I have a stack (um, stacks, actually) of books by my bedside winking at me every night begging to be read. My husband, concerned about the perilous stacks shoved up against the wall of my side of the bed, said at one point, "Let's get a bookcase. This is getting ridiculous." And now I have a bookcase of books begging to be read. Happy day!
Except. The stack is getting increasingly filled with non-fiction as opposed to fiction. I am currently switching between three superb books of non-fiction: Anderson's Lawrence in Arabia, Jones' The Plantagenets, and Roberts' Napoleon. I leap merrily from 14th century England to 20th century Arabia to 19th France on any given week. All three of them have very different styles of writing, and all three of them are crackerjack writers. It's a total joy to read them. I have no idea about the scholarship in these books, but it doesn't really matter. They are fantastic reads.
And then we look at the decreasing fiction pile. There is very little there to excite. Somehow I never got around to reading The Night Circus, and I'm looking forward to that. Nothing else grabs my eye. So I toddle downstairs to the office where the real bookcases live and pull out an old favorite when I feel I'm in the mood for fiction. The other night I was feeling "capote-ish" and singled out his The Dogs Bark. It's easy to forget what a wonderful writer he was because he became so malicious and angry at the end of his career, and the very thing that he despised, a literary clown. Anyway, much sadness there because much greatness squandered. The book is lovely, especially the bits from Local Color. I highly recommend it.
I guess the point I'm making is that non-fiction is still getting the rigorous go through by editors and fiction isn't. How many books have I read in the past two years that had me pulling my hair out because the editorial "pass" just didn't happen. The book was rushed to publication to feed the ebook reading masses. The real tragedies are the books that are near misses. The ones that could have graduated from being a Saturday afternoon read to being the sort of book you keep, that you will pluck off your shelf one night when you hanker for some decent writing. I have lots of books I have kept. And yet rarely do I keep a book these days. Very few of them grab me and the ones that do tend to be non-fiction.
Not that I have any room on my bookshelves for more books, but still.
Sunday, February 15, 2015
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
Your Identity as a Writer
I'm writing a new novel these days but I can't say that I will ever ballyhoo it here. Why, you ask? Because the readers who have read the Mary Ryan mysteries or the Austen pastiche would flee screaming into the hills if I wrote this book under my real name. It's a "New Adult" novel, primarily catering to the market between 20-35. So there is casual sex, lots of swearing, drinking, and drug use (maybe, not sure about that part yet, except my 20-something kids tell me that pot use is rampant, so I need to shoehorn that in somewhere). It's written from two male POVs. It's sort of a mystery but not, and I'll probably have a bitch of a time trying to sell it.
So why am I writing it? And, more importantly, why am I spending so much effort to get it finished when its place in a market is debatable, it doesn't piggyback off of my current readership, and if the targeted readership knew that this was a 58-year-old women writing, they'd flee screaming into the hills.
Because it's there. Because I had an idea and I wanted to write from a male POV and I wanted to play with different POVs. And I wanted to feature people drinking, smoking, swearing, and having casual sex without alienating a bunch of readers. I wanted to write semi-graphic sex scenes. In short, I wanted to play with words.
I've reached the sad truth that I will never become rich and famous from writing. I don't write a book a year. I can't write a book a year. That day job thing. So I've decided to write what I want to write. In this No-Name book, I'm writing in a different gender and from two different POVs. This forces me to change the pacing, language, and feel of the two protagonists as I shift from chapter to chapter. It's not merely a question of changing the names. Both of these characters are wildly different, and the writing itself has to reflect that. One character is acerbic and formal-ish, and the language for his chapters reflects that. The language is more nuanced. More commas, believe it or not. The second protagonist is a simpler, nicer person. His chapter has shorter sentences and is less "verbose" if you will. This leads to two "voices" and a juggling act in regards to pacing.
It's been challenging and, I think, has moved me forward as a writer. I started this out by writing it in first person POV. That seems "thin." Then I thought, well, why not two POVs? So I kept one POV in first person and the second I moved to a third person POV. Still wasn't right. A year later, I finally found myself with two POVs in third person. I rewrote the beginning 30,000 words something like five times before it "clicked" into a shape that I could move forward. I'm at over 60,000 and hope to finish it up shortly. I'm not sure that this story will find a home anywhere in the publishing world, but I took some chances, and I think I benefitted as a writer from those chances.
