then you can ship the rest to me in Virginia after I’m there.” There are so many of them. So many years, so many people whom I’m related to in some way or another, and so many memories that aren’t always pleasant.

    I’ve wandered past the growing stack of boxes taking the time to move some of them to the landing on the stairs where they wouldn’t be such a reminder of something I need to do that I’m not always especially fond of doing. Even the good memories are tinged with a bit of sadness now that so much time that has passed. So many changes have occurred in a face, or in one’s smile — eyes that had a different kind of wistfulness than they do today. It’s hard for me to look and to not notice. To sort and choose. And to ache a bit for what used to be, or could have been.

    So I’m going to treat my heavy head to Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir edited by William Zinsser whose books on writing have been favorites of mine over the years. Books like On Writing Well, and Writing to Learn. No, this book isn’t one of those on my stack. It doesn’t count because it isn’t fiction, and I don’t read nonfiction the same way. I scan the titles, notice the contributing authors — Anne Dillard, Frank McCourt — and skim until I settle on something that catches my eye.

    Reading what others have to say about memoir will take up time. Call it avoiding setting about the task myself. You can imagine that if it’s challenging for me to look at years of pictures, that writing about what’s behind some of those pictures will be something I have to force myself to do.

    With respect to memoir, Zinsser writes:

    A good memoir requires two elements — one of art, the other of craft. The first element is integrity of intention. Memoir is the best search mechanism that writers are given. Memoir is how we try to make sense of who we are, who we once were, and what values and heritage shaped us. If a writer seriously embarks on that quest, readers will be nourished by the journey, bringing along many associations with quests of their own.

    Who we are, indeed.  Inventing the Truth

    In my time deciding how to go about starting, or at least think about starting, I’m sure I’ll return to Phillip Lopate’s The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present. James Baldwin’s “Alas, Poor Richard” begins this way:

    Unless a writer is extremely old when he dies, in which case he has probably become a neglected institution, his death must always seem untimely. This is because a real writer is always shifting and changing and searching. The world has many labels for him, of which the most treacherous is the label of Success. But the man behind the label knows defeat far more intimately than he knows triumph. He can never be absolutely certain that he has achieved his intention.

    So what would my actual intention be to write down all that I’ve kept in my head for so long? To purge myself of it? I wouldn’t want that, because it has become part of me, and not holding onto it would be similar to cutting a hole in the center of me. So then might it be so others can understand? If so, what might they understand? That you can choose to either dwell on what happens to you in life and let it mark you, or acknowledge that it’s now a part of who you are, and turn it into something you can leap from inventing yourself.

    That would be a good place to begin.

    I like the jaunty tone of Wendy Lesser, though in “Overture,” the first of her pieces in The Amateur: An Independent Life of Letters. She writes in a pointed, but less pedantic way of the choices we make in life, and who we are as a result of them:

    The autobiographical mode implies the justification of a life, but that is rather hard to do when one is still in the midst of living it. Also, it is not clear exactly what in the life could justify it. The plan you conceived and executed? A laughable chimera, believable only when you are nineteen years old and deciding on a college major. The choices you made? But if they turned out well, you don’t necessarily deserve the credit, and if you try to take it, you will merely sound foolish or smut. Do you, in any case, make the important choices, or are they thrust on you?

    Thrust? A more gentle word than I may use for some of what I am compelled to write.

    Subjected to? Withstood.

    Never resigned.

    I need to go lay my fat head down before I topple out of this chair. My eyeballs ache. But if I stare straight ahead at my books, quietly reading, it’s not so bad. And then I can read and think about writing, instead of writing.

    Instead of sorting through those photos.

  • How Mameve Medwed saved my summer reading life

    About that pile of books I’m supposed to be reading…

    Some time ago while I was reading through others’ blogs, I spied the cover of a book in a sidebar. If I remember correctly, there was somewhat of a tease in the caption encouraging me to receive the book free if I was willing to review it. You do know that I am completely aware of the promise I made to read all the books I have at home before I purchase another, don’t you? I chide myself each and every time I see something I’d love to read that isn’t in my stack of books. I’ve been so trustworthy. So diligent. Well, perhaps not quite tenacious enough when one considers the amount of time I’ve taken to read through a couple of the first books on my list.

