I am a Jane Austen fanatic. Her books have given me much pleasure over the years, and I re-read the major works once a year for inspiration, joy, and just plain fun. Is there anyone more odious in fiction than Mrs. Norris? I think not. Is there anyone more delightful than Elizabeth Bennett? Blasphemy! Except if you're talking about Emma Woodhouse, and there we have something of a contest, the best sort of contest, because no matter who wins, they both win! I'm an abuser of exclamation points at the best of times, but when one is talking of Austen, it's torture not to append exclamation marks on the end of nearly every sentence because she's just that flipping marvelous (restrain self).
Given that we only have six full novels to enjoy--again and again--that leaves the fanatics with the various permutations and film adaptations. The latest Masterpiece Theater adaptation of Emma (the first two hours were aired last night) is a total romp and a delight. A delight I tell you!
Not that I haven't admired various adaptations over the years. Clueless was fun. The version with Gwyneth Paltrow was nicely done (of course, Toni Colette can do no wrong in my eyes), but what all previous adaptations never seem to get is how young Emma Woodhouse actually is. There's a girlishness about this Emma that rings so true. She's physically active here, running gaily from room to room, curtsying with a snap, and smiling with boundless energy. You get the sense that much of her meddling is because she has all this energy with no object to bestow it on. What other interpretations seem to miss is that Emma grows up in this novel, and the actress, Romola Garai, gets that. Also, there is a real chemistry between Jonny Lee Miller's interpretation of Mr. Knightley that successfully banishes the uncomfortable aura that always lurks in the corner of this novel where you have a thirty-six-year-old man lusting after a much younger woman. They play this like an old married couple. They snark at each other, endlessly, they argue, they get frustrated with each other, they share private moments in a room full of people. In short, I can't think of another adaptation that plays them so well as a couple.
I've only seen two hours of this, and I can say without hesitation that this is my favorite Emma on the screen.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
The Gift that Keeps on Giving
So the Roman Polanski thing. I’ve stated my opinion on this matter in a previous blog, but it’s one of those horrible events that keeps on giving. Like a lot of people, I’ve been following the petition of those in the arts who support Mr. Polanski. There are a number of people who signed that didn’t surprise me (Woody Allen, the founding member of Directors Who Are Moral Scumbags, signed, surprise, surprise), and a number of people who did sign that upsided me on the head in the most profound way (Emma Thompson—who I understand has asked that her name be removed—and Natalie Portman).
The larger issue here is, naturally, can one divorce the immoral and depraved behavior of an artist from his or her art? I’ve read a fair amount on this subject and the high-faluting language about how art is pure and blahblahblah. You know what? Fine. You divorce yourself. I find I cannot.
Case Study No. 1: I wasn’t a fan of Woody Allen’s earlier comedies. I had a boyfriend who found Woody Allen hysterically funny and, insisting that I just hadn’t seen the right Woody Allen film, dragged me kicking and screaming to a Woody Allen marathon. During the course of six hours of pure cinematic hell, I laughed only once. Naturally, since he was guffawing like a madman the whole time, he couldn’t understand my inability to appreciate fourteen-year-old boy humor—go figure—and accused me of not laughing just to prove a point. I snapped back, “Does my face look like I’m suppressing laughter just to prove a point?”
But then we move on to Annie Hall and Manhattan, two films that certainly ranked up there somewhere in my top fifty favs of all time. Little did we know that Manhattan was nothing more than a documentary. Look, I was a teenager when my mother remarried. I know all about the boundaries between a stepfather and his stepchildren, his role as a parent and his role as a husband. This is a potential nuclear winter, and I am overjoyed to say that my stepfather was, in my eyes, practically perfect in every way. So when the Woody Allen/Soon Yi Previn scandal hit the newspapers, I could relate to exactly how wrong Mr. Allen was. How many boundaries he had ignored and trampled on. How can anyone watch Manhattan and not think that this was something of a test run? Where the artist couldn’t help but have his fantasy spill over into his art. The scandal broke shortly after the release of Husbands and Wives, and after we left the movie theater I said to my husband that I thought the relationship between Mia Farrow and Woody Allen was on the rocks. The writing and the cinematography did everything it possibly could to make her not only physically unappealing, but also a first-class shrew and a bitch. So here we have the artist blurring the lines between his fantasy, his anger, and his art. Why am I supposed to grant him a moral pass when he is using that very moral lapse to fuel his imagination?
Case Study No. 2: Okay, I wasn’t as big a Woody Allen fan as I was a Gore Vidal fan. I think he is the finest essayist of the twentieth century. I am extremely left, as is he. I am a huge champion of gay rights, as is he. Burr was a seminal book for me; I’ve reread it repeatedly. Lincoln is at the top of my top ten favorite books ever. His historical series sits in a prominent place on my bookshelf, so that when I walk into that room, his books are the first I see. And he called the Polanski rape victim a whore and, basically, said that all the best directors rape kids. What’s the big deal?
Well, I’ll try to sum it up in a nutshell. Just because you have a predatory society where the adults, who should be protecting the children, have not only abandoned their role but are exploiting them (I include her mother in this category) does not give anyone a moral pass. Plain and simple. It’s like saying the majority of the country are homophobic jerks; what’s the big deal? Clearly, he finds equal rights for homosexuals a big deal (which I do, too), and I find that making apologies for men who rape kids a big deal. Call me irrational.