Pseudonym for sale?
So why am I writing it? And, more importantly, why am I spending so much effort to get it finished when its place in a market is debatable, it doesn't piggyback off of my current readership, and if the targeted readership knew that this was a 58-year-old women writing, they'd flee screaming into the hills.
Because it's there. Because I had an idea and I wanted to write from a male POV and I wanted to play with different POVs. And I wanted to feature people drinking, smoking, swearing, and having casual sex without alienating a bunch of readers. I wanted to write semi-graphic sex scenes. In short, I wanted to play with words.
I've reached the sad truth that I will never become rich and famous from writing. I don't write a book a year. I can't write a book a year. That day job thing. So I've decided to write what I want to write. In this No-Name book, I'm writing in a different gender and from two different POVs. This forces me to change the pacing, language, and feel of the two protagonists as I shift from chapter to chapter. It's not merely a question of changing the names. Both of these characters are wildly different, and the writing itself has to reflect that. One character is acerbic and formal-ish, and the language for his chapters reflects that. The language is more nuanced. More commas, believe it or not. The second protagonist is a simpler, nicer person. His chapter has shorter sentences and is less "verbose" if you will. This leads to two "voices" and a juggling act in regards to pacing.
It's been challenging and, I think, has moved me forward as a writer. I started this out by writing it in first person POV. That seems "thin." Then I thought, well, why not two POVs? So I kept one POV in first person and the second I moved to a third person POV. Still wasn't right. A year later, I finally found myself with two POVs in third person. I rewrote the beginning 30,000 words something like five times before it "clicked" into a shape that I could move forward. I'm at over 60,000 and hope to finish it up shortly. I'm not sure that this story will find a home anywhere in the publishing world, but I took some chances, and I think I benefitted as a writer from those chances.
Pseudonym for sale?
Saturday, December 27, 2014
Book Review: The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman
We come to the third and final book in the Lev Grossman Magician's trilogy. I almost loved the first book, I didn't like the second book, and the third book leaves me disgruntled.
AS ALWAYS SPOILERS! YOU ARE WARNED!
The Good:
There is no disparaging Grossman's descriptive ability and his world-building skills. Pretty much damn perfect, as far as I am concerned. There is a beauty and mastery of the pen here, superb descriptions that leave the reader smiling. The visuals are stunning and intricate. I could literally "see" the images he was creating with his writing. All marvelous stuff. Which is exactly how I felt about the last two books. You cannot fault this writer's ability to craft a world. He's a master at it.
I also felt the ending was acceptable, although there was more of a "this is the way it needs to be" as opposed to "this is why it's happening." That said, the "death" of Fillory seemed manufactured to me. I kept asking why is it dying? The "first" near-death in book 2 made so much more sense. There was a definite why Fillory was collapsing. This second round of death didn't have an organic cause--although I will say that the scenes of Fillory dying are beautifully written. I suppose we're just supposed to go with the flow.
The Bad:
Oh, wow, this is really key to why I didn't like this book. With the exception of Quentin, who seems to have finally grown up, the rest of the cast of characters remains immature and stuck in their 17-year-old selves. The dialogue is trite, smarmy, and sounds like teenagers trying to be cool. This worked when the characters were at Brakebills, but now they are thirty frigging years old! I became bored with it and wanted to shake them out of their sarcastic, arrogant selves. Janet is especially odious, and it's not because she's bitchy. It's because she's odious. Well, there's this little bit of Fillory that should be ours and it isn't and I'm just going to take it because it's there and I'm bored. And if you don't like it, fuck you, I'm High Queen of Fillory. Eliot's character is similarly arrogant with a similar, hey, I'm bored, so I'm going to beat the shit out of guy and show him who is boss. His arrogance blinds him to why this invasion is happening.
Key question: If Fillory is so amazing and beautiful and is the epitome of all that is wonderful and magical, why are the majority of these characters so bored there? WHY? Quentin's boredom was the catalyst for the entire plot in book two, and it's a major issue that moves forward both Janet and Eliot's character trajectory in book three.