    Just a refresher: the whole point of reading everything in my house has been my cost saving measure: a sort of contribution to the family’s coffers since I’m sans income. Besides, I did take the time to choose and purchase these ah… tomes at one point in the past, mulling over the authors, considering the reviews, and projecting the mood each would lull me into as I read.

    So when I saw How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved my Life in the lamentably forgotten blogger’s sidebar (I am so very sorry!) with “free” nestled beneath the cover shot, I thought that it wouldn’t be cheating if I accepted the offer. Sure, I’ll read a book and write a review. Technically, I wouldn’t be spending money for the book. It would be just fine if I sneaked this one in to relieve myself of the recent horrendous reads I’d suffered through. So I clicked. A free book!

    The book was delivered, and read. I read it in two days. Not a month like Mapping the Edge. Not weeks and weeks and weeks, like Dog Days. Two days. Now, that’s more like it. Nothing like being back in the saddle again. Greasing up the ol’ reading machine. I’m back. Besides, it’s summertime, and what can be more perfect than a book that travels easily to the beach and back? A book that’s about antiques, New England, a little romance, an obscure biography by Virginia Woolf called Flush, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s thunder mug. Ahem… Excuse me?

    Let me back up a bit before I truly begin.

    Quite some time ago, I was in Cambridge, MA, working on a project at the Harvard Graduate School of Ed and happened upon Mail. The cover was an eye-catching yellow, and I was drawn to the author’s name — unusual. The setting was Cambridge — how coincidental; the protagonist a writer — and I wanted so much to be a writer. So it seemed perfect for a summertime read to ease my mind from the less than glamorous work I was involved in: curriculum writing. I no longer have the book, most likely loaned to a friend who neglected to return it, but I remember enjoying the woman in the story and her quirky personality. I remember her mailman, too…It’s been a while since I’ve read something by Mameve Medwed — nearly ten years.

    I’m so sorry, Mameve. I know you’ve published other books in that time, so it’s odd that I’ve not come across one while traipsing through bookstores, or surfing Amazon’s cyberstacks. And I know that had I found one of those books, it wouldn’t be hidden in that dusty stack I currently find myself having to read. I would speak to my marketers, if I were you, because I enjoyed your first book quite a bit and would have read the others had I known…

    Memories of Medwed’s writing came quickly back as I began this latest of her novels. Abby Randolph is an easy to get to know woman who sells antiques. Her store isn’t one known for grossly ornate 18th century European credenzas, or priceless Baccarat crystal candlesticks. In fact, her “store” is a booth that sits alongside that of others who have a passion for, and know much about old things that just might be worth more than we think they are worth. Like the porcelain chamber pot that sits in Abby’s booth. The one her colleague encourages her to lug to the Antiques Roadshow soon coming to town. The chamber pot once owned by her mother who was recently and tragically killed. Her lovely mother who, after years of chin-up tolerance with her role as one of “the Cambridge ladies” poet E.E. Cummings writes of, runs off to seek a new life: a life with the woman next door. Yes, woman. Her best friend’s mother. The mother of the boy next door she fell in love with so many years ago.

    Medwed’s ability to sell Abby and her self-deprecating existence, her seemingly new found promise of wealth, and love, are what make this book. Otherwise, liking Abby could become a challenge. She seems not able to hold herself up or deal with her life. She lets people walk all over her. She just accepts things. But she knows it. And when she acknowledges her shortcomings over and over again, you find that you are on her side, cheering her on, wanting her to step up and push back against the pathetic people she has chosen to tolerate throughout her life: the pseudo best friend who is really only out for herself; her ex-business partner and lover, gone after taking what he could from Abby’s life as a Cambridge professor’s daughter and has moved on to a more profitable lifestyle; or the reporter who surfaces to get the inside story on the chamber pot, now authenticated and valued at a staggering amount of money.

    Don’t most people fare well after they’ve received news of a windfall? Shouldn’t everything turn around in their lives, making their dull existence more bright? Can it erase the sadness one feels for the tragic loss of a mother, and a young man always thought of as someone who would be part of her future?