Case Study No. 3: This just came to my attention and for some reason it hits really hard. I just saw a brief interview with Johnny Depp on YouTube where he comments on the Polanski case. He starts off the interview with a question: “Why now?” This is perfectly legitimate. I’ve asked myself that question repeatedly. Then he goes on to say that it was clearly political and that money had changed hands. Yes, well, I personally think that money has been changing hands for years and I think it was Polanski doling out the bribes. I'm digressing. Depp then comments that Polanski’s elderly and clearly is not a predator… By that point I was so enraged and disappointed that that interview couldn’t end fast enough. I think Johnny Depp has few peers as an actor. In fact, possibly the only people who come close are Robert Downey, Jr. and the late Heath Ledger. I admired him, and now he has ruined that admiration. For good.
I made a personal vow that I wouldn’t financially support anyone who signed that petition or commented in a way that I found reprehensible. If my financial support of their work as artists is the way I show my love for the expression of their craft, the flip side of that is to withhold that financial support. Because I cannot separate the actor, the writer from the man.
I cannot watch Manhattan without thinking, whoa, game plan for seducing your stepdaughter.
I cannot see the books on my shelf without thinking of the man who said that girl was a whore, I’m not wasting my time thinking of her.
I cannot watch that YouTube excerpt and listen to that man saying, well, he’s old, he’s got a wife and kids, he’s not a predator, when in fact Roman Polanski has a history of “mentoring” very young women.
So Johnny Depp asks, "Why now?" I ask him, "You have a ten-year-old girl. How would you feel if that child had been raped and thirty years later her rapist was claiming that it was water under the bridge?"
The larger issue here is, naturally, can one divorce the immoral and depraved behavior of an artist from his or her art? I’ve read a fair amount on this subject and the high-faluting language about how art is pure and blahblahblah. You know what? Fine. You divorce yourself. I find I cannot.
Case Study No. 1: I wasn’t a fan of Woody Allen’s earlier comedies. I had a boyfriend who found Woody Allen hysterically funny and, insisting that I just hadn’t seen the right Woody Allen film, dragged me kicking and screaming to a Woody Allen marathon. During the course of six hours of pure cinematic hell, I laughed only once. Naturally, since he was guffawing like a madman the whole time, he couldn’t understand my inability to appreciate fourteen-year-old boy humor—go figure—and accused me of not laughing just to prove a point. I snapped back, “Does my face look like I’m suppressing laughter just to prove a point?”
But then we move on to Annie Hall and Manhattan, two films that certainly ranked up there somewhere in my top fifty favs of all time. Little did we know that Manhattan was nothing more than a documentary. Look, I was a teenager when my mother remarried. I know all about the boundaries between a stepfather and his stepchildren, his role as a parent and his role as a husband. This is a potential nuclear winter, and I am overjoyed to say that my stepfather was, in my eyes, practically perfect in every way. So when the Woody Allen/Soon Yi Previn scandal hit the newspapers, I could relate to exactly how wrong Mr. Allen was. How many boundaries he had ignored and trampled on. How can anyone watch Manhattan and not think that this was something of a test run? Where the artist couldn’t help but have his fantasy spill over into his art. The scandal broke shortly after the release of Husbands and Wives, and after we left the movie theater I said to my husband that I thought the relationship between Mia Farrow and Woody Allen was on the rocks. The writing and the cinematography did everything it possibly could to make her not only physically unappealing, but also a first-class shrew and a bitch. So here we have the artist blurring the lines between his fantasy, his anger, and his art. Why am I supposed to grant him a moral pass when he is using that very moral lapse to fuel his imagination?
Case Study No. 2: Okay, I wasn’t as big a Woody Allen fan as I was a Gore Vidal fan. I think he is the finest essayist of the twentieth century. I am extremely left, as is he. I am a huge champion of gay rights, as is he. Burr was a seminal book for me; I’ve reread it repeatedly. Lincoln is at the top of my top ten favorite books ever. His historical series sits in a prominent place on my bookshelf, so that when I walk into that room, his books are the first I see. And he called the Polanski rape victim a whore and, basically, said that all the best directors rape kids. What’s the big deal?
Well, I’ll try to sum it up in a nutshell. Just because you have a predatory society where the adults, who should be protecting the children, have not only abandoned their role but are exploiting them (I include her mother in this category) does not give anyone a moral pass. Plain and simple. It’s like saying the majority of the country are homophobic jerks; what’s the big deal? Clearly, he finds equal rights for homosexuals a big deal (which I do, too), and I find that making apologies for men who rape kids a big deal. Call me irrational.
Case Study No. 3: This just came to my attention and for some reason it hits really hard. I just saw a brief interview with Johnny Depp on YouTube where he comments on the Polanski case. He starts off the interview with a question: “Why now?” This is perfectly legitimate. I’ve asked myself that question repeatedly. Then he goes on to say that it was clearly political and that money had changed hands. Yes, well, I personally think that money has been changing hands for years and I think it was Polanski doling out the bribes. I'm digressing. Depp then comments that Polanski’s elderly and clearly is not a predator… By that point I was so enraged and disappointed that that interview couldn’t end fast enough. I think Johnny Depp has few peers as an actor. In fact, possibly the only people who come close are Robert Downey, Jr. and the late Heath Ledger. I admired him, and now he has ruined that admiration. For good.
I made a personal vow that I wouldn’t financially support anyone who signed that petition or commented in a way that I found reprehensible. If my financial support of their work as artists is the way I show my love for the expression of their craft, the flip side of that is to withhold that financial support. Because I cannot separate the actor, the writer from the man.