This is my main problem with these characters. They do not deserve to be High King and Queen of anything. With the exception of Quentin (ironically enough) who has redeemed himself and yet finds himself in exile again, albeit, by his own will, Janet and Eliot (Josh and Poppy are negligible characters and clearly only exist as baby-making machines) are not worthy of their honor. There is a delicious symmetry here that should probably be up in the Good section. Alice saves Fillory from Martin Chatwin in book one, and Quentin saves Fillory from internal destruction in book three. If ANYONE should be high king and queen of Fillory, it's these two.
Grossman's can write teenagers like anyone else, but he seems to be incapable of writing adults. The majority of these characters are immature jerks who get off on their power. Not only that, the scenes with them almost seem pointless. They are filler until we get to the heart of the story: Quentin's quest to bring back Alice. THIS is the heart of the story and yet we dance around this with manufactured crises and detours that do nothing to move the plot forward (even as they are described in beautiful language).
And this is another flaw. So much of the truly beautiful world-building is pointless. That whole whale thing? Gorgeous writing. Did it matter? No. Was it a bonding moment between Plum and Quentin (ala Quentin and Alice as foxes)? No, it was purely a mechanical exercise to show us Grossman's magnificent world-building skills. But it didn't matter at all to the story. Five pages of being whales for no reason. I could see this working if Quentin and Plum didn't trust each other and turning into whales dissipated that distrust. Nope, just because we can be whales, we are going to be really cool whales.
I think that there are two key problem with this book: (1) much of the magic in this book has devolved into filler material, basically there to show off Grossman's writing skills, e.g., Eliot's mano-e-mano battle, Janet's standoff with the desert people, and Plum and Quentin's decision to be whales. J. K. Rowling also had a similar problem as her series progressed, where story and characterization sacrificed itself to the world-building; and (2) the other characters (with the exception of Alice) are stuck in their selfish teenage selves. Quentin now commands our attention as an adult. I was irritated and bored with the others. Would be that there was a bridge to maturity for them.
I was thrilled to see a mature Quentin, and if his self-exile was to point out that Janet and Eliot are in an emotional time warp, that they can't grow up while in Fillory, then it's a very subtle, miniscule point that was lost on me. And if this is Grossman's intention, then it only underscores my point that you have this magical kingdom being ruled by immature teenagers, who are chronically thirty years old but mentally are seventeen.
In short, this is an uneven book with much beautiful writing that doesn't have a whole lot of purpose. If world-building is the cream in your coffee, you will be thrilled. If pacing and characterization float your boat, it won't work as well for you.
AS ALWAYS SPOILERS! YOU ARE WARNED!
The Good:
There is no disparaging Grossman's descriptive ability and his world-building skills. Pretty much damn perfect, as far as I am concerned. There is a beauty and mastery of the pen here, superb descriptions that leave the reader smiling. The visuals are stunning and intricate. I could literally "see" the images he was creating with his writing. All marvelous stuff. Which is exactly how I felt about the last two books. You cannot fault this writer's ability to craft a world. He's a master at it.
I also felt the ending was acceptable, although there was more of a "this is the way it needs to be" as opposed to "this is why it's happening." That said, the "death" of Fillory seemed manufactured to me. I kept asking why is it dying? The "first" near-death in book 2 made so much more sense. There was a definite why Fillory was collapsing. This second round of death didn't have an organic cause--although I will say that the scenes of Fillory dying are beautifully written. I suppose we're just supposed to go with the flow.
The Bad:
Oh, wow, this is really key to why I didn't like this book. With the exception of Quentin, who seems to have finally grown up, the rest of the cast of characters remains immature and stuck in their 17-year-old selves. The dialogue is trite, smarmy, and sounds like teenagers trying to be cool. This worked when the characters were at Brakebills, but now they are thirty frigging years old! I became bored with it and wanted to shake them out of their sarcastic, arrogant selves. Janet is especially odious, and it's not because she's bitchy. It's because she's odious. Well, there's this little bit of Fillory that should be ours and it isn't and I'm just going to take it because it's there and I'm bored. And if you don't like it, fuck you, I'm High Queen of Fillory. Eliot's character is similarly arrogant with a similar, hey, I'm bored, so I'm going to beat the shit out of guy and show him who is boss. His arrogance blinds him to why this invasion is happening.