    Maybe it can. Abby Randolph has to confront her demons in much the way that you and I would, failing over and over again, before she is able to arrive at what matters. Without Medwed’s clever sarcasm and tight narrative, without her insider knowledge as a Cambridge resident, How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life could be just another book in a growing list of what is now referred to as Chick Lit. Without Medwed’s dry humor and ability to capture the odd characteristics humans have, Abby could be just another female whose pathetic lack of self-awareness makes her unnoticeable. Instead, we are left smiling as Abby grows into herself and her life.

    http://www.harpercollins.com/services/browseinside/widget.aspx?hc.guid=3ee96b8e-5b18-427e-a36e-6893adfa1856Mameve Medwed has saved me from the depths of yet another completely dreary read. Thank goodness. Now I can go back and read her novels I’ve missed in the past ten years. But not until I finish that stack. Promise. Well, maybe the public library has them. That’s free, too. Right?

    I’m left wondering on whose site I originally found the offer to review this novel and will continue to do some investigating. My quest has dropped me into the world of publishing houses and their quest to step up their on-line marketing. It has taken me to Booksquare and a very interesting look at opinions on the publishing industry. It has also taken me to First Look at Harper Collins — a very intriguing opportunity for someone like me, trying to avoid those books I already own, wanting instead to wallow in the possibility of buying more, always more.

    Oh, that heaven is a bookstore when I get there…

  • Slogged through Dog Days and alive to rant about it!

    Sometime around Valentine’s Day earlier this year after visiting my sister in VA, I was headed toward a security checkpoint at Regan National in D.C. and was sidetracked by the lure of books lined up in a shop. Cruising through the independent Olsson’s Books and Records before my flight home pretty much guaranteed that my wallet would be at least fifty bucks lighter. I love book stores in general, but my idea of heaven is to spend eternity in an independent book store.

    Why independent? The unique way that their selection of books comes together to convey a concise statement on what the shop is about, and how it differs from the next, intrigues me. Of course, they also stock the best-selling books that Barnes & Noble sells, that Borders is featuring, or that Amazon is promising to get to you faster than you can blink, but the books I’d never find, by authors I’ve never heard of who are published by smaller presses  is what captures my attention. The selection is unique, sometimes a bit odd, and of course, there is the tease of finding the perfect read that no one else has mentioned…yet. Oprah hasn’t put her seal of approval on it, it isn’t anywhere near the NY Times best seller list, and no Pulitzer Prize or Booker short list mention is on the radar screen.  So I would have to actually be looking at recently published books for any of this to happen, right?  Feh.

    I suppose I could find a book like that in a humongous chain store as well, but not always. And as much as I truly enjoy surfing through Amazon with obscure searches just to see what I can uncover, there are still gems that I know I would not find. Gems waiting to be found and marveled over. Well, not always.

    Back in February, I hadn’t started blogging yet. Was there life before blogging? If I think about it, I’m not sure blogging had even occurred to me yet– or had it? Anyway, while I was in Olssens, I did purchase five books. One, Slow Man, I finished on the flight home, and truly enjoyed even though it wasn’t an especially light-hearted read. The second, Dog Days, I naively waited to read, duped into thinking it would be “irresistable,” and all the while trudging through Mapping the Edge. Waiting, waiting to open that cover and surely snort the book up in one lazy afternoon. Dog Days by Ana Marie Cox NOT.

    For those of you who have been faithful, you know that I’ve been complaining about dragging myself through a book — kicking and screaming incessantly.  It’s been so long, I had to go back through my posts to see when I started it. It was April 9th! Ohmigod — that’s two months ago. Two months? Gone With The Wind Hell, I read Gone With the Wind in the 9th grade in a week. When I was a sophomore in college, I read one of Hemingway’s novels and several of his short stories every single week until I had read everthing. Two months? For a book that’s only 300 pages long and published over a year ago?  What the hell.

    Clearly, this has been an experiment. I’ve been on a quest to prove that not all books deserve to be read. Yes, I’ve already had S-U-C-K-E-R permanently printed on my head for purchasing Dog Days, but torturing myself to read the entire thing? It’s because I made that committment to myself to read all the books I currently have at home. You do remember part of that stack, right? IMG_1029   I spent the money, so I need to read the damn books! I can hear that nagging voice in my head saying, “Don’t go and spend more money for more books when you can force yourself to read the ones you already have, dork.”  Whot-evah.   The public library is calling my name right now…

    So if Dog Doo Days was such a complete waste of time, why did I buy it anyway, you’re wondering? No, I know you aren’t wondering, but it’s simple, really.  I must have had the idea of blogging on my brain, because I focused in on the back cover:

    “Ana Marie Cox is a columnist for Time and is the founding voice of the hugely popular political blog Wonkette. She has also written for Elle, Wired, Mother Jones, Slate, Salon, New York, and The New York Times Book Review, among other publications. She lives in Washington, D.C.”