I cannot watch Manhattan without thinking, whoa, game plan for seducing your stepdaughter.
I cannot see the books on my shelf without thinking of the man who said that girl was a whore, I’m not wasting my time thinking of her.
I cannot watch that YouTube excerpt and listen to that man saying, well, he’s old, he’s got a wife and kids, he’s not a predator, when in fact Roman Polanski has a history of “mentoring” very young women.
So Johnny Depp asks, "Why now?" I ask him, "You have a ten-year-old girl. How would you feel if that child had been raped and thirty years later her rapist was claiming that it was water under the bridge?"
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Writing Meta, No. Whatever
I was emailing someone the other day about a wee crisis of confidence about my writing, and they scoffed. Because, yes, I'm a decent writer, but not a great writer. My long-term goal is to continuously take it up a notch at a time, so by the time I'm ninety I *will* be a great writer. I honestly believe that. Book by book, chapter by chapter, I will get there. Perhaps a bit of a hopeless dream, but it's my hopeless dream and I'm reaching for it. Anyway, that's not germane to what I want to say today.
This mini-hissy fit was brought on by section in my new book that wasn't working. The words fit together okay, and there was the tee-hees in the the right places, but it didn't work. By that I mean where in the hell was the passion? I don't mean sex on the kitchen floor passion, but an underlying sense that the author feels this down to their bone marrow and you (the reader) should too, by dint of their writing. Now, I'm not writing the sort of book that elicits, in general, that sort of reaction. However, there should be this underlying sense that *I* care about what I'm saying, that my words are making my passion your passion. Even in a beach read there should be a thread of passion running through a book. Otherwise you'll stop reading my book at Chapter 4 and throw it back into your beach bag, slop on some more sunscreen, and rummage around for another book to fill the time. I've failed you. You've walked through that door that says "Exit," and you're about to walk through another writer's door. Crap
Yes, I've said here that you can't please all readers all the time. It's just not possible. I'm always floored when I rave about a book and someone else says, "Meh." It's even worse when I respect that person's opinion and they hate a book I thought was brilliant. For instance (small rec inserted here), I loved Steve Martin's "Shopgirl," and a friend hated it, and I thought, "WHAT? ARE YOU CRAZY?"
I'm digressing, as usual. Anyway, I should love what I'm writing because that passion will, guaranteed, translate to the page. That is part of the problem with the current push to make authors churn out a book a year. They are scrambling to find that plot, that idea that can sustain 80,000 words, which is a hell of a lot different than writing 80,000 words because, oh my god, you must hear this. A series is hard enough to pull off, but I can't be the only person for whom the series has become a reader's landmine. The writers are so bored with these characters you can practically hear the yawning as you turn the pages.
So, say I haven't fulfilled my end of the bargain. I've churned out something that I don't particularly care about but fulfills my contractual obligations. That ennui easily translates to the page, and chances are that the next time you (the reader you) want a beach read for that plane ride, you'll buy that author that sated your reading jones the last time: *not* me. Clearly, it behooves me to keep you interested. But beyond even the monetary considerations, read my book because I have a story worth telling--or I should--and I want you to hear it. I feel passionately about these characters and I want to share that passion. That girl A is writing a book and girl B is a better writer and boy A is a jerk but has a nice jaw and boy B is friendly and tall and a little bit clumsy. Park your butt in the chair, the plane seat, down on the beach blanket and listen to me.
There was a girl...
This mini-hissy fit was brought on by section in my new book that wasn't working. The words fit together okay, and there was the tee-hees in the the right places, but it didn't work. By that I mean where in the hell was the passion? I don't mean sex on the kitchen floor passion, but an underlying sense that the author feels this down to their bone marrow and you (the reader) should too, by dint of their writing. Now, I'm not writing the sort of book that elicits, in general, that sort of reaction. However, there should be this underlying sense that *I* care about what I'm saying, that my words are making my passion your passion. Even in a beach read there should be a thread of passion running through a book. Otherwise you'll stop reading my book at Chapter 4 and throw it back into your beach bag, slop on some more sunscreen, and rummage around for another book to fill the time. I've failed you. You've walked through that door that says "Exit," and you're about to walk through another writer's door. Crap
Yes, I've said here that you can't please all readers all the time. It's just not possible. I'm always floored when I rave about a book and someone else says, "Meh." It's even worse when I respect that person's opinion and they hate a book I thought was brilliant. For instance (small rec inserted here), I loved Steve Martin's "Shopgirl," and a friend hated it, and I thought, "WHAT? ARE YOU CRAZY?"
I'm digressing, as usual. Anyway, I should love what I'm writing because that passion will, guaranteed, translate to the page. That is part of the problem with the current push to make authors churn out a book a year. They are scrambling to find that plot, that idea that can sustain 80,000 words, which is a hell of a lot different than writing 80,000 words because, oh my god, you must hear this. A series is hard enough to pull off, but I can't be the only person for whom the series has become a reader's landmine. The writers are so bored with these characters you can practically hear the yawning as you turn the pages.
So, say I haven't fulfilled my end of the bargain. I've churned out something that I don't particularly care about but fulfills my contractual obligations. That ennui easily translates to the page, and chances are that the next time you (the reader you) want a beach read for that plane ride, you'll buy that author that sated your reading jones the last time: *not* me. Clearly, it behooves me to keep you interested. But beyond even the monetary considerations, read my book because I have a story worth telling--or I should--and I want you to hear it. I feel passionately about these characters and I want to share that passion. That girl A is writing a book and girl B is a better writer and boy A is a jerk but has a nice jaw and boy B is friendly and tall and a little bit clumsy. Park your butt in the chair, the plane seat, down on the beach blanket and listen to me.