Key question: If Fillory is so amazing and beautiful and is the epitome of all that is wonderful and magical, why are the majority of these characters so bored there? WHY? Quentin's boredom was the catalyst for the entire plot in book two, and it's a major issue that moves forward both Janet and Eliot's character trajectory in book three.
This is my main problem with these characters. They do not deserve to be High King and Queen of anything. With the exception of Quentin (ironically enough) who has redeemed himself and yet finds himself in exile again, albeit, by his own will, Janet and Eliot (Josh and Poppy are negligible characters and clearly only exist as baby-making machines) are not worthy of their honor. There is a delicious symmetry here that should probably be up in the Good section. Alice saves Fillory from Martin Chatwin in book one, and Quentin saves Fillory from internal destruction in book three. If ANYONE should be high king and queen of Fillory, it's these two.
Grossman's can write teenagers like anyone else, but he seems to be incapable of writing adults. The majority of these characters are immature jerks who get off on their power. Not only that, the scenes with them almost seem pointless. They are filler until we get to the heart of the story: Quentin's quest to bring back Alice. THIS is the heart of the story and yet we dance around this with manufactured crises and detours that do nothing to move the plot forward (even as they are described in beautiful language).
And this is another flaw. So much of the truly beautiful world-building is pointless. That whole whale thing? Gorgeous writing. Did it matter? No. Was it a bonding moment between Plum and Quentin (ala Quentin and Alice as foxes)? No, it was purely a mechanical exercise to show us Grossman's magnificent world-building skills. But it didn't matter at all to the story. Five pages of being whales for no reason. I could see this working if Quentin and Plum didn't trust each other and turning into whales dissipated that distrust. Nope, just because we can be whales, we are going to be really cool whales.
I think that there are two key problem with this book: (1) much of the magic in this book has devolved into filler material, basically there to show off Grossman's writing skills, e.g., Eliot's mano-e-mano battle, Janet's standoff with the desert people, and Plum and Quentin's decision to be whales. J. K. Rowling also had a similar problem as her series progressed, where story and characterization sacrificed itself to the world-building; and (2) the other characters (with the exception of Alice) are stuck in their selfish teenage selves. Quentin now commands our attention as an adult. I was irritated and bored with the others. Would be that there was a bridge to maturity for them.
I was thrilled to see a mature Quentin, and if his self-exile was to point out that Janet and Eliot are in an emotional time warp, that they can't grow up while in Fillory, then it's a very subtle, miniscule point that was lost on me. And if this is Grossman's intention, then it only underscores my point that you have this magical kingdom being ruled by immature teenagers, who are chronically thirty years old but mentally are seventeen.
In short, this is an uneven book with much beautiful writing that doesn't have a whole lot of purpose. If world-building is the cream in your coffee, you will be thrilled. If pacing and characterization float your boat, it won't work as well for you.
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Book Review: The Marriage Plot by J. Eugenides
There is a recent trend lately whereby in an attempt to boost sales, shameless publishing marketing gurus frame a book as a modern Jane Austen. These books hint that if Jane Austen were alive today, she'd be writing this sort of book. Having written an actual Jane Austen mash-up and having read all of her books about a bazillion times, I consider myself something of an amateur expert on this subject. And the only book that I can say without a single equivocation that could have been written by Jane Austen, a book that captures her humor, wit, and commentary on society, is Bridget Jones' Diary. This is a wonderful book and, if by chance you've been living under a rock for the last fifteen years, I suggest you read it.
Despite the barrage of marketing nonsense that states that The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides is a modern-day Jane Austen, it is not. This is, as Jane Austen would say, a gross falsehood. Sadly, it also isn't a very good novel.
SPOILERS!