    You get the idea, right? We’re all getting warmed up for the election next year, and something described as “snarky” and “a biting debut” with an author who’s a blogger as well? This had me written all over it. It didn’t matter that I had never heard of the blog. She sounded cool, looks way bitchy in the photo, and I love reading “firsts.”

    I really wanted to like the book’s main character, Melanie, but never could.  Her apartment is too dirty, her affair too gratuitous, and her best friend, too shifty. The political tidbits are interesting at times — the whole plot was a takeoff on Dubyah’s re-election campaign — but not enough to make me smile, let along giggle with evil glee at the parallels being drawn. I just didn’t care. I didn’t care so badly that not knowing who the “Clearheads” were for the entire book, and not once flipping back to refresh my memory, or correct my comprehension — a normal thing that readers do — didn’t really make a difference. And knowing who the Clearheads were, what their group believed, and how they could damage a campaign would be a key aspect of the plot. The only reason I know this now is because I flipped back to find out where the Clearheads first appeared — page 41 — right after the hotel room sex with the married journalist who refers to Melanie as “babe.”  Ick.

    I still don’t get it, because I can pretty much read anything. Thumbing back through the book, I suspect the style of Cox’s writing — something that works quite well for, uh… anything but fiction, just didn’t fit. When I read a novel, an edgy, biting tone from the author won’t carry the narrative. The dialogue of a character? Of course. But not the ins and outs of the story. It would be like trying to read a newspaper article that conjured up the voice of Mr. Rodgers — distracting — even if the piece is actually on Fred Rodgers, right?

    Anyway, I nursed my wounds by reading reviews at Amazon. Misery has to love company, right? And I hit pay dirt. After reading through several of the worst reviews I ever read (14 of 30 gave it only one or two stars with the rest seeming to come through because of their status as faithful blogflock members), I felt vindicated, but still pissed off that I read the whole thing. Ugh. Not worth it! Many reviewers agreed that although Cox is a superb writer, this book doesn’t come close to showing what she is capable of.  Can all good writers write fiction?

    So here’s the deal. I will proceed with my cost-saving commitment to read the books I currently have — but I’m going back to my tried and true method of reading. If any book doesn’t capture my complete attention by page 40, it is so not going to be finished. AT ALL.  And don’t mess with me on this.  I really don’t give a flying fart if you’re obsessed with having to read an entire book once you start it because Hell will freeze over and God will fall from the sky if you don’t.  Get over it because you won’t get more brownie points at the freaking pearly gates just because you finished all those stoopid books.  Nobody cares.  *Ahem*

    Now that I’ve wasted copious amounts of reading time (and blogging time) on two books in a row that have been less than entertaining, I’m so due for something painless.

    Painless usually means light and frivolous. Or something written about a place I’d love to travel to. Or that has characters I can live vicariously through. Oh, hell. Something that has steamy sex on every single page and burns my fingers just holding it, okay? Sheesh.  The Flame and the Flower  Nope.  Sneak read this one when I was fifteen!  Delta of VenusAh…no, again.  Read this one when I was 19.  Enthralling doesn’t quite get the point across.

    For the snobs out there who think I’m trashing my brain — or who are just too snooty to confess that they, too, occasionally read less than “constructive” material, I also have pulled up alongside me The Soul’s Code and Imperfect Control — both old books, but dusted off because of some of the crap that has been traveling through my brain lately. And no, I don’t read that sort of thing cover-to-cover. That would be completely dreary.
    I’ll bet you just can’t wait for that. You know me — I’ll try to find a way to connect the acceptable reading with the smut. Woot! Let’s hear it for the trash readers of America!

    What’s in your closet?

  • Complexity + Change = Simplicity

    IMG_0925 The following segment of Julius Caesar by Shakespeare used to be posted on a bulletin board above my desk a few years ago:

    There is a tide in the affairs of men,

    Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

    Omitted, all the voyage of their life

    Is bound in shallows, and in miseries.