There was a girl...
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
What Kind of Fool Am I?
Every author that I know Goggles their name to see what the word is about their book. In this technological embarrassment of riches, you can even put the name of your book on alert. You get both the wheat and the chaff. I've gotten alerts where people rave about my book, and I've gotten alerts where people say that it's lousy. In fact, I got one today that said my second book was exactly that. Which, hey, part of the writing gig is that you have to accept (or it will drive you crazy) that you cannot please all readers. There is a certain percentage that you cannot win over. Your style, your voice, your pacing doesn't work for these people. You have to give it up with grace. Plus, let's be honest here; I'm not writing literature. Some people who write in this genre ARE but not me. I'm writing beach reads because that's what I have the time to write. I might be deluding myself that I could write a bigger book if I had time--I do honestly believe that--but if wishes were horses, beggars would ride shit.
Another technological bonus with this reading and writing thing are all these sites devoted to developing connections with other readers. I have a GoodReads page, and a Red Room page, and a couple of others, but mostly I stick to the GoodReads page because I have friends there. It started out as a promo for my books, but since I couldn't figure out how to showcase my books, it's become more of a place for me to gas about books I've read. It's my opinion, nothing more than that. Like above, some books work for me, some don't. I'd like to think that the years I've spent learning how to write have given me some insight into why some books work and other don't, but maybe not. It's my space. Just like this is my space. To write about books I liked and didn't like.
I try to be fair here. I KNOW how it feels to read that your book didn't work for the reader. In fact, I experienced that sense of gloom just today! So when I post a book review here or on GoodReads, I try to be careful and give an honest assessment of why a book worked and why it didn't. For me.
And this is where the foolish part comes in. Because I am both a reader and a writer, I'm vulnerable. Someone could retaliate and go to amazon.com and use their little rating system and kill my ratings. Or be affronted that I didn't write a glowing review about their friend's book so they slammed my book in their blog. Or the author themselves sets up a sock puppet to trash my book. The possibilities for sabotage are endless.
Do I intend to stop posting my opinions on my GoodReads or my blog? Nope. Because I stand behind my words. They are important to me. If I can't write what I want to write here, what's the point? But I'm also aware that I might pay a price for my honesty. Welcome to the new age of writing. The brickbats are to the left.
Another technological bonus with this reading and writing thing are all these sites devoted to developing connections with other readers. I have a GoodReads page, and a Red Room page, and a couple of others, but mostly I stick to the GoodReads page because I have friends there. It started out as a promo for my books, but since I couldn't figure out how to showcase my books, it's become more of a place for me to gas about books I've read. It's my opinion, nothing more than that. Like above, some books work for me, some don't. I'd like to think that the years I've spent learning how to write have given me some insight into why some books work and other don't, but maybe not. It's my space. Just like this is my space. To write about books I liked and didn't like.
I try to be fair here. I KNOW how it feels to read that your book didn't work for the reader. In fact, I experienced that sense of gloom just today! So when I post a book review here or on GoodReads, I try to be careful and give an honest assessment of why a book worked and why it didn't. For me.
And this is where the foolish part comes in. Because I am both a reader and a writer, I'm vulnerable. Someone could retaliate and go to amazon.com and use their little rating system and kill my ratings. Or be affronted that I didn't write a glowing review about their friend's book so they slammed my book in their blog. Or the author themselves sets up a sock puppet to trash my book. The possibilities for sabotage are endless.
Do I intend to stop posting my opinions on my GoodReads or my blog? Nope. Because I stand behind my words. They are important to me. If I can't write what I want to write here, what's the point? But I'm also aware that I might pay a price for my honesty. Welcome to the new age of writing. The brickbats are to the left.
Monday, November 23, 2009
State of the Book
I have just hit the 20,000 word mark. At this point you should know if a book is working or not. You've established enough of the story so that the general trajectory is fixed to a point and the characterizations are fairly fleshed out. In other words, you've reached the point where you know if you have a viable concept. Yes, we are cooking with gas, kittens!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Do you know what I love about writing? It's not static. Just as much as a reader is at the mercy of the writer, the writer is at the mercy of her/his id. Each book I've written has been different, and by that I mean the process has been different. Some of this is due to circumstance, some of it is that my ability to write has improved, but I think it's because every book is a treasure hunt, for the author as well as the reader. That's why it's so cool. The first book was the endless rewrite. Part of that was because it was such a horrible book and HAD to be rewritten to make it into an intelligent whole. The second book was the book that I thought I'd never finish--that little ovarian cancer scare--but also, and I think this is fairly common with a second book, I lost my confidence. I had to get it back paragraph by paragraph. It was extremely painful emotionally, but it's amazing what being told you don't have stage four cancer can do for your productivity! Who cares if it's horrible? I'm here to write it!
This book is an interesting mix. I see a rewrite in front of me (mostly the beginning, always the hardest part for me), but I also have that confidence, that sense, oh, let's just have fun here, shall we? Yeah. I'm having fun.
But mostly, and, obviously, I don't think this is true for everyone, but I'm coming at this as a wreader. At some point you should surprise yourself. That a paragraph or a scene pops out of nowhere and you type away not sure if it's going to work and then it's sit back and go, whoa. It's as if I were channeling that scene not writing it. You sit back, reread it, and then, hopefully, smile and say to yourself: I like that. Don't know where it came from but YOWZAH!