Within the first ten pages I knew that the author had gone to Brown University (like his protagonists), and that this would be a payback novel. That all the slights and emotional traumas that he'd experienced as a student there would be relived in these pages. In that I wasn't disappointed. Yes, it's a payback novel, and it captures the pretension of snotty undergraduate education beautifully. I went to a similar school, and the inflated self-importance walking hand and hand with crippling insecurity that characterizes ninety percent of undergraduates (as well as insufferably pretentious academics) was beautifully written.
In fact, this is one of those books that is hard to critique because there are parts of this novel that are stunning in terms of language. And that's about the only positive thing I can say about it. I relished the language even as I pined for a really good editor to whack this novel into shape.
First of all, the first third of the book is backstory. I tend not to mind backstory. Unfortunately, it always undermines the pacing of a book, but what well-written backstory offers in terms of fleshing out a story is well worth the lag in pacing. This didn't happen here. All three main characters are given pages and pages of backstory, and at a certain point the reader is aching to get back to the real story.
Second, the book suffers from the real modern affliction that almost none of the characters are particularly likable and one of them totally odious--something I suppose I will have to get used to. It seems to be de riguer these days. Except that because they are such jerks, we don't understand the sad little love triangle that holds the novel together. We are told that the main protagonist is beautiful (and yet has no one interested in her for the first two years of college, figure that one out), and her attraction for the second (likable) protagonist is inexplicable. She's selfish, manipulative, and thoughtless. We can't help but start to get irritated with the second protagonist because he loves this thoughtless selfish woman and we don't know why. And the third protagonist is a manipulative sexual predator whom everyone finds endlessly fascinating and brilliant, and they all want to sleep with him. He is, in short, an asshole of the first order, and yet the reader is supposed to be dragged along in the general adoration. This is the main problem with the book. We are told that this character loves this character. We are told this character is brilliant. We are told everything, and yet nothing that is written compels me to feel anything about these characters other than dislike or pity.
Third, the novel does not go anywhere. We go through mental breakdowns, searches for God, and a wildly ill-conceived marriage, and the characters end up at the same place they were at the beginning of the novel. There is little to no internal movement. It's what I have come to term "the nihilistic novel." They seem to be fashionable these days. I don't know if they are emblematic of the existential crisis of realism or some such bullshit, but I want my books to go somewhere. I want them to move. I don't need them to be happy. I don't need them to resolve everything. But I want something to happen. Nothing happens in this book. It's all filler.
Regarding Jane Austen: The only thing that this book has in common with a Jane Austen novel is that someone gets married. That's it. Marriage in Austen has a point. It's not merely a vehicle for financial salvation. It happens because the characters in the novel have some sort of personal epiphany. It is a physical manifestation of an internal self-reckoning. In The Marriage Plot, the marriage is, in fact, the nadir of the book, and does not signal any sort of personal epiphany. In fact, it's the opposite. It signals the desperation and wish fulfillment of a spoiled young woman taking advantage of desperately ill young man. In Austen's world, she would be the villain not the heroine of the novel. She can only move forward emotionally and even physically by divorcing this man.
I suppose that's the point. Hello, modern-day nihilism. But Jane Austen was the opposite of this nihilistic view of the world, and the next time the back of a book announces that it's the modern Jane Austen, I will look on it with a jaundiced eye. And reach for a real Jane Austen novel.
Despite the barrage of marketing nonsense that states that The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides is a modern-day Jane Austen, it is not. This is, as Jane Austen would say, a gross falsehood. Sadly, it also isn't a very good novel.
SPOILERS!
Within the first ten pages I knew that the author had gone to Brown University (like his protagonists), and that this would be a payback novel. That all the slights and emotional traumas that he'd experienced as a student there would be relived in these pages. In that I wasn't disappointed. Yes, it's a payback novel, and it captures the pretension of snotty undergraduate education beautifully. I went to a similar school, and the inflated self-importance walking hand and hand with crippling insecurity that characterizes ninety percent of undergraduates (as well as insufferably pretentious academics) was beautifully written.
In fact, this is one of those books that is hard to critique because there are parts of this novel that are stunning in terms of language. And that's about the only positive thing I can say about it. I relished the language even as I pined for a really good editor to whack this novel into shape.