    On such a full sea are we now affloat;

    And we must take the current when it serves,

    Or lose our ventures.

    On first glance, it seems to be a bit gloomy, fatalistic. On another — and to me at that point in the extremely difficult work we were engaged in — it meant something very hopeful, promising. It meant that if what we were trying to do was going to work, then it was going to be “now,” and that everyone needed to join in to make it happen. Unfortunately, I also knew that many of those involved did not want to be a part of any change, for any reason. Being involved wasn’t on their agenda. They were mired in their day-to-day existence, and not loving it. Often, that routine — whether enjoyable or not — is something concrete that can be depended upon. IMG_1051 The tension around the idea of “letting go” and trying something different, or learning and growing as a common endeavor was too enormous for many, and so, our work failed. That sounds so dismal.

    To think about it in a different way, you have to picture a surfer who is waiting for that perfect wave. She gets ready, is up, is going to go for it, begins to coast up that curl toward the seemingly elusive tunnel ahead of her as the wave grows, but somehow the power is just not with her. She misses it and rides over the back of the wave, watching it rush to the shore without her. IMG_1045 Of course there are other waves…Other beaches…

    During that time, I was recommended a book by Margaret J. Wheatley called Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future. It’s a beautiful book I had hoped to glean something from to encourage the work I referenced above. In leafing through it now — several years past — I know now what I suspected then. Ideas of this kind would have been scoffed at by those who were afraid of opening themselves up to change. Ideas of this nature were threatening to them. Ideas about “the courage of conversation…”

    Where can we find the courage to start a good conversation? The answer is found in the word itself. ‘Courage’ comes from the Old French word for heart (cuer). We develop courage for those things that speak to our heart. Our courage grows for things that affect us deeply, things that open our hearts. Once our heart is engaged, it is easy to be brave. ( p. 25)

    Ideas about “willing to be disturbed…”

    We can’t be creative if we refuse to be confused. Change always starts with confusion; cherished interpretations must dissolve to make way for the new. Of course it’s scary to give up what we know, but the abyss is where newness lives. Great ideas and inventions miraculously appear in the space of not knowing. If we can move through the fear and enter the abyss, we are rewarded greatly. We rediscover we’re creative. (p. 37)

    Ideas about being “willing to reclaim time to think…”

    If we can pause for a moment and see what we’re losing as we speed up, I can’t imagine that we would continue with this bargain. We’re forgetting the very things that make us human. Our road to hell is being paved with hasty intentions. I hope we can notice what we’re losing — in our day-to-day life, in our community, in our world. I hope we’ll be brave enough to slow things down. (p. 96)

    So it’s Friday. Time to slow down, time to converse about possibilities, time to reflect, and be creative. For me, that means giving Photoshop some time and learning how to create different images with the photos I’ve taken around here. Here’s a sample of what I’ve done so far. The one below — not above. The RT did that one. Not bad for a mouse potato, huh? Well, actually, a pair of mouse potatoes. Now I just have to figure out how to get mine into the header on my other blog. But not today. That’s a working kind of webmastering thing. I just want to create. Well, I may have to do some housework. Feh!

    Have a peaceful weekend…
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  • Comprehending the Edge

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    If I ever needed a group of people to discuss a book I’ve read, it would be now. I’ve finally finished reading Sarah Dunant’s Mapping the Edge, and don’t quite know what to think. Whenever it takes me this long (two weeks at night in bed for about 20 or 30 minutes if I’m lucky) to read a book that size (a mere 301 pages), well, something’s wrong. For days, I have had the book on my mind like some strange puzzle and have found myself talking to the MoH about it — which is just wrong. He doesn’t read. Well, he reads, but would rather not. Numbers. He loves numbers, remember? Mmmm…numbers. Plus, he just finished David Sedaris’ Naked, so his brain is permanently fried now and he probably won’t be able to read ever again without twitching and burping colorful expletives from time to time.

    Like a complete loser, I looked around different sites for what other people thought about Mapping the Edge, and found myself commiserating with those who had the Huh? factor going on. I know, pathetic. Misery loves company — the kind of company Amazon dot com provides in the review section where you can commune with others who need a refresher Reading Comprehension 101 course, or a simple smack upside the head.

    (more…)

  • My NUTs. And Yours?