Of course, there's always the YOWZNOES! The snake pit of cliche that dogs every writer. Those phrases that one tends to use to death. I've found that phrase cloud pretty helpful. I now have a list of words and phrases I am not allowed to use.
Some day, I'm going to make a map about the writing process. Sort of like a Candyland for writers (I overuse "sort of" ALL THE TIME). The "cliche" spot where when you land it bumps you back to the "Land of Snores." The "Doldrums" where you can't get out because you're writing but not going any place constructive in the book. It's only when you draw a "Delete last chapter" card that you get free. Wow. I think I have a really good idea here!
See. The Id. So sneaky. So fun.
Do you know what I love about writing? It's not static. Just as much as a reader is at the mercy of the writer, the writer is at the mercy of her/his id. Each book I've written has been different, and by that I mean the process has been different. Some of this is due to circumstance, some of it is that my ability to write has improved, but I think it's because every book is a treasure hunt, for the author as well as the reader. That's why it's so cool. The first book was the endless rewrite. Part of that was because it was such a horrible book and HAD to be rewritten to make it into an intelligent whole. The second book was the book that I thought I'd never finish--that little ovarian cancer scare--but also, and I think this is fairly common with a second book, I lost my confidence. I had to get it back paragraph by paragraph. It was extremely painful emotionally, but it's amazing what being told you don't have stage four cancer can do for your productivity! Who cares if it's horrible? I'm here to write it!
This book is an interesting mix. I see a rewrite in front of me (mostly the beginning, always the hardest part for me), but I also have that confidence, that sense, oh, let's just have fun here, shall we? Yeah. I'm having fun.
But mostly, and, obviously, I don't think this is true for everyone, but I'm coming at this as a wreader. At some point you should surprise yourself. That a paragraph or a scene pops out of nowhere and you type away not sure if it's going to work and then it's sit back and go, whoa. It's as if I were channeling that scene not writing it. You sit back, reread it, and then, hopefully, smile and say to yourself: I like that. Don't know where it came from but YOWZAH!
Of course, there's always the YOWZNOES! The snake pit of cliche that dogs every writer. Those phrases that one tends to use to death. I've found that phrase cloud pretty helpful. I now have a list of words and phrases I am not allowed to use.
Some day, I'm going to make a map about the writing process. Sort of like a Candyland for writers (I overuse "sort of" ALL THE TIME). The "cliche" spot where when you land it bumps you back to the "Land of Snores." The "Doldrums" where you can't get out because you're writing but not going any place constructive in the book. It's only when you draw a "Delete last chapter" card that you get free. Wow. I think I have a really good idea here!
See. The Id. So sneaky. So fun.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Book Review: Mennonite in a Little Black Dress
Any book that opens with the author having to undergo a hysterectomy has me hooked. I had one and nothing says ma soeur like matching scars.
Aside from the nascent bonding over major surgery, Rhoda Janzen’s memoir of her Mennonite childhood also rings a lot of similar bells. I didn’t grow up Mennonite, but I did grow up the child of immigrants, and I share many of her social disconnects. Ms. Janzen fills this memoir with many references to dishes that are particular to Mennonite culture. My mother’s refrigerator never had a can of Coke in it until she bought a six-pack in response to my children’s request for “soda.” She grew up in dairy country in Ireland where beverages consisted of either milk or booze. Since she wasn’t in the habit of pouring her children a pint, we drank milk at all three meals. I imagine Ms. Janzen can relate. In addition, she has a mother that sounds a lot like my mother. My mother isn’t religious but she might as well be. Ms. Janzen’s mother hands out hugs with jars of strawberry jam; my mother hugs and then knits, whatever, for whomever. And yes, my family have the same sort of inbred discussions that she has at her family table: the obligatory rehashing of old gossip, with a fresh helping of new gossip, what the relatives are up to, what the neighbors are up to, etc.
So much of this memoir I connected with on a fundamental level.
The good: Clearly this writer is smart and adept at writing. I feel the need to say this because, alas (she uses that construction as well; how much we have in common in terms of style is a little creepy), good writing is in short supply these days. She salts info dumps on Mennonite culture throughout this memoir and yet they don’t feel like info dumps. The snippets glide and out of the general story and by the end of the book, by golly, you know a ton about Mennonite culture. This is shockingly hard to do, and I very much appreciated the skill it took to not make it seem like Mennonite 1A. Part of this deft slight of hand is accomplished because she’s damn amusing. Yes, this book is funny, witty, and well written.
The bad: This book scored many points as I chuckled through paragraph after paragraph and yet. It starts off the hysterectomy. The admittedly difficult husband proves to be quite adept at dealing with ensuing medical nightmares, only to abandon her for another man. The joke about her getting dumped by her husband for another guy gets far too much play, especially when we realize three-quarters of the way through the book that this husband had a sexual relationship with another man before they were married. At that point all those previous tee hees about gay.com and “Bob” seem a little hollow.