First of all, the first third of the book is backstory. I tend not to mind backstory. Unfortunately, it always undermines the pacing of a book, but what well-written backstory offers in terms of fleshing out a story is well worth the lag in pacing. This didn't happen here. All three main characters are given pages and pages of backstory, and at a certain point the reader is aching to get back to the real story.
Second, the book suffers from the real modern affliction that almost none of the characters are particularly likable and one of them totally odious--something I suppose I will have to get used to. It seems to be de riguer these days. Except that because they are such jerks, we don't understand the sad little love triangle that holds the novel together. We are told that the main protagonist is beautiful (and yet has no one interested in her for the first two years of college, figure that one out), and her attraction for the second (likable) protagonist is inexplicable. She's selfish, manipulative, and thoughtless. We can't help but start to get irritated with the second protagonist because he loves this thoughtless selfish woman and we don't know why. And the third protagonist is a manipulative sexual predator whom everyone finds endlessly fascinating and brilliant, and they all want to sleep with him. He is, in short, an asshole of the first order, and yet the reader is supposed to be dragged along in the general adoration. This is the main problem with the book. We are told that this character loves this character. We are told this character is brilliant. We are told everything, and yet nothing that is written compels me to feel anything about these characters other than dislike or pity.
Third, the novel does not go anywhere. We go through mental breakdowns, searches for God, and a wildly ill-conceived marriage, and the characters end up at the same place they were at the beginning of the novel. There is little to no internal movement. It's what I have come to term "the nihilistic novel." They seem to be fashionable these days. I don't know if they are emblematic of the existential crisis of realism or some such bullshit, but I want my books to go somewhere. I want them to move. I don't need them to be happy. I don't need them to resolve everything. But I want something to happen. Nothing happens in this book. It's all filler.
Regarding Jane Austen: The only thing that this book has in common with a Jane Austen novel is that someone gets married. That's it. Marriage in Austen has a point. It's not merely a vehicle for financial salvation. It happens because the characters in the novel have some sort of personal epiphany. It is a physical manifestation of an internal self-reckoning. In The Marriage Plot, the marriage is, in fact, the nadir of the book, and does not signal any sort of personal epiphany. In fact, it's the opposite. It signals the desperation and wish fulfillment of a spoiled young woman taking advantage of desperately ill young man. In Austen's world, she would be the villain not the heroine of the novel. She can only move forward emotionally and even physically by divorcing this man.
I suppose that's the point. Hello, modern-day nihilism. But Jane Austen was the opposite of this nihilistic view of the world, and the next time the back of a book announces that it's the modern Jane Austen, I will look on it with a jaundiced eye. And reach for a real Jane Austen novel.
Friday, September 26, 2014
Yes, an Actual Recipe: Italian Wedding Soup
It's kind of pathetic to realize that although I was a professional chef for many years, I have very few recipes on this blog. Okay, time to remedy this. Since I work full-time, I have very little time to cook. My recipes tend to be hodge-podginations of other recipes that I have cannibalized from other people's brilliace to fit my busy schedule.
This is a GREAT recipe for those of use who work. It goes together in a snap and is ready in less than 30 minutes. While it cooks, it gives you enough time to set the table, toss a salad, and open up a bottle of wine. The weather is starting to turn, even here in California. The days are still warm but the night falls quickly with that determination that signals that fall is nigh. I served this the other night and although the day had been warm, it didn't feel like I was serving soup two months too early.
I sort of stole this from Ina Garten, but I've made enough changes that I feel perfectly justified in making it my own. The first thing she does is have you make homemade meatballs. Is she kidding?
Bruce Aidells (who I actually worked with once upon a time) has these perfect chicken sausage meatballs with just the right amount of parmesan. Use them. They are in the deli section of my supermarket.
2. Add olive oil to soup pot, heat, and then add onions, carrots, and celery. Saute until softened, about 5 minutes. Check to make sure onions don't burn. Stir it around occasionally.
3. Add beef stock and wine. Bring to a boil. Add pasta and meatballs. Cook on medium heat until pasta is cooked (check the box--I use De Cecco pasta because they know pasta and when they say it's cooked in 6 minutes it's not gooey and overcooked. It's nice and al dente).