    It’s chilly here today, making getting out of bed a bit more challenging in the feeble light coming through the windows above the blinds. But I can hear the RT in his bathroom, and after a quick glance at the clock, know that if I don’t get up, I will miss seeing him off for school. As he passes by our bedroom door, I notice that although he is sporting a different green tee than he did yesterday, he is wearing the same brown cargo shorts, and has yet to don socks.  I know, with very little analysis, that he will recycle the socks he wore yesterday, slung over his shoes where he left them yesterday .

    I make it downstairs on this non-carpool day, and am rewarded by the RT’s Mom smile– a warm and honest gesture that is often accompanied by a hug. Nice. Ten more minutes before he goes out for his ride into this grey and wet day. I know before opening the patio door that Ms. Jones is not going to want to pee on a wet patio, and I’m probably going to have to venture out in front of the neighbors so she can pee on the wet grass instead. Dog logic? She surprises me by pushing through the partially opened door and gingerly stepping across the flagstones and around the corner to take care of her duty.

    I call up to the RT who has gone to get in a few minutes on the Internet even though I’ve graced him with my presence, “You’re going to need your sweatshirt today.” I know that he wears it most days because it’s soft and comfy, and probably makes it easier for him not to pay attention to The Geometry Teacher, but I have to remind him. One of our cats is trying to rush for the door about now, paranoid that I’ll close it on his tail like I did last week, and makes it through only to realize that it’s wet outside. He backs up, sits near my feet and looks at me as if to say, “What the hell is this all about?” and consigns himself to the view from the back of a chair. Today he’ll have to settle for looking through the window at the birds in the jasmine and stalk their movements with flattened ears and that low “cackling” sound he reserves for moving targets on his radar.

    The RT is out the door about now, 50 lb. back pack hoisted over one shoulder, and the notebook I’ve asked him twice to organize in the past two days, tucked under an arm, still sporting the signs of complete disaster from its edges. I tell him to have a good day, hoping it will be better than yesterday. The two of us decided then that a 50% on The Geometry Teacher’s test was better than what we thought it would be, but getting an F on a test never feels great. I’ll have to put “Giving Geometry Another Chance” on my mental NUTs list. NUTs, you say?

    Nagging Unfinished Tasks, according to Michael F. Roizen, M.D., are things that we could fix, but don’t, thereby causing you and I “aging stress,” which is far more harmful than breaking a bone, because we learn to deal with that. He says those kinds of events are “important, but manageable.” Okay, so let me get this straight. In other words, I’ll just adapt to the circumstances of hmmm…. I know — having a humongous cast on my leg that sticks straight out, forcing me to be in a wheel chair; I’ll be able to get in my compact car, drive myself to the grocery store, carry my crying toddler around while trying to get dinner on the stove. Bathe. Go to the bathroom. Of course, there is absolutely no stress involved in any of that. My malleable demeanor will simply adjust. Instead, what will really get to me while the cast is on my leg, is the items on my NUTs list — the items I don’t take care of that are silently driving me crazy, creating unhealthy levels of adrenaline, cortisone, and other hormones in my system, and leaving me susceptible to myocardial ischemia, and at greater risk of a heart attack. What might those more pressing, driving me nuts, NUTs be if my leg actually was in a cast? Shaving my legs? Reaching that dust ball under the wall unit? Painting the chipped polish on the big toe protruding from my cast? The author cannot be serious.

    But back to reality here, and my current state of angst. In an attempt to embrace the concept of Roizen’s NUTs (no pun intended whatsoever) to identify my own NUTs (anatomically impossible) and add “Relearning Geometry” to the list, I can combine my smarts with those of the RT, and thereby assist him in improving his understanding of Geometry. Bear in mind that because the RT is almost 15, and should be learning to employ skills which will last a lifetime, I actually believe he would be better served taking advantage of the student-run tutoring center at school. However, I also believe I can’t take him there and make him do it. He has to want to do it himself. But that’s because I’m a relentless, suck-it-up-and-get-it-done, erstwhile educator.

    My NUTs: 1) Get a job; 2) Complete filing papers; 3) Call the local charity to get rid of things in the garage so my husband can park in it, too; 4) Complete unfinished upholstery job on two bedroom chairs; 5) Complete stain and seal of outside furniture; 6) Paint unfinished patch over downstairs bathroom door; 7) Truly clean refrigerator

    What are your NUTs?