Post dump she spends her sabbatical with her parents. The disconnect between the humor and the reality in this book creates a gap that the author has trouble filling. We have many pages devoted to lovely and funny family interaction during this sabbatical. (I mean really funny; I snorted milk through my nose reading about the Scrabble game and you can believe that the next time I play Scrabble, I’m going to present lionhairs as a legitimate word). As the memoir progresses, however, the previous humorous asides on the husband cannot hide how toxic this marriage was. I came away wondering, why did you abandon these charming people for that asshole? I don’t believe she ever answers that question successfully. Because it was obvious that while married she must have lived a compartmentalized life, visiting her family without the uber controlling, disapproving, judgmental Nick. I’m reaching here, but I guess the point is that it worked both ways. By marrying him, she escaped the family dynamic that wouldn’t have readily accepted her as the intellectual free spirit that Nick approved (and leeched off of).
As the novels progresses, the ugly truth about her marriage arrives in drips and drabs. By the end of the book we are madly in love with her family, and she finishes the book with the conclusion that she's come “home.” In light of the charming portrayals of her family (even the odd childhood isn’t that odd; I, too, wore weird clothes because my mother didn’t know any differently and bought me weird clothes), by the end of this novel we’re asking ourselves, “What in the hell took you so long?” There is no clear understanding why she hitches her star to this handsome, charming, bi-polar jerk. I found myself looking for clues that she didn’t provide. I suppose it was because he offered an escape. Someone who would support her determined quest that was in flagrant opposition to everything her Mennonite culture championed. It was also someone who reinforced the strict hierarchical, paternal construct she grew up with. I was looking for—and didn’t find—her own epiphany that her parents determining what she wore as a child and teenager in homage to her Mennonite tenets was no different—at least in my eyes—to her husband picking out her wardrobe in homage to his dictates about what was chic.
It is not until the last third of the book do we see how truly grim her marriage was; their relationship and his subsequent flight isn’t really the stuff of humor. I think that there is another story lurking here that isn’t funny at all. A story about a woman who is caught between two worlds destined to collide, the collateral damage a given. Only once is there a scene where her lack of faith and chosen lifestyle is an issue, and that's with brothers that she admits are practical strangers. I think that since faith is such a driving force in her immediate family that less effort might have been paid to the lying about being allergic to raisins versus being an agnostic with a father who she acknowledges is the Mennonite equivalent of the Pope.
She ends this book with the conviction that she’s come home, but I’m not sure that she made a compelling argument as to why she had to leave.
Thanks to Ashley Pattison of Henry Holt and Co. for the ARC.
Aside from the nascent bonding over major surgery, Rhoda Janzen’s memoir of her Mennonite childhood also rings a lot of similar bells. I didn’t grow up Mennonite, but I did grow up the child of immigrants, and I share many of her social disconnects. Ms. Janzen fills this memoir with many references to dishes that are particular to Mennonite culture. My mother’s refrigerator never had a can of Coke in it until she bought a six-pack in response to my children’s request for “soda.” She grew up in dairy country in Ireland where beverages consisted of either milk or booze. Since she wasn’t in the habit of pouring her children a pint, we drank milk at all three meals. I imagine Ms. Janzen can relate. In addition, she has a mother that sounds a lot like my mother. My mother isn’t religious but she might as well be. Ms. Janzen’s mother hands out hugs with jars of strawberry jam; my mother hugs and then knits, whatever, for whomever. And yes, my family have the same sort of inbred discussions that she has at her family table: the obligatory rehashing of old gossip, with a fresh helping of new gossip, what the relatives are up to, what the neighbors are up to, etc.
So much of this memoir I connected with on a fundamental level.
The good: Clearly this writer is smart and adept at writing. I feel the need to say this because, alas (she uses that construction as well; how much we have in common in terms of style is a little creepy), good writing is in short supply these days. She salts info dumps on Mennonite culture throughout this memoir and yet they don’t feel like info dumps. The snippets glide and out of the general story and by the end of the book, by golly, you know a ton about Mennonite culture. This is shockingly hard to do, and I very much appreciated the skill it took to not make it seem like Mennonite 1A. Part of this deft slight of hand is accomplished because she’s damn amusing. Yes, this book is funny, witty, and well written.
The bad: This book scored many points as I chuckled through paragraph after paragraph and yet. It starts off the hysterectomy. The admittedly difficult husband proves to be quite adept at dealing with ensuing medical nightmares, only to abandon her for another man. The joke about her getting dumped by her husband for another guy gets far too much play, especially when we realize three-quarters of the way through the book that this husband had a sexual relationship with another man before they were married. At that point all those previous tee hees about gay.com and “Bob” seem a little hollow.
Post dump she spends her sabbatical with her parents. The disconnect between the humor and the reality in this book creates a gap that the author has trouble filling. We have many pages devoted to lovely and funny family interaction during this sabbatical. (I mean really funny; I snorted milk through my nose reading about the Scrabble game and you can believe that the next time I play Scrabble, I’m going to present lionhairs as a legitimate word). As the memoir progresses, however, the previous humorous asides on the husband cannot hide how toxic this marriage was. I came away wondering, why did you abandon these charming people for that asshole? I don’t believe she ever answers that question successfully. Because it was obvious that while married she must have lived a compartmentalized life, visiting her family without the uber controlling, disapproving, judgmental Nick. I’m reaching here, but I guess the point is that it worked both ways. By marrying him, she escaped the family dynamic that wouldn’t have readily accepted her as the intellectual free spirit that Nick approved (and leeched off of).