4. Taste for salt and pepper. I've never had to add salt OR pepper but to each her/his own. Be careful with the salt. We make this soup last two nights and by night no. 2, it's PLENTY salty enough. I'd hold off on the salt and add appropriate amounts to your soup bowl. I wouldn't add it into the big pot.
5. Stir in spinach. Turn off heat. The spinach will cook all by itself in the hot soup.
6. Ladle soup into bowls, sprinkle some grated parm on top, serve with a salad dressed with a tart balsamic vinaigrette and a nice glass of red wine.
Dinner is served!
This is a GREAT recipe for those of use who work. It goes together in a snap and is ready in less than 30 minutes. While it cooks, it gives you enough time to set the table, toss a salad, and open up a bottle of wine. The weather is starting to turn, even here in California. The days are still warm but the night falls quickly with that determination that signals that fall is nigh. I served this the other night and although the day had been warm, it didn't feel like I was serving soup two months too early.
I sort of stole this from Ina Garten, but I've made enough changes that I feel perfectly justified in making it my own. The first thing she does is have you make homemade meatballs. Is she kidding?
Bruce Aidells (who I actually worked with once upon a time) has these perfect chicken sausage meatballs with just the right amount of parmesan. Use them. They are in the deli section of my supermarket.
- 2 Tbl good olive oil (a generous splash in a large pot will do you)
- 1 cup minced yellow onion (this is about half of a large onion; I was out of yellow onions the other night and I used red onion. I didn't taste the difference. If you do use red onion, cut it down to 1/2 cup. That's what I had so I made do, and honestly, I couldn't tell the difference. But red onions are sweeter so be careful. Don't use a full cup.)
- 1 cup diced carrots (I use the pre-prepped packaged baby carrots--the kind that come four to a bunch; one package worked perfectly.)
- 3/4 cup diced celery (Ina says this takes two stalks; I think that the celery in California must be bigger because one stalk was more than plenty)
- 2 boxes of Swanson's beef broth (THE BOXES! Use the reduced sodium kind if you can. I've also used chicken stock IN THE BOX and it's not as good)
- 1/2 cup white wine
- 2 cups small pasta (I think you could even use orzo but some tiny, itty-bitty pasta is best)
- 1 package of Bruce Aidells mini meatballs, chicken and parmesan
- 5 oz baby spinach, prepacked and washed (Ina suggested 12 oz of spinach and I think that MUST be a typo. I used one package and it was PLENTY)
- Grated parmesan
2. Add olive oil to soup pot, heat, and then add onions, carrots, and celery. Saute until softened, about 5 minutes. Check to make sure onions don't burn. Stir it around occasionally.
3. Add beef stock and wine. Bring to a boil. Add pasta and meatballs. Cook on medium heat until pasta is cooked (check the box--I use De Cecco pasta because they know pasta and when they say it's cooked in 6 minutes it's not gooey and overcooked. It's nice and al dente).
4. Taste for salt and pepper. I've never had to add salt OR pepper but to each her/his own. Be careful with the salt. We make this soup last two nights and by night no. 2, it's PLENTY salty enough. I'd hold off on the salt and add appropriate amounts to your soup bowl. I wouldn't add it into the big pot.
5. Stir in spinach. Turn off heat. The spinach will cook all by itself in the hot soup.
6. Ladle soup into bowls, sprinkle some grated parm on top, serve with a salad dressed with a tart balsamic vinaigrette and a nice glass of red wine.
Dinner is served!
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Interview avec Moi!
I am interviewed today on the Austenesque Reviews site! I gas a little bit about Pen and Prejudice and why Austen's books are still revered two hundred years later and the chaos that now defines the publishing industry and talktalktalk. Check it out and leave a hello. FREE BOOK GIVEAWAY!!!!
http://austenesquereviews.com/2014/08/interview-giveaway-author-claire-m-johnson.html#comments
http://austenesquereviews.com/2014/08/interview-giveaway-author-claire-m-johnson.html#comments
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Book Review: Identical by Scott Turow
Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow knocked my socks off when I first read it. And I wasn't the only one. I've read a couple of his other novels that while I thought they were good, they didn't even remotely compare to the truly great read of Presumed Innocent.
I just picked up his latest novel, Identical, and I can't really recommend it, even though parts of it are nicely done. The DNA stuff is great, as are the political power plays in what is obviously a Chicago-like setting, and, no surprise, he really shines when describing courtroom scenes. But the story itself has far too many twists and turns, so many that at some point the story loses its credibility. So much of the story hangs on an initially inept police investigation of a murder, but then we have the same investigator revisiting this crime, and while he seems to have made a number of pretty lame mistakes the first go around, twenty-five years later, he seems to the one guy who has the smarts to solve this crime. Huh?
Also, the characterizations are extreme and over the top. The murder victim isn't just a bitch, she is a bitch on steroids. The aunt isn't just earthy and matter of fact, she's a little bizarre. The detective is fantastic at what he does. Add a gratuitous lesbian relationship that had nothing to do with the story and seemed to be shoehorned in an attempt at being politically correct, and we have a mishmash of characters that all have a story but none of these stories move the novel forward. And, of course, then there are the twins and their dynamic.
I didn't buy much of the "reveal." It felt tacked on and was played out far too long as Turow tried to stuff this book with a bunch of personal stories. Part of the problem is that one of the most dynamic characters in the book is dead, and all we are left with is hearsay about him. Turow tries to address this issue (and that of the murder victim) with flashback scenes that only partially work. Another problem is that crime novels work best when we identify with both the killer and the victim. In this case, neither the victim or the murderer deserve any sympathy, so the reveal falls flat.
But I think the most glaring problem with this book is that it is written from an omniscient point-of-view. I've never been a big fan of omniscient POV for the very reason that undermines this book. You have all these different characters with different backstories and none of it works as a whole. I can't really say that there is a theme to this novel other than a seemingly strange fascination with twins. Initially it seems like a novel about family, then we have a brief foray into a novel about marriage, and then God knows where it goes because none of these individual stories lean against a core theme. It's like Turow found the dynamic between twins fascinating and then crafted a crime novel around them.
Read Presumed Innocent. It's a great book.
I just picked up his latest novel, Identical, and I can't really recommend it, even though parts of it are nicely done. The DNA stuff is great, as are the political power plays in what is obviously a Chicago-like setting, and, no surprise, he really shines when describing courtroom scenes. But the story itself has far too many twists and turns, so many that at some point the story loses its credibility. So much of the story hangs on an initially inept police investigation of a murder, but then we have the same investigator revisiting this crime, and while he seems to have made a number of pretty lame mistakes the first go around, twenty-five years later, he seems to the one guy who has the smarts to solve this crime. Huh?
Also, the characterizations are extreme and over the top. The murder victim isn't just a bitch, she is a bitch on steroids. The aunt isn't just earthy and matter of fact, she's a little bizarre. The detective is fantastic at what he does. Add a gratuitous lesbian relationship that had nothing to do with the story and seemed to be shoehorned in an attempt at being politically correct, and we have a mishmash of characters that all have a story but none of these stories move the novel forward. And, of course, then there are the twins and their dynamic.
I didn't buy much of the "reveal." It felt tacked on and was played out far too long as Turow tried to stuff this book with a bunch of personal stories. Part of the problem is that one of the most dynamic characters in the book is dead, and all we are left with is hearsay about him. Turow tries to address this issue (and that of the murder victim) with flashback scenes that only partially work. Another problem is that crime novels work best when we identify with both the killer and the victim. In this case, neither the victim or the murderer deserve any sympathy, so the reveal falls flat.
But I think the most glaring problem with this book is that it is written from an omniscient point-of-view. I've never been a big fan of omniscient POV for the very reason that undermines this book. You have all these different characters with different backstories and none of it works as a whole. I can't really say that there is a theme to this novel other than a seemingly strange fascination with twins. Initially it seems like a novel about family, then we have a brief foray into a novel about marriage, and then God knows where it goes because none of these individual stories lean against a core theme. It's like Turow found the dynamic between twins fascinating and then crafted a crime novel around them.
Read Presumed Innocent. It's a great book.
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