As the novels progresses, the ugly truth about her marriage arrives in drips and drabs. By the end of the book we are madly in love with her family, and she finishes the book with the conclusion that she's come “home.” In light of the charming portrayals of her family (even the odd childhood isn’t that odd; I, too, wore weird clothes because my mother didn’t know any differently and bought me weird clothes), by the end of this novel we’re asking ourselves, “What in the hell took you so long?” There is no clear understanding why she hitches her star to this handsome, charming, bi-polar jerk. I found myself looking for clues that she didn’t provide. I suppose it was because he offered an escape. Someone who would support her determined quest that was in flagrant opposition to everything her Mennonite culture championed. It was also someone who reinforced the strict hierarchical, paternal construct she grew up with. I was looking for—and didn’t find—her own epiphany that her parents determining what she wore as a child and teenager in homage to her Mennonite tenets was no different—at least in my eyes—to her husband picking out her wardrobe in homage to his dictates about what was chic.
It is not until the last third of the book do we see how truly grim her marriage was; their relationship and his subsequent flight isn’t really the stuff of humor. I think that there is another story lurking here that isn’t funny at all. A story about a woman who is caught between two worlds destined to collide, the collateral damage a given. Only once is there a scene where her lack of faith and chosen lifestyle is an issue, and that's with brothers that she admits are practical strangers. I think that since faith is such a driving force in her immediate family that less effort might have been paid to the lying about being allergic to raisins versus being an agnostic with a father who she acknowledges is the Mennonite equivalent of the Pope.
She ends this book with the conviction that she’s come home, but I’m not sure that she made a compelling argument as to why she had to leave.
Thanks to Ashley Pattison of Henry Holt and Co. for the ARC.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Miscell Any
We've just returned from New Orleans. We had a marvelous time, the first real vacation we've had without the children in, well, ever. I love my kids. They are easy going and fun and all around marvelous, and yet, traveling with kids has its givens. My son would have loved the swamp tour but not the four hours on the roads seeing countryside. My daughter would have loved the trip to the plantations, but not so much the menus that were mostly shrimp and if not shrimp then pork and if not pork then crawdads. It was just easier, you know? I do love New Orleans; its food, its architecture. I don't even mind the humidity that makes you feel deliciously lazy.
Restaurant rec: the Green Goddess in New Orleans on 307 Exchange Place. It's been a long time since I've eaten at a restaurant where the chefs cared so much about the food and were still having fun, just like the chef scene in San Francisco when I was cooking. All about pushing those boundaries. Some of the dishes didn't work quite as well as you would hope, while others knocked my frigging socks off, but it's that experimentation that I adored. And to say they didn't work just means that they were only delicious as opposed to orgasmic. That's what this wee place is trying to do. Get you to gasp when you're eating. Highly recommended. We loved it so much we went back twice. Toques off to Chef Chris DeBarr.
I took two books with me on this trip that ended up having tremendous relevance. One, was a book about Joan Root, the filmmaker and conservationist who was murdered in her Kenyan home in 2006, and the second is Annette Gordon-Reed's history on the Hemingses of Monticello. The first book read like a beefed up Vanity Fair article (which indeed it was), but had its own inevitable sense of tragedy that trumped the sensationalistic tone that haunts those sort of articles. Basically, you have a corrupt government and a bunch of white conservationists who are a holdover from the colonial period and the indigenous population who need work and corporations who don't give a rat's ass about the environment, throw in some hardcore thugs, and, unsurprisingly, people get murdered. She was gunned down in her bedroom by someone wielding an AK-47. I was shocked to read that she was just one of a series of people who'd been killed in the lawlessness that has characterized Kenya in the last twenty years. Joan Root joins Dian Fossey and the Adamsons of Born Free fame, all of them murdered.
I'm winding my way through the Gordon-Reed book. It's a little overwritten, but then again I'm betting it's in reaction to her first book, which pretty much ended the debate on whether Jefferson had fathered children by Sally Hemings. I imagine she is writing to deal with those who can't wrap their minds around the fact that Jefferson would actually sleep with a slave woman. I don't have a problem with that because, hello, brilliant though he was, he was pretty morally bankrupt in my book. Please do not tell me it was the time. He kept slaves even though he knew it was immoral, but he couldn't live his life as he envisioned it without slavery. Aside from the global issue, what about sleeping with your wife's half-sister, fathered by your father-in-law... You get the picture.
Anyway, my little commentary aside, Gordon-Reed makes a lot of leaps here, and I understand why (sources being thin on the ground), but what is more fascinating is how the Virginia ruling class actually applied a different set of laws to slaves so that they could maintain this system (as opposed to laws governing the white and free population). It was a bash to fit solution. General law deemed that your status in life was passed down through your father. That wouldn't do at ALL in a slave-owning culture, therefore, they changed the law so that status was passed down through the mother. A simple, yet effective solution. Of course it also gave complete latitude to white men who wanted to bed black women and not have their bi-racial children actually be legitimate heirs. Even when Jefferson was ambassador to France, he never registered his slaves as dictated by French law, because then if they decided to declare themselves free, he would have had to free them. So he didn't. Another charming bash to fit solution to his little slave problem.
So I'm reading these books while in New Orleans. I have lived through my own natural disasters: an earthquake and a firestorm. You live in California, you're going to face one or the other at some point. Fortunately, I wasn't on a freeway when the earthquake hit, and I lived far enough away from the firestorm that I didn't lose my home. I know lots of people who did, who ended up fighting with insurance companies, and getting FEMA loans to rebuild, and who were genuinely scarred but who survived. Four years later I wouldn't say that New Orleans is surviving. Lots and lots of boarded up buildings, even now, with the telltale watermarks on the roofs. The only places that have full parking lots are the Lowes and the Home Depots, yet we saw block after block of foundations. Just foundations. Even now. Occasionally, you'd see that someone had rebuilt, but you had to ask yourself why? Because to either side of them were the outlines of foundations with nothing on top of them. Generally, the areas that were most devastated by the water were inhabited by the poor. The areas that were devastated by the firestorm here in California were populated by upper middle-class types, who knew that if the insurance company jerked you around, you called a lawyer. Houses were rebuilt and FEMA money came through. People were not living in trailers two years down the road.
I picked up the Times Picayune every day we were in New Orleans. On every page there was an article about someone being indicted. Every day. Every page. Obama came through while we were there and I thought, pick up the paper, dude. It's all there. That's why four years down the road you're in St. Bernard's Parish and the water is gone and the bulldozers have moved in but that's about all you can say. The land grab must be imminent. If you don't rebuild, then the property only loses in value every day it sits vacant. And when you have block after block, then, well. People with the checkbooks are waiting. It's going to be pennies on the dollar.
Restaurant rec: the Green Goddess in New Orleans on 307 Exchange Place. It's been a long time since I've eaten at a restaurant where the chefs cared so much about the food and were still having fun, just like the chef scene in San Francisco when I was cooking. All about pushing those boundaries. Some of the dishes didn't work quite as well as you would hope, while others knocked my frigging socks off, but it's that experimentation that I adored. And to say they didn't work just means that they were only delicious as opposed to orgasmic. That's what this wee place is trying to do. Get you to gasp when you're eating. Highly recommended. We loved it so much we went back twice. Toques off to Chef Chris DeBarr.
I took two books with me on this trip that ended up having tremendous relevance. One, was a book about Joan Root, the filmmaker and conservationist who was murdered in her Kenyan home in 2006, and the second is Annette Gordon-Reed's history on the Hemingses of Monticello. The first book read like a beefed up Vanity Fair article (which indeed it was), but had its own inevitable sense of tragedy that trumped the sensationalistic tone that haunts those sort of articles. Basically, you have a corrupt government and a bunch of white conservationists who are a holdover from the colonial period and the indigenous population who need work and corporations who don't give a rat's ass about the environment, throw in some hardcore thugs, and, unsurprisingly, people get murdered. She was gunned down in her bedroom by someone wielding an AK-47. I was shocked to read that she was just one of a series of people who'd been killed in the lawlessness that has characterized Kenya in the last twenty years. Joan Root joins Dian Fossey and the Adamsons of Born Free fame, all of them murdered.
I'm winding my way through the Gordon-Reed book. It's a little overwritten, but then again I'm betting it's in reaction to her first book, which pretty much ended the debate on whether Jefferson had fathered children by Sally Hemings. I imagine she is writing to deal with those who can't wrap their minds around the fact that Jefferson would actually sleep with a slave woman. I don't have a problem with that because, hello, brilliant though he was, he was pretty morally bankrupt in my book. Please do not tell me it was the time. He kept slaves even though he knew it was immoral, but he couldn't live his life as he envisioned it without slavery. Aside from the global issue, what about sleeping with your wife's half-sister, fathered by your father-in-law... You get the picture.
Anyway, my little commentary aside, Gordon-Reed makes a lot of leaps here, and I understand why (sources being thin on the ground), but what is more fascinating is how the Virginia ruling class actually applied a different set of laws to slaves so that they could maintain this system (as opposed to laws governing the white and free population). It was a bash to fit solution. General law deemed that your status in life was passed down through your father. That wouldn't do at ALL in a slave-owning culture, therefore, they changed the law so that status was passed down through the mother. A simple, yet effective solution. Of course it also gave complete latitude to white men who wanted to bed black women and not have their bi-racial children actually be legitimate heirs. Even when Jefferson was ambassador to France, he never registered his slaves as dictated by French law, because then if they decided to declare themselves free, he would have had to free them. So he didn't. Another charming bash to fit solution to his little slave problem.
So I'm reading these books while in New Orleans. I have lived through my own natural disasters: an earthquake and a firestorm. You live in California, you're going to face one or the other at some point. Fortunately, I wasn't on a freeway when the earthquake hit, and I lived far enough away from the firestorm that I didn't lose my home. I know lots of people who did, who ended up fighting with insurance companies, and getting FEMA loans to rebuild, and who were genuinely scarred but who survived. Four years later I wouldn't say that New Orleans is surviving. Lots and lots of boarded up buildings, even now, with the telltale watermarks on the roofs. The only places that have full parking lots are the Lowes and the Home Depots, yet we saw block after block of foundations. Just foundations. Even now. Occasionally, you'd see that someone had rebuilt, but you had to ask yourself why? Because to either side of them were the outlines of foundations with nothing on top of them. Generally, the areas that were most devastated by the water were inhabited by the poor. The areas that were devastated by the firestorm here in California were populated by upper middle-class types, who knew that if the insurance company jerked you around, you called a lawyer. Houses were rebuilt and FEMA money came through. People were not living in trailers two years down the road.
I picked up the Times Picayune every day we were in New Orleans. On every page there was an article about someone being indicted. Every day. Every page. Obama came through while we were there and I thought, pick up the paper, dude. It's all there. That's why four years down the road you're in St. Bernard's Parish and the water is gone and the bulldozers have moved in but that's about all you can say. The land grab must be imminent. If you don't rebuild, then the property only loses in value every day it sits vacant. And when you have block after block, then, well. People with the checkbooks are waiting. It's going to be pennies on the dollar.
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